#my early experiences with the internet taught me a lot of interesting lessons about decoupling my self from my content

[ereborne]

WIP ask game: "backflip, faceplant", please! (also what's your ao3 handle? if you got one/don't mind/other)

Backflip, faceplant!  Of all of these working titles, this is the one I think might work best as an actual title.  It’s fun to say—imagine me tilting my head one way and then the other as I say it—and more importantly it doesn’t require a full six-degrees-of-kevin-bacon word association game to make sense to a viewer outside my head:  it’s what happens in the first scene of the fic.   

Essentially, this is my Dick Grayson character exploration, turned sort of emotional fix-it.  Dick gets kicked around so consistently in canon that he often doesn’t actually have the opportunity to live up to the Eldest Daughter characterization fandom loves to give him, and I am in the fashion of comics fans everywhere creating my own timeline mishmash to allow for a different outcome. 

What if before Jason died, Dick had managed to carve out a little space separate from his anger with Bruce, for the foundations of the brotherly relationship we all want them to have?  What if the first time he laid eyes on Tim, Dick turned a piece of his grief for Jason into determination to grow an even better brotherly relationship with him?  And what if Dick’s choice to grow those relationships had knock-on effects all the way down the line? 

Featuring such highlights as:  Tim and Babs conspiring to make sure Dick is never without backup in Bludhaven, professionally emotionally and otherwise; brain-scrambled Jason still pretty much autopilot adopting Damian in Nanda Parbat because when a kid falls over in front of you, you pick them the fuck up; ongoing ‘who can spill punch on the worst gala guest’ competitions between the Foxes and Waynes (surprise winner Kate Kane); the Titans and the Teen Titans and Timmy’s Weirdass Friends Too all working together better and more often; me rejecting p much everything New 52 except Strix, Strix can stay; a gargoyle with Dick Grayson’s perfect butt being commissioned for the Gotham Belltower as a loving and heartfelt tribute to everybody’s best big brother. 

I’m just writing whatever nonsense makes me happy with no regard to pacing, so it's gotten pretty sprawling—past sprawling, really, probably if I were going to post it up, I'd have the main story as one work and then a second work with multiple chapters of excerpted scenes—but it’s emotionally rewarding and an excellent thought exercise for me trying to decide what parts of DC’s bonkers-ass timeline(s) I think are important. 

Crime Alley natives only respond well to respect, and they never feel comfortable unless they’ve got the advantage.  Dick settles at the edge of the mat, dropping into an easy flat-footed squat, eye-level with the kid.  The kid immediately stands up from his crouch, and Dick doesn’t smirk, just tilts his head up to keep meeting his eyes.  “That was a good tumble.”  The kid’s looking for a lie, but he won’t find one.  He’d landed on his face in the end, sure, but he’d fallen well.  “You’ve got good balance, got reach—great instincts, which is more important.  Once you get the footwork down, you’ll be set.”  Dick, looking up into those suspicious eyes, realizes as he says it exactly how true it is.  It’ll be tricky, walking the line between Crime Alley and Bruce’s particular brand of do-goodery, but once the kid gets his feet underneath him, he’ll be amazing.  Well.  Nothing else for it, really.  There’s nobody better at finding a tricky balance point than Dick.  “Here, let me show you.”