#it’s like the gotham form of putting a kid in a corner

[strawberrytalia]

Dick stans on this site are soooo chill and nice, and idk how they do it. y’all are better than me because whyyyyyy is half the fandom claiming that dick tried to lock tim in arkham??? 😭 the treatment dick gets is wild lmao, and i understand know why ppl say he has eldest daughter syndrome bc somehow every single problem in the batfam gets traced back to being his fault. tim and damian beef? obviously that’s the grieving 25 year old whose just been pushed into a role he never wanted’s fault. jason and bruce drama? clearly dick had no right to go live his own life and explore young adulthood after his own issues with bruce, he should’ve come back to play therapist 🙄 Cass being left out? Well based on one panel of dick reading cinderella to her, he should’ve been there more for her! Like lmfao i know he’s the heart of the family, but give this man a breakkkk

[deadsetobsessions]

Danny’s Wayne adoption bait. The guy that owns the bodega knows it. Everyone and their mothers knows it. Danny, on the other hand, had no clue. To be fair, he had just crash landed in this dimension a week ago and his back was still sore from the weird design the car had.

(It’s only three weeks of homelessness later does Danny realize that he crash landed on the Batmobile. Whoops. Oh well. He’ll blame it on Clockwork if the vigilante asks after repair costs.)

(Bruce, on the other hand, is scouring the streets for this kid the car cams caught- oddly static filled footage- because his mind jumped to the worst case scenarios: a suicidal meta or a meta being threatened or a meta in a trafficking scheme or even worse all three at once and Bruce just can’t because there is a child in danger, he doesn’t have time to sleep.)

Danny rubbed at his back, eyes going watery at the memory. Sure, his wounds have healed over by now but the- heh- phantom pain is no joke. He shuddered, huddling closer to his threadbare hoodie. His only saving grace from getting jumped while walking the streets of Gotham at night is his invisibility and intangibility. Also, he’s floating, so “walking” doesn’t apply to him.

He’s gotta check on the kid he saved yesterday from a mugging, so Danny hurried along to the depilated apartment complex the kid was squatting in. Turning visible and tangible as he turns the corner, Danny glanced around for Amy.

“Danny!”

“Hey, kiddo. Doing alright?”

“Yeah! Come meet my gang!”

Danny felt his eyebrows rise to form Jazz’s exasperated look. Ouch. Waving the pain of losing Jazz away, Danny smiled at the excited girl.

“A gang? I wasn’t aware I was being brought to your almighty group.”

“Yeah! Uh, you actually helped a bunch of us so…”

Danny thought back to all those times he punted crooks away from robbing kids and shrugged. Yeah, what Amy said was likely.

“Kay, kiddo.”

She scowled, and Danny didn’t have the heart to tell her it looked more like a pout.

“You’re just a teenager.”

“Well, you’re a just a kid.”

Danny cackled as she chased him down the street, trying to kick his shins.

Life is good, even if he’s homeless and hungry.

——

“Jason.”

“Old man.” Jason mocks back, pausing his tasks. He waits as Bruce struggles to put his thoughts and feelings into words.

“There’s… a meta.”

“In Gotham?” Jason tilts back, hands halfway to his guns as a silent offer. Bruce shakes his head.

“A child. In Crime Alley.”

“In my turf?” Jason’s disquieting demeanor quickly swapped to a protective one.

“Trafficking, I think. Male, black hair…”

“Shit. Get Dickwing back here, he’s good with traumatized kids. I’ll go look for him.” Jason’s already moving, mind filtering through the kids he knows might have information to offer.

Bruce nods, shoulders relaxing. Jason smacks down the lump in his throat at the subtle sing of trust. “I’ll get Oracle and Red Robin on it.”

Jason morphs from Jay to Red Hood in one smooth step, helmet firmly placed on his head. He grunts in agreement, slinging his legs over his motorcycle. He roars off, mind half filled with tearing apart whatever traffickers dared to shit near his territory and the other half filled with worry for this possible kid.

——

Danny, as the Bats become aware of his existence, hands Amy and her kiddie gang a bag of fancy beef jerky.

“Try these with peanut butter, it’s kind of good.”

Amy stares at him, the judgement of an eight year old more piercing than anything he’s ever experienced.

“You’re fucking weird-”

“Language!” He squawks.

“-but sure, whatever you say, boss.”

“Boss?!”

The kids ignores his alarmed face.

[dcxdpdabbles]

hi hi!! i loveee your writing (always makes me smile/cry whenever i read it)

Have you got another part of Unfinished Business (i think that’s what it’s called - the one where Gotham is getting cleaner through a computer game) ??

LOVEE YOUR WORK!!!

❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜🩷❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜🩷 ❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜🩷❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜🩷 ❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜🩷❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜🩷 ❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜🩷❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜🩷 ❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜🩷❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜🩷 ❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜🩷❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜🩷 ❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜🩷❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜🩷 ❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜🩷❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜🩷 ❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜🩷❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜🩷 ❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜🩷❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜🩷 ❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜🩷❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜🩷 ❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜🩷❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜🩷

Bruce poured over the maps, searching for the random new streets that had appeared overnight. There were traces of them, but Bruce could have sworn they had been closed down or remodeled years ago.

Some buildings have been built over the old roads too, around the industrial revolution. The expeandtion of Gotham also meant that some places were removed or added on. They vanished. They were redundant.

Someone or something had made those roads reappear, and the many abandoned places had vanished or been fixed simultaneously. The question is, why?

Why were they doing this to his city?

It made no sense.

Was it a warning that they were powerful enough to remove entire structures with anyone the wiser? Bruce did not like it. He hated it. With so many of the buildings gone or fixed up, it seemed that the city was less cluttered.

He could see across the city now, and it caused hives to break out on his skin. If they were this powerful, what could they do to people? To his kids?

"Bruce, we got something," Tim hisses from his right. He had ordered everyone to go into lockdown within the cave. He doubts that anything in here will stop universal manipulation but it made him feel better to have his kids with him. "Their in Crime Alley."

Babs is running eyes on Gotham. She was biting her lower lip so hard blood had started to slowly drip down her chin. She had been in the manor when the first changes had begun. After calling her father in a panic- apparently, the police force work to the dirty copies just admitting they were corrupted in mass hysteria- she decdied to remain at the cave in order to use the panic room.

James wasn't sure what was going on, but he rather his daughter be behind the best security measures money could buy. He remained at the prescient, handling half his department turning themselves in.

He had always been professional but he admited to Babs that he felt a specail terror at the sight of his men's eyes going foggy then watcthing them one by one form a line to enter the cells.

Once they were behind the bars, they started talking, detailing who they work for and where the proof was for their arrest. James had at first thought it was something like a new form of Fear Gas but after three hours they confirmed it to be true.

The sky had turned blue by that point, and the cloud of pollution was long gone. She could do nothing for her father who was out there, facing whatever monster was cleaning up the city.

Bruce pats her arm, gently squeezing until she realizes what he wants. Her jaw relaxes, lifting her teeth from her flesh. He hands her an ointment to put on it without comment, and she uncurls her hand from over her mouse to take it.

Babs nods at him, face still filled with stress, but there is a softness in the corner of her eyes. For all that, she wasn't his daughter- even if for a while he truly believed she would be a daughter-in-law back when she and Dick were together- he adored her like his own.

He doesn't need words to know she's grateful for him reminding her to be kinder to herself.

Bruce turns his attention back to the screen, hissing through his teeth when he witnesses a start to glow gently in a familiar green color before the graffiti vanishes. It doesn't desolved or gets wiped away.

One moment, it's there, marking the territory of various gangs, random hooligans, and some genuine art, and the next, it's gone. As if though it never existed.

"Zoom in" He commands. With a few taps on her keys, Babs does just that. The camera is one of the city's older models, so the image isn't the clearest, but regardless, she clicks the record option anyway.

The glowing green surrounds the words, before one blink to the next, gone. Then to the alarm of all the watchers the brikes, reshape to new, expanding slightly and even having a finsihes repainting.

"No," Tim whispers in horror and loss. "Not the condemned fire station where I had to get my first tetanus shot. There were so many rusty pipes there."

Bruce reaches out, bringing his silent child into his arms as he feels his own tears welled up. "I feel through that roof my first night as Batman. It's alright Tim, we will avenge it."

Bruce gently pats Tim's hair, feeling his boy hide his face into his chest like a young child seeking comfort. He knows Babs is heartbroken too. That fire station was the place she used to go to with a sledgehammer whenever she had a fight with an ex-lover.

It was her comfort rage place. Bruce had even bought Bab's very first sledgehammer and had watched he break down her very first pillar back in her first few weeks of Batgirl.

All those memories. Gone.

"Shit," She gasps as the glow expands towards the camera and the resolution suddenly sharpens. It's clear enough to be the newest modles. "City secuirties have been compromised! Aborting systems"

All the screen go black and the Gotham natives can only sit in horrified silince.

"What more can they take from us?"

Alfred rubs the space between his eyes. He stands at the top of the stairway, watching the three's interactions after raiding the kitchen with food for the rest of the family.

The cave was equipped for months in a lockdown, but Alfred wanted to get everything non-preventive before sealing them in. The rest of the kids were behind him, helping grab supplies. "Hopefully, they'll aim for your stupidity next."

________________________________________________________

"Daniel Fenton, if you don't stop playing that silly game and come do your chores, you can forget about going out this summer!"

"But Mom, I'm this close to clearing out the legal system's corruption! Just thirty more minutes, please!"

"Now, young man!"

Danny pouts, staring at the screen that was shown casting Gotham City. He had removed the crooked cops and the brided lawyers, but the judges, prison wardens, and even some of the jail prisoners needed to be dealt with.

He had just purchased a better security camera and street post for the worst part of the city, hoping to earn some points from lowering crime there.

"I guess I can distribute some wealth to the working class from the Court of Owls in the meantime." He mutters, opening his citizens' profiles. He clicks on groups, wrinkling his nose at the Court's karma status. "Lawfully evil, prepare to be under the law again."

He presses the start time and leans back. Cracking his neck and hands, Danny lets the scenario run. He just has to do the dishes, clean the lab, and mow the lawn. That should be enough for the four hours on the wait time to finish. He hopes this will lower the general public's stress levels.

Gotham will be so happy when she sees her character's happiness ratings. Danny thinks with a smile. I could even add some tourism. That should really get the people's bank accounts growing!

[ditzybat]

Jason prowled deeper into the tower, it was a struggle to get the speedy kid down, but after multiple tranquilizers (that could put a rhino into cardiac arrest) the kid finally managed to knock out.

He went over his monologue speech in his head, scanning his eyes over this, honest-to-god, pig-stye of a room (seriously, wasn't this supposed to be the meticulously organized Robin? Jason could barely see the floor before him). Finally, gazing out one of the large window panes, on the phone, was his target in his robin costume - sans the mask.

Tim mumbled a tired goodbye into the phone, seemingly exasperated by the phone call, he picked up on the words 'Bruce' and sneered from beneath his mask.

"You sleep in that thing or something Timmy? That's pathetic" Jason growls out from his place from the threshold of the room.

For his part, Tim spins around with a flutter of his ridiculous cape and a twitch of his muscles "Hood, I-"

Jason lurches forward, beginning his speech, counting the sequence of events like he used to in drama class.

"I was raised on the streets of Gotham." 1. Taking off his hood. "Trying to survive." 2. Tearing his clothes to reveal his homemade Robin getup, "Until Bruce took me in." 3. Cornering the brat, only a step or two away in arm's reach - good, "I trained -"

One thing Jason did not account for was Tim to make the first move and interupt his origin story speech, stabbing the side of his neck.

"Did you seriously just fucking stab me with a hello kitty knife?"

Tim has the gall to flush, "I told Cassie and Bart to stop tampering with my equipment, it's unprofessional! I bet Kon put them up to this!" he squaked, Jason reaches up and takes the knife from his neck, putting pressure onto the wound, and examining it.

"You could've hit an artery!" Tim gives a frog blink and sleepily grunts.

"Damn, which side is the artery on again? I don't really know my lefts and rights, I'm ambedixtrious."

"Do you mean dyslexic?"

"No I'm bisexual." Tim looks genuinely confused, a pout forming on his features as he squinted at nothing like he was trying to figure out an especially difficult puzzle.

Jason, with the pit madness slowly receding from his vision, starts to become a little more concerned.

"Kid, when was the last time you slept?"

"Monday."

"It's Thursday."

"Okay??..."

Jason sighs and picks up his jacket, slipping his pants over the tights and scaly shorts. "I'm going to stitch myself up, then I'm going to make you eat something - you're so itty bitty, like an 8 year old with a six pack - then you're going to take a nice long nap while I wait for B to come and I'll lecture him on the importance of keeping his Robin's alive and healthy."

Tim yawns and nods his head, sinking into his cape so he's just a bobbing head in the shadows.

[im-totally-not-an-alien-2]

I had a very cursed thought and I'm choosing violence and making it Tumblr's problem:

Bruce had his thing with Talia. It led to the Stabby Child that is Damian.

Except, Damian has 2 dads.

Bruce, biologically his Father, and Daniel James Phantom, brought to their world by the Lazarus Pit, who "convinced Ras to retire" (aka turned his mind to mush through Eldritch Madness of Revelation). Talia took over, and, thinking herself The Chosen One, allowed the guy to court her.

In fact she isn't some Chosen One. She's a badass woman who could kill Danny easily, and he's very into that. And it's not helping that she's very attractive, and her kid is very feral and like to fight, like baby ghosts also like to do.

Eventually the Bats get wind that there's been a Change in Management in the League, and they come to investigate. Bruce expects the worst, Tim is just praying Ras is dead and he can get his spleen back, Jason is mildly disturbed that it might mean Talia is leading the Assassins, and Dick is keeping Gotham safe while the others are out.

They expect a cruel dictatorship, or a mound of corpses piles in a corner.

They did NOT expect to see a tiny Damian fight a guy dressed in League armor, a Cape and a crown of black iron, who could've been Wayne Adoption Bait if he was younger, while the guy laughs and corrects his form. Every blow the child is allowed to land simply passes through him.

Talia got herself a very comfy throne (Danny gifted it to her, saying some cheesy line like "no other would be fit for a Queen like you") made of Starlight and Ice, from which she can watch her on and her Beloved bond and train, while her new and improved League watch on as their Prince takes joy in his training and the pride his parents have in him. Soon he shall move to Gotham to meet his other dad, and learn from him as well, so he may know his family and make his destiny as he wishes.

TLDR: Danny is a simp for strong deadly lady and a good dad to her kid. She's indulging in his attention and caring. The bats are confused. Jason can feel the Ghost Adoption that will be coming his way when Danny "Ghost King" Phantom learns of his existence. The League of Assassins, even while they kill people to maintain Wolrd Order, treat Talia, Danny and Damian like the spies in SpyxFamily act towards Loid and Anya :)

Bruce: *opens his mouth*

Talia: You can't adopt my love

Bruce: *closes mouth*

I go a little feral for Jason viewing Talia as his mom so I am 100% behind Danny adopting Jason. Maybe Tim follows him after learning what Danny did to Ras and let's him have his spleen back, tho only on the condition that his own doctors put it back in. Who knows what Ras has done to it and with ecto involved its better to be safe than sorry. Tim is amazed that they can put the spleen back in at all due to how long its been outside his body.

Is this going to turn Poly with Bruce/Talia/Danny? Cause I'd read that!

Lmao imagine everyone going on vacation in the Ghost Zone. I'd read that too!

[klbwriting]

Finally Home - Jason Todd Blurbs

Tim Sets You Two Up

Fandom: Red Hood

Pairing: Jason Todd x gn!reader

Warnings: none

Summary: Tim knew that his TA and Jason would love each other, so he tricks them into meeting

Notes: this is a request for a DM to have Jason meet the reader because Tim is tricky

               Jason hadn’t expected you to be his perfect match when the two of you first met.  It was a blind date set up by Tim of all people.  He had a TA in a class of his that he thought Jason would like and he convinced (tricked) the two of you meeting in the campus library, saying he needed to study, and Jason needed to bring him coffee.  You were there to tutor him, even though you weren’t sure what problem he was having in the class you TA’d for, but you went to the designated study room, seeing a stack of books in the corner of the small room.  You went to pick them up, laughing at seeing both Pride and Prejudice and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies on top.  You heard the door close and turned around, expecting Tim but instead seeing possibly the most gorgeous person to ever exist. 

               “O, sorry, I was looking for Tim Drake?” he said, carrying a couple coffees.  You were about to speak when you looked through the window that faced the rest of the library and there was Tim, locking the door. 

               “O that little shit,” you said, going to the door and trying the handle.  The rooms were soundproof to keep distractions from the studiers so you knew yelling was pointless.  Tim held up a piece of paper with ‘You’ll Thank Me Later’ before walking away. 

               “I may shoot him,” Jason said, looking like he actually might.  You turned to him and offered an embarrassed smiled.

               “I don’t know what that kid is thinking, hi I’m YN, I’m a TA in his required literature class, he’s doing great, it was very suspicious that he asked for tutoring…I’m sorry I ramble sometimes,” you said, blushing now as this guy stared at you.  He didn’t seem annoyed, in fact the little smile on his face made you think he was actually listening intently to you, and it was nice.  You were a lit major who took a lot of extra technical classes because you liked science fiction so much, most people looked at you like your rambling was annoying and like you didn’t belong. 

               “I’m Jason, Tim’s my little brother,” he said.  You looked confused for a moment and then he chuckled.  “We’re all adopted, there’s quite a few of us.”  You thought for a second and it dawned on you, Tim had mentioned once that his dad was Bruce Wayne.  And Bruce Wayne had a gaggle of children he had adopted.  “He told me he needed coffee, which is weird, I figured it was in an IV drip at this point.”

               “It should be for that one,” you said with a laugh.  “Wonder why he left these books.”  Jason walked over and picked up a couple.  “I mean, don’t get me wrong I would love to ramble about the absolute silliness of putting zombies into Jane Austen I’m not sure if you would be into that.” 

               “You would be surprised,” he said.  “Although still not sure how I feel about that weird parody of adding dumb things into classics.”  You stopped and stared at him.

               “Ok, listen, zombies are a fantastic form of describing the crumbling of civilizations without blaming a specific group of people for the crumbling…” and that started what turned into a three-hour discussion about books while locked in a study room at Gotham university.  By the time Tim remembered to come back and let you guys out you had exchanged numbers and were planning on meeting at a bookstore, and you had a list of books that Jason needed to read and he had a list that you had to get. 

               “Thanks Tim,” Jason said as he slung an arm around his brother’s shoulder, waving to you as you headed towards your apartment.  Tim smiled, proud of himself.

               “I knew you two would fall in love, next time you see her can you tell her to grade my symbolism paper nicely?”

[stealingyourbones]

There are plenty of fics where Jason ends up with a de-aged Danny, but what if Dick found him?

The GIW has long since run out of funding but the former agents still hold onto their ghost hunting ways in an almost crazed obsession. Most of the agents who worked for the GIW until the end have lost everything and are now more or less a gang of thugs everyone thinks are absolutely full of it. For some unknown reason the portal in Amity Park was shut down (Danny found out Gotham had a whole selection of scholarships that didn't rely on good grades or perfect attendance so he moved for school, closing the portal for the foreseeable future) Things happen, Danny is captured by the GIW thugs,  based out of Gotham now, and goes into his core needing to recover, but unfortunately for halfas this reverts them to a younger age if they are pulled out of their core before they fully recover. The bats get word there's a new 'gang' that reserve absolutely no regard for life, having blown up multiple places in Gotham and straight up abducting dark haired, blue eyed kids in the middle of the day. Unfortunately for Danny, someone ends up accidentally giving him an abrupt wake up call, pulling him out of his core while the bats try to put an end to these ghost obsessed weirdos and his brain is basically scrambled eggs because it's now a stew of vague memories and emotions due to his incomplete recovery. Insert Dick being the one to find Danny cowering in the corner of one of the rooms, maybe not being able to even control his form, flickering between Phantom and Danny, in a hoodie like six sizes too big.

[messers-moony]

Lukewarm Coffee | T.D

Pairing: Tim Drake X Fem!Reader

Summary: All Tim wants is a breath of fresh air, and after seventeen years, he gets one.

Word Count: 1.0K

He felt like a lukewarm cup of coffee. 

It wasn’t quite hot enough to be enjoyable, but it wasn’t cold enough either. His planner sat open on the table in front of him. Notes were scattered throughout the little box on the left. Things were written over other scribbles, and each day had a plethora of words within the small boxes. They really need to make these little things bigger for people with a lot of shit to do. 

Tim sighed. His pen in his hand had somehow been taken apart. He figured he must have done it without paying attention. There was black ink all over the wooden table, and he grabbed a napkin to hide the mess he had created. All the napkin did was smear it even further. It was a lost cause. He grabbed another pen from his bag and put it carefully next to the spiral agenda.

The window was nice, in any case. It was a rare sunny day in Gotham, and its light was coming through the window onto Tim’s lap. He was always cold, so it felt nice against his black pants. It brightened up his already pale complexion and made his features seem sharper than they were. His pen tapped against the book, and his teeth caught his lower lip. It had taken him no time to leave the Manor today. 

He felt guilty. Granted, he always felt guilty, but more so, especially after last night’s fight. He didn’t know where he had gone wrong. Tim had tried so hard to be the big brother that Dick always was to him, that Jason was to him now. Damian never budged. It was the degrading comments, pretending he wasn’t there, constantly trying to compete with him.  Finally, Tim had said something, and everything had just unraveled. The ball of twine was finally in a heap of string on the floor. 

Bruce had given Tim that disappointing look, and that was all it had taken. Everything was his fault, and he knew that, but he didn’t understand. So Tim took all his belongings and placed them in a backpack except his laptop, which he worked on until morning. When the clock hit seven, he got dressed, grabbed his bag, and promptly left the Manor without another word. 

There was a nice coffee shop near Wayne Enterprises that he had always wanted to try. Tim opened the door to hear a little ding and found a booth in the furthest corner of the shop. Before heading in that direction, he asked and paid for a black coffee with two extra espresso shots. The girl smiled and complied. He placed his bag on his right, closest to the window, and unpacked all his belongings. His coffee sat on his right, with steam flowing from the cup into the air. 

He looked down at the clock to see he had been sitting there for three hours. His computer screen had Microsoft Word pulled up with case notes from suspicious activity near Crime Alley that Jason had asked him to look into. Jason was concerned that kids were being taken from the streets and used for something. Tim was about to continue when a girl slid into the seat in front of him. 

“Hello,” She seemed shy, “I’m here with my friends, and they dared me to come speak to you.”

Tim almost snorted because, of course, he was always on the brunt of a joke, “Well, you’ve spoken to me, so.”

“That came off wrong. I’m sorry.” She apologized, and Tim tilted his head slightly, “I thought you were cute, and I didn’t have the nerve to come up to you without some form of peer pressure.”

“Oh,” He felt the blush creeping up his cheeks, “I’m- I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to be rude then. I’ve just had a rough night.”

She chuckled, “I can tell. You have ink all over your hand, cheek, and jaw.”

Tim felt himself smile, “What’s your name?”

“Y/n. And yours?”

“Tim.” 

“It’s wonderful to meet you, Tim.”

The blush crept further up his neck, “You too, Y/n.”

He didn’t know what to say. He had never really been in this position before. It was always girls coming up to Dick or Jason. They had always seemed to know what to say and how to act, but all Tim felt was nervousness about doing or saying something wrong. He didn’t want to scare her away. She seemed kind, and her body language was open, which meant that maybe she actually had some interest in him. Her eyes seemed interested, and she didn’t look scared and-

A hand was on his cheek, and something wet was on his other cheek. Tim snapped back into reality to see her leaning over the table. One hand was cupping his cheek, and the other had a wipe of some kind, slowly taking the black smudges off his cheek. His cheeks and ears burned bright red. He was able to better examine her from here. Y/n’s eyes were kind, and her lips were tilted in a subtle smile. 

She pulled back too soon for Tim’s liking. She showed him the now grey-looking wipe, “Sorry, it was driving me crazy. I hope I didn’t cross any boundaries.”

“No- No!” Tim stuttered, “You didn’t. Um, thank you.”

Y/n smiled, and it made him feel at home. For once, he didn’t feel overwhelming stress on his shoulders. He didn’t think about Damian hating him, Bruce’s disappointed look, Jason’s glare whenever he thought Tim wasn’t looking, or Dick’s look of pity that he felt he could hide. For once, all he saw was kindness, interest, and admiration. It was a breath of fresh air, and he never intended to let it go. 

“Would your friends mind if you ditched them?” 

“If they did, why would that matter?” She had a look of mischief on her face, “They’re the ones who did this. Plus, I’d much rather sit here with you than them.”

He smiled, “I’ll go buy you a coffee.”

Tim slid out of the booth as she recited her coffee order—an order he would never forget again. 

[foxhopfics]

Jason Todd as a Fox instead of a Bat

Request for anon! I took a little bit to turn this over in my brain because the timeline for aftg is so tight and Jason's timelines are... All over the place. So for reference purposes, I'm calling this an AU where after coming back from the Lazarus pit, he was still trained by Ra's Al Ghul and Talia, however instead of returning to Gotham to become the Red Hood, he takes a detour, quits his life of crime, and signs up for exy. (It's a bit of a stretch but I think I make it work. This also lowkey made me end up shipping Kevin and Jason) I'm putting this under a readmore because it accidentally got SUPER long

Jason was first introduced to exy as a pastime sport the trainees from the league of assassins would play. It's good for endurance training, muscle building, etc. etc. and it seemed like a good outlet, so he gave it a shot

His portfolio, much like Neil's, came in the form of a video. He copied and stole the security camera footage from the court they used.

As he gets more into exy he also starts to learn about the teams that are out there and kind of realizes he's not doomed to a life of crime. He can escape this, if he's smart.

And the Foxes are an underdog team. Not many eyes will be on them, so it will be easier to remain hidden if anyone comes looking for him.

The next week, he gets an acceptance email from the school, and a "welcome to the team, see you in a month!" message from a man named David Wymack

(Little did Jason know David would become more of a father to him than Bruce ever was.)

Things aren't exactly rough when he gets there, but he's definitely lived in more pleasant places. The dorm rooms are just fine by him, but the other members of the exy team make him jumpy

Most of them ignore him at first, and he kindly reciprocates.

They get along well enough in practice, Jason preferring to use his larger stature to play a good, solid defense. He's great at planting himself in the way of the oncoming strikers, and they always underestimate his speed because of his size.

(He was always taught to defend and protect, after all...)

It's not until about the events of TFC when Neil starts to bring the team together that Jason really starts to get to know everyone. Kind of reluctantly, since he was happy being on his own with a provided cover story.

But Neil pushes and he gives like a broken dam. There's still that little kid somewhere stuck in there that wishes someone would just care for him.

Eventually he starts to open up on his own to the others, ending up really connecting with Kevin. Kevin and him were both raised by men who wanted the best from them, expected no less, and met disappointment with hard, frozen stairs.

Jason could count on his fingers the times Bruce had smiled at him or told him "good job". Kevin couldn't even name one time the Moriyamas ever did.

And as he opens up he begins to see his family in the faces of his new friends. He sees the bubbly positivity in Nicky that reminds him of Steph. He's hearing the same logical calculations that Tim would make come from Aaron's mouth instead. He sees Dick in every move Matt makes, both of them born for teamwork and support. He sees a flicker of Renee out of the corner of his eye and for a second can swear it's Cass.

While he tells him the things that have happened to them, they're met with stunned silence. But honestly, Jason is grateful for everyone to accept it and go, considering Neil's past is still chasing him. Jason's isn't, at least, not right now

It's not until after the first time Kevin and Jason end up in bed together and they're both shirtless that it really hits them both how fucked up they are. Both their bodies are littered with scars and old injuries.

But there is love and care in healing damaged things and Kevin traces his fingers along the angry lichtenberg scars left by the Lazarus pit.

Anyway they are shortly interrupted by the mob coming after Neil and Jason is basically like "jesus i could take care of this in 0.5 seconds but im not a murderer anymore and Matt has accidentally instilled a moral compass in me"

and then Neil gets fucking KIDNAPPED? and everyone gets roughed up by the crowed and gets taken to the hospital except for Jason who actually kept track of Neil during all this madness knowing there were literal people coming for him and his Vigilante Senses turned on.

NYWAY he tracks Neil to Nathan's hideout and he's basically the one who called it in because he's used to having to do such things from his time as Robin.

Basically Jason would take the place of Neil's uncle because where the fuck did HE even come from and this works better imo.

I decided I didn't want Jason to change much in the story because with his past and ESPECIALLY his time in the league of assassins, he could very easily become an OP Deus Ex Machina instead of a character in a story with ups and downs. But this also made me want to a) rewrite the whole series but i do NOT have time to do that. but also b) i may end up writing a more in depth fic about Jason and Kevin and if that accidentally evolves into a series then WHOOPS! Anyway hope you enjoyed!

[megamindsupremacy]

Reverse Robins AU: 38

Masterpost

After 11 years of being Jokerized, Duke’s (20) parents die. Instead of handling his grief like a normal, well-adjusted person, he cuts contact with everyone except Damian (21) and fucks off to Blüdhaven as Flamebird. Bruce has a MiniBreakdown because for the most part none of his kids have done this to him, disregarding the time Damian disappeared for two months, founded the Teen Titans, and then reappeared after flawlessly establishing the first kid superhero team at the age of fourteen. Duke isn’t like, angry at anyone in the Batfam, he just has a hardcore identity crisis that lasts from his parent’s death to their funeral and then dips the second the funeral is done to go to Blüdhaven.

A few months after Duke disappeared to the sister city, Tim (15) and Steph (16) are benched together in the Cave because they were unprepared and got cornered by Black Mask and his gang and got injured, Tim moreso than Steph due to his having less training than her. Although Bruce took her Spoiler outfit, Steph still has her og DIY Spoiler costume stashed at Tim’s house, along with their original communications equipment. Steph sneaks out to again confront Black Mask, this time on purpose, with the intention of taking revenge for hurting Tim so badly (he’s unable to leave the bed for fear of injuring himself irreparably) and to put him back in Blackgate. Tim stays in his cot to be the voice in Steph’s ear. This means he gets the dubious privilege of getting to hear as she gets overwhelmed and captured by Black Mask. Tim tries to get out of bed so he can reach the Batcomputer to contact the rest of the Bats, who are scattered throughout the city trying to wrangle the gang war that’s started to break out since the Spoilers stumbled in on Black Mask a few days prior. He doesn’t make it further than a step out of the cot before twisting his spine and falling unconscious on the floor. Alfred finds him there twenty minutes later, with Steph still screaming for help as she’s tortured in the comm in Tim’s ear. Alfred sends the Bats out looking for Steph and gets Tim back in the cot, and Tim comes back to consciousness in time to hear Steph die (woo!).

Over the next few days, Damian calls Duke back to Gotham (he had refused to return for months) and the Bats tear Gotham apart looking for Black Mask. Shadow and Batgirl (13) together are the first to track him down. Damian is fully about to kill him when Cass stops him. Cass makes Damian take Steph’s days-dead body away and deals with Black Mask herself. By the time Bruce and Duke arrive she’s incapacitated him and is only waiting for transportation to get him to Blackgate. 

In the following weeks, Damian, Bruce, and Cass get into a huge argument about, again, the morality of targeted murder. Damian fucks off to Blüdhaven with Duke to become Nightwing and the pair cut all contact with the Bats. Tim paralyzed himself in his attempt to call for help and Bruce refuses to let him keep working with him in the Batcave, so Tim rebrands as Oracle and eventually joins Cassie Sandsmark’s Young Justice team as a remote member for any tech/detective support. He also provides the team with a home base in the form of Drake Manor whenever his parents are gone. Tim isn’t officially affiliated with Batman but, after a cooldown period from Bruce’s kicking him out, occasionally assists the Bats with cases. He also reaches out to Mia/Maps, who has been making a name for herself in the magic community. Mia has been mostly out of contact since she first disappeared six years ago, but is happy to reconnect with Damian and Duke via Tim (who has declared himself neutral in the conflict between the Gotham and Blüdhaven duos). Mia becomes Tim’s contact for any and all magic bullshit Young Justice deals with (Bruce is on his own in regards to Gotham magic bullshit). Cass changes her name to Black Bat and becomes Bruce’s only partner on the streets. Bruce starts getting more violent and patrols separately from Cass more often than not. Everyone blames themselves for Steph’s death, wahoo! 

[wolfverse-stories]

Gotham Emergency

Chapter 1

     He raced down the street while rain poured down on him. Splashing through the puddles of water as they turned a Dark crimson. The still figure of a Redhead came into view as he rounded the corner. Blood pooling around her un-moving form.

    "Babs!" Dick shot up knocking his blanket onto the floor. He gasped trying to steady his breathing as he looked around the room "Just a dream" he reassured himself as he got up and pulled on an oversized shirt.

    It had been nearly a year since that night but the memories still burned into his head. He and Barbara had been on a routine call when the suspect opened fire barely missing a little kid. Barbara rushed after him as soon as he darted. Dick had been six feet away when he heard the shot, he rounded to the corner to find her lying there bleeding out. Luckily the EMT had gotten there just in time, sadly there was nothing that could be done for her spine. She quit the force and became an emergency dispatcher.

    Tomorrow he was to get a new partner, a transfer from Buldhaven. The thought of having another partner both excited and sickened him. What if he failed again and got another person hurt or worse killed?

    He stumbled down the stairs into the kitchen where his little brother sat studying photos.

    "Shouldn't you be asleep?" he asked crossing his arms as he leaned against the doorway.

    "You too," Tim said taking a sip of his coffee "Another nightmare?"

    "Yeah" Dick sighed sitting down next to him "This is the Joker case"

    "Yep," Tim grimaced. The Joker was a rather big case right now, he toured his victims and then cut smiles onto their faces. He was flashy and cocky but mostly he was good. It had been ten years since he started and still, no one had caught him.

     "I heard one of the guys say there might be a break in the case" Dick smiled hopefully.

    "Afraid not turns out the guy was lying" Tim sighed.

    "Well I feel like we'll have one soon, after all, Gotham's greatest detective is on the case" Dick grinned putting a hand on Tim's shoulder "Our very own Grisom"

    "Really?" Tim tilted his head "I always so myself more as a Horatio"

    "Oh no, you're definitely Grisom weird guy with strange methods that make everyone wonder whether you're brilliant or Insane" Dick laughed ruffling his little brother's hair.

    "Will you two shut up! Some of us have to be on call in two hours!" Jason yelled from the couch.

More stories / Next

[much-obliged-timothy]

Whumptober #9

Day 9 - Batboys - "You're a liar"

*

Jason fired his guns with a certain glee. The gang scattered behind cover, yelling at each other for someone to take Jason out.

“Someone can try!” Jason called cheerfully, launching over a dumpster to kick one of the gang members in the face, sending him sprawling to the ground. Jason easily flipped his gun around in his hand and smacked the butt of it into the man’s temple to knock him out. 

Tim leapt over the crates they were using as cover to take out a few more with smooth, practiced moves. He clearly wasn’t taking as much glee in the mission as Jason, but he didn’t chastise Jason for his fun.

After all, why would he? They were cleaning up a poorer section of Gotham. This gang had formed to prey on the poor who didn’t have transportation or couldn’t afford good security in their homes. They’d break in, steal what little they had, or jump them as they walked or biked home after a hard day of working to feed themselves. 

Just two days ago, they’d jumped two young boys who’d earned some money with a lemonade stand. They boys were on their way home, elated that they had enough money to go on their school field trip at last, when the attack hit them. One boy was left hospitalized. 

Jason could picture so many times he’d walked around after dark. It could’ve been him if he was still young. No little kid deserved that.

Tim had agreed to help him stop the gang when Babs got wind they were planning to pull off a bigger job on a delivery truck tonight. Jason was grateful for the support, because Tim knew what this particular mission meant to Jason. 

And Jason was having a great time making these streets safer for kids like he had been once, right up until he heard the gunshot and Tim’s scream.

“No!” He whipped around, his joy gone in an instant. Tim laid on the ground, blood pooling out from his body, his hands pressed to his abdomen.

Jason barely remembered the next few minutes. He became a whirlwind of furious, protective movement, taking out every single gang member he could get his hands on, barely suppressing the urge to kill the bastards. They deserved it; they all fucking deserved it.

But he held back just enough to knock them out instead. When the last fell, he leapt over the unmoving body and raced to Tim’s side.

“Hey, hey!” he said, grabbing Tim’s wrists and trying to pull them away. “Dammit, let me see, Tim.”

Tim moved his hands and Jason’s face paled at the gunshot wound in his abdomen and the blood pouring from it. He put Tim’s hands back, applying pressure.

“Babs, Tim was shot,” he said into his earpiece, his voice tight. “Get us help. Now.”

She was replying, but he didn’t hear the words. He was too focused on Tim’s face and the way it was contorted in anguish.

This was Jason’s fault. He hadn’t been taking it seriously. He hadn’t been properly watching Tim’s back.

The wound was so bad.

“You’re going to be fine. Just stay with me,�� Jason said.

“You’re a liar,” Tim choked out with a weak laugh. Jason was horrified to see blood leaking out of the corner of his mouth. “A good man, but a liar.”

“Tim-”

“I know what you’re thinking. It’s not your fault, Jason. I let my guard drop.”

“But-”

“No. It is NOT your fault this happened.”

His voice was fierce despite how weak his movements were growing and how pale he was becoming. The blood just kept coming up between his fingers, spilling out onto the ground.

“You protected…t-those kids. All those p-people,” Tim said, giving a faint smile. “I’m proud of you. P-Proud to help you.”

“Shit,” Jason whispered, feeling the tears in his eyes. “Hang on, you bastard. Don’t you- Just hang on. Please, Tim. Please.”

Tim’s eyes dropped shut. Jason let out a despaired noise and applied more pressure to the wound, knowing it was all he could do as he prayed help came in time and no one else had to die on these streets.

[weekend-conspiracy-theorist]

in which damian has an agenda, cass has been keeping secrets, and gotham has just the worst infrastructure in existence. (an entry in the tim&steph role swap au)

Unlike Tim's non-flashy but solidly respectable apartment, which had been purchased with the intent of fooling his case worker into believing the lie of his beloved and financially stable Uncle Eddie Drake, the offices of Red Bird Investigations were kind of a shithole. The office space itself was clean, recently painted, and well-repaired, thanks to the elbow grease Tim (assisted by his begrudging blonde minions, plus an utterly unhelpful Cassandra, who had never held a paintbrush or screwdriver in her life) had put into it when he first signed the lease, but it was nonetheless housed in a crumbling brick building in one of Gotham's many questionable neighborhoods--

And 4032 Dixon Ave was exactly what you'd expect of a crumbling building in one of Gotham's many questionable neighborhoods. In theory, a person had to have a key or get buzzed in to access the building, but really you could force the lock if you jiggled it just right and pushed down on the knob, and the super kept the side door propped open so he could chainsmoke in the alley.

Half the offices were empty, and the rest were primarily a combination of loan sharks, con artists, and realtors. Roaches were a fact of life, the elevator had been out of order for upwards of a decade according to the manager of the phone line on the second floor, and the air conditioning was reliably unreliable during the hottest months of the summer. There was one gargoyle statue on the corner of the roof, which was neither attached nor an original aspect of the structure, but had been added (and gaudily painted) by someone with an impeccable sense of humor sometime in the semi-recent past.

Tim, who periodically spent an hour wistfully scrolling rental listings for the boathouses on the marina before reminding himself it'd be stupid even for a millionaire to move out of his apartment when it was fully paid off, couldn't have been happier with this particular life choice. He liked places with history, even when said history was as mundane as being an office building from the 70s which had survived the Quake by dint of thick walls and being far enough off the harbor to actually have been built on decent soil. He liked fixing things, sinking his time and his sweat into routine maintenance and non-lease-breaking improvements.

And more than anything, what Tim really liked were the people. Messy, vibrant, petty, compassionate people. There was character, there was life to the parts of the city which weren't directly under the heel of Gotham's glamorous rich, and Tim thrived there.

In rare form, Stephanie didn't even usually give him a hard time about his office space, because she got it. She liked them too.

Damian Wayne was less impressed.

"I was under the impression you ran a respectable business," the kid said, as he stood in the center of the main room. His shoes alone probably cost as much as every piece of furniture in the office combined, and his expression was deeply dubious.

He looked painfully young, in the washed out gray light seeping in through the big windows on the back wall, sandwiched in between the doors of Tim's office--a shoebox full of filing cabinets and the best computer equipment he could cram into it--and that of "Alvin Draper," which was bigger, nicer, and only occupied once a week, when the actor he'd hired to play his boss made a perfunctory appearance. The main room had a few of his better Gotham-by-night photographs framed on the wall, a kitchenette with a sink and a minifridge and a miniscule sum of counterspace mostly taken up by the drying rack for the two plates and two forks which Tim kept on hand for his lunches, as well as a nice couch and a coffee table at which Tim usually interviewed his clients.

He had spread the details of his latest case out on said couch and coffee table, not having anticipated any visitors after 4 PM on a Friday afternoon. "Uh," he said, intelligently. His hair was a mess, between the sweat and the running his fingers through it while he thought, and he'd stripped to his undershirt an hour ago. He debated, briefly, grabbing his dress shirt off of the arm of the couch and putting it back on, but 1) it was too damn hot, and 2) it was a sign of weakness. "'Respectable' is as good a word as any, I guess."

"Tt." Damian clicked his tongue, that sharp green gaze of his sweeping across the room and across Tim. "This building is incredibly insecure."

"It is," Tim agreed. His computer network was quite sound--and only got increasingly so, as he continued hanging out with Stephanie at the Clocktower and picking up advice from Oracle--but the information he kept in his filing cabinets was a careful mix of useless and non-confidential. Most of the physical files he built throughout the course of a case ended up digitized and shredded before he sent the final invoice. "But for the kinds of clients I prefer to work with, it's familiar. For the ones I tolerate for the sake of my bills, they're just excited that I'm cheap."

"The air conditioning is... insufficient."

Tim, who had been glistening with a light sheen of sweat since he walked in the door at 7 AM, really hadn't needed Damian's help to figure that out. "Oh, is that why my paperwork keeps sticking to my arm," he drawled, snide, and leaned back against the couch as he tossed down his pen.

This was already the longest one-on-one conversation they'd ever had, with the exception of the union mediation Tim had arbitrated, which didn't really count. Well, and the time Robin had cornered him during a stakeout to give him a shovel talk regarding Steph, which had been hilariously out-of-date. Point was: he and Damian didn't just talk. They talked so little, in fact, that Tim hadn't even found an opportunity to launch the "actually we're cousins, didn't you know?" prank for which Cassandra had dutifully planted evidence in the Wayne Manor library.

They sat in silence for a moment; Tim studying Damian and Damian studying the weird water stain in the middle of the ceiling. (There were two floors between this one and the roof, making rain damage unlikely, but there were also no utility pipes running through the ceiling above that spot; Tim had checked the as-builts. He'd left the mystery alone from there, because he was certain he didn't want to know where it had come from.)

Tim was good at reading people, and good at reading Robins in particular. The wrinkle between Damian's eyebrows and the poutiness of his frown said there was something on his mind; the fact that he'd showed up at Tim's office said... honestly, Tim didn't know what it said. He had a hard time believing that he'd done something to offend the kid and an even harder time believing that Damian would seek him out regarding something someone else did to offend him, considering they never talked.

Speculating about it wasn't going to get him anywhere. Leadingly, Tim asked, "Are you here for, like... a reason?"

Damian thinned his lips and narrowed his eyes, briefly transforming into the spitting image of his mother on the one time Tim had seen her, a brief glimpse caught from opposite ends of a League compound, as Z whisked Tim away by the scruff like a recalcitrant cat and Cass and Pru gleefully tore the place apart. With careful deliberance, Damian said, "Stephanie tells me she sought your counsel often during her tenure as Robin."

Tim was still Stephanie's favorite sounding board, and vice versa. Damian definitely knew that; the two of them weren't shy about it. Which meant it was purposeful--and significant--that the kid had specified her Robin days.

Tim looked at the papers spread across his coffee table. This particular case wasn't going to fall apart any time in the next two hours.

Standing and stretching, he draped his dress shirt over his arm and jerked his chin towards the door, ushering Damian out ahead of himself. He flipped the sign on the door--THE INVESTIGATOR IS OUT. IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, PLEASE CALL: (862)-555-9321--and locked up, for habit's sake more than any belief that it would actually keep someone out of his office who wanted to break in. "This sounds like a taco tax situation. Steph ever explained to you how that works?"

"The purchase of tacos can be traded for assistance or advice," Damian recited dutifully. "I need neither," he added, even as he quickened his steps slightly to catch up to Tim's longer stride.

"Sure you don't," Tim said dryly. "You just showed up at my office all hangdog for no reason."

"What is 'hangdog?'"

Tim really wanted to say, "Nothing much; what's hanging with you?" but he knew that--despite Stephanie, Cassandra, and Dick's best efforts--there was no chance Damian would get the joke. "It means you look like a kicked puppy," he said instead, hands in his pockets as he turned the corner for the stairs.

"I am in no distress," Damian said, with stubborn insistence.

"Sure you aren't."

Damian bristled, coming to a stop abruptly, and Tim turned to look up at him from several stairs lower down. "This was a mistake," he said flatly. The line of his shoulders was tight and hostile. "I do not know why--I will be taking my leave. Apologies for the interrup--"

"Screw off," Tim said, exasperated. "You came to me, you don't get to get pissy when I try to actually talk to you, even if I'm being a dick about it. Look, whatever, fine; you don't need my help." He threw up his hands, turning back to the stairs. "I guess we're just hanging out, like normal people do with a friend of a mutual friend." That was a reductive description of what Stephanie was to either of them, but--whatever. He took two more steps and then hit upon an idea. "Cass has been teaching you to skateboard, right?"

"She has," Damian said, suspicion coloring his voice.

"Cool. We'll swing by my place, grab a couple boards, hit the park."

"You skateboard." Damian's voice remained flat.

"Kid," Tim said, exasperated, "I'm the one who taught Cass. Which took, like, four hours and now she's better at it than I am, because she's Cassandra fucking Wayne, but still."

***

They didn't go to a skate park.

On the way to Tim's apartment, he'd grilled Damian thoroughly regarding what Cassandra had taught him so far, and decided that there was a better (stupider) use of their time. Damian, for his part, was intrigued.

"It sounds like an engaging test of skill," he'd said, eyes glinting, and Tim had grinned.

"It's also illegal," he'd said cheerfully. "Of course, trespassing and illegal entry are probably less of a thrill for you than for the average skate punk." They shouldn't have been a thrill for Tim at this point, either, but sue him. There was a reason he'd ended up in the Girl Wonder's rolodex, and it wasn't for not being an antiauthoritarian adrenaline junkie.

What they were about to do was a classic rite of passage within Gotham skate culture. The first time Tim had heard about it, he'd been thirteen, and therefore not nearly cool enough for the fifteen-to-seventeen-year-olds that hung out at his favorite skate park to acknowledge his existence. The older kids, the eighteen-to-twenty-year-olds, were much more chill about being willing to teach new faces; but those kids in their mid-teens had something to prove. To themselves, their teachers, their parents, the older kids. They didn't let kids like Tim in on their secrets willingly.

But Tim had been, as Tim continued to be, both unconscionably nosy and very good at flying under the radar.

A kid Tim had only ever known as "Scoop" had showed up one day with his arm in a cast and half his face scraped up, looking nonetheless pleased with himself as he claimed the center of attention amongst that mid-teen crowd. There'd been a lot of whispering, a lot of back slapping, and just enough details dropped for Tim to figure out what had happened, and why it mattered.

Gotham City's infrastructure was, to a brick, old and confusing and unnecessarily complicated, and its storm sewer system was no exception. There were culverts under the city large enough to float a mobile home down the river with room to spare, entire streams which had been turned into trapezoidal concrete flumes, and detention ponds that never drained the way they were supposed to. And then there was this:

The Gotham Aqueduct.

It was one of the few above-ground portions of the storm sewer system, and despite being a triumph of masonry techniques, it made no sense. A lot of old school civil engineering had been pretty myopic, focused on one particular result with no understanding of the subsequent consequences (see: turning urban streambeds into concrete flumes in order to prevent stream migration, thereby also preventing soil infiltration while simultaneously increasing the velocity of the water, resulting in rampant downstream flooding), but even for the time period, the Gotham Aqueduct was bizarre.

The main section--the one Tim and Damian had scaled a chainlink fence to access--was approximately a half mile of semi-circular brick switchbacks that ended abruptly in a twenty foot drop into the reservoir. The slope along the centerline of the tunnel was so steep that the aqueduct almost never actually had any water in it, because of the speed at which the water flowed through it in the aftermath of a storm.

(Presumably, the switchbacks had been intended to slow said velocity. Functionally, the first couple switches tended to overtop and flood nearby streets because water didn't really love to navigate 90° angles. Tim was begging the people who'd designed the damn thing to think about K-values.)

Naturally, Gotham skaters had been treating the thing as a half-pipe since the day skateboards had been invented. The bricks made it unpredictable; the slope made it fast; and the fence along the top edges meant there was exactly one safe opportunity to bail once you got moving, about three yards before the drop off into the reservoir, where there was about five linear feet of fence set back from the edge in order to accomodate a gate.

Eight years ago, Scoop had missed his chance to get off and been forced to ditch his board, breaking his wrist and scraping himself up in the process. Of course, it had been impressive that he'd even made it that far; most everyone wiped out long before the reservoir, and ended up crawling up the sides to make a painful and embarassing trip back over the fence.

A Gotham skate culture rite of passage.

Tim laced his fingers and pushed his hands upwards in a stretch, blowing out a breath. "Let's get our story straight before we do this," he said sternly. "If you get seriously injured, we're telling people that Jason pushed you off a roof."

Damian rolled his eyes. "I will not get injured," he said confidently. He was still in the same very nice clothes as he'd showed up to Tim's office wearing, but Tim had put his foot down about trying to skate in dress shoes, so he'd borrowed a pair of Tim's Vans. That he was three inches shorter than Tim and still wore the same shoe size was depressing evidence that he wasn't going to stay short for long.

Tim, though, had taken the opportunity to change; switched his work boots and khakis for sweats and Converse, and he'd opted for a long sleeve tshirt despite the heat, in the vague hope it might cut down on the inevitable road rash in his future. Last time he'd skated the aqueduct, he'd been fifteen and a much better skater (more consistent practice) than he was now. He'd still missed the chance to bail and opted to take a dive into the reservoir rather than try to stop. Stephanie had had to use a grapple line to fish him out.

Choosing a swim over a crash wouldn't be an option today: the water level was too low after the fire department was forced to overtax the system while fighting the efforts of an arsonist collective.

Tim shook his head. He didn't really think Damian was going to get hurt; the kid had a lot of advantages compared to the average fourteen-year-old moron on a skateboard--better balance, better reflexes, better understanding of how to fall safely, not to mention he was best friends with Superman--but it was a terrible idea to get cocky about it. "I'm serious, Dames. This thing is going to be a wild ride. Stay low, stay alert, and get ready to bail if you have to."

"Yes, yes. Your concern is touching. I agree to sell out my brother to protect a near stranger should we get into trouble." Damian gestured toward the aqueduct. "Are we going to do this?"

Tim tipped his head back, laughing, and held up three fingers. "On my count. Three, two--

"One." In unison, they shifted their weight and dropped into the aqueduct.

Tim let out a whoop of excitement, and even Damian let out a small gasp, but both were rapidly snatched away by the vibration of the bricks and the roar of the wind. The first switchback came up fast, and Tim dropped his center of gravity as low as he could, fingers nearly brushing the ground as he leaned hard into the turn. The trucks on their boards were practically screaming already. Damian's smile didn't drop, not exactly, but it did turn downright feral, his green eyes sharpening as he realized Tim hadn't been fucking kidding.

Tim's teeth nearly rattled out of his head as the bricks whizzed past, and his eyes were watering from the wind as they continued to accelerate, faster and faster. There was no time to think; only to react. Every slightest shift of weight held the potential for catastrophic failure--and it was exhilarating.

On turn four, Damian came in at the wrong angle and nearly threw himself off balance when he overcorrected; Tim yelled at him to stay fucking low, and Damian snarled in response. On turn seven, Tim nearly wiped out. Damian managed to grab his sleeve and yank him upright while still somehow making the turn himself.

Turn eleven--the last turn--was where it all went to shit.

Tim came out of it a little ahead of Damian, and he purposefully swung high up the wall to give himself a better angle on the gate access before stepping on the back of his board and braking as hard as he dared. It wouldn't do to wipe out right here, and he still needed enough speed to make it back up the other wall--it was heartstopping, heartwrenching, but he let out a triumphant yell as he hit the gap just right.

He made the top of the aqueduct, grinding the edge with a mildly terrifying crunching noise before the fence pole caught his hip and slammed him to a stop. He spun on his board, bracing himself to catch a high school freshman to the midsection--

Just in time to see the moment that Damian's wheel caught a loose brick and yanked his board off course.

There was no time to think: only to react. Tim was throwing himself and his board forward again before he understood what his own plan was. Luckily the brick had stolen enough of Damian's speed for Tim to catch him on a cross-angle. One arm snagged Damian around the middle; his other hand shot outwards, catching at the final fence pole and only barely managing to get the first two joints of his fingers around it.

It wasn't enough to stop them. Tim had the insane grip strength of an urban climber who spent a lot of time scaling brick walls and pulling himself up onto rooftops by his fingertips, but between their combined body weight and their momentum, there were hundreds of pounds of force he was fighting against. He could only slow their flight by a fraction of a second--

Which was enough for Damian's Robin reflexes to kick in.

The two of them spun around the fence pole, grounded by Damian's own iron grip, and then tumbled across the concrete on the other side when he let go. Through the ringing in his ears and his own panting breaths, Tim heard the splash of two skateboards dropping into the reservoir.

He slowly pushed himself over onto his back, wincing as his shoulder protested loudly, and stared upwards at Gotham's moody gray sky. "Well," he rasped. "What'd you think?"

Damian moved in Tim's periphery, and Tim looked over to find him inspecting his palm, shiny and raw from where it scraped against the fence pole. His clothes were ruined, and there was the start of a beautiful bruise on his cheekbone. "A qualified success," he said, with satisfaction.

Tim stared at him for a second. Then he burst out laughing, draping his arm over his eyes, and after a moment, Damian started laughing too.

"We're never telling Batman about this," Tim ordered, when he'd managed to calm himself down slightly. He rubbed at his shoulder--it had taken the brunt of their impact against the ground, he was pretty sure--and sat upright, brushing his hair out of his face. He could see the skateboards from here, half-submerged where they'd caught onto a floating raft of trash fifty feet out into the reservoir. "Damn," he sighed.

Damian followed his gaze, and a frown ticked at the corners of his lips. "I find it unlikely we would be able to retrieve them."

"Yeah, no. Not even with a grapple." Tim huffed another laugh, shaking his head. "Good thing I'm a millionaire and can afford to replace them," he added dryly. "C'mon, up. We've managed to crashland by the corner of the treatment plant. We gotta get out of here before the cops make an appearance."

Green eyes narrowed, though Damian did find his way to his feet and fall into step next to Tim. "But you aren't," he said.

"Aren't what?" Tim asked distractedly. His vision nearly whited out when he tried to stretch out his shoulder, and he caught Damian's arm in a death grip to keep himself upright and moving.

"A millionaire." Damian brushed his hand off (not unkindly) and circled around to Tim's other side, inspecting his shoulder with brusque, professional movements.

Tim chose not to be offended that Damian had been investigating his finances. He was kidding himself if he thought any of the Bats hadn't. "First aid can wait," he said gently, ushering Damian onwards. "And, yes, I am. Officially, on paper, I have a net worth of a hundred and something blah blah blah. I just can't actually touch most of it, by design; almost everything liquid immediately gets funneled into various charities. Help me over?"

With enviable grace, Damian found his way to the top of the chainlink fence, straddling it as he leaned down to clasp Tim's good arm and pull him upwards.

"It's a lot like what Bruce does," Tim added. He hooked the toe of one shoe into the other side of the fence, holding tightly onto the top bar (Damian's hands hovered nearby in case he lost his grip), and carefully swung his other leg around. "Except it's chump change comparatively, and it's not my own foundation I'm putting money into. I'm also not trying to fund the Justice League and probably a hundred other vigilantes while maintaining a frivolous playboy persona, so percentage-wise I hold onto a lot less of it." Tim stretched down from the top of the fence and then dropped lightly to the ground.

Well--he meant to drop lightly to the ground. He actually tripped over his own feet slightly and stumbled. Damian snorted, and Tim flipped him off. "Fuck off. Anyway. I'd keep back even less--my bills are practically nonexistent; I bought my apartment as a cash sale, I don't have student loans, I don't even own a car--but I try to keep a discretionary fund around in case Red Bird doesn't make enough money to pay rent one month or I have to bail Steph out of jail again or something."

"Again," Damian repeated.

"Again," Tim confirmed, smirking, as he gazed up at Damian where he still sat atop the fence. "Seriously, Bruce has no idea what we got up to while he wasn't looking." He gestured between the two of them, raising his eyebrows, and then at the general predicament they currently found themselves in. "We've been hanging out for like two hours, Dames. Steph and I have been hanging out for seven years."

With a tilt of his head to acknowledge the point, Damian leapt down from the from the top of the fence, landing with a panther's grace and a fourteen-year-old's smug pride.

"Yeah, yeah," Tim huffed, reaching out to ruffle the kid's hair. "You're so much cooler than me. Whatever. What d'you want for--ah, shit." The hour hand on his watch was way closer to eight than Tim had realized. "No time to eat unless we do it on the move. I've gotta get you back to Bristol for patrol."

"You should come to the cave as well to get your shoulder checked out," Damian told him sternly. He paused, tilting his chin slightly, and Tim was coming to recognize that glint in his eye as a herald of Damian's patently mean and deeply hilarious sense of humor. "We'll tell everyone that Jason pushed you off a roof."

Tim was still laughing as they pulled Damian's bike up to Wayne Manor.

***

Whyever Damian had showed up to Tim's office that afternoon, he never let it slip. But it did... turn into a thing, after that. Damian showed up; Tim found something for them to do for a couple hours; Damian asked a probing question about Tim's life and/or his methods; Tim set aside the sarcasm and did his best to answer it.

(Robin was just bored, Tim had decided, as he was falling asleep on Friday night. The Black Bat was off spreading the fear of the bat across international waters, Batgirl was in space getting up to shenanigans with Young Justice, Nightwing was too busy with a gang war in Blüdhaven to be spending time in Gotham, and Tim was a mildly interesting puzzle hanging out at the edges of Damian's family. A puzzle that had even accidentally conditioned itself years ago to asking, "How high?" whenever Robin said, "Jump.")

Saturday, Tim woke up to find Damian climbing in through his bedroom window. He had already thrown a pillow by the time he realized who it was (force of habit of hearing the bell ding at an hour that Stephanie knew he would be asleep if she came by), and it bounced off Damian's scowling face. "I'd apologize, but I'm not actually sorry. Come back at noon," Tim mumbled, rolling over and pulling the blankets over his head. Next to him, Bernard snored loudly, blissfully unaware of the teenager skulking his way back out onto the fire escape.

Tim had samosas and paneer tikka masala waiting on the coffee table when Damian returned, at 12:00 exactly, and this time it was a Switch controller that Tim threw at his head. Damian caught it and proceeded to kick Tim's ass at Mario Kart for an hour.

"How are you so good at this," Tim groaned, slouched low into his couch with his feet kicked up onto the coffee table amongst the empty tupperware containers and dirty plates.

"I play against a speedster on a weekly basis," Damian said dryly.

Tim snorted. "Right. I mean, Steph plays against Bart all the time, and she still fucking sucks at this game, but I'll accept the premise. Tell me, though--is 'Thunderheart' regretting the superhero name she chose for herself when she was nine yet, or...?"

"I was actually talking about Kid Flash, but you tell me, Drake: does it matter how ridiculous the moniker she uses is when she's one of the single most powerful metahumans on Earth?" Damian countered.

"Point." Tim backed out of the race selection and scrolled through the wheels available for his bike, ignoring the snort that very clearly said that Damian didn't think any changes to the stats on his set up were going to help him win.

"You know her true identity as well, don't you?" Damian asked abruptly, just before the starting whistle on their next set of races.

"The second Iris West," Tim confirmed. "One of Wally and Linda Park-West's adorable little muppet children."

"How many civilian identities do you know? How did you deduce them?"

"Well, for the Flash family specifically, I didn't actually deduce anything; Bart just told me. Or he told me enough, at least." Tim groaned as his bike took a dive off of the course after being hit by a red shell. "There's a lot of that for what I know with regards to the greater superhero community--I was never a member of Young Justice, obviously, given that I'm not a superhero, but Steph dragged me around to a lot of their bonding exercises, so I was sort of honorary. Knowing the sidekicks tends to make it easy to figure out the Justice League."

"But you figured out the identities of the Gotham-based heroes on your own."

"Mostly. The others in Gotham--Huntress, Black Canary, etc--aren't as paranoid about covering their tracks as your whole brood is, and most of you are pretty easy when you walk in knowing Bruce Wayne is Batman. Steph generally kept mum on secret IDs unless I'd already figured it out myself, but I probably wouldn't have known Cass's Batgirl or Oracle even existed if I hadn't been friends with her." Tim gave up on trying to beat Damian the normal way and just shoved a hand into his face to keep him from being able to dodge the banana he was throwing.

(The conversation devolved at that point.)

Sunday night, Tim was shooting pool at a dive bar in one of his more lowkey aliases when Damian appeared out of nowhere to loudly judge his shots. The kid refused to answer how he'd gotten in (though at least he was dressed like a normal person and not like Bruce Wayne's son), but Tim decided after a brief argument that it was in no way his problem. If Batman didn't want his fourteen-year-old to have a good enough fake ID to somehow convince people he was seven years older than he was, then he shouldn't have given him the tools to make one. They played a few rounds, and despite the shit talking, Tim won most of them.

They were walking down the street afterwards, Tim with a chili dog in each hand and Damian eating the fries, when Damian said, out of the blue, "There is a firearm registered to your name."

Tim chewed his next bite a little longer than he usually would have, trying to discern if that was judgement or curiosity hiding behind the casual tone. "There is," he confirmed. It was a simple six-shot .38 revolver; Tim had no intentions of ever being in a fire fight that would require him to get off more than one or two shots, much less six, and revolvers were way less likely to jam than semiautomatics. "I also have a concealed carry permit."

"But you don't actually carry it."

"I do sometimes." Tim licked chili off of his wrist, pretending he didn't feel Damian's surprised gaze boring into the side of his head. "Look, I may not have the obscene level of trauma surrounding them that your dad does, but I don't like guns. I don't believe in capital punishment--I don't even believe in the prison industry and its focus on retribution over rehabilitation. People can change; in fact, people do change, all the time. But."

He took a deep breath. "I am not a superhero. What you and the rest of your family do, Dames, is not something that anyone can do just because they want to do it. You are brilliant detectives and above Olympic level athletes, trained not only in a wide variety of martial arts but also in deescalation and hostage negotiation techniques. There's a genetic component to that. There's also a truly insane physical and mental training regimen.

"The simple fact of the matter is that even if I wanted to become what you already are, which I don't, I literally can't. I've come at it too late to ever be as good as one of you. And that's fine, because for the most part, the stuff that I do doesn't involve bashing heads together or making daring rescues. But every once in a while, I find myself in a situation where my life or somebody else's life is being threatened, and you and I are both aware of how much more difficult it is to stop someone from hurting someone else without hurting them in turn. In the moment, when it comes down to an innocent person's life versus the life of the person who is actively attempting to maim or injure them, I'm not willing to discard any of the potential tools at my disposal just because I find them distasteful."

Damian was quiet for a couple of blocks after that. Tim was wandering them loosely towards the bus stop that would get the kid back to Bristol--ah, nostalgia; he and Steph used to ride this line two or three times a week--but hadn't yet made it obvious that he was pointing them in any particular direction.

"It is an interesting perspective," Damian said, finally. "I hadn't expected such nuance, given your vocal distaste for the Red Hood."

"The Red Hood is a hypocrite," Tim said flatly. "I've got more respect for Deadshot's moral code than I do Hood's. At least 'I'll kill anyone you pay me to' is fucking consistent. Don't--don't fucking get me started on the number of bullet holes he's put in random enforcers and runners. Some of them undoubtedly were absolute scum whose lists of crimes would turn even Hood's stomach, but just as many of them are people trying to get through the fucking day. People who could get out if you just gave them a fucking stepstool, which is purportedly something Hood cares about."

Tim slammed the remains of his second chili dog into the nearest trashcan, his appetite suddenly gone. "'I'm just doing what Batman can't,' what a load of schlock. Dames, listen to me: I know I don't really know you and it's none of my business to say this, but I'm so fucking proud of you for the steps you've made to break away from the League conditioning and follow your dad's code instead. Whenever you grow up and start to figure out what's actually true to you, though, just promise me you're going to be smarter about it than Hood has been."

Damian was staring at him again. Tim supposed he probably wasn't used to hearing it stated, blatantly, that people were proud of him, or that they would keep being proud of him even if he decided one day that he did actually think killing people was okay under certain circumstances.

Tim fidgeted. "Just my two cents," he offered. The silence continued to stretch on. Akwardly.

"Shouldn't you have been in Bristol getting ready for patrol like two hours ago?" he finally asked, bluntly, because he was feeling a little like a bug under a microscope, and Robin was still staring at him, and he still didn't really understand why the kid was even here.

Damian shook off whatever had been going through his head. "It is my night off," he said, ducking his head back towards his fries and leading the way towards the bus stop. (Figured he'd already known where they were going.)

Tim wanted to ask why he wasn't in Kansas or Metropolis, hanging out with the younger Superman, or why he wasn't in San Francisco with the Titans, but he didn't. The kid was bored, and Tim was there, and Damian wanted to know why Stephanie liked him so much. Probably.

(Tim was beginning to doubt that theory, but he had no idea what to replace it with.)

Monday afternoon, Damian found Tim at the Department of Finance, pursuing a records request for one of his cases.

"You could obtain this information much more easily and quickly through other means," Damian murmured, hands in his pockets as they waited in the lobby. He'd sidled up sideways to Tim's conversation with the office manager, and Tim had done his level best to ignore him until Maureen had become too clearly distracted by his presence, at which point he'd been forced to tell her that Damian was his assistant. This had earned him an eyeroll, but Damian must have finally taken Stephanie's lessons on how to "yes, and" to heart and hadn't argued. "I have not had cause to assess your hacking capabilities myself, but Gordon considers you moderately competent."

Tim raised an eyebrow. He kept his voice similarly low, and turned his head partially away from the camera in the corner of the room to make it difficult to read his lips, same as Damian had. "High praise. But there's a difference between what I do, and what you do. Namely, legality, and therefore paper trails. Besides--you'd be shocked how useful it can be to build rapport with the office staff who do all the paperwork and greet all the visitors. I know CPAs who explicitly start their tax audits not by investigating the spreadsheets, but by talking to the secretaries. Support staff, janitors, waitresses, bartenders--these are all people who hear and see a lot of things because people who think they're better than them pay no attention to them. Relatedly: there's a reason your dad pays his PA as well as he does. It's a good habit. Make sure you continue it when you take on a role at WE."

"Noted," Damian said, looking like he actually was making a mental note of that, and Tim didn't bother to resist the urge to reach out and ruffle his hair. He'd gotten away with it after the aqueduct adventure, when his shoulder (which was still sore, but workable) was fucked up, but it got his hand slapped this time.

Offended or not, Damian still shadowed him all the way back to 4032 Dixon Ave, at which point Tim paused on the sidewalk next to the propped open side door, resigned to the idea that this was happening whether he liked it or not. "Okay, look. It's Monday," he said.

"Yes?" Damian was looking at him like he was reevaluating his opinion of Tim's intelligence.

Tim sighed, shifting his files higher up into the crook of his elbow and bracing his other hand on the doorframe. "Monday means my boss is here."

Damian's opinion of him plummeted even lower. "Your boss doesn't exi--"

Tim slapped a hand over Damian's mouth. "My boss, Mr. Draper, is here today," he said firmly. "He doesn't know anything about anything, including who it ultimately is who's paying his salary. As far as he knows, I know nothing about anything either. Do you understand me?" He lifted his hand and placed it back on the doorframe, barring Damian's way in.

"First of all, had I been anyone else in our immediate acquaintance, I would have bitten your hand for that; consider yourself lucky I am above such base instincts. Second of all, I absolutely do not understand you," Damian said flatly. "You mean to tell me, Drake, that you have hired a real person to be your fake boss--"

"There has to be someone until I'm old enough to get my own license," Tim said tiredly. He and Stephanie had already had this argument a dozen times. "And if I had to spend a couple years answering phone calls and making coffee runs before I was allowed to actually do any investigating, I'd have gone full supervillain."

"Remind me what you were just saying earlier about legality and paper trails--"

"Screw off. Are you gonna behave or not? I'm sending you home if you won't pretend to be having a client meeting with me or something."

They glared at each other for a long moment. Tim had the upper hand, literally and metaphorically, but Damian was the biological synthesis of two of the bitchiest people on the planet Earth, so it was still a pretty even match. Finally, with a roll of his eyes, he ducked beneath Tim's arm and pushed through the door into the building.

"What reason could I possibly have to hire a private investigator?"

"You've got four flights of stairs to figure it out," Tim told him, and waved a hand at the super as they passed him, headed out to smoke with an unlit cigarette already dangling out of the side of his mouth. "Maybe you want me to look into whether or not Bruce has another biological kid floating around out there."

The elbow to the diaphragm that earned him had him wheezing all the way up to the office.

Damian didn't come up with a fake mystery for Tim to be solving, but he did stick his nose in the air and tell Mike Haskins (the actor Tim had hired to play Alvin Draper), haughtily, that his case was confidential and he was only interested in working with Tim, and that was good enough. They passed a quiet couple of hours in Tim's office--Damian ended up on top of his filing cabinets after picking the locks and rifling through them, because there was nowhere else for him to sit--as Tim sifted through the copies of the records he'd gotten from the Department of Finance and Damian took what had to have been the world's most uncomfortable nap.

Tim was starting to wonder if the kid was grounded or something. It would explain the lack of patrol, the fact that he wasn't seeking out Dick or Jason instead--Dick was too busy with the gang war to indulge him and would have pressured him to return to Gotham, and it was fifty-fifty on whether Jason would have held him hostage, to infuriate Bruce, or ratted him out to Alfred, to infuriate Damian.

Running off to the Titans would be guaranteed to result in Batman hunting him down and dragging him back by the cape, and any time spent with Jon Kent would probably also mean time spent with Clark Kent, which would mean Batman wouldn't even have to hunt Robin down; he'd just get a politely concerned phone call from his best friend.

Tim texted Stephanie that Damian was being weird, although he didn't expect a response until she was done being crowned the Queen of Mars or whatever she had going on with Young Justice, and then he texted Cassandra to tell her that he missed her. If Cass were home, Damian definitely wouldn't be having whatever crisis he was having all over Tim's office.

Tuesday night, Tim finally found out what was going on. And he was right: if the Black Bat had been home, Damian wouldn't have been spending so much time hovering over Tim's shoulder.

She was, after all, the one who'd asked him to keep an eye on Tim while she dealt another blow to the League of Assassins.

***

Tim woke up in the Batcave.

He only recognized it so immediately because he'd just been in its Medbay a few days earlier, letting Alfred determine whether or not he'd managed to tear his rotator cuff during the "unexplained incident" he and Damian had been involved in. It was easy to figure out why he was here now, given the pounding pain ripping through his midsection.

Tim woke up in the Batcave with a stab wound.

Which was, to be fair, better circumstances than the last time Tim had woken up from a stab wound related to the League of Assassins. Yeah--it was coming back to him. He closed his eyes against the brightness of the lights, breathing out through his nose.

Tim had been on the roof of some random apartment building in the Diamond District, which was never his favorite place in Gotham in which to be on a random rooftop. The buildings were too high and too far apart on the whole for him to easily maneuver without a grappling hook, which he staunchly continued to refuse whenever Stephanie offered him one. It seemed like a really good way to get himself in all sorts of trouble with both the police and Gotham's underworld if anyone ever discovered him carrying it.

But alas: Laney Franklin's wife was cheating on her with a beautiful lesbian couple with high class taste, so he wasn't exactly going to catch evidence of the affair at one of Gotham's many seedy motels. Skyscrapers and champagne and long walks up ugly stairwells it was.

He hadn't really been surprised to hear the purposeful thud of boots hitting the roof behind him; after all, it had been over twenty-four hours since he'd last seen Damian, which broke the trend of the past five days. "Rob," he'd greeted, without looking up from his camera.

"Timothy," Damian had returned (thankfully; it would have been embarassing if Tim had missed that called shot) as he took a seat next to Tim, and Tim's hands had briefly frozen while adjusting the focus on his shot.

Sure, he'd been purposefully needling the kid by using nicknames without having had permission offered to him like Stephanie (eventually) had, but he'd expected to be "Drake" always and forever for the rest of his life. Were they actually friends now? He didn't have a problem with that, but it was certainly a surprise.

He finished taking his shot and took a guess as to what had brought Batman and Robin to this corner of the city in the first place. "Catwoman busy tonight?"

"Unfortunately," Damian had said, so sourly that Tim had choked on a laugh.

"I take it Batman has things... covered."

Damian had made a disgusted noise, and Tim had laughed again. Then he'd heard the faintest whisper of a blade being unsheathed, and things had gotten--

Hectic, after that.

Tim reopened his eyes, biting back a groan as he levered himself up to sitting, and carefully removed the IV line from his arm and the electrodes from his chest. There was a murmur of voices out in the main chamber of the cave, and he was, as he always had been, unconscionably nosy.

He was still wearing his jeans but he raided the lockers for a shirt on his way out, relieved to find his own "Everything's Bat-ter in Gotham" tanktop stashed away inside Cassandra's, and then he hovered, not quite out of sight to the canny observer (Alfred, Bruce, and Damian alike were usually canny observers, but they were distracted by their conversation) and comfortably within earshot.

"--is not why my grandfather would be interested in Timothy," Damian was saying, his voice high and fast with impatience in a way that said he was annoyed with the conversation. "He is a reasonably gifted detective with a temptingly flexible moral code and unusual familiarity with both our inner workings and those of the superhero community at large. The question, Father, is how and why Ra's is even aware of his existence."

Wait. Tim set his hand over the stab wound in his side, frowning heavily. The ninjas had been after him? Not Damian?

"Black Bat gave no indication of what was going on when she asked you to keep an eye on him?"

"Ah," Tim said, reflexively, and then remembered he wasn't actually part of this conversation. Three heads snapped towards him, and he ruefully moved forward fully into the light.

"Master Drake, please--"

"Tim, please." He waved away the concern as Alfred and Damian both took steps forward to help him walk. "I'm fine; not the first time I've been stabbed in the spleen, and knowing my luck it won't be the last. Were you able to get hold of Cass?"

"Went to voicemail," Bruce said, gruffly. His blue eyes were sharp as he watched Tim lower himself carefully into one of the chairs at the table near the Batcomputer, on which grainy night footage of the rooftop fight was playing out silently.

"I appreciate the compliment, by the way," Tim told Damian, "but your grandfather isn't interested in me. At least, not as anything but leverage against Cass. Pretty sure the only time he's ever referred to me in conversation has been as her lapdog." He pulled his phone out of his pocket, grimacing at the traces of blood still present, and scrolled through his contacts. "Here we go," he said, with satisfaction, and set it on the table as he turned it onto speakerphone.

It rang twice, and then--

"Go for Prudence," she drawled, so very English and so very sarcastic. There was gunfire in the background, and it was staticky like there was wind blowing across the microphone.

"High, darling," Tim drawled back. "Hand the phone to the Bat on your right, would you?"

"Ah, tictac! No can do, she's very busy." Another gunshot. This one much closer. "Pru had probably been the one holding the gun" kind of close.

"I know she's busy, Pru. Her being busy is why I'm calling. Her being busy is why I have a brand new stab wound to add to my collection."

A pause. The phone audibly flipped to speaker, and Pru called, "Batsy, I thought you said they were just trying to kidnap Tim."

"They are," Cassandra her, more distant and barely audible over the spotty connection. A thud; a groan, and she added, "Stay down this time," in her scariest voice.

Prudence asked, "Then how come he's saying he got stabbed?"

There was a jumble of audio feedback as the phone changed hands. "How did you get stabbed? What happened to Robin?"

Tim rolled his eyes. "Well, C, when you don't tell me that there's a kidnapping threat against me and you just send Ra's al Ghul's grandson to hang out with me all day, there ends up being some miscommunication about which of us the ninjas are focused on, and I end up shoving the kid out of the way of a knife."

"Ridiculous," Damian added icily, his arms crossed over his chest. "I was wearing body armor. You were not."

"I could have been," Tim countered, "if someone had told either of us what was going on."

Cass huffed, managing to sound annoyed with the both of them even while in the middle of raiding a League base or whatever the hell it was she was up to. "I thought it'd be obvious."

"Can I ask," Bruce said slowly, "why Tim is even involved in this in the first place?"

"He drove me here," Cassandra said lightly. "The first time."

Tim bolted upright, then immediately regretted it and set a hand over his stab wound with a hiss. "C, you're in Nanda Parbat?"

"You've been to Nanda Parbat?" Damian asked Tim incredulously. He looked at the phone. "You're currently in Nanda Parbat?"

"What do you mean he drove you there," Bruce repeated flatly.

"When you were supposed to be dead and I realized you actually weren't," Cassandra began.

"When Cass was having her mental breakdown road trip of grief and self-discovery," Tim began.

"Rude," she huffed.

"Tell me I'm wrong." He waved a hand. "Never mind, point is: she recruited me as team mascot and secondary moral compass for the semi-feral, only-recently-ex assassins she was teaming up with."

"Rude!" Prudence yelled in the background.

"And then he drove me here," Cassandra repeated.

"Don't sell yourself short, TJ," Prudence added. "You were a little more than just a mascot; blowing up the bases was your idea."

"Yes," Tim said, feeling his face heat up. "Well. It just seemed... prudent."

Cassandra booed. Prudence booed. Damian looked like he wanted to boo. Bruce just looked constipated, which probably meant he also wanted to boo.

"Sorry. Look, I'm locked down in the Batcave now; Ra's tried and failed to gain leverage to counter whatever it is you're doing right now." Tim grimaced. "Do we want to know what you're doing right now?"

"Ra's started it," was all Cassandra offered in response to that.

Tim rested his forehead in the palm of his hand, closing his eyes. "Right," he said. "Ra's started it. Look, whatever. If you see Damian's mom, could you give her my business card again? I'm serious that Drake Industries could use her. Anyone ballsy enough to take Luthor on from inside his own company has exactly the kind of forward thinking we need."

"I've given it to her like three times now," Cassandra told him gently. "I don't think she's interested."

"I can and would fire our current CEO."

"I know, Tim."

"I've been dragging the company kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century; really pushing for an eco-friendly and worker-forward approach, but it's like pulling teeth when it comes to the board, and god knows I want to kill myself every time I have to spend more than three or four hours at a time pretending to be a respectable businessman. I could really use someone with a vision who's willing to push forward their own agenda without needing me to hold their hand."

"Tim, I promise you. I gave her your elevator pitch word for word last time."

He sighed. "I can still dream."

"Yes, you can," Cassandra told him, sounding amused. "And Pru wants to know if you'll also be dreaming about paying her phone bill for the month since you're wasting all her international minutes right now."

"She's a globetrotting antihero and she doesn't spring for an unlimited international plan?" Tim asked scathingly. "Tell her I'm disappointed in her. Then flip her off when she flips you off."

A pause.

"Done," Cassandra reported. "Do you need anything else?"

"Keep yourself safe, please? One stab wound between us is already too many. My poor spleen can't take much more of this."

"Why is it always the spleen when you get attacked by ninjas?"

"This is all I wanna know." Tim sighed again. "Since Steph's off world, you have a brief reprieve before Bruce and Damian explain to her that you've put me on Ra's al Ghul's radar and gotten me stabbed twice. Might wanna figure out how to defend yourself, because she's going to tear you a new one."

"Easy," Cass said confidently. "Batman and Robin needed Batgirl; Bruce needed the Black Bat; Cass needed Tim."

Tim blinked. He blinked again, harder. "Love you, too, Cassie," he rasped.

"I need to go. Tell Bruce I'll be back in a few days."

"You got it." He hung up, groaning, and leaned back in the chair. "Your daughter is simultaneously one of my favorite people in the entire world, and also someone I would frequently like to strangle," he informed Bruce. "'I thought it'd be obvious.' I know she operates on a literal different wavelength than the rest of us, but c'mon."

Bruce had his eyes closed; one hand on his hip and the other pinching the bridge of his nose. "When I asked her what happened while I was gone," he said, slowly, "she told me, and I quote, 'Oh, you know. The usual.'"

"To be fair," Tim said magnanimously, "for Cass, fighting assassins, struggling with her mental health, and taking down worldwide conspiracies with the force of her convictions is the usual."

***

Alfred did manage to bully Tim back into a hospital bed after that. Not that it took much, because the painkillers were wearing off and Tim was starting to deeply regret the decision to be upright.

He wasn't surprised when Damian flopped into a chair next to his bed. He wasn't even surprised when he pulled over the bedside tray on its swinging arm and started shuffling a deck of cards.

"So Cass asked you to keep an eye on me, huh?" Tim asked dryly, as he watched Damian deal. "And you decided that you might as well take the opportunity to figure out what makes me tick."

Damian tapped the remaining cards sharply on the tray, straightening them up, and set them in the middle. "I had assumed she believed you to be in over your head regarding one of your cases. Not that she expected my grandfather to send a team of ninja to kidnap you."

"Without the context of either how I'm involved in her vendetta against the League or that her current trip is in pursuit of that vendetta, it's not an 'obvious' assumption," Tim agreed. "What are we playing?"

"Go Fish."

Tim snorted.

"Fuck off. We are both capable and inclined to count cards; I don't see a point in pursuing a more sophisticated game. And I could always leave you here alone to be bored out of your mind, if you'd prefer."

"Nope, it's fine." Tim reorganized his cards, humming. "Got any 2's?"

Damian eyed him suspiciously for a moment, and then handed him a card.

"What I want to know," Tim said, a couple turns later, "is how come you were only coming around for a few hours a day if you were supposed to be on protection detail."

With a snort, Damian said, "You don't honestly think I was only there for a couple of hours a day."

Tim paused in the middle of drawing a card. "No."

"Yes."

"No."

"You should work on your situational awareness."

"Oh my god."

"You didn't do anything especially embarassing during my surveillance. I am, however, concerned about the amount of take out you consume."

"You're a menace," Tim said despairingly. He set down his cards and flopped back into the pillows of his hospital bed, running his hands down his face. "Fucking shit, Dames."

"I enjoyed our acquaintance far more than I anticipated," Damian added, with the same blunt abruptness with which he'd been interrogating Tim for the last week. He was looking firmly at his cards, and there was a pink tinge to the tips of his ears. "I suspect Cassandra had the ulterior motive of attempting to get us to bond."

Maybe. The Black Bat was sneaky, but she wasn't usually that kind of schemer.

"I just think it was inevitable," Tim told the bright, obnoxious lights on the ceiling. "We should count ourselves lucky we struck up a friendship before Steph decided to duct tape us together or something."

[havendance]

Batman for Dummies

Chapter 1: Robin Joined Your Party!

AO3

Fandom: Batman

Wordcount: 8548

Summary:

In the aftermath of the quake that shook Gotham, Helena Bertinelli takes on the mantle of the Bat. (It isn't like Batman‘s using it after all.) If she‘d known the cowl came with a certain moralizing little bird following her around — well, she probably still would’ve done it, but it would’ve been nice to have advance warning.

(Or: Tim and Helena team up 2: electric boogaloo. Now with more bats!)

The Tim & Helena No Man's Land team up fic is finally here! I wrote this for me and you can tell because it features my three favorite Batman things to write about: No Man's Land, Tim and Helena teaming up, and Batman and Robin as, like, a concept.

Excerpt:

It was a month into No Man’s Land by the time it sank in that Batman was gone and not coming back. A month of Helena trying to fight an uphill battle to maintain some form of order in her little corner of Gotham. A month before she finally got frustrated with the fact that no one really knew who the Huntress was. No one respected her, not the way they had Batman. No one feared her the way they had him either. The Bat carried weight. Next to him, she was just some woman in a cape.

It was a month into No Man’s Land when Helena started putting together a new costume. It seemed fitting, new year, new Gotham, new her. It was all black, no purple. There was a bat on her chest. It was a few days into the new year and she was making a few final adjustments when Robin showed up.

“What’s that you’re wearing?”

Helena swore, loudly. She’d really thought she’d gotten used to the kid’s annoying tendency to show up unannounced, but no. He could still give her a heart attack. She turned and there he was, perched on her window sill like the city wasn’t going to hell behind him. He was staring at the bat on her chest.

“Robby,” she said like her heart wasn’t still beating wildly. “What are you doing here? I thought your lot cleared out after they blew up the bridges.”

The kid tore his eyes away from her chest. “Batman’s an idiot,” he said. Helena was surprised by the amount of venom in his voice. “Just because he’s given up on Gotham doesn’t mean that I have.”

Helena was suddenly struck by a worrying thought. “What about your dad, kid? He okay?”

An expression she couldn’t quite place flickered across Robin’s face. “You never answered my question,” he said, gesturing to her costume.

“And you’re avoiding mine.”

Time stretched as they stared each other down.

“You answer first,” Robin said and Helena knew that she’d won.

“I may not get along with Batman, but I can see that Gotham needs him. Now more than ever.” She shrugged. “His symbol carries more weight than Huntress does. It’s not like he’s using it.”

“The bat’s more than just a symbol. It means something,” Robin said.

She rolled her eyes. “I’m an English teacher kid. I don’t need you lecturing me on the definition of a symbol.”

He glared at her. “You know what I mean. You can’t just wear it, you have to become it. If you’re doing this, you can’t just be the Huntress wearing a new costume.”

“And what does that mean?” Helena asked. She was pretty sure she knew what he meant but she wanted him to come out and say it

“Batman doesn’t kill,” he said, daring her to contradict him.

“Well he’s not around to stop me, is he?”

“I am,” Robin said with a glare that reminded her that he’d been doing this nearly as long as she had. “I will.”

“You lecture Batman like that, kid?”

He snorted and the tension between them broke. “Why do you think I got the job?”

“I thought you said you figured out his secret identity.”

He shrugged. “That too.”

“Your turn kid,” Helena said. “Is your dad okay?”

Robby sighed and glared at a corner of the room. “He’s fine. Made it out of the city safe.”

“And you didn’t? Isn’t he worried about you?”

Robin glared even harder. “I snuck back in okay? He thinks I’m at boarding school. He’ll be fine. Gotham needed me,”

“And when he realizes you're not?”

“That’s not important,” he said and quickly changed the subject. “We’ve got more important things to talk about anyway. Like what are you planning on calling yourself anyway? I mean, you might be able to pass for Batman from a distance, but up close it’ll be pretty obvious you’re not him.”

She decided to let the topic go for now. If she had the right idea about where this conversation was going, she’d have plenty of time to press later anyway. “What’s this ‘we’ you’re talking about?”

“Batman needs a Robin.” He said it like it was fact, like he was saying the sky was blue. “And I’m not letting you do this on your own.”

Helena raised an eyebrow. “Did I ask for your permission?”

“You want to be a bat,” Robin said. “That means you’re in my wheelhouse now.”

“Like I can stop you from bothering me.”

“So, what’re you going to call yourself?”

Helena shrugged. “Hadn’t thought that far ahead yet.”

Robin finally hopped in from the window sill and started circling her, taking in every last detail of her costume. “The original Batgirl might not appreciate you taking her name, but I don’t think Batwoman’s been taken.”

Helena considered it, discarded. “Nah,” she said. “That just makes me sound like a knockoff Batman. How about something simpler, like the Bat.”

Robin nodded. “The Bat,” he said. “I like it.”

Continue reading on ao3!

[braininatankwithalaptop]

I think the funniest crossover would be Batman x Danganronpa.

Hear me out.

Let's start with the obvious connection. Junko and the Joker. The Joker's whole thing (from what I understand) is trying to get society to burn, and being an agent of chaos, and ultimately it takes just one bad day to break.

Junko looks at her nails and asks, "And?" Joker has to reckon everything he is, everything he believes, is outdone by a 15 year old girl. She's a better terrorist, a better mastermind, and a better torturer than he ever could be. But the real kicker? She doesn't give a shit about his beliefs, she's doing it because she's bored. Junko's so chronically bored that the only way she can think to solve is to push people into corners and to their breaking points. I bet if there was a treatment of some kind to help her deal with this Junko would never bother to go to those lengths again. And Joker would be furious.

Next let's look at the protagonists.

Can you imagine Batman reckoning with the DR 1 cast? Like, imagine Kyoko, a freelance detective that seems to be getting involved with every important case because she was either A) Hired or B) Roped in because her malewife assistant Makoto stumbled into a part of a large conspiracy or emergency. He wants to tell her to stay out of his business but she's neither a vigilante or a member of the police department. She's also really good at detective work. He probably gets roasted by all of his kids when he goes to Kyoko for consultation.

Batman wishes he could get all the kids out of Gotham but he has no ground to. They're all friends with the Togami Heir Billionaire, he must be funding their vigilante operation right? Nope, he's just a philanthropist trying to also do Bruce Wayne work and fix Gotham.

Well they must be metas right? Nope, none of them are. Sakura is just the peak of human physical form and would not be involved if it weren't for her girlfriend's best friend (Makoto again?) getting roped into shady stuff.

Well what about that psychic guy? Well turns out he only has a 33% success rate and mostly just scams rich people.

Okay can he at least deal with the serial killer? Nope, she hasn't even done any crimes in Gotham except kind of harass that billionaire. And also, surprise surprise, she's dating Makoto's sister.

Well Makoto must be a vigilante tying everything all together right? Nope. He's just a lame, optimistic pacifist that keeps getting into situations with a plot.

Like everything in Batman's body is telling him to adopt or send these teenagers out of Gotham but they aren't technically putting themselves in danger like his kids and don't have superpowers that attract villains so he's just stuck. Bruce Wayne just has to not tear his hair out as they keep being the only ones to defeat Joker's new rival Monokuma (whoever they are with Batman not knowing Monokuma is also a teenager) whenever they try to destroy Gotham.

[icharchivist]

What a3 character would you want in the batman universe and why-

ohmygod

i admit that my knowledge of batman is pretty limited to mostly the posts on this website and like the 3 movies i saw so i can't give the most amazing of replies to this,

but my first thought was definitely, the Autumn Troupe. Because i think they would cause so much chaos that it would put them on super villains/super hero radars

Like i can imagine. Omi belonging to a group of thug unaware the mafia of the corner was using them, and later he quited and tried to have a normal life but he's just hunted down in every corner. Probably has to turn into vigilante work for it, but also very likely to try to "reform" as a photograph journalist to try to take down the gangs and mafia he holds responsible for Nachi's death. He already has a codename after all.

Sakyo belonging to a mafia that's not so shady in general but therefore it makes people uneasy about how much they can approach him. I could see him become easily an informant from the underground in some way. Azami can remain pretty much the same but i can imagine that he'd run off from his father once in a while to try to catch a glimpse at super heroes in the city, or help them by starting fights. Sakyo and Batman being on speaking term because for years now Batman found Azami doing dangerous things and brought him back home to Sakyo, and Sakyo has to try to hide it from the big boss, so now they have a "🤝 my adopted child doesn't listen to me" solidarity.

Taichi's storyline can almost be 101, him being used by bad people first by promises of a happier future and then by threats and he's slowly losing it until either the rest of Autumn finds him, or Batman does. Except that it means Taichi is even more in danger than in canon so, huh, save him?

Juza is trying to live his life normally but thugs are always attacking him so he probably ended up recluently doing his own bit of trying to keep super villains at bay completely by accident. Probably got noticed by Batman in the sense "wow a teen who can fight and who's trying to not fall to what society is pushing on him is he an orphan or?"

Banri's story could be a mess because i think he'd go to vigilante work right away out of pure "need to feel some thrill" while he still has a moral compass, but it means he's not immune to villains who are like, not completely harmful? Like i think Catwoman could coax him into stealing a museum with her. I think esp that since he's not acting with any of the big guy at first, super villains could target him just to get rid of him, but eventually some would catch on his "super ultra easy mode" (tell me it's not almost a superpower) and would specifically try to recruit him to do bad things for them. Which would also put him on the good guys radar who would probably try also to get him on their side.

But as i love my troupes all together eventually i sure hope they get to all meet regardless and end up forming the second most dysfunctional superhero squad in all of Gotham. But there i'm missing the steps to get there.

Though i think, with the idea of Batman having crossed path with all of them, he'd probably be completely baffled by this team up. The fact that now all of them are protecting Taichi for example, or the fact Azami is much less willing to listen to any of the adults around them.

So, Batman turns to Sakyo and is like, so, huh, you adopted more kids? and Sakyo tries to deny, "like hell i would adopt those pain in the ass." and Banri would reply something like "yeah who would like a father like you" with Azami following "Ditto." Which is the one killer move to have Sakyo starts to throw dagger for eyes, only stopped because Taichi gets teary and "but we ARE a family right guys? guys??? guys???" and Sakyo gets Taichi-mailed into having to admit he cares about those guys. Batman just nodding because ah yeah that's how it is at home too it's fine.

Then in general nothing really stops the rest of Mankai to have normal lives in the background as well (from like half of Winter having a night life in crime infested Gotham and stuff like that) but Autumn is the one Troupe that seems to me like they'd end up involved in the middle of superhero/supervillain battles.

and i'd love to point out say, more dynamic with the rest of the Batfamily, but i genuinely only know them from shitposts so i will not do myself the embarrassment to try that.

Hope this lives up to your expectations ^^

have fun!