#raws-al-ghul

[glitter-stained]

Jason sometimes in Lost Days, probably: Oh no

Talia: hmm? What's wrong?

Jason: I have PTSD

Talia: Wow, that's insightful. You're learning-

Jason: Don't worry I have a plan!

Talia: ... Let's hear it.

Jason: Did you know exposure therapy worked wonders on ptsd? Do you know an explosive specialist? Also I'm gonna call myself Red Hood from now on! And confront Batman and the Joker with a gun in a warehouse rigged with a bomb! I'm a genius!

Talia: ...

Jason: I'm gonna fix myself so easily!

Narrator Voice: He did not, in fact, "fix himself".

[nostalgicwrestlingrd]

https://geo.dailymotion.com/player.html?video=x8tjwo6&

[ruoshik0]

DP x DC: The al Ghul twins but with a twist!

Danyal al Ghul was- is a phenomenal actor. Always have been.

He was one of the best in the league for infiltration and espionage. None can deny that.

Along with his twin, Damian- whose skill sets are the complete opposite, they made for a terrifying pair of twins.

Ra's al Ghul saw that. He would have been a fool not to. The heir and his spare were talented in a completely different way.

So much so that Ra's decided to team them up. In the spotlight, Damian- the heir- would fight with raw strength and brutal power whilst Danyal- the spare- would strike from the shadows with amazing efficiency.

However, as much as they are better together, the twins must learn to be independent. To better themselves by being alone.

Relying on another encourages codependency after all.

And Ra's did not want such a pathetic thing to be a bigger problem than it is now.

So, he sent the spare to learn more about the Lazarus waters. A long term mission of infiltration and espionage. And while the League did not do such missions, he needed to learn more about the waters and it's properties to make better use of it. And simply forcing the two scientists to spill everything may result in a less than favorable outcome. Learning from the inside is better, really.

And whilst Danyal was away, he would further along Damian's training.

It was a good plan. Two birds with one stone.

And when Danyal arrived at his destination, he was a little worse for wear. Torn and dirty clothes, messy hair and acted beyond his years. He was in the alley right next to the Fentons' house when they first found him. They decided letting him spend a few days in their home to get ahold of a normal life before sending Danyal to the CPS was a good idea.

They quickly got attached to the cute and soft child beneath the always suspicious and hesitant orphan.

The Fentons immediately adopted him after deciding he would stay.

His name is now Daniel James Fenton.

Daniel was an average kid who acted like how you would expect an orphan who had lived on the streets for a long time.

His academic performance is above average in comparison to the other kids.

Even without the Fenton blood running through his veins, Daniel fit right in with the weird family.

As stated before, Danyal al Ghul is a phenomenal actor.

When he first arrived, he engineered a situation in which the scientists had no other choice than to take him in for a time.

When he was successful, he didn't stop to celebrate. Danyal immediately started working on making them warm up to him. Little gestures such as a hesitant hug and following them around like a little duckling worked like charms. Little giggles here and a little harmless prank there worked too.

Those psychology books and being near civilians more often helped him with these things. As well as the specialized training from the League.

When the child named Jasmine had fallen in his trap, it was easy to get the parents in too.

After getting adopted, although not before getting him a legal identity, he immediately started working who exactly he wanted Daniel to be and how people saw him.

A scared little child who jumps at any loud noises and a big interest in space and stars. Mostly because Danyal himself was a big space nerd and it's hard to fake enough interest to seem real.

Then he had gotten himself friends. A quaint life in a quaint town meant having less than 5 friends.

Samantha Manson and Tucker Foley were both viewed as weird and should be avoided. The new kid in town has befriended both and thus should be avoided by association.

He did not want to deal with even more obnoxious kids.

Danyal had lived a fake life with a fake personality. He trained whenever he can, and helped in the lab other times.

Weekly written reports to the League.

And learn as much as he can.

That was then. Now, Danny was no longer as alive as he was. And while it's a nuisance, his ghostly powers brought a lot of advantage.

When he first became Phantom, he fought ghosts. Acted like the wimpy yet still brave Danny in front of his friends.

Every few days, he would complain about the vigilante life and every other day he would use make up to worsen his appearance. A little darker dark circles and messier nest of a hair.

And while Danyal got the hang of his new abilities in a few days, Danny took a few weeks.

He purposefully dropped his grades because Danny couldn't find the time to study and Danyal knew Sam and Tuck would get suspicious if his grades remained the same.

Weeks and weeks after, learning more about the Lazarus waters, ghosts, and it's properties at a faster rate than ever before, Danyal decided that his little engineering and sciencing hustle should end. And by that, he means he should end the mission. So he started working on the last phase of his plans.

(He got too attached. Oh Ancients, he got too attached. He wanted to stay there and actually live like a normal person. He wanted to but- but... what about his brother...? He had to leave. Leaving means more suffering for them. His... friends and family.

He is so gonna miss the cat and mouse chase with the Fentons. He is gonna miss everyone. He hopes everyone forgets him so that he can leave feeling a little better)

First step, making those who are in the know about Phantom, warm up to the idea of him leaving vigilantism behind.

Every few weeks, he would joke about quitting as Phantom. That turned into months and Danny started looking even worse than when he first became Phantom. Danny wouldn't have a future if he didn't study more. But he couldn't because of vigilantism. And the stress caught up to him.

16 year old Daniel James Fenton decided he should stop when he was finally convinced by his two friends and two sisters.

(He hated how much he engineered these situations)

And while Danyal knew Danny didn't have a future, Danny himself didn't and thus acted like it.

It was hard trying so hard to rebut his circle of people when he just wanted agree right then there. It all ended in a messy and teary situation Danyal would have liked to avoid altogether.

(His tears were real. He didn't want to admit that he was crying. Mourning his loss before it happened)

The things he does to stay character.

Phantom quit after loudly announcing he was moving to another place to haunt.

And Danny's grades slowly went up to what it used to be before the ghost nonsense. He was finally relaxing again.

He was anxious. Anxious to the point of tensing. His League training thrown put the window)

Few months after, Daniel James Fenton went missing with little to no clues as to why.

Everyone mourned him. His ghostly core was happy when he had caught a glimpse of his grave while he was... visiting, for a lack of a better word.

(Finally, he was being mourned. Because he did die. Death touched him and he didn't even have a grave before this)

Now Danyal al Ghul returned from his long term mission. He could finally be himself again.

(Somewhere along the way Danny had become Danyal's real personality)

The League of Assassins was exactly as he had first left it. There were a few very glaring issues though.

First, Damian isn't here. He had left. Left Danyal alone. It took quite the willpower to not go out and track wherever Damian had gone to.

Second, Ra's al Ghul wasn't here. Grandfather had died and his body was nowhere to be found.

Third, Mother was leading. While it is not that much of an issue, Danyal is to be the heir and shall by crowned the leader in a few weeks time. Which is a big issue. Mostly because he was supposed to be in the shadows. Danyal decided that he did not want to be in the limelight like his brother.

Plus, he was already the Eventual King of another dimension. A rather infinite one might he add.

Ugh, more responsibilities.

He decided that he would greet his brother on their seventeenth birthday. A little terrorizing never hurts anybody.

Till then, he'd have to train his ass off.

(He’d do just about anything stop himself from thinking about Amity Park and its residents)

Sigh...

[fanfic-obsessed]

Secret Brothers

I have been thinking about a Demon Twins DCxDP crossover, specifically one where absolutely everybody is confused.  Also Ra’s is the Asshole. 

Let’s take a walk.

Damian and Dante(Danny) were twins, raised together, trained together, and loved each other deeply. Talia, though not the best of parents by most measures, does love her children.  The twins are raised as assassins and were extremely effective when teamed together. So effective that Ra’s Al Ghul decided that together they were a threat. He decides that Damian is the preferred twin and heir.

At age nine, almost exactly, Ra’s sends Dante out with another Assassin, who has orders to kill Dante.  The results of this attempt leaves Dante wandering around Northern Arizona to be found by the Fentons (who were on a road trip), with head trauma that means that the only thing Dante remembers is that his name starts with DAN. Talia and Damian believe that Dante was murdered and his body stolen by parties unknown and decide to hunt down Dante’s murderer.  Ra’s, believing Dante dead, allows it for several weeks before deciding that he did not want his daughter and his heir obsessed with an inconsequential spare. So he has a strong magical spell cast on anyone who would have known Dante in the league, hiding and disguising their memories. 

Eight years pass, Damian and Danny are 17. Damian has been living with Bruce since he was 10 and still does not remember he has a twin. Talia still does not remember that she had two sons. 

Dante, now Danny,  still has no clear memories from before he was found by the Fentons. Even the accident with the portal did not bring back those memories.  By the time we start, he has already come out to his parents about being Phantom (in admittedly the most traumatizing way for the Fenton parents as possible-He, Tucker, and Sam sat them down and showed them the full raw security tapes of the accident before telling them anything. Jack and Maddie may be oblivious and obsessive but they are very intelligent. They realized almost immediately what it meant that their portal opened with Danny inside, even before he was spit out a blackened corpse who healed into Phantom). 

This is a good Fenton Parents, who not only took the half ghost realization well but also immediately became a bit obsessed with not only lab safety, as one of their inventions had killed one of their children, but also with understanding ghost culture. They also immediately started manufacturing weapons for ghosts to use against the GIW(The Fentons are 100%, ride or die, enthusiastic at all times and in this one the moment they realize that there were people hurting Danny…they were ready to rip the GIW apart molecule by molecule).  Phantom has also connected with the Justice League, joined the Justice League Dark, who were able to get the Anti Ecto Acts reversed. The Justice League as a whole knows that Phantom is a half ghost, half human King of the Infinite Realms whose civilian name is Danny Fenton but Batman, nor any of his kids, has not had the opportunity to meet Danny out of uniform, as it were.  Batman and Red Hood know and Trust Phantom, as he has also helped with the Pit Rage (The Lazarus Pits are corrupted Ectoplasm for the win).

Which brings us to our start. 

It’s a pretty basic premise. A Cult (14 people present) decides to summon the Ghost King for power.  When Danny was first crowned he set his summoning, but really didn’t want it to be an open season on summonings. So one of his ‘ingredients’ is a drop of family blood (not specifying if it had to be those he considered family, or blood family) with provisions in place so that Danny would be able to tell if it was being forcibly taken or not through the summoning spell. The cult captures the Batfam and uses Damian’s blood to summon the Ghost King. Who arrives, a little confused. 

He’s even more confused when he sees Batman and Co tied up. Ghost King Phantom peers at Batman, not even paying any attention to the cultist. “Did you call?”

Batman grunts a no and jerks his head to the cultist.

Phantom redirects his focus back to the head Cultist who starts to do a grand speech about glorious power. Phantom interrupts him to ask “How did you get my summoning?”

The Head Cultist lights up with pride, “I have a spell that was able to transcribe your summoning, we used another to make sure we got the right ingredients.”

After a little bit of back and forth the Cultist admit that none of them actually understand the language that they used to summon Ghost King Phantom, nor do they know why they needed the ingredients they did.  Ghost King Phantom pinches the bridge of his nose as he laments that cultists have gotten so damned stupid. Phantom asks each cultist what they hoped to get out of this: 1-13 said they wanted power (in reality the head cultist had a hyperfixation on using the spells he used to transcribe the summoning and gather the ingredients and wanted to see what would happen), number 14 was paid to be there; Number 14 was also a little pissed that the people paying her were not doing basic research so that they knew who or what they were summoning. The Cult thought 14 would be an auspicious number. 

Phantom, now curious, takes a brief interlude (after restraining the other 13) to get more information on 14. She was given $200,000 to be part of the circle. She had a magically binding agreement saying that her soul was not to be offered as payment, that there would be a 5 year moratorium on destroying any planet she happened to be on, and that she could not be targeted directly or indirectly by the cult after they gained power. She was also a former Pre Law Student with an interest in contract law. 

Phantom recruits her for Justice League Dark, even going as far as calling Zatanna down to take her back to the Watchtower.  After she was gone he turned back to still tied up Batfam to apologize. He went to say that Constantine had agreed to go to therapy if they could find a way to fix his Contract/Soul issues, of which there were so many (some of the pieces of his soul had been sold multiple times, other were sold as a larger piece then resold by Constantine in smaller pieces while the contracts for the larger pieces were still active, a half dozen of the ‘your soul belongs to me after death’ type contracts had defaulted on the demon's side before they defaulted on Constantine’s side, one piece of Constantine’s soul-in theory a downpayment on a contract- may or may not have been straight up stolen, then sold by a metaphysical fence three dimensions over and might be in the soul equivalent of The British Art Museum) and that Phantoms sister has been eagerly waiting to study Constantine psyche under a microscope. So a Pre Law student with an interest in contract law was too good a find to pass up. 

After untying the Bat fam, Phantom turns to Batman and says that Phantom really does need to figure out how the idiot cultists managed to summon him, so he needed the cultists for a bit to go over what exactly they did and said but after that they could be arrested.  One of the remaining cultists, not the head cultist, objected to being sent to prison. Without missing a beat Phantom shrugged and said he could throw anyone who objected into a hell dimension for a while, clarifying a while could be anywhere from three days to the heat death of the universe. 

The cultists were more cooperative after that. 

Red Robin suggested that the Bats stay too, since it was also in their best interest to figure out how Damian managed to be an ingredient in Phantom’s summoning.  

Phantom goes over every step of the preparation, the spell to know the ingredients, the spell to transcribe the summoning, and the words themselves all the while sighing every so often in irritation at the downward spiral of cultists in general. 

Despite a cacophony of errors including but not limited to:

 -Mixing the ingredients for the ‘paint’, which the instructions specifically said to mix on site and only as needed, early and storing it in one of the cultists bedrooms (Phantom:...you know that mix is highly hallucinogenic, right?/Cultist: Is that why I’ve been followed by a pink bunny for the last three days?/ Phantom<sighing>:Yes, that is why you have been followed by a pink bunny for the last three days) 

-Adding additional runes to the summoning circle, specifically the runes for sacrificing someone (Cultists: The picture of all the other circles had those rune, we figured it was a typo/ Phantom: it wasn’t)

-Inverting one of the added runes, which switched the party receiving the power and the party being sacrificed (Phantom: Because of those runes, I am able to eat all your souls for the purpose of powering Batman and his entourage/Batman:Please don’t, they all give me enough headaches without getting powers/Phantom:looks like you are all in luck.)

Despite these errors the summoning actually worked exactly as intended. So Robin makes the suggestion that they must have some sort of blood relation.  Phantom shrugs and says that he always thought he was an orphan. One of the birds goes “Thought?”. Phantom smiles sheepishly and says that his sister thinks that Phantom escaped from a cult, but that he has no memories prior to being found by his parents at age 9. He also wonders how closely related he would have to be to someone to show up as family.

An offer is made to go to the Batcave and check with a DNA test to see how closely related they are, which Phantom accepts. On the way there Spoiler asks how one gets a Half Ghost. 

Phantom, who is very blase about Death having a near Danny experience, says: Well, you take a 14 year old idiot, yours truly, put him in what he thought was a non working portal to the realm of the dead, add in an accident that caused him to hit the on button that was inexplicably on the inside. And I do mean inexplicably, to this day my parents still don’t know why they put the on button there. It turns out having a portal to the dead open on top of and through you has some really weird side effects.   

This is a slightly worrying answer but frankly masked heroes/vigilantes don’t have a great grasp on normal anyway and Phantom assures them that his parents got much better about lab safety afterwards.  This dovetails into a very casual discussion between everyone about what everyone thought was the most painful way to die and which kind of events sucked the most to live through. 

They get back to the Batcave and Phantom transforms back into Danny (to get the most accurate comparison. Phantom's blood is mainly ectoplasm which would mess with the DNA test, Danny’s blood still has ectoplasm but much less).  Everyone stares at Danny, before Nightwing makes a joke about Robin and Danny sharing a face.  

At the minor cajoling of Nightwing, supported by Agent A, the Bat Fam unmasks. Danny blinks at them and says to Damian ‘Hey, we do share a face.’

They start the blood test. Everyone is taking bets on how close they are related and from what side. This is all still very casual, very much an air of ‘what a weird coincidence’. 

The blood test comes back twins. Everyone looks at the test, then back at Danny and Damian, then back at the test. Without needing any discussion Bruce runs the test again, despite the fact that the visual clues do indicate it was correct the first time.  It still says Twins. 

Damian is both baffled and a little offended. He did not know he had a twin out there. In theory, if Danny left the League at 9 Damian should have some memories of him. Most of the Bat fam thinks this is another case of Talia being a lying asshole.  Cass peers at both Danny and Damian, and signs that something feels strange about the lack of memory (Oracle puts forth the idea that it’s possible they were raised apart in the league. Damian is sure his mother would have told him if he had a twin).  At some point magical memory manipulation is brought up and they contact Zatanna (masks having been put back on, though Danny remains in human form), who comes down gushing about the 14th cultist, whose name was Rachel, who was already plowing through Constantine contracts and already found a clause that would let Constantine reclaim one of the shards of his soul.  

Zatanna is able to find the spell that hid the memories of Danny in Damian's mind.  She warns that it looks like it affected more than Damian and breaking it would remove it from everyone who was affected. Damian looked for Danny’s permission first (as they did not know who or why the spell was cast- it could have been for Danny’s protection). Danny gave the ok and Zatanna removed the spell. She left quickly so that the Bats and birds would feel comfortable showing their identities again.

The effect was immediate. Damian went pale and teary eyed (due to the spell he was never able to process the ‘death’ of his brother, basically the trauma spent the last eight years festering under the spell) and whispered ‘Dante?’ before lunging to pull his twin close. Jason was a little dazed (he had a few memories of seeing the demon twins together, at a distance). Danny, whose amnesia was not because of the spell, was unaffected but still hugged Damian, who was now clutching at his brother and crying. 

Far away Talia sat straight up from a sound sleep. Her mind flooded with memories of her precious second son. The son who was murdered and has remained unavenged for 8 years. She quickly made arrangements to head toward New Jersey, she would stop and see Damian and invite him on a hunt. 

It becomes clear quickly that Danny would be staying in the manor for at least the night, Damian did not want to let go of him.  He calls his parents and gives them a brief rundown of the situation (was summoned by weird cultist, found blood family-a twin brother and a father, twin brother was bespelled to forget he had a brother and breaking the spell had made him clingy, would be staying in Gotham for a bit). 

His parents run through a Jazz created set of call and response code phrases to make sure that Danny, and now his brother, were not being held by the cult they presume Danny escaped from. After Danny gives the all clear phrases, Maddie asks to speak with his Biological Father.   

Danny hands the phone over to Bruce, where Maddie cheerfully tells him that He and his entire family would be bringing Danny back to Amity Park on Sunday (it was a Thursday, but it was also summer so Danny could stay for a few days) and staying for dinner, that Maddie, Jack, and Jazz all had some concerns about Danny’s condition when he had been found, that any of Danny’s siblings (making it clear that this also included anyone Damian considered a sibling) were now one of her children as well and if Bruce was or became a threat to any of her children Maddie would kill him, and should Bruce pass her vibe check they could discuss shared custody of the children.  Then, without changing tone, asks how many she should be expecting for dinner on Sunday. 

Bruce answers and hands the phone back to Danny, reminding himself that he had gone toe to toe with actual Gods, he should not be intimidated by a cheerful voice on a phone. He is also trying not to think about the fact that he had acquired yet another child he had not known about. Not to mention running through everything that Phantom had ever told him and trying to stave off several retroactive panic attacks.

It takes a bit but they get Damian calmed enough that they are able to get everyone upstairs, where Danny ends up sharing with Damian (who is still working through eight years of trauma and panics if Danny is not right there). 

On Friday, Talia gets in contact with Damian about hunting Dante’s murderer down. Once Damian assures Danny that Talia was not his murderer (as he could now remember them hunting for Dante’s murderer and their combined grief) and did love him, Danny was willing to meet with Talia.  The Bat fam insist on going with the twins to meet with their biological mother. 

Talia takes Danny being there about the same as Damian did.  Not even Bruce had ever seen her cry before.  She, in her own way, practically begged to be allowed to stay in Gotham with her sons for a bit. Bruce agreed and arranged that she would also go with them to Amity Park to meet Danny’s family. It also takes Talia about 45 second of thought, now that she is not blinded by rage and grief,  to realize that the only person who could have arranged Dante’s murder would have been her Father, and that he was probably the one responsible for their magical memory loss as well.  Tim might have his issues with Talia, but he actually hated Ra’s more; they started scheming together to help Talia and Damian express their displeasure over his actions.

I do want to note, Danny does not start getting memories of being Dante. Those memories are gone as a result of head injury and trauma. While both Talia and Damian would prefer if Danny remembered them, they are so pleased that he is actually alive, as it were, that they are not pushing him.   

When they bring Danny back to Amity Park that Sunday, Jack and Maddie greet all of the ‘kids’ (Dick, Jason, Tim, Damian, Cass, Duke, Steph, Barbara) with specialized weapons, non lethal but will knock out a human quickly  and customized to each child's preferred weapon, hugs, and the family Fudge recipe (which they also give to Alfred) for each of them. Plus gear to prevent being overshadowed and an offer to upgrade all of their current armor and gear.  Talia and Maddie, after a quiet heart to heart, got along frighteningly well (there is a brief discussion about Ra’s and Maddie increasingly creative threats). Jack gets in loud, delighted conversations with each of his new children, somehow finding a special interest for each of them to ask questions about.  Damian is able to step away from Danny for a bit to get into a discussion with Sam, in which everyone decides that they did NOT actually hear the two of them planning some kind of eco terrorism campaign that would end with Lex Luthor broken and crying on the ground.  Tucker and Barbara are enthusiastically talking about hacking while Tucker promises to introduce her and Tim to Technus, who would be a huge fan. Jazz is chomping at the bit to put together psyche profiles for each of them so she can be the best sibling possible. 

At some point Vlad comes in (he had mellowed out once he, Jack, and Maddie got together. It turns out he had been pining for both of them but convinced himself it was only Maddie) and booms that he needs to come meet his brother Bruce. Vlad, knowing exactly how Jack can be, sighs a little and asks how long Bruce Wayne has been his brother. Jack responds cheerfully since he brought Danny back and they realized he was Danny Biological father (Maddie had not asked Bruces name nor any identifying information during her threatening phone call. Jazz despaired).

I think it would be very funny, after the trope of Batman/Bruces Adoption thing, that the entire bat fam is forcibly but cheerfully adopted by the small mid western family, their close friends, and a very haunted town.

[spectr3inl0ve]

some NSFW thoughts I need to share with a batman fan:

I hc him as the type who prefers going raw. Like yea, he gives lectures on protection and safe sex to his kids over and over again and it's all well and good, but! He himself doesn't like sleeping around. He only sleeps with those he really really loves and hence, he gets the urge to fill them up and is always begging his women to let him finish inside them. I like the hc that Talia didn't really have to try to get the condom off (hehe).

i fear you may be right (im kicking my feet and twirling my hair), bruce is so the type to pull the batkids aside when he finds out abt a romantic partner or hookup and express the importance of protection and contraceptives. and yes, bruce is going to be a hypocrite when it comes to taking his own advice. atm i dont think writing smut is for me cus i cringe when i write it 😭😭😭 but i will try and write smth good for this when i feel more comfortable!!!

as for your headcannon, i like it but i cant rlly give my two cents as i havent rlly read into the whole talia al ghul thing </33

[cillianmesoftlyyy]

I Can Fix That... Pt. 2 | Jonathan Crane x fem!reader

author's note: I decided to make a pt. 2 purely for my own enjoyment, though I hope there are others out there as sadistic as myself. I finally watched the Batman trilogy and did research on DC fan pages to write this. It follows the plot of Nolan's DC adaptation so all characters mentioned (like Ra's Al Ghul) are from the comics and movies.

Summary| She gave into Crane because she needed to survive, at least that's what she's tried to tell herself, but there was something about this man that just felt so painfully... right. Now Crane has a proposition and he doesn't intend to take no for an answer because he's starting to like her -- uh oh-- too much. Where will their new agreement lead them when Gotham devolves into chaos?

Warnings| Based on an DC action movie- drugging, slut shaming, fear and terror, dubious kidnapping, restraints, drugs, physical violence, spitting, toxic relationship, mentions of a gun, chaos, and needles. I know- it's a lot.

word count: 8596k (lol oopsies?)

Wires- The Neighborhood 🎶

Where did you sleep last night- Iridium, Salazar, Liam Marks 🎵

Caesar on a TV Screen- The Last Dinner Party 🎶

i 

The detective nodded her head, surprised that she’d so easily forgotten her plan. Dr. Crane sniffed and spun his set of keys around his finger casually. 

“Now the best thing about being the creator of my fear serum,” he started, moving to the shelf of vials he had previously sorted, “is that I have an endless supply and every opportunity to use it whenever I want.” She could hear him smile but she could no longer see him. Crane admittedly liked the girl and he’d fucked her as a minor pivot in his original plan for the night. Now, it was time for business. He pulled a dish of powder from a locked drawer and hid it away from sight as he crossed back into the girl’s view. “You may think you understand what my serum can do, but you’ll never truly know until you try it.” She furrowed her brow and shook her head, wishing that she could back away from him but she couldn’t move. He changed the subject swiftly, not giving her a moment. 

“I applaud you for your performance tonight. I was more than willing to humor you and of course, your present state did you many favors. I like my women tied down…” he joked and chuckled darkly. “But now, we need to get practical.” He removed his glasses and folded them slowly. He slipped them into his breast pocket. “You know too much, Miss —, and we both know that your current allegiance to your job would prioritize a crude sense of justice over your affection for me. We can’t have that, can we? So, I’d like to propose a solution or a treatment of sorts.” He clenched his jaw, angling his head down so that he was looking up at her through his eyelashes. “You’ve already proven to yourself tonight that the mind has complete control over the body. Desire rules judgment… and I want to rule you.” He smiled darkly. Before she could speak, powder was thrown into her face, blocking every orifice with a sickening gas. 

The anxiety was immediate. She saw strange creatures approach her from all sides, poking and prodding her with dirty nails. She saw the walls leak a disgusting fluid, like blood and fecal matter and it spilled over the floor. People sorted through the liquid for scraps, children screamed and cried around her. She’d been one of those children, raised in an orphanage because her parents couldn’t afford to keep her. Strange men swarmed the children, offering toxic treats and money for favors which the children shied away from. She screamed, pulling at her restraints as she tried to fight off the assailants. She shook her head violently side to side, and she screamed involuntarily with raw terror at what she saw. In the midst of a nightmare of Gotham’s poverty and dark underbelly, Dr. Jonathan Crane stood calmly before her. He watched her, his arms crossed against his chest. He cocked his head to the side. 

“What do you see,” he asked calmly. She turned her attention to him like he was a beacon of light in a horrible storm. 

“Jonathan, help me!” She cried. 

“Tell me what you see,” he said again and clucked his tongue to calm her. She looked around again at the people she saw, rummaging through mountains of trash. 

“Horrible… horrible poverty. The things… the things I saw as a child. People starving, children crying…” she whimpered. Rats scrambled across her body and she screamed again, shaking against the table. “Jonathan, please!” She called for him and he waded towards her, oblivious to the horror around him. He stood above her and stroked her face. He removed the restraints from her waist and her wrists and helped her sit up. The things she saw darted out of her peripheral vision, distorted now and hard to understand. She couldn’t run because she couldn’t tell where she was anymore, where her body was in relation to her perspective. Did she even still have a body?

Dr. Crane grunted as he helped her off the table and held her up beside him. She fainted in his arms and he carried her out of the secondary lab into the corridor. He punched the elevator’s call button with his free hand and dragged her inside. As the large steel doors closed, he fished for his cellphone in his pocket and called his driver, telling him to meet him outside the hospital immediately. Crane hushed her, gently patting her head though she was still unconscious. The elevator dropped them at the floor she’d entered on originally and Crane carried her to the side door, ignoring the looks the night attendants gave the strange couple. A sleek black car waited outside in the alley, the engine running and dispelling smoky exhaust into the air around them. Crane opened the car door and helped her inside, smirking at the security guard at the door. 

“Our meeting was successful, thank you officer.” He waved goodnight to the security guard who shifted awkwardly in his seat at the side door. Climbing in after her, Crane leaned over the console to speak with his driver. 

“My apartment, please.” He gave the order sternly, even with the addition of the ‘please,’ and the driver nodded, speeding off into Gotham’s dark streets. His hand rested comfortably on her thigh as he watched her. She started to come to in the backseat, though the effects of the drug had still not worn off. Her breath was fast and she leaned deliriously into Crane’s shoulder, seeking protection from what she saw outside the tinted windows. She was so afraid that she felt safer in the arms of the man that had drugged her, and it would take hours to realize that, but by the time she did, the psychological effects would have already taken root. 

ii 

The car stopped outside of a dark apartment building in one of the only nice parts of town in Gotham city. It was raining as he helped her back out of the car and into the large lobby of his apartment building. She clung to his arm as he led her into an elevator, playing a soft melody that sounded like shrill screams to her intoxicated mind. As the elevator doors opened, effects of the drug began to wane though her heartbeat was still racing. She looked up at Crane’s sharp jaw and how he clenched it as he opened the door to his apartment and pushed her gently inside. 

“I pay my people extra to turn a blind eye to everything that I do. I understand these circumstances appear even more nefarious, being that I have admittedly drugged you and brought you to my apartment. What can I say, I’m a bad feminist.” He smiled darkly and locked the door. 

“When do I stop seeing… these things?” She collapsed into a chair behind her and cradled her head in her hands. 

“The effects will be gone in an hour,” he responded coolly and switched on some of the lights in his modern apartment. The apartment was two stories with a spiral staircase and an elevator that led to the upstairs. She looked around, trying her best to ignore the hallucinations and study the actual apartment itself. 

“You’ll be disappointed to know that I don’t have a lab here, it’s against the building’s codes. I spend very little time here actually, I’m always at Arkham or dealing with detectives… like you. I’m a busy man. Like I already told you, I have plans to ‘treat’ Falcone tomorrow so I’ll need that room free. This is the next best option and I think you’ll find it more comfortable in comparison.” He smirked and flicked a switch, immediately two restraints looped tightly around her wrists, emerging from a panel in the arms of the chair that she hadn’t noticed. Second restraints looped around her ankles, reminding her as her ankles were spread apart that he had removed her underwear. She turned her knees inward, hiding her crotch and scoffing with frustration. 

“Again?” She groaned and pulled at the strong leather material holding her to the chair. 

“You sound disappointed,” Crane observed with a small smirk. “It’s only temporary. I didn’t get a chance to question you back at the lab, so we’ll do that here.” He gestured to his empty apartment and started to walk toward her slowly. His lips curled cruelly as he looked her up and down, strapped to the chair. “So tell me, what do you know?” He whispered and she stopped struggling for a moment. She still felt jumpy and nervous but having him so close relieved some of those feelings. The effects of the drug wore off more but the underlying sense of anxiety and loss of control prompted her to answer honestly.

I know that you are trying to make a powerful drug that mimics fear and so far, you’ve put it in a powder form. It works when ingested in some ways and immediately elicits a response that incapacitates the victim. You want to use it widely, to control Gotham…”

“Right, what else.” He leaned on the arms of the chair, his hands grasped around her wrists. 

“You don’t work for Falcone but you work with someone else. You’ve just been using Falcone’s drug operation to move your own prototypes of the fear serum. You want to be in charge and you know that fear can do whatever you want it to. The mind controls the body,” she recalled a sentence that he had used before he had thrown the powder in her face. “You’re also somehow connected to the missing micro-wave emmitter. I don’t know why but it may help you in some way, how?” She was breathing heavily like she was going to fall asleep. 

“Good work, detective.” 

“What are you using the micro-wave emitter for?” She asked. He chuckled and removed his hands from her wrists, backing up. He approached a small liquor cart and poured himself a drink, straight gin. She continued as he drank. 

“Who are you working with and how do you expect to control Gotham when everyone loses their minds?” She could barely contain her voice, anger and confusion rose into her throat like bile. 

“So many questions…” he swallowed and set down his glass, turning back to her slowly. “Aren’t you supposed to figure that out for yourself?” He raised his eyebrow. 

“The mirco-wave emitter would dry out any water supply that it comes into contact with. Wouldn’t it be easier to poison the water supply, you would reach more people… unless it doesn’t have the same effect when administered in water.” She looked up at him but his face was hard. “That’s why you’ve been using it in a powder, it only works in a powder form. If you dry up the water supply and release the powder into the air, there isn’t a way to combat the effects, is there?” 

Crane smiled and nodded slowly, “right again.” 

“How can you control people who have lost their minds on the serum? You can’t control chaos.” She furrowed her brow and leaned forward, questioning him. Crane cocked his head and studied her for a moment, noticing the last traces of the fear serum leaving her body. 

“Control has many forms, Y/N. The chaos that will come from my serum is planned, its existence is strategically executed.”

“But why are you doing this?” 

“I love it when you get flustered,” he chuckled darkly at her and licked his lips, his eyes rolling before returning to her face. “It’s not just me, I work for a large organization that has been responsible for all historical catastrophes throughout history. We deal in balance, balanced chaos. They hired me because I can control fear, I know how to use it and weaponize it. Gotham needs to be balanced and it cannot be balanced without it first destroying itself. Create a closed environment with the population’s problems and confront them with chaos, the balance will soon be restored.” 

“Who do you work for?” She whispered, her eyes wide. 

“Don’t you mean, who do we work for?” He crouched at her feet and placed his hands on her thighs. He smiled crazily up at her and she leaned away from him. 

“What?” She whispered. 

“I work for the League of Shadows, and now, so do you.” He dug his finger into the soft bottom of her chin and pushed her head up so that she could see the second floor more clearly. 

Standing at the rail were men clad in dark armor. One man stood out from the rest. He wore a black suit and carried a gold-tipped cane. He had long whiskers of gray hair like a mustache and steady cool eyes, deadlier than Crane’s.  

“Good work, Dr. Crane.” The man kept his focus on her and her blood went cold. “It’s so nice to finally meet you, Miss —. We’ve heard so much about you and of course, you’re the one that has caused us so much trouble!” He laughed sarcastically and descended the spiral staircase. 

“Who are you?” She growled. 

“Ra’s Al Ghul,” he smiled and the wrinkles on his face creased, pulling against his eyes. “I see you’ve already become acquainted with Dr. Crane, our very own criminal mastermind.”

“You’re too kind,” Crane smarted back, watching the girl’s face as she tried to take in all of the new information. 

“Now, I have a job proposition to offer you, Miss —. You seem to have figured most of our plan out but I don’t think you understand the complexity of our organization. You see, the League of Shadows is an ancient organization that has balanced the harmony of every major city in the world since the beginning of time. Gotham has gone bad, to the point of no return. Your ‘Batman’ as you call him can’t reverse what has been brewing for years. He never saw what you did, how the people of Gotham live in filth and poverty while the elite few enjoy the spoils. This city needs to be reborn, it needs chaos to restore the balance.”

“But wouldn’t you be killing thousands of innocent people?” She interjected and Al Ghul shrugged slightly. 

“Nobody’s innocent,” he answered quickly and then inhaled, clarifying, “Anyway, that’s not what we want to do here. If we take control of the city and hold it for ransom, we can work out a deal to replace the crooked government with some of our people. I’m offering you a role alongside my people. You’re smart, all that evidence you collected against Crane- none of the senior officers could have held a match to it. We destroyed it of course, as soon as Crane told us about your little visit.” She looked past Al Ghul to Crane who leaned against the wall calmly. Had they destroyed the copies? How could she be sure that they were telling the truth? “The box of evidence you had put aside for Sgt. Gordon was the hardest to find but we found it. What made you suspect Dr. Crane? Was it a gut instinct?” He drew on before she interrupted him. 

“You want me to help you kill people?” She furrowed her brow and nearly laughed in disbelief. 

“We want your help to save Gotham from itself and establish a new and better government.” He corrected, fixing his posture. Crane watched her closely and spoke up from the back of the room. 

“She’ll do it,” he answered and she opened her mouth to interject but his smirk silenced her. “She’ll do it because whether or not she wants to admit it, Miss —, is like us.” Crane reached into his breast pocket and removed his glasses. He cleaned the panels with a dish towel and pushed them onto his nose. She looked between Crane and Al Ghul, her heart beating quickly in her chest. 

“Will you join us, will you help us save Gotham?” Ra’s Al Ghul placed both of his hands on top of his walking stick and shifted his weight evenly between his feet. Crane folded his arms across his chest and cocked his head to the side, a knowing smile played on his wide pink lips. Her decision surprised her but the serum had already changed her chemistry, Crane had revealed her true self to herself and there was only one choice left. 

“Yes,” she whispered. 

Crane nodded, “good girl.” 

iii 

She was released from her restraints and she rubbed her wrists where the leather marked them. Ra’s Al Ghul snapped his fingers and a map was rolled out on Crane’s dining room table. The map was of the entire city of Gotham, showing the sewer and water lines. They explained the plan, showing her where the micro-wave emitter would be placed in the city and how it would be moved through each neighborhood. 

“What about the police?” She asked and gestured to the map of the city. Crane laughed and shook his head. 

“You were the only cop that suspected this, the rest will have no idea until it's already started. The person we really need to worry about is Batman,” he ran his fingers through his hair and glanced up at Al Ghul, “luckily for him, an old friend is coming by to visit.” Al Ghul nodded and smiled kindly at her. 

“Batman and I go way back. I’ll take care of him.” 

“What am I supposed to do?” She asked, her arms crossed beneath her breasts. Crane caught himself staring and cleared his throat. 

“You’ll help me with the production of the powder, ensuring that your cop friends don’t figure out too much and keeping Sgt. Gordon away from Arkham or leading him astray… anything,” Crane answered, setting his face as he spoke. She nodded. 

Though they had asked her to join their efforts, they also obviously didn’t trust her completely. They wouldn’t tell her everything, she knew. Her night had gone in a completely different direction than how she had imagined it. Everything had changed after the fear serum, it had shown her that what she feared most had already happened. The police were corrupt, run by small-time gangsters and criminals and crime continued to run rampant as the state lost more and more money, forcing social service organizations to close and more families out on the streets. This whole time she thought that the police could solve the problem but they only caused it. Crane was right, she was like him and she would do anything she could to change the city. After the meeting, Crane poured her a drink and dissolved a packet of powder into the liquor. He stirred it in front of her and Al Ghul before sliding it across the table’s surface. 

“This will put you to sleep for a few hours, twelve at most. It’s only a precaution to make sure that you have truly promised your allegiance to us. Everything that you say will be monitored from this point on.”

“Everything?” She looked at Crane who clenched his jaw, a faint tease of blush spread on his cheeks.

“Everything. Do as we say and follow our rules and you stay alive,” Crane finished and tapped the rim of the glass. “Now drink.” 

“How do I know that you aren’t just poisoning me?” She asked the men around her.

“We’re learning to trust each other, but you have to go first.” He smiled and when Al Ghul said nothing, she took the glass and drank it slowly. The last thing she saw were Crane’s eyes, set perfectly on her. 

She was conscious enough to set her glass down before falling back onto the couch. Crane approached her quickly and checked her pulse, monitoring her reaction to the drug. 

“Did it work?” Ra’s Al Ghul asked behind him and he nodded. 

“Yes, she’s out. Because of all the drugs in her system already, this one may take longer to wear off.” 

“All the other drugs?” Al Ghul raised his eyebrow and Crane chuckled. 

“I couldn’t help myself and besides,” he turned to Al Ghul, “you wanted her alive.” 

“I’m not convinced that we can trust her,” Al Ghul shook his head and pointed at the map for his men to clean up. 

“Oh, I’ll make sure we can.” 

“With your mind tricks?” Al Ghul teased and Crane sighed, rolling his beautiful eyes. 

“Don’t insult me, Ra’s. I know what I’m doing.” He warned the man calmly and nodded to the men. Two men helped carry her body as Crane led them back down the elevator into the lobby which was deserted at that time in the early morning. They climbed into Crane’s waiting car and pulled away from the curb. The girl’s body was limp against the seat and Crane resisted the urge to stare at her, fascinated by her sleeping body. The men carried her up to her apartment on the third floor of a small walkup. Crane rummaged through her coat pockets for the key into her apartment and unlocked the door. 

Her apartment was small and cozy, furnished with minimal couches and chairs. Books and art decorated the walls. Crane pushed through the door and directed the men to lie her down in her bedroom, the small room off of the main living area. They men looked back at him expectantly as he stood by the doorway, watching her sleep. He rolled his eyes and shooed them away. What did they think he was going to do? He’d already fucked her. Alone in her apartment, he stood by her bed and stroked her cheek. She slept on, engulfed by unconscious darkness. He leaned over her slowly and grasped her throat gently, exhaling across her face. He said nothing but looked her up and down and smirked, pleased at the sight of her. He’d won another spoil: her. 

 She woke up in her bed, twisted in the sheets as if she had been restless all night. She was sweaty and hot, the air stuffy around her. Crane and Al Ghul were nowhere to be seen. She checked her watch and hurried out of bed, stripping off her clothes from the night before and into black trousers and a dark blue sweater. She stumbled into the living room and wound her hair up into a claw clip, moving towards the door when a voice startled her. 

“Where do you think you’re going?” Dr. Crane spoke from the couch. He was in a fresh suit and looked well-rested. He was taking notes in a file on Falcone, his briefcase sat on the coffee table in front of him. She jumped, gasping from shock. 

“Jesus Christ, what are you doing here?” 

“I was waiting for you to wake up. We have work to do today. That bitch at the DA’s office wants to speak with me. I'm supposed to meet with her this afternoon. She’s questioning Falcone’s transfer.”

“I ordered the transfer after you did Falcone’s interview, maybe I could meet with her instead.” 

“No, I need you to take this file to the judge on Falcone’s case. I can handle her questions.” He stood and held out Falcone’s file. “I already gave my statement at the hearing but this file will confirm my medical opinion, hopefully that will get her off my back.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. 

“Do you think Falcone will talk if she speaks with him?” 

“Possibly,” he bent his head side to side and shrugged, “but we aren’t going to find out. Let’s go,” he snapped his briefcase closed and made for the front door. She glanced from the couch to her bedroom.

“Were you watching me all night?” She flushed angrily and followed him. He closed the door suddenly and spun her around, forcing her back against the front door. 

“I can only say this once because they aren’t listening now but as soon as we get in the car, they’ll be monitoring you. I am keeping you alive, Miss —. I will do everything in my power to keep you alive but the second you step away from me, you’re on your own. I know we have an understanding so believe me when I say that I would prefer very much if you didn’t die. Follow my directions because they’re following you.” He said in a harsh whisper, a strand of hair falling into his face. They stared at each other in silence, exchanging breath when he kissed her harshly. She wrapped her arms around his neck and moaned softly against his lips. He bucked into her hips and she gasped softly against his jaw. And just as quickly, he pulled away, breathing heavily and led her out the door and down the stairs into the waiting car. 

“I’ll need my gun back,” she pointed out as they settled on the backseat. Crane sighed, unbuttoning his suit jacket. He opened a small compartment in the car door and retrieved her gun. As he held it out, he took her jaw in his other hand, his thumb pressing into her fleshy cheek. 

“This is where that trust would come in handy, detective.” He whispered darkly. She looked at his lips and then up to his eyes, speechless around him. He watched her struggle for words and chuckled, handing her the gun. “Be careful, Y/N, and remember Ra’s plan.” He looked at her lips and sniffed, slapping the roof of the car. “This is her stop.” 

iv 

She met with the judge who oversaw Falcone’s case and gave him the thick folder. He looked at it briefly before recognizing the information. 

“I appreciate you coming out to speak to me about Falcone’s transfer to Arkham but I cleared everything with Ms. Dawes yesterday. She’s already scheduled a second psychiatrist to meet with Falcone first thing tomorrow morning. She mentioned that she’s also requested Dr. Crane’s case file. Has she seen this?” He waved the folder and she clicked her tongue, shocked that she had scheduled a second opinion and that Crane didn’t know about it.

“I’m not sure, sir. I was the detective working with the prosecution and I was the one who oversaw Dr. Crane’s examination and request for transfer. I can attest to Falcone's mood at the time as well. He screamed nonstop as Crane was trying to conduct a test of sanity. Anyway, I wanted to make sure that you saw Dr. Crane’s diagnosis in the aftermath of his transfer. This has updated notes that Dr. Crane shared with me. It might be useful in your deliberation.” She smiled and the judge looked down his nose at the folder. 

“Good point. Thank you, detective. This is helpful.” He opened the folder on his desk and put on his rounded spectacles. 

“Well now that we’ve spoken, I’ll try to catch Dawes and save her the trouble.” She pushed back her chair and brushed off her trousers. 

“Miss —?” The judge called from his desk. 

“Yes, sir?” She looked back.

“Dr. Crane has committed many of Falcone’s men to Arkham in the past few months, is that correct?” 

“Yes,” she nodded and her heart raced. 

“That must be a pretty crazy group.” The judge laughed and went back to the folder, completely missing the pattern. She sighed in relief and left quickly. She started to walk to Arkham, moving so quickly she felt like she may have been running. Dawes had already scheduled a second opinion, meaning that she was probably at Arkham pressuring Crane for his detailed diagnosis. It would take Dawes one second to figure it out so she hoped she could get there quickly enough to do something. She had no plan which she knew was stupid but whatever was bound to happen in the next few hours would be bad and she needed to help Crane. Her phone began to ring and she put it to her ear. 

“Hello?”

“Y/N.”

“Ra’s?”

“Are you on your way to Arkham?”

“Yes, sir.” 

“Turn around and go back to your precinct. I want you to stick close to Sgt. Gordon, go where he goes. You’re his top detective so run with it. If anything happens at Arkham, he’ll be there and I want you there with him. Crane will be fine.”

She slowed to a stop, skeptical but wanting to believe what her new boss was telling her, “ok, sir.”

After a second of silence, Ra’s added, “It’s Batman’s birthday and what better way to celebrate a playboy than with chaos?” The call ended before she could respond. 

She spun around and headed straight for the precinct. She spotted Gordon at his desk, working on paperwork. She hurried over and knocked on the door, letting herself in when he waved. 

“Good, I’m glad to see you. I need to run some ideas by you for the Falcone case.” 

“I just dropped off Crane's diagnosis for the judge but he said that Dawes may be seeking a second opinion.” 

“About that -” The intercom went off with a loud screech. 

“Attention all units! Attention all units! Batman was spotted at Arkham Asylum. He is believed to be armed and dangerous. Backup is requested at this time.” The voice repeated with a robotic drone. Sgt. Gordon looked from the speaker to her and grabbed his coat from his chair. 

“We need to get to the asylum right now.” Gordon yelled and she followed him closely, checking that her gun was still secured to her hip. She clipped her badge to her front pocket and pretended to sound confused. 

“Why are we going, Sgt? Do you think this is about Falcone?”

“It might, I’d feel better if I was there to find out; and if Batman is there, someone’s in trouble.” They hurried down the stairs and climbed into a car. Gordon sped away from the precinct and ran red lights. The tires bled across the roads as they came to a screeching halt behind a row of police cars parked outside the Asylum. 

“Why is everyone waiting outside?” She yelled over the noise. An officer standing with his gun aimed at the building yelled back. 

“We’re waiting for backup!”

“They’ll be here soon, sir. We should wait!” She yelled over the noise at the Sgt. 

Gordon looked up at the building and pulled his gun from his holster. He started moving towards the building, looking back to wave her on. 

“I’m going in. You coming?” He called. 

She groaned anxiously beneath her breath before responding, “yes, sir!” They raced up the stairs into the lobby which was left completely vacant. Gordon held up his gun and she followed suit, staying close behind him. She felt the urge to kill him now and find Crane but her gut warned her that someone else was in the room, watching. They walked slowly through the main corridor, past the abandoned security checkpoint, creeping closer to the wide atrium. When they stepped beneath the enormous domed ceiling a loud noise broke through the top of the building. She looked up and covered her face with her forearm to protect her eyes from large shards of falling glass. She saw a large dark blur surround Sgt. Gordon and pull him up to the roof. 

“Sgt. Gordon!” She yelled after him. She knew immediately that the blur was that bastard Batman. A small laugh escaped her mouth as she shook her head and lowered her gun. A group of SWAT ran in seconds later. She pointed at the ceiling with her gun and called them over. 

“He came down and took Sgt. Gordon!”

“Who?” Someone yelled at her and she shook her head, pretending to be unsure. 

“I don’t know! I think it was Batman.” She yelled, adding to their panic. 

“Batman!” Someone shouted and in the moment of distraction, she slipped away into a side corridor. She bolted towards a staircase and stopped at every floor, looking for signs of activity. Her body burned with soreness as she sprinted down each corridor. She wanted to scream his name but her lungs wouldn’t allow her the extra air to do so. She rounded a corner and ran into a group of police. They all started shouting at her until she showed them her badge. 

“I’m a detective- What the hell is going on here?” She yelled. 

“We’re looking for Dr. Crane!”

“Have you seen Sgt. Gordon?” She asked, panting and trying not to panic when they mentioned Crane’s name. “He disappeared and I've been looking for him.”

“No, we haven’t. We got a call that they found drugs in the building and then Batman showed up. Crane was running the operation.” One police officer responded and jerked their head to the side where they were going to run next. “It's down this corridor!”  

“I’ll come with you,” she shouted and led the unit, her gun pointed at the ground. Two large doors were falling off their hinges further down the hallway. The room itself was smokey and gaseous. She looked down from the doorway where there were stairs leading into a cement lined room like an empty indoor pool. Tables were littered with Crane’s fear serum and men that she assumed were dead. Huge vats of liquid marked with a toxic symbol sat on their sides by an open waterline. 

“This is it,” she said to the officer beside her and started to descend the staircase. The smoke made it hard to see so she moved slowly, looking around the floor for Crane’s familiar face. The men she saw were all part of Falcone’s posse who had been hired to help the drug operation run. Something snapped beneath her food and she looked down, seeing Crane’s scarecrow mask which she recognized from his drawing. She picked it up and looked around anxiously, her fingers around the gun shook. Then she saw him. Crane was propped up against a wall and bleeding slightly from the head, a thin trail of blood oozed on the wall behind his head. He was panting and flailing around, his pupils were mere penpoints. He’d been attacked with his own fear powder. She looked around before dropping into a crouch beside him. He recognized her but continued to shake, his eyes darting around her head. 

“Jonathan,” she whispered, “it's me.” 

“Did you find him?” Someone shouted and she yelled back that she had. He raised a judgemental eyebrow, his mouth forming a cuss word. His glasses were gone. 

“Trust me, Crane.” She whispered against his ear and held his wrists together. She took her handcuffs from her belt and handcuffed him. 

v 

She leaned against the wall and tapped her foot anxiously as they strapped him into a white straightjacket. She crossed the room and helped the officer secure the last belt, thankful for any excuse to touch him and remind him that she was still there. Looking up at her, he spat and she flinched slightly. His light eyes were ringed with red swollen skin and she wondered if he really felt betrayed by her. She wiped his spit from her cheek and returned to her place by the wall. 

“So this is the scarecrow,” Sgt. Gordon entered the room and let the door slam shut. Crane jumped from the noise and closed his eyes, taking a deep shaky breath. 

“Scarecrow… scarecrow.” Crane whispered with his eyes closed and shifted within the straightjacket. Sgt. Gordon pulled up a chair, the metal scraping against the floor, bristling Crane into opening his eyes. 

“What was the plan, Crane? How were you going to get the toxin into the air?” Gordon asked calmly and fingered the scarecrow mask. Her stomach turned watching Crane struggle to regain control over his mind. He shook and his eyes darted around the room, landing once or twice on her. She kept a straight face, giving no sign that she was terrified that something would happen to him or she would accidentally reveal something about him that they didn’t already know. When Crane didn’t respond, Gordon continued, his voice rising. 

“Who were you working for?” Gordon pressed and Crane’s eyes snapped to his, a crazy smile pulling at his lips. 

“Oh, it’s too late. You can’t stop it now.” He spoke through shivers, cutting up his words. He smiled at the end and Gordon shook his head. He stood and shoved the mask into her hands. 

“Here. Stay with Crane.” He growled and left the room, his footsteps echoing through the heavy steel door. She looked down at the mask in her hands and hid her smile. There was only one officer left in the room with them and she bit the inside of her cheek, trying to come up with a quick plan. 

“Are there any officers outside?” She asked the cop by the door who peeked his head outside the door. 

“No, ma’am.” 

“Good,” she smiled and raised her gun when the door snapped behind him. “Then this should be easy.” She cocked the gun and cornered the officer. “Face the wall,” she ordered and when he turned, she hit him over the head with the butt of her pistol, knocking him unconscious. She quickly handcuffed him and checked outside one last time before running over to Crane. He was still recovering from the toxin, his face set in a deep frown. She began to free him from his restraints, glancing at the door every few seconds. His eyes stayed on her face and he kept muttering things below his breath. When she undid the last restraint he jumped up and it fell from around his shoulders to the floor. She started to smile when he lunged at her and pushed her up against the tiled wall. Her hair clip cracked against the tile and clattered to the floor in pieces. She gasped beneath his hands, one holding her throat and the other grabbing the slack in her sweater, exposing her navel. 

“You betrayed me,” he growled, “you told Gordon... I saw you.” His eyes were wild and glazed, he looked right through her.

“What?” she gasped out though his hand was crushing her windpipe. 

“I saw you two! You fucked him. You fucked him!” He yelled, his body shook with anger like he was coming down from an adrenaline high. 

“No, I didn’t!” She struggled beneath his hands, “this is the toxin talking, Jonathan! I didn’t betray you-”

“But you fucked him,” his voice twisted into a heatbreaking whine, an image flicked before his eyes and he closed them quickly, shaking it from his head.

“No!” She coughed and she could feel herself getting light-headed. 

“You love him,” his voice was breaking beneath him and his eyes darted between hers as the toxin showed him more and more; everything of which included her.

“Jonathan!” she screamed and hit his chest hard with closed fists, “I can’t fucking breathe!” 

His eyes snapped open wider and he released his grip around her throat. Her feet landed on the ground and she coughed, sinking into a crouch against the wall. Crane stepped back and watched her silently. He was still shaking as he ran a hand anxiously through his hair. 

“Why would I save you if I loved him?” She cried in frustration, rubbing her bruised throat. “It’s the toxin, Jonathan… I didn’t do the things you think I did,” her voice softened. She looked up at him and stood slowly, grabbing onto the wall for support. Crane cradled his head in his hands and whimpered. 

“What do you see?” she asked quietly and stepped closer. He shook his head and created more distance between them. “Jonathan, tell me.” She pressed and he exhaled with a soft shutter.

“You… fuck,” he started through heavy breaths, working himself up again. “I see you and Gordon…” He rubbed his eyes and looked back up at her. “It’s been so long since…”

“Since what?” She furrowed her brow, questioning. His eyes darted away into the corner and he shook.

“Since my father last used it…” he took a deep breath and finished his sentence with a lengthy exhale, “on me.” 

“The fear toxin?” She whispered, slowly starting to understand what he was suggesting. He nodded and flinched as if something had attacked him. Was he saying that his father used a prototype of the fear toxin on him? She grabbed onto the sleeve of his suit jacket and tugged his attention away. 

“It’s just me. There’s no one else- nothing else in here except for me,” she gestured to the nearly empty room (the officer was still unconscious in the corner). “And I’m here for you,” she whispered and closed the distance between them, her hands slipped around his small waist beneath his suit jacket. She felt his body tense beneath her embrace before slowly (very slowly) releasing its tension. He didn’t hug her back but rested his forehead on her shoulder. She stroked his hair, and found the shallow wound on the back of his head. She ducked her head as she pulled away, finding his mouth and kissing him gently. The toxin was slowly wearing off and she could tell he was only beginning to return to his normal self. 

“We need to get up to my office,” he muttered and looked at the door. “They’re releasing the patients.”

“What?” She furrowed her brow. Crane sighed and shook his head. 

“Ra’s gave orders to open all of the cells. The patients will be let loose into the city.” He licked his lips and looked down at her. “We need to get upstairs.” His expression was tense as she could tell he was trying to fight the lingering effects of the toxin. She nodded. 

“Show me where to go.” 

He pulled her through the door and they ran down the corridor to an elevator. When the doors opened, Crane used his key to override the system, preventing anyone else from calling the elevator. He pressed the button for the floor with his office, not realizing that his other hand was squeezing tightly around hers. When the doors opened again, they rushed down the hallway and into Crane’s office. He sighed when the door was locked and the blinds closed. 

“What are we going to do?” She asked him quietly and he inhaled slowly. 

“I need to inject you with the antidote so the toxin doesn’t affect you when we leave the building.” He murmured, more to himself.

“We’re going out there?” She tried to keep the fear from her voice but he detected it instantly, raising an eyebrow. 

“Are you scared?” He asked automatically. 

“Of both of us dying out there at the hands of one of your old patients, yes, yes I am.” She nearly laughed. 

“Don’t you want to be part of the fun?” The Jonathan Crane she knew was definitely coming back. 

“I’d rather not become the ‘fun’,” she quipped and he smirked. 

“As you wish.” 

She followed him into his lab and he rummaged through a collection of vials arranged on one of the counters. Finding the right one, he slipped it inside a cartridge of what looked like an epipen. 

“Pull down your pants,” he ordered and then it was her turn to raise her eyebrow. “Don’t look at me like that and do what I tell you,” he said sternly and she did as he asked, pulling down her trousers where he had access to her thigh. “This will hurt,” he warned her before immediately plunging the needle into the fat around her thigh. She hissed in pain and heaved out a breath. 

“The good news is that you don’t have to ever do this again,” he patted her leg and buttoned her pants for her. “Now me,” he changed the vial and unbuckled his pants. He raised the hem of his boxers and punctured the needle into his upper thigh. He grunted in pain and closed his eyes for a moment and whistled out a tight breath. A large explosion shook the ground below their feet. She jumped and winced as she landed on her sore leg. Without opening his eyes, Crane nodded. 

“And that would be the patients leaving the building now.” He withdrew the needle and tossed it to the side, buckling his pants. 

“Let me see your head,” she touched his arm and he leaned forward slightly, turning his head where she could see it clearly. She carded her fingers through his dark hair and parted the dark roots away from the shallow wound. “It's a small cut, you’ll live.” 

“Thanks, doctor.” He smirked. Her fingers shifted through his hair as he straightened and she tried not to look disappointed when they were no longer twirled around his black locks. 

“Are you back now?” She looked up into his eyes, looking for trances of fear. 

“I think so,” he responded and traced his index finger around the collar of her sweater. There were small bruises where his fingers had been when he forced her against the wall in his state of panic. “Was I terrible?” He whispered. 

“Not more than usual,” she laughed lightly and covered his hand with hers. “I’m ok.” She insisted and he furrowed his eyebrows and licked his lips. 

He was going to apologize, he was going to tell her how much he loved her and that was why he had reacted so strongly to the toxin, but the words died on his lips so instead he said, “We should leave before the city goes all the way under.”

“They’ll raise the bridges so no one can leave, it’s too late.” 

Crane chuckled and leaned against the lab table behind him, his fingers grasping around the edge. “And once again, you severely underestimate me. Come on.” 

vi 

“Get on,” Crane held the bridle and gestured for her to mount the large black steed. 

“You’re kidding right?” She looked around at the burning city and then back to the police horse who’d lost its rider. 

“I wish I was,” he sighed and tugged her closer by her waistband, “now giddy-up, Miss —.” He joked flatley and pushed her up onto the saddle. He hoisted himself up after her and sat in front, taking the reins in his hands. She wrapped her arms around his waist and squeezed her thighs around the horse's stomach, holding on for dear life. 

“Where the hell did you learn to ride a horse?” She yelled over the panic and she felt him chuckle. 

“Oh, there are a lot of things that you don’t know about me, detective.” He smirked and kicked the horse into action. She gasped and held him tighter as they flew through the violence-strewn streets. She couldn’t imagine how ridiculous they looked to the people of Gotham but under the influence of the fear toxin, she hoped people were more afraid than amused seeing a man in a full suit riding a horse. Crane focused on the route ahead, navigating them through the broken city. 

“Where’s Ra’s?” She yelled into his ear. 

“Forget about him.” He growled and urged the horse faster. 

“Why? What happened?” 

“He tricked me. He didn't just want to impose an arguably better government, he wanted to kill everyone and to kill us too. He tipped off Batman and that’s how Batman found me. He didn't need me after the toxin had been released. He kept you away from me, didn’t he?” He called over his shoulder, leaping over a crashed car. 

“Yes, he told me to go to the precinct instead when I tried to warn you about the DA.” 

“He wanted Batman to find me and he assumed that you’d get stuck here after you followed Gordon. Two birds with one stone. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.” He growled and turned the horse onto a side-street and into an alley. 

“Where are we going?” She asked, her grip tightening around Crane as she saw people screaming in the streets. 

“To my father’s house.” 

“How?” His father’s house? After his father had probably done something horrible to him?

“Just hold on,” he warned and flicked the reins again. She closed her eyes, wanting to block out the terror in the streets. While some of it gave her pleasure to see the raw side of humanity express itself, it reminded her of what she had seen as a child- the side of people that came out when they needed to survive. 

They rode to the edge of the city and Crane slowed the horse to a stop beside a tall building that looked abandoned. He hopped off of the horse and helped her down, catching her as she forced herself to slip over the saddle. The building was far enough away from the inner-city that it looked like it hadn’t been touched yet by the chaos, though the toxins had definitely reached it. 

“We need to get to the roof,” he informed her calmly and pointed her to the elevator. 

“Another elevator…” she whispered beneath her breath, knowing it wasn’t the right time to mention how much she hated the idea of going into one when the world around them was ending. Crane pressed the button labeled “20R,” and the elevator began to soar up. The elevator had windows that opened into the city. As the elevator climbed, they could see the destruction of Gotham and right across the bridge, normalcy.

“Ra’s is moving the micro-wave emitter by the high speed rail. If his plan goes accordingly, the emitter will poison the other side of the city beneath Wayne tower.” He pointed out the tall Wayne building from their vantage point. “I hate Gotham and I hate Batman, but I think I hate Ra’s Al Ghul more.” He sneered distastefully. “We could have run Gotham…” he sighed and shrugged, “maybe another day.” 

She couldn’t help herself but laugh. Being with Crane had opened her eyes to a new side of herself, one that was dark and masochistic. She liked this side better, way better. She liked thinking that one day she could be in charge, force out all of the government officials that were too dumb or sexist to listen to her. She could lead beside Crane… 

When the elevator doors opened a gust of wind met them. The doors opened onto the roof of the huge building. A helicopter stood in the center of a large bull’s eye, its blades running in circles above their heads. Crane’s hair ruffled in the wind and he squinted his eyes against it. Her mouth fell open in shock and Crane chuckled at her reaction. 

“That’s the funny thing about, trust, detective. I don’t believe in it,” he smirked and beckoned her to the helicopter’s doors. 

“You planned this?” She yelled as he gestured her to climb onto the landing gear. 

“Of course,” he smiled, "I always have a backup plan." Her mary janes slipped across the bars as she climbed and Crane supported her back, guiding her back into the body of the machine. He pulled himself inside after her and collapsed in one of the seats. She tried to orient herself, looking around the small helicopter, landing on the pilot. The pilot nodded at Crane, he was wearing a thick mask and goggles to keep the toxin away. 

“Ready doctor?” The pilot called from the front and Crane nodded breathlessly. He looked at her and clenched his jaw, returning to the version of Crane she knew so well. 

“Yes.”

[paladin-of-nerd-fandom65]

You know how in the comics dick killed Joker due to him thinking he killed Tim, and then Batman bought him back to life?

What if joker permanently died during that moment?

Had that been the case, I can see a lot of ripple effects that are slow yet in the end drastically change the way how Dick, Bruce and others would be impacted now with the end of their greatest enemy.

For one thing for sure, this’ll be a permanent stain on Dick’s psyche akin to how what happened to Jason affects Bruce even after the latter being resurrected years later. It’s a potential point of consistent angst and character reflection for Dick writers can tap into, in particular when he’s reminded of what happens if he lets his righteous fury, whether by his own hands or even if we take Rancor who’s power is enhancing and causing negative emotions to run rampant in those he’s closet to at the event itself, get out of hand.

Dick knows there are many limits and consequences regarding any display of his more negative emotions coming outward and wants to make sure he keeps those emotions in check regardless of the the situation at hand. Him slaying the Clown for good would serve as a reminder of why he should do so.

As for the larger DCU, I can see perhaps Ra’s Al Ghul or possibly Bane and Riddler taking Joker’s place as Bruce’s true arch nemesis especially given their respective strengths to match with him when engaged. Plus it’ll mean Luthor has one less worries to tend to when forming a Legion of Doom as Joker would now no longer be able to play by joining his team and less tensity among their members. Thus it could in a way make thr Legion of Doom more cohesive but without Joker’s raw talent for creating chaos, maybe marginally less effective in countering the Justice League.

@pin-crusher2000 @confusedhummingbird

@meara-eldestofthemall

[sheri-da-goose]

I got no goddam sleep last night, this is why

Backstory: Nyssa Wayne

Nyssa Wayne, who was once known as the vigilant and skilled shadow under Batman, harbored a secret connection to Bruce Wayne, they were related. Orphaned at a young age, she grew up unaware of her true lineage. Bruce, with his complicated family history, never knew of her existence either. Nyssa’s journey began when she was discovered by Bruce during one of his patrols. Impressed by her natural fighting ability and her unyielding spirit, he took her under his wing and trained her to be his protégé. As shadow, Nyssa formed a strong bond with the Bat-Family, especially with the first Robin now nightwing, Dick Grayson, and the second Robin, Jason Todd. She shared a deep, father-daughter relationship with Bruce, who instilled in her a strong moral code: they fought for justice, not as judge, jury, or executioner.

However, the rigid adherence to this morality led to tension. Nyssa’s desire for retribution against Gotham’s criminals clashed with Bruce’s principles. She felt that certain criminals, like the Joker, could never be redeemed and that the justice system often failed to protect the innocent. A heated confrontation drove a wedge between them, and feeling misunderstood and constrained, Nyssa faked her own death, leaving the Bat-Family in mourning. She disappeared for years, during which time she discovered that the Joker had brutally tortured and murdered Jason Todd. Consumed by a thirst for vengeance, Nyssa tracked down the Joker and executed him in cold blood. Only Selina Kyle, Catwoman, knew the truth and decided to take Nyssa under her wing. They developed a close mother-daughter bond as Selina trained her in the arts of stealth, combat, and survival.

During her time with Selina, Nyssa encountered Talia al-Ghul, the enigmatic daughter of Ra's al-Ghul and Bruce Wayne’s former lover. Talia recognized Nyssa’s potential and invited her to train with the League of Assassins. Within the League, Nyssa and Talia formed a close relationship, with Talia ultimately naming her the godmother of her son, Damian Wayne. Nyssa's world was shaken when Jason Todd was resurrected and brought to the League. Though he didn’t remember her, Nyssa’s memories of their bond as Robin and her feelings for him remained strong. They grew close once more and shared a night of passion, but Nyssa knew she couldn’t risk their relationship and left the League the next morning, breaking Jason’s heart.

Returning to Gotham, Nyssa resumed her work with Selina and adopted the villainous persona "True Justice." She soon learned that Jason had rejoined the Bat-Family as the Red Hood. He had been brought back into the fold and was struggling with his new identity. Meanwhile, the Bat-Family discovered Damian’s existence and brought him to Gotham, where he became the fifth Robin. The Bat-Family, now consisting of Alfred, Bruce, Dick, Barbara Gordon: Oracle, Jason, Tim Drake: Red Robin, Stephanie Brown: Spoiler, Cassandra Cain: Black Bat, Damian, and Duke Thomas: The Signal, continued their mission to protect Gotham.

Nyssa’s hidden identity was eventually uncovered by Dick Grayson. Their reunion was not immediate; it was a gradual process built on trust and understanding. Dick, who had always been like an older brother to Nyssa, was elated to find out she was alive. He initially confronted her in a dark alley, where he removed his mask, revealing his tear-stricken face. The sight of Dick’s raw emotions broke down Nyssa’s walls. They spent countless hours talking, reminiscing about the old times and discussing the paths they had taken. Dick was persistent, his compassion and wisdom breaking down Nyssa’s walls. Over time, through many late-night conversations and heartfelt discussions, Dick convinced Nyssa to reveal herself to the Bat-Family. Reluctantly, she agreed. Dick brought her to the Batcave, where the family’s reactions ranged from shock to relief. Bruce, seeing her alive, was overwhelmed with a mix of guilt and joy. Jason, hurt from their past encounter but relieved to see her, struggled with conflicting emotions. The others, each processing the news in their own way, welcomed her back into the fold with varying degrees of warmth and skepticism.

The reunion with Jason was particularly poignant. Jason had always been the rebellious one, and his resurrection had left him with scars both physical and emotional. When Nyssa had left the League of Assassins, she had done so to protect him, but her departure had unintentionally caused him great pain. When they first saw each other again, the silence between them was heavy with unspoken words. Jason approached her, his eyes a storm of emotions--anger, relief, confusion, and a lingering sense of betrayal. Nyssa found herself unable to look him in the eyes, the weight of her decisions pressing down on her. Jason finally broke the silence, his voice filled with hurt and anger as he demanded to know why she had left him without a word after the night they shared. Nyssa explained her reasons, her voice trembling as she expressed her regret and the deep pain she had felt knowing she had hurt him. Jason, still angry but relieved that she was alive and safe, struggled to reconcile his feelings. He wrapped her in a tight embrace, whispering that he never stopped loving her despite the pain she had caused. They realized that despite the hurt and the distance, their bond was still there, forged in the fires of their shared experiences. They decided to start anew, not as the people they once were, but as the individuals they had become.

Nyssa’s return marked a new chapter for the Bat-Family, one fraught with unresolved tensions but also the potential for reconciliation and renewed strength. Over time, Nyssa worked to rebuild her relationships with each member. She shared many heartfelt conversations with Bruce, where they addressed the pain of their separation and the different paths they had taken. With Jason, she navigated the rocky terrain of their past and found ways to support each other, recognizing their shared trauma and growth.

Nyssa also formed new bonds. She mentored Damian, drawing from her experiences to guide him through the complexities of being Robin and the legacy of their family. Damian remembered who she was, having always looked up to her as a sister and aunt figure. The two of them shared a love for art and animals, often spending time together sketching or visiting animal shelters. With Tim Drake, she discovered a kindred spirit in their analytical approaches and shared a mutual respect for each other's skills. Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain became close allies, and together, they tackled many challenges, often leaning on each other for support and camaraderie.

In time, Nyssa found her place within the Bat-Family once more. She became a symbol of resilience and redemption, proving that even the most strained relationships could heal and evolve. Her journey was a testament to the power of forgiveness, the strength of family, and the enduring hope that justice could prevail, even in the darkest of times.

[jasontoddspussy]

Lazarus pit AU... thing

AU where the lazarus pit effects include hunger for raw meat/flesh, particularly human flesh.

Ras doesn't have an issue with this and feasts upon corpses often to satiate his hunger. Talia is more of a refined palette. Damian, after his dip, is very bothered by this need beneath his skin and later on became a vegetarian. The 'Al Ghul' name is because of this.

Jason, after his dip, experience extreme hunger due to his previous lifestyle and malnourishment. During fights when he was still fresh outta the green goo pit, he frequently tore off flesh from other trainees. Later on he's muzzled. The only one who knows about this at first is Damian.

Due to this, Jason's red hood ensemble (here im thinking of the mask domino combo not the helmet) is a red muzzle instead of half mask. On days where he feels the hunger most, he's wearing the muzzle. Only Damian knows the significance of this and is, to the surprise of the bats, protective of Jay on these days.

During the Titans Tower attack, Jason's mind is engulfed in green and anger with his throat slit and bleeding, and thus when beating on Tim he loses control, tearing and eating flesh from his shoulder and neck junction to speed up the healing of his throat. This causes Jason to never take off the muzzle when near the bats. Damian is the only one who realised what happened later on when he sees the scars. Everyone else, whenever Jason is at the cave years later, keeps hounding him to take off his mask. When Tim asks, Jason and him gets into an argument because why in the world would Tim want Jason to be near him, especially without a muzzle!?

Tim's just like ''tim is like 'first of all you had just had your throat slit and the pit madness came back, second of all id let you do it again without the pit madness'"

n jasons just like jesus freaking christ where is your self preservation instincts im calling dick and kinkshaming you because what-

(last two parts courtesy of my friend arson thst i had to include bcs yeah. tim would)

[zahri-melitor]

League of Shadows: Detective Comics #951-956

Wow. Just wow.

I knew Tynion IV was working overtime to try and get a level of normality re-established in Rebirth Batman, but he has so many moving pieces going on here.

First up: this is the Cass and Shiva story, so it’s rehashing and re-exploring the most vital elements of Perfect For A Year and Destruction’s Daughter.

It’s not a perfect blend, for a bunch of reasons, but I respect the effort involved.

The bit that blew me way however? Tynion brought in Carolyn.

Cass content where she is given inspiration by her aunt’s words??? I mean. I am listening.

Kate Kane gets to approximately play Babs’ role in the push-pull over what Cass needs against Bruce.

Cass in the Mud Room obsessed with winning fights and working through her problems of course perfectly reflecting Cass in Babs' equivalent holoroom doing exactly that as a way of dealing with her emotions.

Cass gets two fights with Shiva, and she of course loses the first and wins the second.

Cass running around with swords? Some people might say that’s not Cass, I say hello Kasumi and BatO 2008 references!

(Tragically Cass didn’t get to stab Kendra and keep that motif running, but alas no Justice League appeared in this book)

Cass and David together flashbacks still don’t feel entirely on target: previously when Cass has gone to David to answer her questions he would eventually give her what she asked for, not deny it to her. But David Cain was left in a horrible state post B&R Eternal so any writing even slightly more on track was helpful.

It's also fascinating to me that we go to this very heavy Cass story, leaning into her growth as a person and moving from being a lurking shadow who is a vigilante only to someone who is making civilian friendships and connections and doing things outside of simply being a vigilante (going to the ballet in person with Bruce and Kate escorting her) happens in a period when Steph has left. This is echoing Cass' Bludhaven arc! Argh Tynion knows the whole of Batgirl 2000 so well.

And Shiva. Oh, Shiva. I have to say, as always, I’m not thrilled when Shiva is directly linked to Ra’s Al Ghul, but admittedly we were redoing Destruction’s Daughter, so Shiva being called in to train League assassins is on target (though it was Ra's this time, not Nyssa), as was Shiva not actually working with Ra's ordinary troops so much as the set he was using for the League of Shadows.

What I also liked: Ra's trying to manipulate Shiva using what he knew of Cass, and Shiva not being fully on board with what Ra's was selling but synthesising it in her own way.

I don't love Ra's being more involved in Shiva's backstory, but I did enjoy her arguments with him, and the way Shiva, despite herself, became compelled and interested in Cass as a fighter more than as her daughter. (Daughter? raw material, boring. Fighter with that skillset who happens to be my daughter? deeply fascinated).

Just picking out a few scenes here, but I feel this does add an additional layer of depth to Shiva's motivations? That she knows she burnt everything away in the fire of Shiva, but also she has a level of regret over it all.

And then that being reflected in part of what gave Cass the understanding of how to defeat the League and Shiva was the words of Carolyn and her message of how to act as a shadow yet still find yourself? A message Sandra has lost but Carolyn protected even in her death, because Shiva has worked to slough off Sandra, but that is still a loss.

On top (on TOP) of this storyline being a synthesis of Batgirl 2000 into 5 issues, Tynion was just packing in the references.

The atomic bomb to open a faultline under Gotham and *checks notes* make the city fall into a cavern below? Is that Cataclysm, 'Quakemaster' (aka Ventriloquist) holding the city hostage over an even worse earthquake I spy? Because. The vibes were very much there. But on top of that, it's also a version of the Batgirl story of Alpha hiding a fusion bomb in Gotham and Cass needing to track him down to work out where that bomb was.

Shiva and the League of Shadows having a special technique of stabbing people with swords through their chest in a way that doesn't damage any organs. Shiva, is that you saying The Widower was bad at his job? Because most of those sword wounds were similar in location to Tim's one from The Widower but specifically on the other side of the body to avoid the spleen.

Ulysses Armstrong continuing to be the creepiest kid absolutely obsessed with Tim as Robin and trying to 'get into his skin'? Ulysses being in the military now via Jacob Kane's secret organisation yet still completely and utterly hung up on Tim and trying to prove himself is commitment to Tim's Robin run.

And then we get to this: to Ra's telling Bruce that inside the League of Assassins he has a secret League of Shadows, which he has concealed from Bruce and forced him to forget.

But the important bit here to me is Ra's saying Bruce has uncovered them three times before. And we get this series of pictures.

The first is an underground cavern lit by an orange glow (this looks very much like an orange Lazarus Pit in the background: references this resembles include Son of the Demon, any of Nyssa's pits, Matt Wagner's Trinity and a bunch of others).

The second is Bruce standing shirtless on a frozen lake, surrounded by mountains. (Can you say Batman Begins? But also technically you could map this to Bride of the Demon I guess by the art team not realising Antarctica doesn't have trees. Or frozen lakes like that. His first shirtless duel with Ra’s is Batman #244 but that’s in the desert. The various Nanda Parbat and Himalaya fight scenes I reviewed don't look much like this)

The third is Bruce being taken down in what looks like a fancy office (my first thought was possibly Tower of Babel & Dependence, but this again could be a lot of occasions).

And the focus here on Ra's having concealed Bruce's memories and forced him to forget events, in Rebirth stories where we are pushing at the timeline to extend it out again and backfill it with post-Crisis content? A genius way of focusing on there being stories that n52 Bruce doesn't know.

I've been trying to work out exactly which stories Tynion is claiming these three 'discoveries' of the League of Shadows occurred during, and I can't quite pinpoint three specific occasions. But they are so very, very familiar. I do wonder which he was specifically thinking about.

[alfredsolos]

This is Part 4 for Cassandra Cain.

Deathstroke, while training Ravager, made his daughter fight Cass as a test. Cass quickly figured it out and was not happy. Because she resembled Deathstroke to David Cain.

Cass, wanting to figure out her mothers identity, went to David Cain to ask him. She even made a gift for him as a thanks. David however did not gave her a name. So Cass beat him up bloody and left him.

Her brain works a little different than an average person, so that's why she can't learn how to talk or write properly.

Ra's al Ghul named her as The One Who Is All. And after beating Shiva, she was basically worshipped.

During her childhood she came across a cow that was being attacked by a pack of wolves. She tried to save the cow, but it died. The wolves started eating it and she, being hungry, ate it raw.

When she traveled to find Shiva, as she believed that she was her mother, she got entangled in LoA business. An assassin named Mad Dog attacked and killed her.

Shiva brought Cass back to life, but proposed another duel with her. Cass agreed. They fought and Cass, yet again, killed her. She later on hanged her corpse over flames.

So this the end. There are obviously way more than that. So be free to add your favorite moments of her. Thanks for reading.

[zeroducks-2]

Zero, I need to rant about DC's mistreatment of my son.

Why can't Tim craft his own identity outside of Robin and Batman? Every other member in the Batfamily (not Damian just yet but idk if DC wants to do that considering all their writers are pushing for him to be either Ra's Heir or Batman's heir) who has been Robin is has distanced their new heroic identity away from their time as Robin.

For whatever reasons, the writers seem to be allergic to Tim growing as a character and stepping away from his identity of Robin. They couldn't even give him an original NAME. WTF IS RED ROBIN?? I'm so pressed about it because a alias is so important and unique to the hero and mostly tied to the core of their character, origin, or development.

Bruce chose Batman because he feared bats, and he wanted to be the fear that scared straight the criminals of Gotham.

Dick chose Robin because it was a way to carry on his parent's memory and legacy, and Nightwing was chosen due to Superman (Someone who Dick looks up to) telling Dick about the Kryptonian myth of Nightwing and Flamebird.

Clark got his superman alias from his father, one of the only parting gifts he has from him.

So Timmy, my dude, wtf is Red Robin about? I feel like it's such a cop out to him as a character. Like, we get why Robin was so important to him due to him being a freaky little lonely fanboy. But during his Robin run, he grew so so so much. Why would the DC Writers not let his growth show? Why also reduce and retie his identity to Robin?

Tim is known to be a great detective, it's one of his shining marks as a Batman protegee. Ra's al Ghul even states that Tim is a better detective than The Batman himself. Hell, when Tim was 14 he discovered that Dick was Nightwing and Robin, because his freaky loner obsession and past trauma of witnessing the flying Grayson's murder made him connect the dots when Dick was flipping and doing acrobatic feats that no one but an extremely skilled and gifted acrobat could do (Tricks that have only been successfully done by a fucking FLYING GRAYSON - note how silly and girlie pop Dick was for that one).

Like, fr DC, why not tie Tim's new identity with his amazing detective skills?

Honestly, I think DC could have taken some inspiration from an Edgar Allan Poe character and given Tim a detective-associated. Because, Poe's character C. Auguste Dupin, is literally the first ever detective we see in fiction and the backbone of how so many other detective character's created.

Like a name that inspired from the first ever detective himself would be so damn cool. And it would tie into Tim's origin as I'm pretty sure Tim is the first person who actually discovered Dick and Bruce's identities with just his raw and untrained detective skills. So a name like New August would be so damn cool.

Or hell, if DC didn't want to be even that level of creativity into his name and stick with the bird theme (because we all remember the Drake incident so well). Nightingale would be a cool (given not so original) name unless they wanted to spell it like Knightingale. They're one of the few birds who hunt at night, and it could also be a call back to the nurse Florence Nightingale who was a badass and known for the Nightingale theory of nursing:

"A nurse must use her brain, heart and hands to create healing environments"

AS IF that could translate into the hero world. Mister-Dropped-Out-Of-Med-School-Bruce-Wayne is foaming at the mouth.

To conclude, fuck DC and fuck them for doing my TimTam dirty. Let him be his own man :/

I don't agree with all of this but Tim does deserve better that's true. He's sort of stuck in limbo and his growth should have happened a long time ago tbh.

He could have been Flamebird like Dick is Nightwing to name one. Dick has always been his inspiration. Maybe Red Robin for a time (since back then he and Dick had grown apart), and then Flamebird after they reconciled.

It's sad because some of the main things with Tim are that love for him is conditional because of his shitty parents, and that he has a hard time crafting his own identity, and DC doesn't let him grow out of any of this and keeps using him as a chew toy. It's sad.

(and no being queer isn't character development)

[chorusgirls]

𝚂𝙷𝙴 𝙱𝙸𝚃 𝙷𝙴𝚁 𝚃𝙷𝚄𝙼𝙱 𝙰𝚃 𝙶𝙾𝙳 𝙰𝙽𝙳 𝙲𝙾𝙽𝚂𝚄𝙼𝙴𝙳 𝙷𝙴𝚁𝚂𝙴𝙻𝙵 𝙸𝙽𝚃𝙾 𝙱𝙴𝙸𝙽𝙶.

…  BIRTH NAME   …  salomé atreides.

…  NICKNAMES   …  none you'll say to their face.

…  AGE   …  assumed forty.

…  GENDER  …  demi woman.

... PRONOUNS ... they & she.

…  SEXUALITY   …  bisexual. kinsey scale 3.

…  CIVILIAN OCCUPATION   …  ceo of anunnaki pharmaceuticals.

…  CRIMINAL ALLEGIANCE   …  the highest bidder.

…  NOTABLE ATTRIBUTES   …  vaguely unidentifiable accent, lightly french. voice claim: marion cotillard as talia al ghul. symptoms of perfection that turn the corner to unnatural: poreless, glowing skin, free of wrinkles; facial symmetry; hair that does not fall flat; a perpetually unnamed, tempting scent. a ringlike scar centered between her breasts.

…  CHARACTER INSPIRATIONS   …  talia al ghul  ( dc & the dark knight rises ). catherine tramell ( basic instinct ).  lady trieu  ( hbo's watchmen ). sévérine ( skyfall ). lady jessica ( dune ). amy dunne ( gone girl ).  cersei lannister  ( game of thrones ). pamela isley ( dc ).  medusa  ( greek mythology ).  scylla  ( greek mythology ).

( + ) ingenious, persuasive, patient, charismatic, intuitive, eloquent, sensual, observant.

( - ) cunning, resentful, possessive, anarchistic, enigmatic, manipulative.

PLEASE BE AWARE THE FOLLOWING BIOGRAPHY CONTAINS TRIGGERING TOPICS.

𝚂𝙿𝙰𝚁𝙺𝙽𝙾𝚃𝙴𝚂.

trigger warnings: murder, poverty, prostitution, age gap, implied sexual assault, trafficking.

your father comes from a flat place: all ice, too hard to dig through. his world, unlike yours, is a wide one, his pain centralized to the fact that it is endless but empty. you learn later that the name for his wound is RED EYE, the name passed off with all the grandeur of a fatal diagnosis. and what is that you, bled for his sins, should care for the pinkness of one single vestige? the ritualistic stripping of the body, the drowning and remaking, is nothing in comparison to the informal breaking of one: your father's pain was in service to a purpose. yours was punishment.

your home has no name. so few places in this world that have escaped cataloging, geographers and mapmakers, and yours is one of them: if it ever bore a title of possession, you cannot say it because your mouth is too occupied with choking. the name of your home is nothing more than a scream. a guttural cry. in the place without name you're born to shaking grounds, your birth tied inexorably to bombs dropping. you, the child of a woman who knows these lands and the man sent to pillage them, do not exist without war. you would not exist without the promise and execution of brutality.

she dies in front of you. that's another way to say they kill her in front of you. that's another way to say they let you cover your siblings' eyes only because yours stay open. for association with the disruptor. they point to the body & tell you its kindness that you do not meet the same fate, that they banish you to the outskirts instead. your eyes, the same colour as your father's — the mark, the evidence — stay blistered open for years. sleep is little and rare, delicate and costly; with mother gone you are the provider and the shelter both, your brothers & sister tucked under your arms. it's called tooth & nail survival because that's all you have left in the end, bared fangs and a single, measly weapon in your pocket. you do what is necessary, thieving food of tables & allowing men to play graverobber with your body. your father, remember, was bled for a purpose. you were skinned for pleasure.

let us revisit: the cry, the guttural scream. the name of your home and the sound of your history. that's what life is, for some time. the throat grows raw at some point, the sound dimming when you meet him. a french diplomat, enamored of your gamine body, the harsh wonder of your electric eyes. he takes you and he keeps you, a mistress shelved in the back of his garden in the red marble house, hidden among the rhododendrons. it is not the happiest part of your life because you are never happy, but it is the most important: money enough earned for the siblings who have survived, and lessons in ascension for yourself. black velvet dresses that sweat in the wet country heat, meals at his cool long table, hair done up in a bow, learning to eat off fine china. a favoured pet, a smothered lover. a novelty to his visiting friends, who marvel at your grace and the bite that follows. you are not happy. but you are learning: your strengths, and their weaknesses.

all that knowledge on how to cross the pit, and still not enough to avoid when it gapes open beneath you. your lover smuggles you across continents under his arm, tucked into the suffocating folds of his jacket. a new life, he says. it's only your last one redressed. he's paid, you're told, a substantial amount for your acquisition: an exotic, gamine creature unlike the others. he has either the grace or the audacity to look embarrassed when you realize what's happened, the moment you recognize you've been sold as the pound of flesh and the bow around it.

a third act, the scream muffled now, lodged in a pocket of the throat where no one can find it. you learned long ago that thrashing against fate does no good, so instead you go still: placid as the doe drinking from a river, they imagine, forgetting what other creatures go undetected at the side of the water. yellow eyes in the dark, thorny scales, rows of teeth. in the organization that holds your leash you become indispensable, a favourite of the gods and the ones they serve.

the loosening of your puppet strings takes years, and you ripen all the while. higher bidders, horrid tastes. medusa didn't grow snakes till she was wronged, and your serpents bellow like twine around eden's first branches. in russia the scissors find you, the colour of your electric eyes lighting the way. the eyes, you've always known, of your father's. a comrade of your father's they say, his own eyes pink with familiarity. red with guilt. the escape takes several more months because you refuse to leave emptyhanded: when you flee, it's with jewels filched from the crown. it's with fangs sunk into the ankle of the one who put you in a basket.

salomé is not your name but it is your story, the daughter baring seven veils and the head of a man in your fist, clenched by the hair. america is soft as yarn, stretched in your hands, turning into the shapes you make it. men similarly unspool like guts for your blade, spilling what you demand in exchange for your touch. the one you will call husband is a conscious mark, as they all are. you've lived too long under the crosshatch of others to live now without aim.

philomene atreides, the ceo of anunnaki pharmaceuticals ⸺ a genius, perhaps, and certainly a fool. others might have called his wings wax when he tried to fix the world, but they only melt in the the attempt to correct you. his product, inserted into your heart. an ownership. another leash. we know what is to be done with leashes.

philomene atreides, the ceo of anunnaki pharmaceuticals ⸺ murdered in his bed. you, they say, spared the same gruesome fate by luck alone. you, with a severed rope in your palm, your neck barren and lovely.

you, after some months spent in mourning, voted unanimously as the new head of the snake. all you've ever had, all you've ever needed: electric eyes, tooth and nail.

SUMMARY: salomé is the daughter of a red eye mercenary and an occupant of a small country he was sent to destabilize. their mother is later killed violently for associating with a disruptor, and salomé & her half-siblings are ostracized as punishment, often met with violence. salomé assumes the role of provider and caretaker, engaging in everything from petty thievery to prostitution to make ends meet. this is how she meets her benefactor, a french diplomat who takes her as a secret lover. it's him who gifts them their first learnings in elegance, and the first time she starts crafting herself into a new person. the benefactor-lover sells her to an international organization, and she spends the years with them building trust & reliance, instituting herself as a favourite of the heads. like the mythic woman she names herself after, it's by getting close that she eventually takes his head on a platter. in their eventual escape, aided by a red eye defector close to her late father & a russian operative, she topples much of the organization and absconds with their money. in america they remake once more, a high class escort that grifts their way to new york's elite. she consciously pursues and then marries the founder & ceo of anunnaki pharmaceuticals, a union that lasts only four years, until his murder in their marriage bed by her hand. after several months, salomé is named unanimously by the board as the next ceo of anunnaki.

𝙷𝙴𝙰𝙳𝙲𝙰𝙽𝙾𝙽𝚂.

per the main's location page, salomé is something of a mythical figure within the city ( "as insane as the stories surrounding them are. a god among mortals, a suspected killer, a widow" ) and they do absolutely nothing to dispel the mist surrounding them.

had a congenital heart defect that worsened in her thirties; their heart is now something between tony stark little blue core and jason statham in crank - an implant created by her late husband or commissioned by him (stone inc? DETAILS IN PROCESS!). the only one of its kind. incredible and vastly imperfect. her late husband was, initially, the only one who knew how to keep it going - a threat of possession that he held over her until he. well. oops.

the first to take trial-approved drugs before they're released to the public, but still there are some she saves exclusively for themselves. skin glows, hair never falls flat. there's something almost eerie about the perfection

throws outrageous, outlandish parties, but ur probably never invited

actually, have you ever seen salomé age ? mm..

red eye is not aware of their father being one of their mercenaries&lt;3

bathes in an unusual concoction & wears pheromones bred within anunnaki for various purposes. ever smelled

deeply deeply good at figuring out what you need and offering it, in herself or in her palm

often mistakes as being ms. atreides, but sal never took her late husband's name officially

𝙲𝙾𝙽𝙽𝙴𝙲𝚃𝙸𝙾𝙽𝚂.

bane to her talia; private security.

salomé has officially been exonerated for the death of her late husband, philomene atreides. but whose to say a new development couldn't occur<3

[coyote-nebula]

WIP Wednesday ((on a Thursday) on a Friday)

tagged by @eggmacguffin

part of my reverse robins saga (cw: referenced temporary mcd; it's Tim. Tim is the narrator):

TIM WAYNE DEAD AT 15

Gotham’s beloved philanthropist mourning

--

JOKER MURDERS BRUCE WAYNE’S SON

Boy found beaten “beyond recognition”

--

KESTREL REPORTED DEAD

“Can an urban legend be killed?” scoffs detective

--

The headlines were blurry, soft around the edges. Sensational headlines had grey blocks of sensational copy to match, but the dates didn’t make sense— some of them were weeks into the future.

Not that the dates were the most egregious part— Tim was reasonably sure he was alive.

He didn’t know his surroundings, didn’t know this lavish, darkened study (library? Office?) or know why the smell of tea made him want to gag. Loose cloth draped off his shoulders and cinched under a wide band around his middle.

Warm lamplight caught on filaments of gold trim to his right; he traced emerald fabric up to the glint of an engraved gold cloak pin, past a tall, stiff collar and to the regally assessing gaze of a man smoothing his salt and pepper beard.

“Do you see?” Ra’s al Ghul asked.

Tim glanced warily at the newspapers. He thought, a little wildly, that these were Gotham papers on a desk he somehow instinctively knew was thousands of miles away from their origin, and that someone’s job had been to collect and deliver them just for this purpose.

Unless, obviously, they were fake.

“I’m not dead,” Tim croaked. Why was his throat so raw?

“No. You are not,” Ra’s agreed. He tapped one of the papers. “Tim Wayne, however, is.”

A pit opened in Tim’s stomach, one he felt himself wobbling on the precipice of. “Everyone thinks I’m dead.”

“No,” Ra’s said patiently. “They have no awareness that you exist.”

@batbirdies and @sunflowersandink just if you wanna

[fictionfixations]

ra's

question: how is ra's al ghul pronounced? cause like..

is ra's 'raws' or 'raise' cause i just heard it pronounced in suicide squad kill the justice league and now im confused. (as 'raise' i mean) to be fair ive only ever interacted with written media for most of the characters so ive been assuming how to pronounce it is raws but. shrug.???