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call-me-strega · 1 year ago

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Dc x Dp Prompt #4: Ghost Selkie

Disclaimer: references and facts about Selkies are based on Selkie folklore, true facts about seals, and stuff I just made up because it works well with the story

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Okay so Urban Fantasy inspired au where turns out there is some Selkie blood mixed up somewhere in the Fenton bloodline. As such Jazz and Danny exhibit a few Selkie-like traits but nothing too serious: a playful nature, a certain grace and agility, attraction to shiny things (stars and microscopes), a decent singing voice, being strong swimmers, and seeing in the dark better than the average person. After The Accident™️ and being more involved with the super natural world some of those aspects get a bit stronger for Danny but he just chalks it up to being a Halfa. That is until Skulker catches him on an off-day and manages to capture him by snagging the back of his jumpsuit. Phantom, in a moment of panic and desperation, decides to try and rip off his bodysuit to escape. The suit comes of alright but out tumbles Danny Fenton rather than a de-clothed Phantom. Skulker, in a moment of shock, drops the suit and Danny catches cradling it to his chest while every fiber of his being screams “MY COAT. MY PELT. MINE, DONT STEAL IT.” Skulked realizes what’s happened before Danny does and nopes out of there bc “ This is not what I meant when a said I would have your pelt whelp!” Danny is left sitting there feeling stunned. A quick round of experimentation leads him to figure out that he is now able to take off the suit in Phantom form, but it will de-transform him into Danny. Furthermore, the regular "going ghost" transition still works both with and without him physically holding the suit.

A quick consultation with Clockwork and Frostbite reveals the Fenton Selkie heritage and he goes back to report to Jazz and his friends. Due to Jazz’s instance the siblings get a crash course in Selkies through a community of Selkies and Part-Selkies in the Infinite Realms as well as having a younger ghost show them where to find the modern underground Selkie-Community. Which leads to them getting emotionally adopted by their (dead and alive) Selkie mentors. They learn about eating habits, behavior, culture and customs (including the in and outs of courtship and mating), and camflouge/blending into society.

Jazz learns to tap into her vocal magic/manipulation. Her voice has a deeply calming effect on others and they feel more compelled to listen to her. This comes in handy with some of her more rowdy patients at her internships and stuff. She’s also to taps into the physical aspects of her Selkie blood and gains enhanced dexterity, agility, balance and reflexes. She’s also working towards improving her strength and stamina. Needless to say her aim has definitely improved. Nothing too wild but as she gains more liminality, those aspects become stronger so she’s definitely a cut above the average human though not as crazy as Danny.

Danny on the other hand gets the ability to “shed his pelt” by being able to physically take of his suit and de-transform as well as how to disguise the suit as a jacket or something (maybe a romper or a cardigan?) so that he he can keep it on him for quick, more discreet transformations if he wants to. His ghostly form takes on more Selkie traits like fangs for a powerful bite and more muscle mass and fat in certain areas to improve his endurance and cold resistance. He also learns to manipulate his ectoplasm to be able to shapeshift into the seal version of a Selkie. He is able to practice and manipulate his Ghostly Wail and hone it into a Siren Song and Sonic Singing too.

So basically both the Fenton siblings get cool Selkie power-ups (and unbeknownst to the two, admittedly already quite attractive siblings, their looks take on an otherworldly allure too). As well as a new community eager to take them in and provide them with support. That's why when Danny decides he wants to get away from Amity for college (the ghosts have agreed to a truce as long as Danny pops in for a spar and some shenanigans every now and then. He acquiesces because playing and roughhousing is a part of building social relations for both ghosts and selkies) some of their Selkie contacts help him apply for the Wayne Scholarship at Gotham University and get him set up in Gotham.

Let’s switch gears for a moment here. Gotham has always been a weird place full of weirdos, magic, and cursed energy. Basically, overall chaotic, edgy, and somewhat rancid vibes. It also is entwined with the supernatural. Lady Gotham, the spirit of the city, has allowed many a supernatural community to remain well hidden in her realm including but not limited to fae, witches, gargoyles, vampires, and of course, selkies. There is a huge underground supernatural community in Gotham, part of which is the Selkie community. Most of the Selkies moved out of the harbor and onto land due to pollution. The luckier ones who managed to gain some quick wealth settled in the Upper East Side or Coventry while others ended up in Burnley, the Bowery, and Crime Alley. However, family is very important to Selkies, so there is little resentment between the areas. They try to help out each other and the other members of the supernatural community in Gotham whenever possible. The overall magical community is spread out over Gotham with a few hot spots like Old Gotham, Robinson Park, Crime Alley and the Bowery, and Chinatown.

Now enter: Jason Todd (or a different member of the batfam of your choosing but you’re on your own to figure out how that’ll change the story). Jason grew up around a large portion of Gotham’s supernatural community. There were plenty of fae, selkies, sirens, vamps, and various other magical beings within Crime Alley. He discovered the community early on when he found out that the abuela who used to feed him tamales was in fact a Bruja (witch). Her name was Señora Mariana Soliña and she swore him to secrecy and taught him some basic knowledge on how to recognize and avoid being screwed over by the supernatural.

When his mother died Señora Soliña revealed her surprisingly large amount of wealth to him. She chose to live in Crime Alley to be closer to magical friends and people who would seek out her services as a witch doctor (her cover bc the best lies have a hint of truth). She offered him a hot meal and some spare cash when she could but they weren’t able to run into each other as often as they liked. After getting adopted and becoming Robin Jason made periodic visits to her before his death.

Jason’s resurrection didn’t happen in a Lazarus pit but when he crawled out of his grave. It was due to the magical energy(read also high ecto-concentration) in Gotham he had been exposed to that he became a Revenant. He was able to develop a core through the latent energy and become a spirit/reanimated corpse that sought to avenge both his death and countless others at the hands of The Joker. His dip in the Pits (polluted ectoplasm) brought him out of his catatonic state but triggered his obsession and left him with Pit Rage. Yada yada yada, trains with the League of Assassins, yada yada yada, trains with All-Caste and gets the ability to wield the magical All-Blades, yada yada yada, returns to Gotham for revenge becomes a crime lord, etc., etc., you know the drill.

Fast forward to when he’s made up with the BatFam and is now an antihero. His pit rage has gotten more controllable as the natural ectoplasm and magic in Gotham is slowly filtering out the polluted ectoplasm in his system but it’s still a long process. The supernatural community, however, is happy to have him there. You see Red Hood is actually quite a popular vigilante within the supernatural community. Among his many monikers, they were the ones who gave him the nickname “Avenger of the Unavenged”, and nod to his nature as a Revenant, as well as the aura of the All-Blades (which are meant to defeat absolute evil) that most magical beings recognize.

Jason is fully aware of the presence of the supernatural community in Gotham, as well as members of it who live within his haunt. Once things reach a new “normal” for him he tracks down Señora Soliña only somewhat surprised to see her alive and kicking. He asks for her guidance in the supernatural past the basic knowledge she gave him as a kid. Señora Soliña recognizes his magical aura and status as a Revenant and agrees. (Note: Jason is aware that he has some magic in him, but he attributes it to the All-Blades. He is not fully aware of his status as a Revenant. Señora Soliña assumes he knows and thus does not inform him.) She teaches him and helps him start getting integrated into Gotham’s supernatural community. She offers to “adopt” him as her grandson "Jason “Pedro�� Todd Soliña" so that he can take on a civilian identity and attend college. He agrees, eager to resume his education and take on a semi-"normal" life.

And thus we've reached the part of our story where two worlds collide. Jason and Danny first meet peripherally during orientation at Gotham U. They don't really have a direct interaction, just learning each other's names during the icebreakers and some eye contact during the tour. Danny is dorming and Jason commutes so the don't see each other much past running into each other on campus or in the dining hall. That is until they spot each other at an underground, supernatural beings-only, cafe called Xenia a few blocks away Robinson Park.

The two realize the other must have a supernatural connection and start up a conversation. The conversation is illuminating as they learn they're both fairly new to the supernatural community and mostly ghostly. Danny reveals himself as a halfa and of selkie descent and Jason uses his cover to introduce himself as the grandson of a bruja with magic, a brujo-in-training if you will. Upon being asked what a halfa is Danny realizes Jason doesn't know a ton about ghost culture and gives him a quick crash course leading them both to figure out that a) Jason is a Revenant and b) Danny could probably help the Pit Rage by giving him some ecto-supplements. Due to this newfound information Jason conveniently forgets that his new friend mentioned having Selkie blood.

The two meet up more after that, intentionally this time so that Danny can continue teaching Jason about ghost culture and just to hang out. (Note: Danny isn't teaching Jason about selkie culture as he assumes the grandson of a bruja would know that stuff already. Jason has been taught a bit about selkies but they haven't thoroughly covered the topic of courtship yet). As they hang out and develop a friendship with each other the seeds of romance are planted.

One day after they wrapped up lunch at Xenia, Danny left the cafe, accidentally leaving his pelt/jacket on his chair as he's still getting used to having to keep track of it. Jason not realizing the significance of his actions picks it up and takes it with him. Later that day Danny freaks out realizing he left it behind when he runs into Jason. Jason was actually looking for him to return the jacket. So he's like "Hey man you left this at the cafe so I took it and now you can have it back" assuming the redness on Danny's face is just embarrassment. Danny, while mortified, is also extremely flustered. Selkies typically only let close family and lovers have access to their pelts because it implies a deep and intimate bond built on trust that they'll give it back. For Jason, who should know about such Selkie customs, to not only take his pelt but then also return it so easily is some very straightforward flirting. But hey, Jason is good friend... and easy on the eyes too. He wouldn't mind if there was something more there. So Danny decides that he wouldn't mind courting/being courted by Jason.

Jason on the other hand has in fact caught feelings for his friend but hasn't realized he already initiated courting by doing this. He plans to do it the ghostly way engaging in some bonding through sparing and roughhousing and building up their feelings before asking him out. Unfortunately for him, there is a lot of overlap between Selkie courting and ghostly courting so Danny believes that Jason has been courting him for some time now. There are also some things that are specific to Selkie courting Jason unknowingly does, such as buying Danny a bracelet (shiny rocks as a courting gift), beating up a couple of guys trying to mug Danny (defending/showing off for your mate), and introducing Danny to his family/agreeing to meet Jazz (family is very important to Selkies).

That's why when they go out to dinner, and Jason embarrassedly corrects a waitress who thought they were on a date by saying "Oh we're just friends", Danny is understandably upset. He was under the impression that their courtship was getting rather serious since Jason had met Jazz and Danny had met Jason's family. When he asks Jason why he told the waitress they weren't dating he replies "Umm because we're not?" in an uncertain tone. Danny feeling hurt and upset takes his glass of water splashes it onto Jason's face and storms out of the restaurant. Jason is left there soaking, confused, and wondering what he did wrong.

That night Jason goes to visit Señora Soliña to see if he messed up some ghostly custom for Danny to get so upset. When he arrives one of the first things she asks him is how it's going with Danny. When he recounts what happened at dinner and explains his confusion, the bruja takes a deep sigh before smacking him upside the head. Jason is like “wtf abuela?!” And she just shakes her head at him and calls him an idiot. She then reminds him that Danny is part Selkie and explains all the ways Jason has been courting him during the past few months. Jason, realizing he screwed up grabs one of his leather jackets and goes off to track down Danny.

Danny has returned to his dorm to cry and eat ice cream in his pjs from the comfort of his own room. He’s about to watch some comfort tv when there is a pounding at his door. He gets to find a disheveled looking Jason standing at his door. Danny frowns and questions what he’s doing here. Jason’s like “Look I know you’re upset and understandably so but please let me in and I can explain”. Danny’s care for Jason wins out over his anger as he resigns himself to letting the other in. The first thing Jason does is apologize for hurting Danny, saying it was never his intention to do so. He then goes on to explain how he hadn't realized that he had been courting Danny in Selkie customs. Danny is understanding but still upset and voices his feelings to Jason. Jason allows the other to get his anger out and then continues to say that he was actually trying to court Danny through ghostly bonding, and he would still like to date him if he’s open to it. Jason then takes off the leather jacket that he brought with him and offers it to Danny, saying that he doesn’t have his own pelt to offer, but this is the next best thing. This gesture nearly brings Danny to tears and he throws himself to hug Jason, accepting the jacket. The pull back and look into each other's eyes before sharing a kiss and spending the rest of the night cuddling before Jason has to leave.

From then on Jason ramps up the courting to 12, determined not to mess it up again. He reasearches selkie and ghost courting customs in depth to properly woo Danny and personalizes dates to their personalities. Danny is happy to be lavished with the attention and returns the favor. The two of them also make an effort to make sure the have clear communication to avoid having misunderstandings again. A few months later Jason decides to re-introduce Danny to the batfam as his partner and brings Danny along to Wayne Family Dinner with a ring around his finger. It’s a promise ring not engagement ring, but what Bruce doesn’t know will surely give him a heart attack and Danny is happy to go along with it. Danny and Jason become the longest and most stable relationship in the batfam. Tim and Damian even come to them for advice when they try to romance their own partners.

The story kind of just finishes off with the two of them being happy with each other and leaves an open ending to add in small scenes that happened during a time skip or after the story (e.g gushing to siblings, an actual proposal, identity reaveals, batboys seeking advice, them engaging in pda, interaction with other supernatural beings, gossip surrounding their relationship, ect.)

[Edit: additional oc info now found here]

#dp x dc prompt #dc x dp #danny phantom #dead on main #jason todd x danny fenton #jason todd #danny fenton #selkies #urban fantasy #misunderstandings #long post #Ghost Selkie au #ghost selkie Danny Fenton #Strega’s dc x dp prompt

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spoilers-ahead · 1 year ago

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okay!! now that it’s not 2am for me, i’m going to post my selkie!jason todd hc’s straight up au apparently!

(uh. this was supposed to just be a list of hc’s but i got slightly,,,, carried away)

his selkie skin looks like an oversized red hoodie in his human form, and is just warm enough to help him survive new england winters.

when the summer heat becomes unbearable, he slings the hoodie around his waist

alternatively, he just coasts it out underwater. perks of living in a coastal city!

willis todd was a selkie. he used to tell jason stories of what it was like to swim through the big, wide ocean. of how freeing it felt. how different it is, from the smoggy, heavy air of gotham --- different, but both theirs, in their own right.

but to be honest, jason doesn’t remember much about the stories he was told, or really, anything about willis --- he had been in and out of blackgate for most of jason’s life, working for two-face to try and make ends meet, before dying.

what jason mostly remembers, are the warnings. don’t let anybody know you’re a selkie. don’t let anybody find your skin. they will find it, and they will use it to control you. even decades later, jason would still remember those warnings.

catherine is the one who teaches him how to swim, who helps him trial-and-error his way into putting his skin on, and learn how to make the transition seamless.

after she dies, jason spends three months as a seal, to just... exist. forget.

although jason technically lives on the streets, whenever he can;t find food, whenever he can’t find somewhere warm to sleep, whenever just being human becomes too unbearable, he spends the night as a seal. he ends up spending more time in the ocean, than on land.

that’s not to say he’s very good at being a seal --- he barely knows how to swim, has to learn how to fish the hard way.

when bruce finds jason stealing his car tires, he marvels over how nice jason’s hoodie is, soft and fluffy even after all of jason’s time on the streets, especially given the condition jason is in, ribs showing from malnutrition, and the worn and raggedy shape of the rest of his stuff.

jason is skittish when he goes to live in the manor, even after a few weeks. he always adopts an expression particularly similar to a cornered wild animal around alfred in particular, alfred, who keeps on trying to take his hoodie away, purportedly to wash it.

alfred eventually gives up on trying to force jason to wash it --- he figures that as jason becomes more comfortable living at the manor, he’ll wind up telling them why he’s so protective over that hoodie, and they can work something out then.

whenever wayne manor overwhelms jason with how big and how decadently expensive all the decor is, jason runs away, run to the ocean.

jason doesn’t actually end up telling alfred and bruce that he’s a selkie --- bruce just has a ridiculous amount of motion alarms, which are triggered every time jason ran off. he had followed jason the third night, and saw him transform.

bruce doesn’t tell jason that he knows, assuming that jason kept this a secret because he didn’t fully trust either of them. he would later learn that he was right in this assumption (a rare win for bruce in terms of emotional awareness)

except jason doesn’t fully trust either of them, even after a few months. bruce impulsively decides to do a few things --- a) tell jason about batman and robin and his crime-fighting secret identity, and b) tell jason he already knows about him being a selkie.

jason is absolutely bamboozled by the fact that bruce knows, and yet hasn’t tried to take his hoodie to control him, or to stop him from playing in the ocean for a few hours.

in fact, (under alfred’s encouragement) bruce offers to take him to the ocean during the day, so he can get “a proper night’s rest that a growing young boy such as himself would need”

jason remembers what his father told him, to never trust anyone, never let his guard down. but bruce has known about jason being a selkie for so long, and he didn’t take his hoodie or try anything. of course he can trust bruce.

and when he tries on the robin costume for the first time, it fits perfectly. just like his hoodie, his second skin. it fits just like magic.

oh, it’s a little loose in some places, the legacy of dick fucking grayson a little heavy sometimes, but he’ll grow into it. he’ll make himself, if he has to.

also, jason finds the fact that even though he’s a friggin’ selkie, his callsign is a bird (a robin, no less) incredibly ironic and funny

being a selkie is actually so useful for vigilantehood. the amount of people who talk freely, openly, and loudly about their drug smuggling plans near the ports is quite frankly, ridiculous.

honestly, towards the end of his robin years, jason remains genuinely surprised nobody catches on to him or his tactics yet. bruce is very proud.

even though jason is safe, has been safe for three years, and trusts bruce with his life, his skin, and everything, old habits are hard to break. so he has his hoodie on when he goes to find sheila.

and anyways, he wants to see if sheila is a selkie too. he’s taking biology right now, and they’re learning about punnett squares. jason’s never met another selkie before, other than willis who he barely remembers. there’s a possibility that sheila knows something, anything, so he has to try.

sheila gets a glint in her eyes when jason mentions that he’s a selkie, tells him that while she’s not one herself, she’s familiar with the myth. she has long suspected that willis was a selkie, she tells him, and she’s glad to have confirmation.

jason positively vibrates with excitement, can’t wait to ask, to pester his mother (mother!) with questions upon questions until.

until.

sheila doesn’t do anything after she gives him to the joker. she just smokes and smokes. and she doesn’t tell the joker about his hoodie, despite how it would have been much easier for the joker to destroy him that way. much more painful too.

small mercies, he supposes, in between hacking coughs that brings blood bubbling up his lips.

after he dies, his hoodie is ripped and in tatters from the crowbar, with burns along the edges from the bomb. bruce has to carefully peel it off his body.

when jason was alive, his magic kept the hoodie in perfect condition, always. even when the rest of him was covered head-to-toe in mud, or dripping sludge from the nasty gotham sewers.

bruce stares at the same hoodie, blood-soaked and mangled, so incredibly dissonant from how he remembered it on jason, when he was bright, whole, and alive.

he can’t stand it. the hoodie that was so precious to jason, that was jason, at the core of him, in this state. dirty and ripped and devoid of the magic jason had exuded.

in a moment of desperation, late at night, bruce asks alfred to teach him how to sew. he doesn’t dare to practice on jason’s beloved hoodie --- instead, he starts with the suits in his closet, grabbing the first one he sees, regardless of price. rips a hole and sews it back together over and over until he perfects his technique.

and then he washes the fabric gently, using baby fabric cleanser and scrubbing for hours upon hours until the last traces of the deep-set brown stain from jason’s blood washes down the drain.

he painstakingly sews the scraps of fabric back together with a red thread, carefully sourced to match the hoodie to try and make it flow seamlessly like it used to.

it doesn’t work, not exactly. despite his best efforts, the creases bruce had carefully sewn together are prominent and thick like scars, littering the soft fabric.

so he gives up. he hangs it over the grandfather clock entrance to the cave in his study. brings it with him every time he visits jason’s grave, because he doesn’t ever want to keep jason’s hoodie away from him, but he also can’t bear for it to get ruined.

dick visits him. a rare occurrence, these days.

dick yells at him, as he is wont to do.

these days, it feels like they spend more time angry at each other than not. dick says that this isn’t right. isn’t fair to anybody, not to alfred, not to himself, definitely not to jason. he rants, jason deserves to be remembered as he was in life, not frozen in death.

perhaps he is right. bruce is not unaware of the state of violent, cutting stasis he is in, this putrefaction of his life. and he is certainly not unaware of how it is affecting the people around him. dick. alfred. the neighbor’s kid, the one who wants to be robin.

bruce tries. not for himself, but for tim. for alfred, for dick. even for stephanie brown, who sometimes, when she smirks just right, or says something with just the right twang, he swears he can see jason in her.

he still can’t bear to put the hoodie away, because jason deserved better than to be forgotten, so he folds it gently and places it in his closet instead.

he also can’t bear to look at it for very long, so he forces himself to every single day.

it’s different from the glass case that houses robin’s tattered suit in the cave --- that, is a reminder of how he failed robin. this, this is salt in a constant, stabbing, festering would, reminding him of how he failed his son.

it was stephanie, that eventually helped him figure out what to do with the hoodie. when she was young, young enough to cry at ripped pants and skinned knees, young enough that her mother hadn’t touched the drugs yet, her mother would dry up her tears, give her a hug and a kiss on the forehead, before patching her pants up.

what not many people know, is that before crystal brown set her mind on becoming a nurse, she wanted to be an artist, first. and so she grabs her old set of embroidery needles, and stitched little designs. dogs and cats. stars and planets. tools and gadgets.

bruce doesn’t react, doesn’t even move, even as stephanie finishes her story. she hangs there awkwardly for a second, stares up at jason’s suit, waiting for him to respond, before shuffling towards the exit of the cave.

thank you, spoiler, bruce manages to croak out.

ah, yeah, she says, shrugging lightly while slouching in on herself, any time, boss. she walks out, and bruce watches her go from the reflection on the darkened computer.

that night, he takes out jason’s hoodie, smooths it out, grabs his threads, and stitches.

he stitches on constellations, argo navis, for jason’s namesake in the greek myths he had loved so much. a tiny seal, playing with beach balls. little books, with quotes on the sides. a robin, big and bold.

he tries to make it as true to jason as possible, not just in death and in bruce’s memories, but as he was in life.

jason wakes up abruptly.

he wakes up in a coffin, cold, alone, and with a gaping hole in his chest. getting dipped in the lazarus pit only made it worse, only made him all the more aware of what he was missing, all the more conscious of it.

he doesn’t bother trying to learn how to swim with two arms and two legs, instead of two fins and a tail. it doesn’t feel the same. it only reminds him of what he’s lost.

sometimes, on sleepless nights that happen more often than not, he wonders what would have happened if he still had a hoodie, still could swim.

if he still was robin.

and he doesn’t have access to the cave anymore, or to the titan’s tower, or the watchtower, and his memory of the past is still patchy and shitty in some places.

so in a burst of impulsivity fueled by the person he no longer is, he prints out photos of robin’s costume from the internet and recreates it on his own.

if his skin is gone, then fine. fine! he’s perfectly perfunctorily aware that nothing about this resurrection of his is natural. if he doesn’t think too much about it, he’ll be alright. his hoodie, his skin, that was something he was born with, a birthright that died with him.

but robin, robin was something that he helped shape. robin was something that he worked for, changed himself for.

and the makeshift robin suit --- it doesn’t fit him, not anymore. no, it feels wrong, like a child playing with their parent’s suit. or --- he realizes, perhaps more accurately, like an adult realizing they no longer fit in their favorite clothes.

and --- and --- what was the point of it all? what was the point, of trying to make bruce proud of him, of getting dick’s approval, of trying to futilely save people over and over again from the same gallery of supervillains who keep on escaping from prison?!

and what was the point of carving out a space for himself if the joker was just going to beat him out of it, and if tim drake was going to insert himself in the hole he left behind?

and then the next thing he knows he’s in titan’s tower hitting tim drake over and over again because who let him? who let him take jason’s role as a son, as a brother, as a hero? how dare he?

but when he’s slit tim’s throat and torn the ‘R’ off his chest, jason doesn’t feel any better. the robin suit still doesn’t fit. his hoodie’s still gone.

he’s starting to think it never will, not again.

sometimes, when he gets tired enough to let his mind wander, he wonders what happened to his suit.

he’s pretty sure he died with it, so either the hoodie is with the joker, batman, or... gone entirely. (it’s not like they found willis’ skin after he died. maybe selkie skins just disappear in a cloud of sea foam once they die, or some little mermaid shit like that)

it’s a cold comfort, that nobody can manipulate him now. nobody can control him --- not even batman.

(bruce had thought about it. when he first had his suspicious regarding who the red hood was, before he knew there was any trace of the son he once had left. he thought about using the hoodie, using jason’s selkie skin to coerce him, at least to stop murdering people, to stop hurting their family.)

(he would never go that far, in retrospect, or at least, he doesn’t think he could ever. to do that to jason, betray his trust so thoroughly and completely... but it would be a lie to say that he didn’t consider it.)

bruce reflects on this as jason reveals himself, the joker tied up at his feet with a gun pressed to his head, and venom spitting from his son’s mouth.

but when he lifts the batarang to hit jason’s gun, or wrist, or anything that’ll force him to drop the gun, he realizes that his hands are shaking.

and when he throws the batarang, he knows a millisecond after he’s let go, that he’s miscalculated the ricochet.

so when jason escapes that night, bruce knows he’s fucked up.

jason goes off the maps, completely. bruce doesn’t know where he is, if he’s safe, if he even made it out of the explosion that night.

it takes weeks. weeks for bruce to track jason down, from meticulously documenting the dropped threads of where the red hood was pulling strings in the gotham underworld behind the scenes, to tracking security cameras with facial recognition.

once bruce manages find where he’s staying, make sure he’s safe, he knows what he wants to do. and, he knows what he needs to do.

jason gets a package in the mail, five weeks after his disasterous meeting with batman and the joker. unmarked, unsigned, no return address.

when jason opens the box gingerly and carefully, he holds on to his skin for the first time in years. and then, and then, and then --- something right slots into place. his fingers brushed gently over the tiny spotted seal he knows he used to look like, the books he remembered ranting to bruce about for hours on end.

the robin, on the top left, over his heart, big enough to have changed him, yet small enough to not define him.

it’s not perfect. it doesn’t even fix anything, not entirely. he still fights with bruce most times he sees him, tries to punch dick in the face, steadfastly ignores tim and steph the entire time.

but it’s something. it’s something, and the next time nightwing, batman, spoiler, and robin fight a gang on the docks, the red hood gives them a helping hand before jumping back into the ocean and swimming away.

fin!

wow this got long

#jason todd #bruce wayne #alfred pennyworth #batfam #selkie!jason #dick grayson #stephanie brown #tim drake #catherine todd #willis todd #that one selkie!jason au #i swear i will turn this into an actual fic one day #anyways about the using embroidery to fix ripped clothes thing all i can say is WATCH HI MOM #it's SUCH a good movie and i guarantee it will DEVASTATE you in ALL your little mommy issues glory #like you think the batfamily comics/fanfics have an amazing nuanced complicated take on the parent-child dynamic?#this movie will BLOW your fucking SOCKS off. and best part of all: you can watch it WITH said parent #and it won't be as horrible of an experience as showing them encanto/turning red/eeaao!#in fact your parent will probably like the movie too and be reminded of THEIR own mommy issues :D #admittedly it's slightly different from the examples i listed above bc it's more abt what it's like to never reach ur parent's expectation #rather than an exploration of complicated parenting but it's still very relatable and very very good #the best part is you can find it all for free on youtube. also note that i mean the recent chinese movie not the old 70s movie #asteria's fics #i'm never writing a fucking flash fic on TUMBLR of all text editors again #shouldve written this out on a google doc first but i genuinely did not think this would get so long T.T #you can probably tell from the first three (3) bullet points that this was supposed to be a hc list before... it stopped being a hc list #guys i started writing this at 12 PM #IT'S NOW 9 AWOGEJAWOIG #my writing

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