#thinking about how dick grayson robin and batman chased a criminal all the way to singapore

[batboopp]

relationship so toxic they literally created their own twisted version of a fucking restraining order and was like ‘yeah this is for the best’

[oh-crap-im-attatched]

Ok, so I’ve been really into batfamily reverse age au’s lately, but a lot of the fics I’ve read just insert Tim Drake into Jason’s story with minor changes. That’s fine, but it got me thinking about what would’ve happened if Tim was the second Robin.

And I may or may not have gotten a little out of control.

Anyways, enjoy.

So Talia would drop Damian off on Bruce first. Which, I mean imagine Bruce having to learn how to parent with Damian. Anyway, Damian becomes Bruce’s first sidekick, not Robin because Dick came up with the name Robin, so for the sake of this rant I’m going to call him Blackbird. I think that would go pretty similarly to canon, with Damian eventually wanting to go off by himself, having a falling out with Bruce, etc. I imagine reverse Damian as less bratty than regular Damian, because he doesn’t have a Robin legacy to live up to or a mantle to earn. He was the first. I mean he’s still Damian, and still has to learn how to go from assassin to vigilante, but he is definitely more confident with his place. I think he’d be a lot like Bruce because 1. Regular Damian is already similar to Bruce and 2. He didn’t have any other role models, so there was no Dick Grayson to admire instead. So, eventually, Damian goes off by himself as a new vigilante (that isn’t Nightwing.)

Then Tim shows up. Bruce is upset that his son left and is trying to learn how to deal with the fact that Damian grew up, no longer needs him, etc. Bruce probably blames himself partly, thinking that he was a bad parent to Damian, and starts getting more violent with criminals. Taking his own guilt out on them, when a boy shows up at his door talking about how he knows that Bruce Wayne is Batman. Now there was no Dick Grayson doing a quadruple flip for Tim to figure it out, so he had to figure out a different way. Maybe he met Damian at a gala and was able to connect his formal speech patterns with Blackbird’s, and then everything else clicked into place. Anyway, Tim saw that there wasn’t a Blackbird anymore and saw that Batman started getting more violent with criminals and needed a sidekick, so he volunteered. It would take way less convincing from Tim in this au, because Damian didn’t die, especially when Bruce finds out about the neglectful parents. Tim would be closer with Bruce right off the bat too. So Tim becomes Blackbird. Everything’s great for a while, and when Tim’s parents die, Bruce adopts him. I think that Tim would always help the street kids, because he started becoming friends with some of them while following Batman and Blackbird.

Now, I’m thinking that Tim encountered the Joker in a very different way than Jason. Tim is smart enough that he can’t be easily tricked into a trap like Jason did, and he’s less impulsive. I think the same thing that happens to Jason would happen to Tim though, because the timing wouldn’t change. The Joker would want to traumatize Batman by killing his sidekick at the same time as canon. Who that sidekick is doesn’t really matter. It probably would’ve happened similarly to in Batman Beyond, where Tim was chasing a criminal or Harely and ended up getting knocked out. After that, the same thing in canon would happen, beaten, blown up, dead.

Bruce would be devestated. He’d probably be even more guilty than in canon because he let Tim convince him to be Blackbird in the first place, when Tim wasn’t even part of the family yet. He’d get even more violent than before, probably suicidal, starting to lose it. Damian would come back to Gotham to try to help his father, and mourn Tim himself. Damian and Tim didn’t have a strong relationship, but Damian respected his intelligence and the boy started to grow in him. Damian would feel that he should’ve gotten to know Tim better.

Then Jason would come flying into everyone’s lives. Bruce is worse than ever, when he comes across a boy stealing his tires. He’s surprised and a little shocked at the absolute balls this kid has, stealing from the batmobile, and dazedly asks if Jason was hungry. Jason would remind Bruce of Tim, and how Tim was always so good with the younger street kids and how he would want to help Jason. Long story short, Jason gets adopted. Jason in this au wouldn’t become Blackbird for a decent amount of time, even when he discovers Bruce is Batman, because Bruce is so scared at the thought of losing another son, but he eventually relents. Jason wouldn’t be able to get away with as many impulsive moves as in canon, because Bruce is way more cautious now. Anyway, Batman calms down, and everything’s normal for a while.

Then Tim comes back.

The same thing would happen as in canon. Ra’s Al Ghul heard that the smart Blackbird died, and starts plotting. Cut to grace robbing and Lazarus pit ex machina. Now, Tim wouldn’t respond to the same manipulation that Jason did. He doesn’t want people to die, he wouldn’t be that mad at Bruce for not killing the Joker, because he understands Batman, he followed him, studied him, flew with him. He knows why Bruce didn’t kill the Joker. No, Ra’s would have to resort to different tactics. Jason. Ra’s would play it that Bruce immediately took a new son off of the streets, a new Blackbird. That would get to Tim. If Tim thought that Bruce immediately got a new sidekick to put in harm’s way, didn’t even pause, and a street kid at that, who wouldn’t have a better alternative. That would get Tim mad. Tim wouldn’t be mad at being replaced, but that he got replaced with a kid who didn’t know better, immediately, and that Damian didn’t stop it. That would break through Tim’s walls enough for Ra’s to get to him. And given a year, Ra’s could manipulate him into wanted to kill Bruce. “For everyone’s sake,” Ra’s would say. “How many kids will he get killed.” Damian would be used as fuel too. Ra’s would say that he knows Damian. That Damian would stand by and let it happen if it meant he got to stay as a solo vigilante. That Damian doesn’t care about anyone else. Tim’s smart enough to logic his way through most of these lies, and he knows full well how much trouble Ra’s is, given that Damian was his predecessor, But, it wouldn’t matter how smart Tim was, given enough time and sole exposure to the league. Ra’s would shape Tim into his heir. Damian was a failure in that regard, and Tim is smarter anyway.

Eventually, Ra’s would be confident enough in Tim’s brainwashing that he would bring Tim back to Gotham. Not as the Red Hood, but as an assassin. A very well-trained assassin. Tim wouldn’t just kill people like Jason did, he’d probably have killed people with the league but not a lot. Forcing Tim to kill a lot would shake him out of the brainwashing more, because of his morals. No, Ra’s would be the one to get Batman’s attention. When Bruce eventually figured out Ra’s was in town, he’d go find him, and find Tim instead. Tim would have swords on him, and be in league of assassins uniform, but would probably be holding a gun at Bruce, because he could still beat Tim in a one on one fight. Damian would be there too, because he can handle his grandfather, but when he sees Tim, he’d blanch. Because, despite not being incredibly close to Tim, that was still his little brother, his dead little brother with his grandfather behind him. Oh, Damian would know exactly what happened.

Bruce would try to talk Tim down, and so would Damian, but with Ra’s right there as well, Tim wouldn’t shake enough to back down. Then, Jason shows up. I think that’s what gets through to Tim. Jason would’ve heard about Tim, and wanted to be just like him. He’d say as much to him. That is what would make a Tim pause, because according to Ra’s, Bruce made Jason Blackbird, Tim didn’t even think about if Jason had to convince Bruce to become Blackbird. He wasn’t able to with being around Ra’s constantly for a year. But with Jason standing right in front of him, completely unharmed, saying he wanted to be like Tim. That would shock Tim’s brain enough to actually think about what Damian and Bruce were saying. It would be like his entire word view suddenly tilted. His hand would start shaking. Damian would try to get him to see reason again, to reach out to Tim for what is pretty much the first time, and Ra’s gets cocky. He forgets that Tim’s intelligence doesn’t belong to him or Bruce. Tim would be reevaluating everything and start seeing more and more holes with Ra’s arguments. Tim’s more rational that regularJason, he’d be able to see that reverse Jason seems to want to be Blackbird, just like Tim wanted to be. I think that untimately it would take Bruce reaching out to him, calling him son, calking him back to truly break him. I think that Tim would go after Ra’s, pit madness still being a thing. Tim would probably almost kill him because a Ra’s would be caught off guard. Damian would be the one to stop him, to pull him back.

Afterwards, Tim would have a lot to sort through, and still wouldn’t exactly trust Bruce. He’d talk to Jason though. He and Jason would be very close, with Jason helping with a lot of his recovery. Giving constant assurance that he’s ok and that he loves being Blackbird. Tim would be very protective over him. Damian and Tim would get a lot closer too. Damian helping to undo all the conditioning and lies that Tim endured while with the league. Damian understands, and Tim would see that. Given enough time Tim would eventually go back home for good, go back to Bruce. When he finally rejoins the family he’d become a solo vigilante. His name would be Cardinal. A bird representing dead loved ones watching over you.

Bruce “dying” would still happen and I think that Tim would still be the one to figure it out, Damian might be a little skeptical because of Tim’s admittedly less than amazing mental state, but would offer assistance. He’d seen enough people coming back to life to be to sure that it’s impossible, and Jason really likes Tim at this point and wants Bruce back, so he’d be all for it. They’d bring Bruce back together, without the league of assassins, although Tim still finds a way to blow up half of Ra’s bases.

Dick would be like a breath of fresh air after the chaos of the first three. Bruce and the family would go to the circus for bonding. Maybe Tim mentioned seeing a circus performance when he was little, a Bruce wanted something to help Tim get even more comfortable being around him and the family again. They’d see the Flying Graysons fall, and see poor little Dick Grayson crying over the dead bodies of his family and immediately come to a consensus. Dick would get adopted soon after. He wouldn’t become Blackbird very quickly, as Jason still held the mantle, and maybe he wouldn’t at all. Maybe when the family finally deemed him ready to join them as a vigilante, he’d take the name Robin. The older siblings would love Dick and want to protect this boy with endless energy and a wide smile no matter what. Tim now having a strong urge when it comes to protecting his younger brothers because of Ra’s, Damian finally knowing how to big brother (in a very Damian way) at this point, and Jason getting to take care of someone younger than him. All of them would be a strong family unit at this point. And no one could tear them apart again.

[anothertimdrakestan]

Batboys Getting Betrayed By Their S/O HC

Requested? Yes! From a lovely anon!

“Hello! I'd like to make a Batboys reaction request if I may! If writing for all of them is too much please pick whoever you'd like! Have fun with it! Batboys finally catch the villain they've been after for a disgusting amount of time, they grab their mask/helmet, rip it off and BAM!! It's their S/O. How do they react? Thank you for your time!!”

THIS HC TURNED INTO AN EPIC COLLAB BETWEEN @birdy-bat-riya AND WE POPPED OFF!!! Riya really said “lets break the boys heart then give them the best fluff in the world” and I agreed then BAM this beauty. I hope you enjoy and I’m super excited to collab w my tumblr soulmate more!!!

ALSO GO CHECKOUT STAY WITH ME A TIM DRAKE FIC THAT IS KINDA LIKE THIS IF YOU WANT STORYLINE IT’S ONE OF MY FAVES!!!

Damian Wayne

- Damian would not see it coming

- after a painful bout of hand to hand combat, Robin had you stuck to a wall with Batarangs, and he stalked forward

- hoping he would get pulled away by Batman so wouldn’t notice your similarity to the love of his life, you sucked in a deep breath as you realized there was no escape

- “The great villainous sidekick defeated by Robin. Sounds good doesn’t it? But I want to know just who I bested” he quipped, reaching for your mask

- as he pulled it off he froze, your mask dropped to the ground as you began begging for forgiveness

- “Baby it’s not what it looks like! I’m sorry you know I couldn’t tell you! I love you Damian please understand!” you cried, pulling against the batarangs you felt your suit rip as you jumped to the ground reaching for Damian

- Damian looked beyond stunned, trying to process the idea that the one person he trusted above all had betrayed him. He’d spent months hunting, fighting, deeply wound you, then calling you beloved just a couple days later

- pulling yourself forward you flung your arms around him, trying to love him into submission

- instinctively his arms began to wrap around you and you could feel the material of his gloves grace over the exposed parts of your side from where your suit ripped, but he drew them back, pushing you off of him

- “belov- Y/N” his tone was harsh, and broken, “is this really you? You knew I was Robin, and yet you lied to me every day? Learned my weaknesses and my truths all just to use it against me?” you could see him shaking, his domino mask hid his glassy eyes but not his heart broken expression

- you realized he thought you’d only befriended him to use him and you jumped to explain “No! Babe never! I keep this life and our life completely separate! I never used anything and would never tell your secrets to anyone! This, this life [ you gestured to your suit ] is out of necessity, for my survival I have to be strong. But with you, Damian, with you life is worth living, you make my battles worth fighting, everything I do is for us!” you realized how good it felt to let everything go, tears streaming down your face

- Damian looked conflicted, broken because of your betrayal, but you could tell he still loved you

- “Y/N you know I can keep you safe, why? Why live this life when you know of the one we could’ve had together?” Damian 

- “I didn’t think of it that way” you whispered, thoughts flying through your head

- “Then let me help you” was all Damian said, and he reached out a hand

- Batman and your boss appeared behind you and Robin, both confused with what was happening

- Bruce looked shocked to see who the villain’s sidekick was, but he was trying to keep his Batman level confidence

- “C’mon kid lets go” you felt a tug on your shoulder, trying to lead you back to your base, but the look Damian was giving you stopped you, unable to turn your shoulder on him

- this was Damian asking you to pick a new life with him. And you knew he was the only thing that truly made him happy, but this would be the end of your reputation, and your safety

- you began to reach for Damian but stopped, needing his reassurance

- “you promise you’ll protect me?”

- “always.” you took his hand, falling into his arms, and decided a future with Damian was better than anything else

Dick Grayson

- Dick didn’t know you were Slade’s protege after Dick told him no all those years ago

- you knew he thought of your villain persona as his greatest opponent and you couldn’t break his heart

- you’d both been in the good guy vs bad guy business since you were kids so you couldn’t expect him to understand, so you hid it.

- he told you he was Nightwing a couple months before and your heart dropped realizing you’d been fighting the love of your life for years, and were trained by one of his greatest tormentors

- in a terrible turn of events you, Nightwing, and Slade all ended up fighting each other, Nightwing and you after Slade for seperate reasons just before his escape he noticed how you couldn’t hurt Dick like you used to

- in an act of revenge for you leaving his side all those years ago, he shouted “catch you later sweet Y/N!” before jumping out a window out of your sight

- Dick’s head whipped to you, a look of confusion at Slade knowing your identity

- hoping he’d missed it you tried to run out of the building and take off

- angy Dick is basically super powered so he caught you (yes i said angy)

- when he rips off your mask and the face he’d adored for years looks up at him he physically can’t stand

- watching the love of your life crumple to the ground is the hardest thing you’ve endured

- frantically trying to explain you keep trying to cup his face in your hand but he pulls away, refusing to look you in the eyes, eventually finding the strength to get up and grapple away

- the entire batfam goes after you. Damian especially, because he trusted you, glad Dick had someone that loved him the way he secretly did. There is no way you’re gonna get away from an angry Batfam especially when their mutual favorite brother has been broken

- I honestly don’t think Dick would let it go back to normal. His family would never approve and knowing you lied for months was too much, he knows what is good and bad for him and is surrounded by family.

- One day the two of you would team up and apologize, continuing forward as mutuals that come when the other needs you, but Dick wouldn’t be able to look at you the same, and Damian would never leave his side, refusing to let Dick get hurt again

Jason Todd

- Jason was used to coming home to you bruised and cut. He never liked to see you battered and bleeding, but he understood it was part of your job as a Criminal Investigator.

- at least that’s what he thought

- you were used to seeing him beat up too. The only difference was that you knew the real reason he came home beaten and injured. 

- it was because he would spend his nights fighting you.

- you truly loved Jason, but you couldn't bear to break his heart by telling him the truth. That the woman he loved was his sworn enemy and was lying about it.

- little did you know, he was beginning to get suspicious of your injuries. They seemed a little extreme for an investigative agent, and dare he say, they seemed to match the injuries his enemy walked away with last night.

- then one night, it happened. You were being chased by Red Hood. You thought you were in the clear. And knowing jason would be home any minute, you headed back home, hopping from rooftop-to-rooftop.

- you stopped in the parking lot of your building, about to take off your mask when you heard a voice. Red Hood was leaning on your car, looking more tense than usual. “Go on. Take off the mask.”

- you were mortified. You tried to run but he caught you and you were cornered. He took off the mask and you looked down, afraid to meet his eyes.

- he wasn’t startled or shocked. You heard the seams of his gloves rip as he clenched his fist. You looked up and saw him scowling, but behind the anger, there was so much disappointment. You could see his heart breaking.

-  he stepped back and began to walk away. You tried so hard to explain and apologize but he only turned you down, unwilling to see your face.

- realizing everything was ruined, you gave one final apology. “Jason, I know you can’t forgive me. But I truly am sorry. I'm sorry for lying, I’m sorry for hurting you, I’m sorry for everything. But I promise, I really do love you. And I know you might not believe me, but I mean every word.” Tears were streaming down your face, and he wouldn’t let you see it, but they were brimming in his.

- you left and didn’t come back. You kept your distance from Jason but made sure you knew was still alright. He was frequenting bars, skipping patrols. You began to worry when he was nowhere to be found, so you donned the mask once more, only without your usual uniform.

- that night, to your disbelief, you found the Red Hood fighting some petty cat burglars outside of a museum. You noticed how his punches held more force than they used to and felt a little pained, seeing his hurt in his movements. 

- while he was taking care of the robbers, you saw one of them run off to a car with a jade vase and instinctively charged in. You hopped in the car roof and swung into the passenger seat, knocked out the driver, and safely drove the car back.

- you put the vase back where it belonged and left the scene of the crime without anyone’s attention.

- Red Hood turned the burglars over to the cops. There was something about a tripped alarm and missing vase but the item was kept exactly where it was meant to be when they checked.

- he was about to trudge away when he heard something. “This masked broad, she jumped into the car! From the bloody window!” His mind wandered. It couldn’t be…

- that night, you returned to one of your old safehouses and headed to your closet to put away your mask, but the first thing you saw was your suit. You looked at the domino mask in your hand and all you could remember was Jason’s face when he found out. Right then and there, you threw it all away.

- months passed. You hadn’t heard from or seen Jason Todd. You revamped your suit and donned a new mask. You went by your old name still. You couldn’t change who you were, and you didn't want to either. 

- the only difference now was that you didn’t kill. something tilted the needle on your moral compass, and as much you wanted to deny it, Jason rubbed off on you.

- you took your burglary jobs, and got into your own type of trouble, but you could almost always handle it. Emphasis on the ‘almost’

- once or twice you bit off more than you could chew, for example the time when you needed to collect some money from a Bludhaven gang. you were outnumbered and unarmed. just when you thought it was all over for you, you heard two gunshots and violent cursing. 

- you found yourself standing before two gangsters with bloody hands and one Red Hood. “You’re welcome.”, he said with his usual snarky tone, muffled by his helmet. 

- this was the first of many times he would save you. You would drop in on his gigs sometimes as well, just to lend a helping gun.

- bad blood aside, you were always there for eachother. He meant it as a silent acceptance of your apology and that’s exactly how you took it.

- soon enough the tension faded, you both went down your own roads but found comfort in knowing that you were never alone. It was an unspoken pact that when one of you needed the other, you’d never be far. 

Tim Drake

- Tim would notice something, maybe you stuffing your suit in your trunk, you using a phrase his enemy always used, something that gave him the wrong feeling

- he’d push it away, always wanting to believe the best of you

- but eventually it wouldn’t add up

- Tim came over one night and made a beeline to the back of your closet, a drawer he never saw you open during all the years of knowing you

- you heard a small gasp when he pulled out the suit of his rival, the strangled sound of disbelief was the last noise he made before he threw your suit on the floor and stormed out, and it was the last you saw of him for months

- watching the news seeing “RED ROBIN GONE BAD?” or “IS THIS IS THE SAME HERO?” as you watched Tim become more and more reckless and cruel. Tim rarely got so physical the medics came instead of the police but watching him through your screen you saw a new person

- seeing Tim (and Red Robin) break down on television gave you the realization of the necessity behind Tim’s heroics

- almost as an homage to his heart break he began using the moves you’re villainous alter ego used on him on his new targets, showing you the hurt and the damage you’d done to your victims

- after weeks of watching the torture you knew villainy wasn’t worth it if it meant Tim was broken like this

- knowing he’d be on patrol like always you waited on the top of the building he’d brought you to the night you started dating, hoping he’d miss the memory as much as you did

- rushing up to him, begging for him to listen, even after the heart break Tim couldn’t say no to you, and he needed to know why, this was a mystery he really couldn’t piece together

- frantically explaining everything from your childhood forward, you couldn’t stop, the honestly was refreshing, and Tim listened the whole time

- after admitting everything you brought your suit out, and in front of Tim you began to rip it to shreds, hoping he’d see the meaning behind your words

- this was a lot for Tim, and he asked for a week to settle his feelings

- Red Robin was inactive for a week, 168 hours you spent praying to anything that he’d take you back

- and exactly one week later, you were holding your head in your hands sobbing, wishing you could’ve changed earlier and hoping Tim would go back to his heroism - when you heard your apartment window carefully opening

- Tim came back, suited up, holding a new suit for you that he’d had created

- Tim explained that he wanted you back, and he intended on helping you fix all your past mistakes, one life saved at a time

- you often looked back on the news from that week, the headlines showed a new chapter of your life

“RED ROBIN AND NIGHTINGALE Y CRIME FIGHTING DUO!” “RED ROBIN IS BACK AND BETTER THAN EVER WITH A NEW HERO AT HIS SIDE!”

I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS IS A REMINDER TO GO FOLLOW @birdy-bat-riyaBECAUSE SHE IS THE REASON THIS IS SO AMAZING ILY GIRLY

[nightwingmyboi]

Dick Grayson and Temper

For whatever reason, Dick’s temper has become one of the main traits that people focus on when looking at Dick’s character. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, since he does have quite the temper, but since it has become one of those essential aspects of his personality for a lot of people, I just wanted to clarify a few things I think get misconstrued? 

Certain people take Dick having a temper and equate it with him having anger issues or thin skin. It’s bled into art, text posts, fics...where Dick is described/shown essentially as a petty asshole, someone who has a tendency to overreact and lash out at family and friends, someone who is whiny and always complaining (@bigskydreaming​ goes a little more into this perception here). I don’t think this is a fair interpretation of Dick’s character at all. There are two main things I feel like people need to keep in mind when thinking about Dick’s temper. 

1.) Dick’s infamous temper is, 9 times out of 10, directed at criminals. 

Nightwing (1996) #65

When Dick mentions struggling with his temper, he is almost always talking about the anger he feels towards criminals, not loved ones. When he sees people hurt or in danger, especially those closest to him, he gets pissed and can go too far. He often gets angry in defense of his family and those he protects. 

Titans Vol. 2 #29

Batman and Robin #12

In fact, one of the biggest examples of his temper is him beating the Joker to death, as a result of the Joker killing Jason and Tim. Like many heroes, Dick struggles with not crossing the line when faced with crime; this doesn’t mean that he is the same way with those he loves. 

2.) In most circumstances, Dick has demonstrated excellent control of his anger. So, Dick may have a bad temper...but it usually doesn’t make an appearance unless he is under an immense amount of pressure (and sometimes not even then). 

Injustice Gods Among Us #16

Dick’s not a doormat and he can be confrontational if that’s what is needed to get the job done, but he is also known for keeping a cool head under immense pressure and stress. He’s known in the superhero community for resolving conflict and has often been called “the glue” that keeps various teams together. That wouldn’t mesh with the idea that he is constantly losing his temper. In fact, his middle name might as well be de-escalation, because that’s pretty consistently what he does. Look at how he acts in various arguments: 

Example #1: While Nightwing is off-world with the Titans, Jason dies. Likely struggling with grief, Bruce doesn’t attempt to contact Dick while he is off world or when he returns. Dick is left to find out through a teammate, Danny Chase. Despite being left in the dark, Dick still goes to the cave to try to support Bruce. He puts his feelings to the side, and doesn’t even bring up the fact that he was hurt by Bruce’s exclusion. Unfortunately, the conversation derails regardless, and Bruce ends up hitting Dick and telling him that it was a mistake to invite Dick into his life. 

The New Teen Titans #55

Look at how Dick reacts. Even when Batman hits him and yells extremely harsh things at him, he doesn’t lash out in turn or yell back. He keeps calm and continues to talk to Batman; he likely understands that this is a product of Bruce’s grief and as a result allows his feelings/hurts to go unaddressed. 

Example #2 (inspired by @hood-ex​ post here): Garth loses his temper when he learns that the Titans won’t help him with a problem he’s having. When Robin tries to stop the fight, Garth punches him. 

Teen Titans (1966) #28

After he takes the hit, Dick continues to try to keep people from fighting, and in the end, Dick once again puts his bruised feelings to the side and doesn’t say a word of complaint to keep team unity. He still goes and helps Garth with his problem. 

Example #3: After Donna’s death, Dick was devastated. He spiraled into depression. In the aftermath, he was stricter and quicker to anger than he would normally be. Even his leadership of the Outsiders was effected, and as a result, Anissa, Black Lightning’s daughter, was seriously hurt. Black Lightning is not pleased; he slams Nightwing against a wall and yells at him. 

Outsiders (2003) #16

Even when Dick is emotionally compromised and short tempered, he still isn’t looking for a fight. He doesn’t retaliate when Black Lightning slams him against the wall, and he doesn’t interrupt when Pierce tears into him (for a whole page of the comic). It’s not like Pierce goes easy with his criticism; yet, Dick remains stoic and takes it. He doesn’t say a word of complaint or defense, and he doesn’t lash out. He keeps his temper under control. (Just an fyi for those wondering, but this is definitely one of those times Dick deserved a harsh talking to, lmao, support you Black Lightning!!)

Example #4: The Batfam is fighting a villain known as Mother, who is known for brainwashing people. Anyone could be in her control, so when Tim is acting suspiciously, Dick decides to investigate to ensure that Tim is not a double agent. Dick finds out that Tim secretly kept his family in a hidden location to protect them, and unintentionally brings trouble to their door. On the flip side, Tim gets angry at Dick for sneaking around behind his back and putting his family in danger. Though Dick tries to explain his actions, Tim won’t hear it and instead throws a punch. 

Batman and Robin Eternal #5

Even when Tim punches him out of the blue, ironically because he can’t control his temper, Dick just takes the hit and lets him walk away. He doesn’t ever push Tim for an apology, and Tim never gives one. The rest of the series, people give Dick crap for betraying Tim’s trust, and despite Dick’s reasonable concerns being the impetus for his actions, Dick accepts the other’s criticism without complaint. 

Examples #5-57: Just think of all the times that Damian insulted Dick and told him he couldn’t cut it and generally was acting like a little shit, when Dick was struggling with Batman’s death and with taking on the cowl and with running Bruce’s life, and Dick still never gave up on Damian and gave him Robin. Very patient, very thick skin. 

And I could add even more moments! I don’t mean to go overboard, but the idea is that, over pretty much his entire history, from Robin to Nightwing to Batman and back, there are more times that Dick puts his feelings to the side and lets people yell at him (and basically physically assault him RIP) for the greater good, then times he flies off the handle and loses his temper, especially when compared to other characters in the Batfam. Seeing people say that Dick is secretly an angry asshole when pushed a little or is always blowing things out of proportion and being whiny is just annoying, especially when Dick canonically has worked very hard to keep his cool and mediate in various tense situations, even when he has reason to get offended and retaliate. 

And this isn’t me saying that Dick can’t lash out, cause duh he’s a human being and he’s not perfect. He does have a temper and sometimes can say harsh things to those he loves. But, he doesn’t usually lose his cool, and when he does it is usually a surprise. The rarity of Nightwing giving into his temper is part of the reason it is so impactful when he does fly off the handle. 

A lot of the panels you see floating around about Dick’s temper are 1) from times he was brainwashed or mentally influenced (Dick yelling at Donna, Alfred, and Joey are all from a single time when he was brainwashed by Brotherblood for example), 2) from times he was in great emotional/mental distress from the deaths of those close to him, or 3) examples of times that Dick is standing up for himself, that I don’t really see as him having a temper? And a lot of those fights/arguments that are shown are not as one sided as tumblr makes them seem, lmao. Either way, most of these times aren’t really representative of his normal behavior or attitude.

In conclusion, Dick isn’t some petty jerk with anger management issues; he’s a human being, who sometimes gets angry and upset like every other human being in the world. He has a temper, but I don’t feel like it should define him in the way and to the extent that it currently does. 

P.S. This isn’t me trying to excuse the times that Dick has been nasty and let his temper run away from him, obviously. Like I said, he’s human and he’s made mistakes. But he doesn’t lash out normally or often. I’m just trying to put things in perspective. 

[rory-for-short]

We are not our parents|Part Five

He couldn't see them

When Lucy had gotten the call from her, well, she didn't know what they were... her Richard Grayson, asking for her measurements, she was ever the skeptic.

"Is this about your dad's big fling?" She asked over the phone as she settled on her couch.

"Possibly," he answered from the other end, sitting at a desk in his room.

"Why don't I just pick what I wear," she questioned. The way she said where was like "whey-uh" . It was all Jersey, and made Dick laugh to himself.

"You definitely could, but I just wanted to give you a designer option," he explained.

"You think I can't afford a designer option?"

"I know you can't. You make 11 dollars an hour in Gotham city

"Fair. Okay. Fine we can try designer, but I have some specifications."

"Okay, shoot."

"No checker board, no pinstripes. Nothing that says criminal. I don't mind blazers or flowers. Nothing flashy I'm laying low," she rattled off.

"Don't worry. I know you are feeling a little weird about this-"

"-A little?-"

"But I know what I'm doing. Well, I guess the dress maker does. I don't have any say. I can pass on your message to them though," he explained. She gave a sigh of relief. She had been freaking out all week about this party. This stupid, ritzy, heart of Gotham party.

After she found out about her man being THE Richard Grayson Wayne, she wanted out. Even if her parents weren't terrorists, she still wouldn't be on his level. She missed when she thought he was just a gutter rat greecer wannabe punching muggers for fun. But he was educated. High Socioty. Fit as a fiddle, and hot as the Sahara. Yet he chased her. He wanted her. He was so infatuated.

It's not like she didn't see anything good about herself. On the contrary, she knew she was hardworking, pretty funny, nice to look at expessialy when she was trying, and all in all she was a cute, blonde girl next door. However, sometimes it felt like none of that mattered. She was surrounded by a dark legacy. She couldn't even consider having her own kids. What would she tell them, and mabey crazy skips a generation.

But this dumb, cute, himbo of a boy saw none of it. Or at least, he pretended not to notice it. Sometimes he'd give her a strange look and she wonder if he was thinking about the people who raised her. She started being a bit more subtle. No dark makeup, lest she look like her mother. No red lipstick, because that was her father's signature look. Hair up in pigtails? Off limits. The colors red or green, she avoided them before Dick Grayson anyway.

"Hello? Lucy are you still there," Dicks voice snapped her out of her thoughts.

"Sorry I think a siren was going by," she said avoiding the truth.

"No worries, I was asking if you wanted me to get a hair and makeup person too?"

"Oh gawd no! I know what looks good on my face," she laughed.

"Even with you not knowing what the dress will look like?" He challenged.

"On second thought-" she trailed off. She could hear him laugh from the other side of the line.

"Gotcha, I'll get it all set up," he assured.

He got it all set up alright. The afternoon before the party a knock on her door sounded. She opened it to fing him grinning with a black dress bag slung over his shoulder.

"Heya-Hiya," he greeted fondly. She noticed he wasn't alone at the door. There was also a pale woman with raven hair longer than she'd ever seen and jagged bangs. She wore a mesh top, black shorts and a leather jacket. She was ethereal and beautiful. Lucy almost forgot to talk.

"Babe, this is Rachel. She's really good with makeup and she's a buddy of mine," he introduced.

"So you're Lucy? The way your Golden retriever of a boyfriend described you I was expecting Shera, or Captian Marvel," his friend mused. Dick was turning bright red from the tips of his ears to his neck.

"Yeah, yeah, that's really funny Rachel," he awkwardly laughed. Lucy welcomed them inside and Dick layed the dress bag on the couch while Rachel carried in a big metal mackup case.

"I haven't seen the dress yet," Dick admitted, "I told her all that stuff you told me. Hopefully they listened." He said getting ready to unveil it.

Rachel was now standing beside them as Dick revealed the dress. As they stood there taking it in, she realized that there was a color she forgot to say was off limits. It was a beautiful dress. The top of it like a Corsett with spaghetti straps. The tooling elegant and down to the knees. There were several star details on it. They lay on a sky of deep purple. Lucy bit her lip nervously. Richard noticed immediately.

"Well, that was an oversight on our part," he sighed disappointedly. Rachel cocked her head confused.

"And I thought I was a Debby downer. It's a beautiful peice, plus it isn't too bright. Hell, I'd wear it," she concluded settling her hands on her hips. And she was right, it was beautiful. Mabey beautiful enough to distrct from the rest of her. If the only people talked about was her dress, she'd be okay with that.

"I love it," she said smiling.

"Yeah, Dick doesn't know what he's talking about. He has zero taste unless it's in women," she joked. She met eyes with her boyfriend and smiled.

Bruce was stewing in indecision. His son had come to him and told him that he and Lucy discussed the risks involved with a public appearance, that he could protect her, and that she had been through enough in her life so she should be able to just have fun for one night. He agreed. Deep down he agreed. However, he knew the kinds of people that attended these parties.

Not all of them were in it for the charity. Big names who wanted investors, ass kissing new moneies wanting to climb ranks. People with dirty money. It was an open charity event, and gossip from the criminal higher ups couldn't be discounted. All his parties had this risk, but this time it felt more pressing. On top of that he now knew the Jokers name. His full name. All he had to do was bluff with the first name an Harley had spilled all her info. She had told him all about Joker, her daughter, and how no matter how brutal the man was she wanted to stay with him.

"Yah know, I could handle our fights. The way we went round and round. I never considered leaving him until he suggested we get Lucy in on the family business," she sighed taking a drag of her cigarette. "I knew then I had to get the hell outta dodge. You and I both know a battlefield is no place for a child. She was only 15-" she stopped herself as she realized just who she was talking to.

"Nevermind. I guess you wouldn't get it. I wanted her to be normal. Arthur wanted her to be us. You always gotta want better for your kids. I might be a criminal psychopath, but why drag her into it. Why make her fight my battles? Or his? Or anyone's? I started a money stash. I was gonna run away with her," she looked down at the ash falling from her cigarette, and stamped it with her foot.

Bruce knew the rest of the story or at least from the perspective of his and police. Jason was his Robin at the time. They got an anonymous tip on the Joker's hideout. Harley had sold him out. When they arrived on the scene there was almost no reason to interfere. The way the two clowns were going at it, they would probably just end up killing eachother.

Harley's neck was cut. Only deep enough to make a red necklace that was surface level but he could guess what Joker was trying to accomplish. The Joker had two knives in him. He was still on his feet sporting a death grip on a hatchet with Harley's name on it.

There was also a hostage. Looking on, holding a gun, and not knowing who to shoot at. She was about 15.

They didn't even stop to look their way. They knew he and Robin were there, but this was deeply personal and toxically volatile.

Bruce remembered how easy they were to take down. Gotham police had them unarmed, sedated and in medical vehicles in practically no time; they had already done so much damage to eachother they hardly needed a push. Jason got the gun from the hostage. While Batman delt with the authorities and offered to gaurd the hospitals, not to keep anyone out, but keep the two clowns in, he left Jason in charge of the hostage.

He found out later that night, or he guessed, the next morning, that she was their kid. He learned when he read the police report. He forgot about her after that, but it did cross his mind that she was out there, somewhere, from time to time.

Dick and Lucy headed to the mannor before the party. He explained how his dad was a tightass and his butler was a total bro, so they'd be going through the garden and climbing the wall.

"You want me to climb in this dress and heels? In your dreams puddin," she scoffed rolling her eyes and playfully hitting him on the shoulder.

"I'll lift you over you won't have to break a sweat," he coerced. She lifted her eyebrow, amused.

"I'm 5'9 and 173 pounds of pure woman. If you think you can get me over that wall you are psyco!" She laughed exgerattingly gesturing as she spoke. When they had first got together, he would have had one of those danger reactions to this. To her eyes going wide with disbelief, and throwing her head back in a cackle. But those happened less and less. He realized something

He couldn't see them in her anymore.

Without another word he placed his hands on her waist and practically ballerina tossed her. She managed to catch halfway up on the flat part Making the wall a ledge. It almost knocked the breath out of her. But she managed to steady herself and hoist her body the rest of the way up. She was a bit of a ballerina after all. When they had both sets of feet in the garden, he flashed an "I told you so" smile. She rolled he eyes and gestured for him to lead the way.

When he began sliding open the kitchen door, he heard Tim's voice carry from the foyer.

"Well, well, well, how the turn tables!" He cackled. He heard a frustrated groan.

"Forget it, I don't see why I ask you for anything," he heard another male voice carry. The two pairs of couples entered the kitchen at the same time. Tim with his 'friend' Connor, and Dick with Lucy.

There was a beat of silence.

"So, you went the kitchen route huh?" Drake noted.

"Yeah, we went the kitchen route," Dick sighed.

"You look like a ruffian," Conner stated.

"I'm getting into my suit. It's wool and everything, I just didn't before picking up Lucy," he srugged.

"The matching ties are cute. You guys look adorable together," Lucy chimed in.

"We're not together," they defended in unison.

Another beat of silence.

"Well, okay. We are going upstairs. You guys have fun," Dick announced as he practically dragged Lucy behind them. Once they hit the back staircase they went from stone cold silence to giggling.

"They were wearing pride pocket squares and matching ties, how was I supposed' ta know," she defended with a hushed alarm.

"Oh they are. They just don't know it yet," he lead her to his room and opened the door for her.

[burytherosemarysprigs]

Masterlist

Masterlist of fics i’ve written or are in progress

/ Marvel /

- Peter Parker -

Journalistic Integrity

One has a secret. Another needs a big scoop for their school newspaper column. So maybe it was fate that brought her and Spiderman together on a Friday night, behind the coffee shop on 45th.

History student falls in love with Astrophysics student

Inspired by the poem of the same name by Keaton St. James.

- Matt Murdock - 

dahlia pins and lopsided grins

vintage dresses, spilled wine and walks around greenwich village are a few snippets of your relationship with one, matt murdock.

scarred skins

a lot of problems arise from colliding into a masked vigilante on an abandoned building's rooftop -- but love wasn't exactly at the top of the list.

- Bucky Barnes -

Autumn’s Ache

Bucky doesn’t know how he ended up in the Met Museum and he certainly doesn’t know why he’s so interested in a certain art curator there either.

Foreign Bodies 

‘Some things could only be written in a foreign language’ and some things can only be felt in foreign bodies

- Sam Wilson - 

Aprication

apricate (v); to bask in the sun, or, the time in which you learned to love sam wilson

- Quentin Beck - 

there is no such thing as grace; only silence

maybe you’re a little more than lonely and maybe Quentin is a little more than willing to change that.

/ DC /

- Dick Grayson / Night-wing -

Plainwater

bitter coffees, empty bullpens, late-night car rides and chasing down first-degree murderers is somehow the way you formed your relationship with one, Dick Grayson.

Dysphoric aubades

Dick Grayson isn’t sure who the ‘siren’ is, but he knows that every time you smile at him, he feels butterflies in his stomach.

- Jason Todd / Red Hood -

in 35mm film

“if god asked me for all the reasons for redamancy, i would show him the polaroid i took the night we drove my red car nowhere in particular.”

oral sadism and literary arguments | pt.2 - 

There’s probably only one thing worse than chauvinist literature, and that’s the sardonic boy who sits two rows behind in Lit class with his pristine paperbacks and ineffable aversion.

- Tim Drake / Red Robin -

- Bruce Wayne / Batman - 

of pyrrhic victories and car-rides, 

a collection of moments from yours and Bruce’s relationship.

stillness

a blurb about winter frost, duvet covers and a tiny, small realization.

/ Stranger Things /

- Steve Harrington -

Small Town People

Steve knows how much he likes you - but what he doesn’t know is why it’s so hard to tell you about it

- Billy Hargrove -

Graphite Stains & Cigarettes

Billy Hargrove is trying to clean up his act, so when he has the chance to become a cop in Hawkins - he takes it. But when he meets the Chief's daughter - he thinks something’s are meant to be.

/ Star Wars /

- Poe Dameron -

Higher Rank 

/ Star Trek /

- Jim Kirk -

Deformance and Uncomformity

In one’s mind, your relationship with James Kirk is one that is filled with snarky one-liners, thinly veiled attempts at bragging and a lot of tension - until it’s not.

/ Peaky Blinders /

- Thomas Shelby -

Enigma

Thomas Shelby is an enigma.

Vanilla and Decoupage

All he knows is the painter down the street is hiding something from him and he wants to figure out what that is - because Thomas Shelby never backs down from a challenge.

/ Criminal Minds /

- Spencer Reid -

Like a hook into an eye

a story about bullpens, loaded guns, manila folders and two people flitting in between it all

…

/ misc. /

Why the Caged Birds still Sing (Endgame Fic) (discontinued)

i. The rain hides anything

ii. The flowers that withered away

...

[dcomicsficrecs]

Got any good longish casefic recs? Got a loooong trip and I need something to keep me occupied. Thank you so much!!

First of all, thank you for sending this ask! I love case-heavy stories and long fics, so that was an opportunity to re-discover some of my favorite stories. I am going to re-read half of the list now, as well!

Here we go - top ten recommendations for long(ish) case fics!

1) detective stories series by prismatical starting with bad signal (38K)

The rescue mission went well. Nightwing is safe. Everything should be alright.

Right?

It’s a really gripping story that will keep you on the edge of your seat till the end. Features all of Batfam with Dick as a focus but other boy Robins play significant part too.

2) For Those Who Can't  by  GoAwayOlivia (8K)

They don’t understand him at all. There is no setting him off, that’s not the way it works. And he doesn’t go on violent sprees. Jason kills when the situation demands. That’s it. Plain and simple. He doesn’t lose his temper and murder any asshole that pisses him off. Every kill is a decision that he makes, and every decision is carefully weighed and measured with a cool head. He only ever kills because the person deserves to die.

Red Hood!Jason conducts investigation into a sting of murders that happened on his territory. I have a lot of feelings about this story and I’m sure you will, too.

3)  Raisin Delight  by  LemonadeGarden (8K)

A year after Jason Todd dies, Tim Drake and Bruce Wayne take on the case when they notice strange occurrences in Gotham city. This has disastrous consequences, but so do most things that Tim gets caught up in, so what's new, really.

It’s not only a case fic but also a time travel fic which is, imo, a double treat! The ending is very powerful even if I expect you’re going to have mixed feelings about it.

4)  Little Wing and Big Bird by Airawyn (16K)

When Bruce attempts to murder Jason in his sleep, the young Robin goes to his predecessor for help. Nightwing and Robin must work together to find out what happened to the real Bruce Wayne.

Fic featuring Robin!Jason teaming up with Nightwing!Dick. The boys save Bruce and Alfred and have a heart-to-heart in the process. Superb.

5) Some fics from More to Being a Father than Having a Kid by Romiress:

We Don't Raise Heroes (70K), Don't Call It Revenge (58K), Legacy's Sway (107K)

While technically not a case fic but include a big mysteries that Batfam investigates so I think it counts. I highly recommend the whole series. First fics are gen!

6) The Bat's Crest by livierambles (200K+)

Tragedy strikes the hero community when Bruce Wayne commits a crime so heinous even the best start asking for blood. However, as the heroes try to recover from the hit and carry out justice for their friends, a random assortment of people start acting oddly, including the current Speedy Tim Drake, a child hostage in Gotham, and a young man from an unremarkable circus amongst others. All of them seem intent on saving Bruce Wayne from the grasp of the Justice League for no apparent reason, going as far as betraying their previous allegiances.

Unknown to the Justice League, these people are equally confused. Clearly they're stuck in another dimension, but how do they get back? How did they even get here? Who else is stuck in this world? And how long will Tim's patience last? Back home, the Bat was a planetary symbol that struck fear in the hearts of criminals. In this new world, it has no meaning, save for the handful of stranded souls.

All Batfam is featured. While this is also technically not a case fic but adventure/dimension travel fic, its plot has a mystery element to it and characters have to investigate a lot as far as I remember. It’s probably the only WIP here on this list but god, is it worth to read and bookmark it. You know what? I’m even going to go ahead and subscribe to the author, too.

7) The Volatile Verse (117K) by BlackFriar, starting with Volatile (47K)

After a transdimensional mishap, Batman and Robin are faced with a murderous Joker rampaging through Gotham and an anti-hero who is determined to remove Robin from the crime-fighting business. Can they strike a balance before it all ends in tragedy and the Joker has the last laugh?

It’s a dimension travel case fic (series of fics, actually!) set in Young Justice with Robin!Dick and main universe!Red Hood!Jason. It’s a great story that doesn’t shy away from darker themes, can and probably will make you cry, but it also has hopeful ending. This Jason is going to be okay with these Bruce and Dick, and at the end of the day, after the case is solved, what else do you need?

8) I saved one of the best till the end, and it’s basically anything by Mikimoo

Fair warning, most of their fics are jaydick. My favorites are:

8.1 Between The Bars (48K)

A number of suspicious deaths at South Haven Penitentiary are being ignored by the authorities, but have attracted the attention of various other parties.

OR:

That one time Dick and Jason accidentally ended up undercover on the same mission and started a riot.

8.2 And If I Recover (33K)

Officer Dick Grayson is captured by a criminal group that makes it's living from torture and extortion. Half the family are forced to watch as events unfold, while the rest franticly try to track down the culprits.

8.3 That Awful Bitter Taste (30K)

Roped in to find out what has happened to Dick on an undercover mission, Jason finds himself faced with situations that challenge his personal identity. Meanwhile, Dick is having to face demons from his past, and Jason is not sure if he is helping or hurting.

But of course, the best time to have this particular existential crisis is while trying not to die in the desert, and being chased by angry men with guns.

8. 4 This Night (33K)

The Red Hood and Officer Grayson are on the same case.  A small misstep has far reaching consequences for them both.

All those fics are tagged as jaydick, and most of them have high rating but it’s for graphic description of violence so read the warnings before reading.

Even if you aren’t a jaydick shipper, those fics are plot-heavy and case-focused. The relationship dynamic and its progress would be natural and heartfelt as well.

Also, if asked to choose only one fic from the author, or only one jaydick, or only one case fic, I probably would have chosen Between The Bars, just so you know.

9. Two Birds on a Wire by  empires, pentapus (20K)

Dick asks Jason for help on a case. Jason should have never agreed.

It’s so popular you probably read it already. Still, just in case, I will include it too because it’s such a great undercover mission fic.

10)  Crimes at Night by empires (16k)

It's summer in Gotham, and the city is experiencing a record breaking heatwave and a rash of violence centered around a strange new drug circulating through the city's youth. Robin is determined to locate the drug's source and put an end to the distribution before things get worse.

Young Justice verse, Robin!Dick and never adopted!Jason, jaydick. It’s a great AU and well-executed case fic and if you’re into Jason/Dick, their relationships are very cute also.

[mischiefandspirits]

Colony of Gotham (1/7)

Special thanks to @starlightandsunshine​ for helping me with this <3

The Colony of Gotham is an urban legend that is whispered about in the dangerous city. It's said the Colony is a family of demons and spirits that stalk the night, hunting for the souls of the guilty.

When Bruce became Batman, he'd never intended to be mistaken for a demon. He was happy to lean into it, though, and as he gained his partners -- as his family grew -- they all followed suit.

Next Part

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bruce Wayne was born a vampire, one from the long-standing Kane family of vampires through his mother. This nature granted him a few abilities. He was more durable than a human and could heal faster. He was stronger and faster than a human and had better sight and hearing, though not to anywhere near the degree that some metas boasted. He could take on the form of an animal and could influence bats, corvids, canines, and felines to a certain extent. Finally, he would stop aging once he reached his thirties, a trait of those who were born or turned young instead of those like Alfred who were turned at an older age and therefore would always be that age.

However, when he set off on his path to becoming Batman, he swore to himself that he would not rely on any of this to fight the criminals that plagued Gotham. He would not be like those heroes past who relied on their powers, then were left defenseless when those abilities faltered or were ripped away. After all, only a vampire’s healing and longevity remained during the day and some spells and devices could similarly strip his nature away.

Batman stuck to his wits, tech, and martial arts training.

Even still, the criminals of Gotham could tell something was off about the Bat. Rumors flew about a demon haunting Gotham’s night, which Bruce leaned into. He hadn’t chosen a bat just because of the family significance. He wanted to strike fear. As such, he stuck to the shadows and allowed his fangs to bare. He used makeup to make himself appear paler and contortionist tricks to make his movements uncanny. He allowed Batman to become an urban legend that sent shivers down the spines of Gotham’s infamous.

When Barbara Gordon became Batgirl, she quickly realized his tricks were just that and leaned into them as well. She became a ghost following in the Bat’s footsteps. She disappeared into a mist made from special smoke pellets and spun across the ground and air in a weightless way that came from years of ballet and gymnastics training. She wore shadows like Batman’s, but violet and gold peeked through the darkness to make her stand apart.

Bruce initially didn’t want her in the field, but she eventually proved herself both competent and stubborn. In a bid to help protect her, he outfitted her with proper gear and let her in on the secret of his nature. She considered it, then a week later she asked him to turn her so she could always watch his back.

Then Dick Grayson was taken in by the billionaire and became the Bloody Robin. They called him a demon child, the son of the Bat who flew on bird’s wings. His cheerful laughs and giggles echoed and hissed eerily thanks to a voice filter. His clothes were bright colors, but were covered by the wing-like shadows that wrapped over his shoulders. Fake blood dripped from his hair and eyes and coated the tips of his gloves and cape. He chirped like a bird as he flipped and flew through the air. His mask made his eyes glow white and his body almost appeared boneless when he moved around on the ground thanks to the contortionist who’d babysat him at the circus.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The three heard the tales when teams of heroes began to form, but they didn’t reach out. Gotham’s Colony was a myth, an urban legend. Those outside of Gotham had never heard of them and those within only spoke in whispers.

That was how the Colony preferred it.

Besides, the rest of the world wasn’t as dark as Gotham.

Their tricks and games worked fine in the shadow-filled gothic architecture that made up Gotham, the near-perpetual overcast days, and the deep darkness of Gotham’s nights, but cities like Jump, Metropolis, or Central were far brighter. They could do without, they’d proven that plenty of times against the bigger villains that were either too crazy or brave to fear the Bat, but why should they? The tricks and games had become a part of them over the years and discarding a piece of themselves just so they could work outside of Gotham with strangers felt wrong.

So the Colony stuck to their own.

On the job, at least.

Dick met Wally West at a two-week-long Jr. Forensics Summer Camp when they were eleven and thirteen respectively. Bruce had sent him to brush up on his skills while Wally’s mentor, Barry Allen, thought it would be good training. Neither boy knew about each other's secret lives, but became close friends all the same and kept in contact when they returned home. Dick didn’t reveal it to Wally when he discovered the other boy was Kid Flash, but kept a close eye on Central City just in case.

A similar situation happened two years later when the Colony discovered Green Arrow’s latest protégé, a girl named Artemis Crock, lived in Gotham and had been helped into Gotham Academy by the other billionaire. Dick decided to keep an eye on her, but his pseudo-stalking quickly turned into a genuine friendship.

He may have taken a bit too much joy in introducing Wally and Artemis to one another. Wally got back at him a few years later by introducing him to the model Kory Anders, the secret identity of his celebrity crush Starfire. Dick had to admit to having a crush on Kory as well to explain his nerves.

It turned out to be a net gain in the end, though, since he came out of it with her phone number.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As time passed, Dick started to get too old to be the demon child. He decided to create a new story for himself. One that would let him step out from under the shadow of the bat, using a name from an alien myth in Bruce’s files that he’d loved reading growing up. He and Bruce argued, and Dick spent some time sleeping on Barbara’s couch, but with nowhere to run they were forced to come to a compromise. There was still tension, but it was smoothed over with time and a bite.

Nightwing was a nocturnal bird that had taken human shape after being taken in by Batgirl’s elegance. It chased after and raced the ghost, nothing but shadows and a blue streak flying through the air. Those who got close enough to see his face would say that his skin was like porcelain while black wings covered his eyes completely and his lips were painted with darkness.

Nightwing wasn’t the only change to the Colony, though, because as Dick was finishing up his designs for the story, a little boy was stealing the tires off the Batmobile.

Dick was furious when the kid climbed out of the car into the cave, thinking Bruce had brought the kid in as a new Robin without even consulting him, but anger’s quickly replaced by confusion.

Because Batman wasn’t with the kid.

Jason Todd had gotten grabbed by the Bat after having already nicked three tires off the batmobile. Batman caught him before he could run then replaced the tires. He’d made a mistake in leaving the boy in the car when he went to call for someone to pick him up, however. Jason, who some might generously call impulsive, proceeded to use the opportunity presented to him to hotwire the vehicle and take it for a joyride that ended when he accidentally had the autopilot bring him to the cave. 

Dick was immediately taken with the small spitfire’s story, as well as his stubbornness and intellect. Meanwhile, Jason was amused by the fact that Gotham’s demon was, in his eyes, nothing more than a spectacular conman and wanted in. They teamed up to force Bruce to adopt the younger boy through underhanded -- and perhaps slightly illegal -- tactics.

As Dick started using his new story more and Robin less, Jason got his own turn under Batman’s cape.

People started to say Robin was more vicious. He’d climb walls, the claws on his feet and hands easily cutting into brick and metal. He’d give a fang-filled smirk as he hung from the ceiling like he’d forgotten he was a bird instead of a bat, only to drop down on unsuspecting shoulders. If he wasn’t clawing at opponents, he was beating them with his fists.

As one of his first acts as Robin, Jason saved a young boy who had been kidnapped for ransom. The kid had acted out of it during the rescue, but Jason put it down to trauma. He’d had no reason to realize the young detective-to-be had noticed the edge of Jason’s fake fangs through the shadows and fake blood. No one could have predicted the rabbit hole young Tim Drake had just fallen down nor that it would lead him to massive discoveries in the near future.

When Jason discovered Catherine Todd wasn’t his birth mother, he considered going alone to look for the mystery woman who’d given birth to him. He and Bruce had just had a fight about his temper that had left him benched and he wanted to prove himself, but something Dick had told him months before echoed in his mind.

“No matter how much we argue, we’re always going to be there for each other. Us birds and bats, we’re a family. We have to stick together.”

In the end, he asked Dick and Barbara for help. It was something he was thankful for when his mother sold him out to the Joker. At least he could hold out against the torment with the knowledge his true family would soon come for him.

When Batgirl and Nightwing arrived, Joker fled. Barbara got Jason out while Dick, after seeing the state of his brother, tracked down the clown. Bruce got to him just in time to stop him from beating Joker to death, but when he saw Jason’s condition he couldn’t bring himself to scold his elder son for his loss of control.

Jason was barely hanging on and Bruce, knowing there was no other choice, turned him.

The boy lived, but his injuries were too severe and he fell into a coma.

Three weeks later, Bruce and Dick came into Bruce’s study to find Tim Drake waiting for them. Both were a little more focused on “My parents are never home” than “so I’m in a perfect position to cover for Jason as Robin while he’s sleeping,” to Tim’s confusion, but he ended up in the suit all the same.

The whispers that had come after Joker’s latest incarceration had him crowing about clipping bird wings tapered off as Robin sightings flared up throughout the city. People saw him flying next to the Bat and they heard him tap-tap-tapping his claws. He tapped them against the walls as he hunted through warehouses and against the floors as he crouched in front of technology that seemed to unlock under his gaze thanks to the computer that’d been built into his gloves, the interface of which could only be seen through the lenses in the Colony’s masks and cowls.

Tim didn’t really know how to feel about being adopted by Bruce, aside from the guilt he knew was mixed in there somewhere. It felt wrong to be slipping into the family like that while Jason was right there and Dick had to talk him down when the anxiety attack eventually hit.

Tim was Tim. He wasn’t Jason and they didn’t want him to be Jason.

Dick understood though. He explained how Dick and Jason had both had similar feelings regarding Barbara and Dick respectively, though Dick could admit he’d gotten off easier all things considered. He told Tim that the Colony was a family, and adoption or not, Tim was a part of that now. Jason wasn’t going anywhere and neither was Tim.

When Jason woke, Dick had a similar conversation with him after Jay saw a news broadcast about Tim while waiting for the others to arrive. It soothed him some, and Tim soothed him more when he assured Jason he wasn’t taking Robin from him.

“There can’t be two Robins.”

“Why can’t there?”

As Jason went through physical training to get back in shape, the two worked together to develop a strategy for acting as Robin together. One part of this was Trillic.

Tim, with help from Dick and Jason, invented a secret language made up of chirps, whistles, and clicks. It started as a way for the Robins to communicate with each other without giving away there was more than one, but over time the rest of the Colony picked it up and the vocabulary expanded until it became the family’s own personal language that they’d use whenever they didn’t feel like using words.

A few days after Jason was released from the hospital, Dick found Jason down in the cave and grew worried his little brother was pushing himself too soon after his accident. Then he saw the young woman on the screen. She looked a year or two older than Jason with long red hair, olive skin, and bright green eyes.

They’d met in Ethiopia, Jason told him, while saving a woman from some men. Jason had wanted to try to track her down now that he was awake. He’d succeeded, but it turned out she was an Amazonian hero.

Combined with the fact her name was Artemis, Dick couldn’t help but laugh and make a joke about Jason following in his footsteps. Jason smacked him and told him she was really more of an anti-hero so it wasn’t the same as Dick making friends with Kid Flash and Tigress, but Dick ignored him.

Jason did end up contacting her, and even got her to take a visit to Gotham. Dick took the opportunity to introduce her to Wally and his own Artemis, who Wally began to refer to as Stripes to not get confused. When questioned, he claimed it was because of some outfit of hers that stuck in his mind. Dick and Jason, knowing it was actually based on her identity as Tigress, nodded along and picked up using the name, to her annoyance.

Surprisingly, the two women didn’t get along despite their similar attitudes. This led to them taking great offense whenever people couldn’t tell which Artemis was being talked about, something only Jason, Dick, and Alfred never managed to do.

While the teens were laughing over this, whispers were going around about how the Bloody Robin seemed to be everywhere. If you fled from a room you knew he was in, you’d find him standing right in front of you in the new room. There was no escape. And he trilled more than ever, though his voice almost seemed to echo back at him as if he was having a conversation.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Not long after the Justice League had formed, Barbara had hacked into their security system and planted a little bug she named Mockingbird. It was designed to alert her whenever someone mentioned the Colony’s civilian or vigilante identities and copy any footage during the time. More often than not all it gave her was Wally and Bow-Artemis (as most of the family thought of her, to contrast with Axe-Artemis) discussing Dick. Every so often though, there’d be someone pining after Dick or Bruce, which could be good for a laugh depending on who it was.

On a day not long after the Robins had been set loose together, Mockingbird gave her something that was sort of new, yet at the same time not.

The video started with Wally discussing some prank he and Dick had pulled on Bruce and slowly devolved into him just bragging about how awesome Dick was. Suddenly he froze, staring off into the air.

Artemis took one look at him and asked, “Did you finally realize you’ve got a crush on your best friend?”

He immediately went to reassure his girlfriend, but she said got it and even shared his feelings.

Barbara settled in to watch the show.

Unfortunately, it took longer than she’d anticipated for Dick to catch on that the two actually wanted to date him and not just spend more time with him. He was usually pretty good at picking up on people’s feelings, yet Artemis ended up having to pull him into her lap during a movie night and kiss him flat on the lips before it sunk in.

When Barbara approached him about it, he pouted over her spying. Then he admitted that he’d known for years they all had feelings for each other, he just hadn’t wanted to risk getting in the middle of the two’s relationship since they seemed so happy together. When he’d realized how they’d started flirting with him, he’d been worried they were just after a quick thing and he couldn’t do that to himself. So he’d put on his media mask of naive ditz Dickie who wouldn’t recognize flirting if it hit him in the face.

Thankfully the two had reassured him and after talking it through, the three settled happily into their throuple.

To congratulate his brother, Jason gave him a solid week before making jokes about Dick following in Bruce’s footsteps by dating someone with a feline-themed suit.

The next hurdle was deciding how to deal with the media. Dick was Richard “Dickie” Grayson, eldest son of Bruce Wayne. The media loved to go on about him. Pretty much every second of his relationship with Kory had been recorded by the press. Neither of them had minded. He was still a performer at heart, always would be, and she was a warrior princess who had been in the spotlight all her life.

But Dick knew Wally and Artemis weren’t Kory so he talked to them about how they wanted to handle things.

In the end, they agreed only friends and family would know about Artemis, but Wally and Dick would go public. They all had practice keeping much bigger secrets so it wasn’t hard on Artemis to hide their relationship. Meanwhile, Wally didn’t mind playing around for the cameras. Plus, he knew how people treated Dick when they thought he was single and a small possessive part of him didn’t want them trying anything, even if he knew Dick would never cheat.

Things didn’t actually turn out too bad. Of course, there were always the conservatives that came around when Dick got a boyfriend, but they never stuck around long. Bruce had made his support of Dick’s sexuality very clear from the beginning and no one wanted to risk really ticking someone as rich and connected as him off by attacking his son like that.

The real problem came when their agreement to tell their families accidentally didn’t reach everyone.

Dick had been alone at the manor when it happened.

Bruce had gone on a weekend business trip, bringing Tim with him. Alfred was on a trip to England. Jason had taken the opportunity to spend the weekend hopefully not blowing things up with Artemis Grace, who had ended up getting a small flat in Gotham to act as her home base so she could visit with Jason and Dick during the rare occasions she wasn’t running across the world causing trouble with the Outlaws. Dick had been planning to spend the weekend with his partners at Stripe’s apartment, but they’d both been caught up by something (Dick assumed a mission had unexpectedly run long) so he had the night to himself.

He was watching a movie in the theater room when he felt a shift in the air. He immediately dropped to the floor, barely avoiding the sai that had been coming for his throat. Then he was over the back of the couch and engaging the assassin. He quickly realized she was with the League of Assassins as he recognized moves Bruce had picked up from them. She was good, too, but she had clearly come to the fight unprepared to face a Gotham myth. He didn’t take too many hits before pinning her and binding her hands and feet with the obijime from her dress. He then disarmed her of all her hidden weapons just in case.

When he questioned her, she declared that she was Artemis’s sister and had come to avenge her honor after Wally had betrayed her for Dick. She was not going to sit back and let the fool cheat on or dump her sister for the likes of a man she had believed was nothing more than an airheaded socialite.

Then, with narrowed eyes, she added that she had clearly been mistaken as not many airheaded socialites had been trained by assassins. Nor did they use moves only known by those trained by Ra’s al Ghul.

Dick ignored that and explained the trio’s situation as he untied her, having recognized her as Cheshire aka Jade Nguyen aka his girlfriend’s -- apparently protective -- assassin sister.

He took pride in the fact that he was dating someone who was only related to criminals instead of actually dating a criminal, unlike a certain father of his.

She thankfully believed him, though she did warn that should he be lying or should he hurt Artemis, she wouldn’t underestimate him a second time. She made a few more thinly veiled digs at his assassin-based fighting style as he showed her out that he cleanly sidestepped with comments about self-defense training. They both knew she didn’t believe a word of it, but she left it alone as she slipped away into the night.

So long as her sister remained unharmed, she had no desire to get involved in whatever was going on between the Wayne’s and al Ghul’s.

Before she left Gotham, though, she met Artemis and Wally on their way in and informed her sister that she approved of her new boyfriend. Both to be sure Dick was telling the truth and to mess with the speedster. The two predictably freaked out and she used their panic to slip away.

Dick answered Artemis’s call with, “Oh hey, Stripes! Your sister came by earlier to give me the shovel talk over tea. It was pretty gory, but I think the one Jason gave Wally was still probably worse so I’m not going to complain. Are we still on for tomorrow?” to their relief.

Artemis had not wanted to try to explain her assassin sister to her civilian boyfriend.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I decided to use Stephanie's Batgirl suit for Babs because most of Babs' suits are either bright or look just like Batman's. Steph will get other suits of hers when she appears.

The Robin suit looks just like Dick's from The Batman (2004), just bloodier.

Nightwing's suit looks like the typical V one, just with the eyes of the mask being blacked out. Also, black lipstick because yes.

Vampires’ animal forms:

Bruce: Gray bat

Alfred: Common raven

Selina: Oriental shorthair cat

Barbara: Little red flying fox

Dick: Black-billed magpie

Jason: Malayan flying fox

[teentitanimals]

Helena Kyle-Wayne History

The history of Helena Kyle-Wayne based on how I see her! Ties into this Events Timeline :) I might call this Batfam au Earth Never? Maybe? I’m kinda already attached to the name lol

Helena Martha Maria Wayne was born to Bruce Wayne, age 42, and Selina Kyle, age 45, on Earth Never-Two. Her grandfather Alfred Pennyworth was 67, her half-brother Damian Wayne was 13, her adopted brother Tim Drake was 21, her adopted brother and sister Jason Todd and Cassandra Cain were 24, and her adopted brother Dick Grayson was 29. Growing up she learned acrobatics from her eldest brother, how to hold a gun from Jason, how to be silent by her sister, hacking from Tim, animal taming and katana wielding from her favorite brother Damian, how to defend herself from her father, and how to be sneaky from her mother. Needless to say, from a young age, she was pretty skilled, and being raised in a house of detectives, them attempting to keep their secret lives as vigilantes from her didn’t work, as she knew about it from the age of 6 and onwards. By age 14, she became the new Robin under her father.

She was best friends with Kara Kent, aka Supergirl, who was a few years older than her, and Charles Bullock, aka Blackwing, who was also a few years older than her, and was an intern at the law firm created by her father, her eldest brother and a man named Arthur Cranston, aptly named the Cranston, Grayson and Wayne consumer research firm. The three made an excellent team, and were practically inseparable.

Aside from Kara and Charles, though, Helena greatly looked up to the woman who shared her name, Helena Bertinelli, aka the Huntress. This earned Helena the affectionate name of Little H, or Little Huntress, from Bertinelli and others. Helena as Robin often ended up shadowing Huntress more than Batman. She also got along really well with Charlotte “Charlie” Gage-Radcliffe, a young adult who was like a daughter to Bertinelli. It should be noted that the Birds of Prey never existed in this universe, and Barbara Gordon never became a superhero. In this universe, Charlie mimicked the identity of Huntress rather than Batgirl, before creating her own as Misfit. No Batgirls exist in this universe, but Stephanie Brown still became Spoiler- never Robin, Cassandra Cain simply became Black Bat and then Orphan, and Bette Kane never became a superhero, nor did Carrie Kelley, Tiffany Fox or Nell Little.

At one point, a man named Silky Cernak tried to blackmail and frame her mother for killing a cop as Catwoman, but with her and her family’s help, they cleared her name and revealed the truth, arresting Silky.

Eventually, when Helena was 16, a war against Apokoliptians, lead by Darkseid, started, which resulted in a war torn world. Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman were all killed during the war, as well as Tim Drake and Helena Bertinelli. Her family grieves them, and Dick takes up the mantle of Batman, and Damian makes his new superhero alias Redwing, a combination of Red Robin and Nightwing in honor of his brothers. Charlie became the new Huntress. By age 18, everything had way gotten worse, and Charlie was killed, and Selina soon followed. Helena then became Huntress, while Kara became Power Girl.

At age 20, she, Kara and Charles chased after someone who they assumed was Darkseid, but they would later find out was DeSaad. The trio attacked DeSaad, but in the process Helena entered a Boom Tube while Power Girl and Blackwing fought DeSaad. Helena would never know how the battle ended, though, as the Boom Tube sent her to Earth Never-Prime. She was stranded, and alone, in a world so similar to her own, but not war torn, and just slightly off. She was a Bat though, and she was well-trained. She laid low and studied the world, learning that Batman was still Bruce Wayne here- and that Bruce Wayne was still 42. And that she had never been (or simply yet to be) born, as Bruce and Selina were not even married like they were in her world, with Selina still acting as the criminal Catwoman. In this world, Darkseid had been defeated already.

She stole money from Wayne Enterprises to get by, just for meals, hotels, clean clothes, etc. Scrounging through Wikipedias can only get you so far, so she took to spying on her family and friends and other superheroes and... finds that she can’t handle it. For the most part, they look so happy. Yeah, Jason’s an asshole, and Damian’s so young and angst-y, but... They’re a family, not split by death and war. Every night, she seems to end up in tears, jealous of this world and wanting her world back- no, her family.

Her secrecy does not last long, as she can’t stop herself from jumping in to help her family (Batman, Robin, Nightwing) when they are attacked by the Joker. She attempts to run away after the battle, but her moves and tricks are the exact same as the Batfamily’s, so it ends up impossible for her to lose them. They interrogate her, and she ends up confessing she’s not from this universe. She tells them she’s a Huntress of another world, but not much else. They’re skeptical of her, seeing as the moves she used would indicate she was close enough to train under and with the Batfamily, so why would she be ‘a’ Huntress (of which they’ve only ever had one)? She asks if they could go to the Batcave or somewhere to talk, instead of staying out in the city. They agree, and ask her to lead them to the Batcave, which she does with ease.

There, she confesses more of her story, revealing she was the daughter of Selina and Bruce, and that Darkseid was currently waging war on her world- and winning. She allows them to run a DNA test on her, and the results match up. They believe her story. They offer to help her get back to her own world and also to house her while she’s here. She thanks them, and offers to help them patrol and protect Gotham in return.

Living in Wayne Manor was... weird, and more often than not she’d end up crashing at a hotel or something instead. Damian was 13, younger than her, and still very... well, Damian. And there was a kid that had never been apart of her family too, Duke Thomas, and also allies like Harper Row, Julia Pennyworth, Barbara Gordon, etc... And it was weird living among, to her, ghosts. Zombies. Dead people. She was afraid to get attached to any of them, because they weren’t hers, and she’d go back home, where some were dead or dying, and she’d mourn them all over again. Not to mention, Tim was now only 1 year older than her, Jason and Cass 4, and Dick just 9 instead of 29.... And Dick was even married to an alien princess named Koriand’r aka Starfire- where he was Barbara’s boyfriend in Helena’s world- and they had a daughter named Mar’i. And Jason had adopted a girl named Sasha, aka Scarlet. And, also, perhaps this stung most, that her best friend was no longer the same age as Helena. Which meant that even if Helena had been born in this world, she wouldn’t have been Kara’s friend. And similar with Charles, who was a simple citizen in this world.

While talking to this world’s version of her mother, Selina reveals to her that a Helena had been born in this world, but her father was Sam Bradley Jr. (deceased), and she was born nine-ten years ago. Her name was Helena Kyle, but since Selina was under the alias Irena Dubrovna at the time, her legal name was Helena Dubrovna. She had brown hair and green eyes rather than the black hair and blue eyes Helena Wayne had. Helena is surprised to know of this universe ‘her’, although really it’s her other universe half-sister. She wants to meet her, but Selina explains to her that after the villains Film Freak and Angle Man kidnapped and harmed Helena Kyle, she, Zatanna, and Bruce faked Helena’s death (and Irena Dubrovna’s) and put her up for adoption. To make sure no one could ever find Helena via Selina, Selina choose not to know who adopted her (if she officially got adopted at all and was not still in an orphanage). Helena Wayne accepts this and understands her reasoning. Even she had been kidnapped plenty of times back in her home world, Earth Never-Two.

It’s a year of living like this. She talks with the Selina Kyle of this world, with Helena Bertinelli, with Zatanna Zatara, with everybody. She still closes herself off though, calling Bruce “Uncle Bruce” to distance him and her father in her mind. By the end of the year, a part of her realizes she’s never going back... and another part wonders why she would even want to. She could have happiness here. But, at the same time, to give up her friendships with Power Girl and Blackwing? (And what if they were dead by now?) It’s difficult, but finally, with the advice from her other universe family, she decides she wants to try making a life here, just in case she really never can go back. Of course, Bruce offers to adopt her, but Helena can’t bring herself to fully accept this world’s Bruce as her dad yet, nor could she handle being official, legal siblings with her brothers and sister. She still hasn’t adjusted to them, how they are now, how young they all are, how younger Damian is. If anything, she’s most okay with Duke Thomas, someone she had never met in her universe.

To her surprise, as they contemplate making her a fake civilian identity, Selina offers to adopt Helena. Helena, after thinking it over, accepts. She would not have as much hounding from the press, from the media, from the public, as she would if she was adopted into the Waynes. She would not have to deal with the weirdness that was her alternate universe siblings as much, living with Selina. (Not that she needed to live with Selina, she was 21, after all, but Selina had told her that she was welcome to crash in her house anytime- an offer she often took up on when the Manor was stressing her out.) Selina was still a criminal in this universe, but she only robbed banks from time to time, really, nothing major, and she was slowly becoming more hero and ally than superthief by the time Helena had come to this world. Selina had been dead for only 2 years to Helena, while Bruce had been for 4 years, and had died when Helena was young and not used to death. Bruce’s death had a bigger impact on her (alongside Tim and Bertinelli’s), but with Selina, it was easy to imagine she had simply been gone for two years.

So, Helena became Helena Martha Maria Kyle, adopted daughter of Selina Kyle. She slowly built herself a civilian life, working for a law firm under Wayne Enterprises in honor of her friend Charles and his job. And a superhero life, too, as the Huntress. Of course, since Bertilleni was also known as the Huntress, Helena often went by Little Hunt. They called her Little H and Little Huntress at first, but it reminded her too much of her old world, that she requested they use Little Hunt instead. It was similar, of course, but just different enough. Just like this world was compared to hers.

She worked solo, with Catwoman, with the Batfamily, and with the Birds of Prey mostly. It was a challenge, she would say, to adapt back into the old rules of “No Killing”... It’s a dark secret of hers that she became more ruthless ever since the death of her father, blood soaking her hands. But she was almost relieved to be back to No Killing- as, to her, it meant no war. No death. No pain.

Catwoman seemed to reform completely right alongside her, and the day Bruce proposed to Selina, Helena couldn’t be more happier. She was finally ready to be officially apart of the Waynes again. Selina married Bruce, and Helena took on the Wayne name, becoming Helena Martha Maria Kyle-Wayne, loud and proud. It was weird, but somehow she got used to Damian being younger- and boy did she discover how fun it was to tease him. And alongside that, she got two new younger sisters too, in the form of Carrie Kelley and Alina Shelley-Wayne. Her family, she will say, was much, much more bigger than it had ever been in her own world.

Eventually, as years passed, she found herself more attached to this world than her war torn world. She often wonders, if given the chance, would she still choose to go back to her old world, her old family? It’s a question she can never answer. And one she might not have too, as the Kara of Earth Never-Two would eventually find a way onto Earth Never-One.

Name: Helena Martha Marie Kyle-Wayne

Gender: Female (She/her)

Parents: Bruce Wayne (Biological father; legal step-father), Selina Kyle (Biological mother; legal adopted mother)

Adoptive Step-Siblings: Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Cassandra Cain, Tim Drake, Alina Wayne

Half-Siblings: Helena Kyle (Current name unknown), Damian Wayne

Adoptive Step-Nieces and Nephews: Sasha Todd, Mar’i Grayson, Jake Grayson, John Grayson II (on Earth Never-Two only)

Hair Color: Black

Hair Length: Long

Eye Color: Blue

Aliases: Robin, the Huntress

Nicknames: Helly, Hel, 'Lena, Hello Kitty, Little H, Little Huntress, Little Hunt

Robin Run: 4 years

Huntress Run: 4 years and ongoing

Reblogs appreciated <3

[jinmukangwrites]

Whumptober Day 12

Broken Bones | Broken Trust

Ao3

Warnings: panic attacks, death of oc bad guy, misunderstandings, attempted kidnapping, threats against minor and infant, gun violence

-o-o-o-o-

Three years ago, Batman and Robin sat together above an old but locally trusted doughnut shop. The sun was nowhere to be found while the stars and moon hid behind storm clouds that threatened to rain at any second. For now though, the two vigilante's busied themselves with the slightly stale but still edible doughnuts the shop was about to throw away. It wasn't like they asked for the doughnuts, but sometimes Gotham's citizens showed appreciation for their local heroes in their own ways. 

Dick didn't think Damian’s ever had a crappy, all American doughnut before. By the looks on Damian's face behind his domino mask, he didn't like it. But it was a kind of dislike where you continued to eat it simply because it was a gift and there was nothing else to eat. Besides, Damian made that face for every meal given to him, even the ones Alfred prepared. Dick knew the poor kid was still adjusting to the food culture here. Dick  understood  it. He had to go through it too. 

Damian, despite his visual displeasure of the pastry, finished before Dick and sat there with a lax look on his face, kicking his legs out to a tune only he knew, letting the backs of his boots bounce off the lip of the rooftop they sat over. 

Damian had been quiet all night. Less chatty. Less insults thrown... even towards criminals. Dick knew something was on his mind, but he didn't quite know how to ask what was wrong. He was still learning Damian. And while the kid was… something like  close  with Dick, closer than what he was with anyone else in their shattered family, he still didn't like it whenever anyone so much as suggested he wasn't as calm, cool, and collected as he made pretend to be. 

Dick quickly stuffed the rest of his doughnut in his mouth, knowing Alfred already somehow knew they broke their diets and was preparing some sort of verbal rant session for the two of them, and turned to Damian. Cleared his throat. 

"Hey, Dami-an?" He asked, quickly continuing from where he accidentally almost left off with the nickname. Dick knew the kid secretly liked Dick's subtle way of showing affection with nicknames, but he would also sometimes bristle because he felt he needed to. Dick didn't want to immediately put him on edge. 

"Names, Batman," Damian replied, but it sounded half-hearted. They both knew the only thing listening to them right now was the mouse scuttling around in the dumpster in the alleyway below. 

Because Damian didn’t sound like he was going to say much more, Dick took a deep breath and took that as Damian’s response.

“You know, if anything is bothering you, you can talk to me, right?”

Damian didn’t reply, but his kicking legs slowed to a stop and his lips tugged down into a frown. Whether it was a thoughtful frown or an upset one, Dick couldn’t quite totally tell, especially from this side angle.

Dick was almost ready to jot this down as the end of the conversation when against all odds Damian opened his mouth with a shaky breath.

“Nothing is bothering me... Grayson,” he said slowly, carefully, like he was afraid the slightest misunderstood word would cause Dick to cast him off. “I’m just... thinking. About...” Damian paused. Dick remained silent. Damian took another deep breath, sinking back into his shell ever so slightly. “I was just thinking about how much... I unexpectedly enjoy being your partner. And that I am... honored to be trusted by you.”

Dick smiled and lifted one arm, wrapping his grasp around Damian and pulling him close to his side. Damian squawked, but it wasn’t angry. Dick squeezed his one-armed embrace tighter. “I’m happy you told me, little D. And, I hope you know that I don’t only trust you to be Robin, but I trust you with every aspect of my life. You’re family now, Dami. And I want you to know that you can trust me  too  . With  anything . I will always take your side. I’ll never assume the worst of you. You can trust me as much as you can trust that it’ll rain in Gotham tomorrow.”

Damian’s frown turned upwards ever so slowly. The beginnings of a smile. It made Dick grin wider. “I’ll remember that, Grayson,” Damian said, his voice oddly reverent. Damian ducked out of his embrace now, jumping to his feet and brushing stale doughnut crumbs from the bottom of his tunic. He pulled up his hood just as the first flash of lightning struck through the air, bringing an earthquake of thunder and a sudden sheet of rain. “It appears we have a patrol to finish before we’re soaked to the bone.”

“It appears so,” Dick laughed, and the thought of some criminal seeing him laugh like this, dressed like the dreaded Batman of Gotham and  laughing  caused him to almost laugh  harder .

With a nod to his young Robin, they both pulled out their grapples like a well oiled machine and jumped together out into the night. 

-o-o-o-o-

“Robin,” Batman’s voice commands, bringing Damian out of the focus he has on his current task. He looks up from the woman he’s helping to her feet, having gotten knocked over by the retreating bandits of her jewelry store to see his father scuffling with the three out of five burglars that haven’t managed to book it. “Door!”

Damian, right there, once again for the millionth time since his father has been back from being lost in the time stream, is reminded of the different expectations Richard and his father both have and had as Batman. While Richard would prioritize making sure everyone was okay before giving chase, father would give chase after making a mental note that everyone was at least  breathing .

It’s been two years since Damian’s been his blood father’s Robin. He doesn’t know why he still leans towards Richard’s way of things.

Damian nods and lets go of the woman, sticking around just a heartbeat longer to make sure she doesn’t fall over, but the moment he sees that she can balance on her own he turns tail and jumps over the smashed glass counters towards the emergency back door of the little jewelry shop.

He bursts outside the door, stepping out into the suffocatingly dirty air of Gotham that he can never get used to. He looks down the alleyway he has emerged into and pulls out one of his swords the moment he sees the two escapee bandits sprinting down the alleyway towards the road.

And Damian can’t have that. He begins chase, pumping his legs with practiced ease, the cape tugging on his neck as he tugs up his hood. One of the bandits looks behind her and gives a startled yelp when she sees him ever approaching. They run faster, but they’re heading to a chain linked fence that reaches up at least a story to prevent trespassers. Shockingly, the wires haven’t been cut through. They must have been recently replaced. 

Because most fences have more holes cut into them than what they should in this city. 

The man in this escaping duo grabs onto the fence and begins to attempt to climb. Damian uses his free hand to dig into his utility belt and throw with deadly— accurate , not deadly—precision a batarang with a small electric shock coded into its blades. He hits his mark, the man’s left shoulder, and soon the man is crying out and falling to the ground with his arm twitching. The woman swears and turns, pulling out a gun and dropping the bag of jewels she had been carrying and aims with shaky hands towards Damian.

Damian jolts to the side just as she fires her first shot, the bullet whizzing a pathetic distance to his side and sending sparks into the brick wall. Because of her laughable aiming and panicked actions, Damian manages to close in quickly and swing his sword. The blunted side of his blade—the side he’s become accustomed to using more often than its sharp counterpart—hits the inside of her wrist and knocks the gun to the ground. 

“ Fuck ,” she yells, grabbing her wrist and backing up like a cornered animal

Easy. Damian almost feels sorry for them. The man is getting back to his feet, but his legs are shaky and his face pale. The woman looks about ready to try and dart past Damian, but the alleyway is too narrow, especially with the various dumpsters lining the walls, for her to go much anywhere. 

"Will we do this simply?" Damian asks, bringing his sword out in front of him. "Or will you both continue to embarrass yourselves?"

"Fuck this bullshit," the man hissed, then pulls out a gun of his own that Damian honestly should have expected. It doesn't matter though, because the man's aim is just as off as the woman's and the bullet slams into the side of one of the dumpsters. 

And Damian was about to charge forward and put an end to this, but then an unexpected noise fills the alleyway. 

The screeching, terrified cry of an infant. 

Damian has just enough time to realize that the infant's cry is coming from the dumpster before the woman is charging forward and ramming himself into Damian's side. Damian swears—just barely in control of his emotions with the heightened risk of a  dumpster  baby to keep the curse in English—and carefully turns his body so when his opposite side hits the alleyway wall, it doesn't hurt too much. Hands grab for Damian's chest, thick arms attempting to wrap around his upper body to physically restrain him but Damian has none of it. 

With a dirty kick to the man's groin, Damian slips out of his grasp and brings his sword back in front of him. He looks at the burglars, about to charge, but then freezes in his tracks when he sees the woman standing by the dumpster, a wriggling bundle of moth eaten blankets in one arm while her free hand aims her partner's gun down. 

And of course this doesn't shock Damian. If these two are willing to shoot Damian, who is clearly physically a  child , then what gripes would they have with shooting an infant. 

"Back away, you shit," the woman hisses. 

The baby wails. Tiny lungs heaving for air, but not being able to grab enough before it's sobbing again. And for a second, Damian can't move. Trapped between wanting to stop these thieves and do as he's told and wanting to keep the baby safe. The innocent child that has done nothing wrong. Abandoned by its parents, left to either die or be found by someone willing to let it live. 

"The infant has no part in this-" Damian tries, but the woman scowls and presses the gun down, the barrel stabbing into the blankets and causing the baby's cries to rise. The man slowly backs away from Damian towards the chain link fence. Damian takes a step back, and then weighs his options. 

And in the end, there really isn't any. His father values the capture of criminals, but Damian was taught by Richard, who had always put the needs of the innocent above and beyond anything else. Is there anything in this world more innocent than a newborn? Damian can’t let this child be harmed. And he can’t trust it in these thieves' care. 

He makes to lower his sword, the woman slightly relaxes, then Damian  moves . 

Dropping a flare from a compartment in his gauntlet, Damian slams into the woman just as the alley erupts into light. Damian manages to grab the baby from the woman's hand and back up a few steps just as the light is beginning to fade, but then a heavy body jumps into his own. The baby screeches in Damian's ear as they both go down hard, and it's all Damian can do to protect its head as the man lands on top of them. 

Heavy legs begin to straddle his waist, a deep voice cussing threats. Damian's on his side, struggling to breathe, cradling a baby with his cape in one hand and realizing his other hand is empty. He has dropped his sword somewhere in the confusion. 

And maybe it's the adrenalin. Maybe it's the hand that slammed down on his head and pinned his face into the dirty cemented ground. Maybe it's the screaming baby in his ears, or the way it writhed, tiny limbs flailing for someone who would take it away and keep it safe. Maybe it was the intense desire to just. Keep. The. Baby. Safe. 

Damian let's instincts take over. He let's the baby's survival outweigh everything else. In a blink of an eye, the man on top of him goes still and warm liquid splatters all over Damian's face and chest, causing the already distraught baby to become more upset.

He recognizes the feel of blood. He recognizes the shape of his right handed sword in his left. He recognizes the sound of a man gurgling on his own blood, going limp and falling to the ground. When Damian opens his eyes, he recognizes the way the man twitches weakly, hands going up to the gaping cut in his neck. The blood spews from his open throat and mixes with the puddles of rainwater that never go away. The woman screams. The grasping fingers do nothing to stop the blood. 

And the horror sets in.

And Damian doesn't even have time to contemplate what he's done. He stares dumbly for a drop of time. A single grain of sand. Before he can do anything—cradle the child, staunch the flow of blood, stop the woman from screaming, cry cry cry because he messed up—a dark shadow moves behind him.

"Robin," a voice growls. 

And it's all Damian can do to continue cradling the child as Batman rushes to the fallen, dying man, and presses his hands against his neck. 

The baby sobs weakly, all of its energy spent, and Damian sits there until the life of the man ultimately fades away regardless of Batman's efforts. 

He… he didn't mean to.

-o-o-o-o-

Dick staggers into his apartment, feeling more like shit than the actual shit he had to go through tonight. Literally and figuratively. And he thought Gotham sewers were the worst. Dick's never going to complain about Gotham sewers ever again. 

Dick needs a shower. Pronto. To both wash off all the  icky  from his skin and the blood too. Tonight's been rough. Rough like sandpaper. Viciously rough like the skin of a shark. Criminals tonight were  on  one. Causing him to go every which way in the city, stopping bank robberies, drug deals, attempted kidnappings, a few premeditated murders here and there. And the worst of the matter was that at one murder he happened to stumble upon—as you do in Blüdhaven—the cops, on complete happenstance, managed to actually show up early this time. 

Dick just barely managed to not get directly shot in the head before jumping down the nearest manhole cover. They weren't cops he recognized. Ones he didn't know and trust from his old days on the force. BCPD, despite his constant efforts, just never seem to trust him. Always wanted to connect him to crimes. Turn the city against him. He can guarantee that tomorrow the headlines will read NIGHTWING: MAN SLAYER? or something just as false and untrue. So now he's going to be at the highest of the cops shit-list and it's going to be so fucking difficult to find who the actual murderer was. 

Just. Great. 

He needs a shower. 

He carefully maneuvers through his apartment, not wanting to drop anything gross from his soaking legs and boots onto anything important, and eventually manages to get to his bathroom without managing to completely destroy anything with sewage water. 

He's in the middle of stripping down to his grimy skin when his phone begins to vibrate on the bathroom counter. Dick ignores it for the moment and turns on the shower, a flash of irritation shooting through his nerves. 

Whoever needs him this early in the day can wait. He has 6 hours to shower, eat, then sleep before work starts. 

He's stepping into the shower when his phone stops vibrating. 

Then it immediately begins again. 

Dick sighs. So much for getting any sleep tonight. Maybe he can skip eating?

He pokes his head out of the shower and frowns. 

"B" is on the caller ID. 

Ugh. Okay, so this one he might actually need to take. He regretfully gets out of the shower and wipes his hands on the nearest towel before picking up his phone and sliding the answer button.

He brings the phone up to his ear. 

"What's up?" He asks. 

Bruce's voice growls in his ear. Dick almost jokes about how Bruce should have said something kinder and happier and ask how Dick's day had been, but then he processes the words said to him and freezes. 

"What?" He asks. 

Bruce continues. Dick slowly sits down on the toilet seat, able to do nothing but blink and process. Dick takes a deep breath.

"Is he okay? No- Bruce I know, but that doesn't- Damian doesn't just-"

"…"

"I see… no, I know.  I know . I can't Bruce, I have work-"

Frustration bubbles in his chest. "Bruce, he's  your  kid. Whatever happened tonight must have happened for a reason, and it's  your  job- I- Why do you think he only listens to me?!" Dick stands up from the toilet. "I'm the only one who bothers to listen to  him  half the time. Bruce did you even  ask  him why-? I can't come over."

"Bruce I can't-"

Dick takes a deep breath.  Fine ! Fine… fine. Fine, I'll come over. Just… give me a minute? I'll be over.…"

"I know, Bruce. I know. I understand. Mhm. K. Yeah. Bye."

Dick clicks off his phone and groans, leaning against the toilet's tank. 

So much for his ingenious plan of shower, food, sleep. He stands up and quickly washes the worst of the sewage off of him, then uses a towel to dry himself quicker. After walking briskly to his room and stuffing his still damp body into the nearest shirt, clean pair of underwear, and sweats he could find, he grabs the keys to his bike and is on his way towards Gotham. 

The entire way, he can only focus on the knot of worry in his throat. 

He was irritated. Frustrated. He's not Damian's father.  Bruce  should be the one to find out what was going on with the kid and what would lead him to… to  kill . 

But at the same time, he knew something more had to be going on. Damian doesn't kill. That isn't a part of his life anymore. 

This entire situation needs to be got to the bottom of. Dick just wished he had more than three hours of sleep from the night before while going into this himself. 

-o-o-o-o-

Damian's been back at the manor for about an hour and a half, hiding away in his bedroom while his father dealt with the police, the dead body, and the abandoned baby that had to be forced from Damian's arms. 

He took a shower. Scrubbed his skin so it's still raw and red. There's no blood on him, but he can smell it. The stench is powerful. Potent. So much so he's almost tempted to sneak from his room and grab that sinus teapot Alfred the Butler liked so much. 

But leaving his room involved… leaving his room. Besides, he's already stuffed his face under the shower faucet, nearly waterboarding himself to get out a fetor that's clearly and simply all his imagination. 

He can only imagine what will happen to him when his father returns. What kind of… punishment that awaits him. Damian knows he's not the first in the family to have killed. But for some reason, Damian's always felt a pressure on him that must have been heavier than the rest. The others slipped from their lighted paths and made mistakes. Mistakes can be forgotten and forgiven. Damian, however, was born into this shadowed path of death and gore. He fought his way up to justice, crawled up the slope of redemption with bloodied hands and knees. 

Damian killing again? Like this? It was him returning to his old ways. 

It wasn't a mistake. It was Damian showing his true colors. 

And that scares Damian, so he doesn't think about it longer. He's faced punishments far worse than what Batman would ever give. He can take whatever his father gives. 

Even if it… even if he takes Robin away. Damian will take it. 

He just feels like there's something missing in all of this. Something Damian himself isn't grasping. Saying he's killed a man so easily feels wrong. Untrue. Like his own brain is trying to convince him that he's wrong. He didn't murder. At least, he didn't do it with a cold heart. Like the entire night was a giant puzzle, and there was one piece missing that could change the entire picture.

He's reading too much into it. He hopes the baby, at least, is fine. Maybe father can adopt it. Replace Damian with a real child. 

There's a knock on his door, thankfully tearing him away from those thoughts. 

He looks up from where he's been picking at his clean nails, trying to get every last bit of invisible dried blood from his person. The door is knocked on again, and Damian stands up. Something in his chest flutters with panic, but he ignores it and lifts his chen proudly. He will not cower into his father's fury. 

He will not. 

He opens the door, and then  everything  falters.

It's not father. It's Richard. 

And the fluttering panic turns into trembling hope.  Richard  . Standing in front of him is none other than the one person Damian can  always  trust to find those last, tiny little puzzle pieces to make everything okay again. Damian thinks he smiles, but his face feels too raw from scrubbing—and definitely not wiping away tears—for him to be sure. 

He almost greets Richard, but then he notices how haggard and worn he looks. His clothes don't match. His hair is a mess. There's a strange stench that almost overpowers the blood that sticks to Damian like super glue.

"Richard?" Damian asks, trying to sound braver than what he actually all of a sudden felt. He has no need to be fearful of Richard… so why does he rapidly feel so afraid when Richard gives him a cold look and steps into the room?

"Sit," Richard says, pointing to the bed. Damian does as he's told, slowly. He tries to think of what Richard would be so upset about. Surely he's not here to simply carry on the will of their father and punish Damian himself? "Bruce told me to talk to you."

"I see…" Damian says, scooting to the side to make room for Richard to sit besides him. Richard doesn't take the offer. He stands tall above Damian, his arms across his chest. 

He remains silent as Richard takes a deep breath. He remains frozen as Richard begins to speak. "Bruce told me you killed someone."

And those words coming out of Richard's mouth… hurts. Hurts enough for Damian to realize that they're  not  true. They  can't  be true. Damian… he doesn't kill. He  doesn't . And there has to be... some sort of explanation he hasn't realized yet. He opens his mouth. "I didn't kill him."

And it sounds true. It  feels  true. 

But Richard's face doesn't soften. It doesn't fade into sympathy and understanding like Damian had… expected it to. In fact, much the opposite happens. Richard's face screws up like he's bitten into something bitter. It makes the bags under his eyes so much sharper. Damian wonders how much sleep he's gotten. 

"You sliced a man's  throat  ," Richard argues.  Argues  . It shouldn't shock Damian, but it does. He can just sit there and Richard  glares  at him and begins to pace, wringing his hands together with jolting movements. "Jesus, Damian. Fucking  Christ ."

Damian's rooted to the spot. His mouth dry. Richard… has never sworn at Damian like this before. Has never been this visibly angry. 

"I've had a long ass week," Richard continues, his voice rising to almost hysterical. "And right when I'm about to take a  shower  and go to  bed  , your dad calls me and tells me a man died tonight. A newbie burglar. That you could have fought off  easily  . Bruce doesn't know how to deal with you.  No  one knows how to deal with you. So I'm forced to drag my ass over here to find out what happened while Bruce deals with the  cops  and-"

"I didn't kill him on purpose!" Damian shouts, shocking himself with the anger that shook his tone. Richard stops his pacing and looks at Damian without a smidge of belief. It sends a dagger through Damian's gut. "There was a baby, and I just wanted to-"

Richard releases a bitter laugh, stopping Damian mid sentence; he sinks to the ground and places his elbows on his knees, cradling his forehead in his hands between his curled up body. "I'm too tired for this, Dames. I'm really too tired."

"Richard-"

"Just," Richard huffs, rubs his temples, "stop."

Damian snaps his mouth shut. His chest feels tight. He's seen Richard worn down like this before. He's seen how far Richard can fall in the right circumstances. But never before has his… frustrations ever been directed at Damian like this. Never before has Damian been so obviously the cause of his headaches. 

A beat of silence passes and Richard exhales. Doesn't bother to look up. "What's done is done. We'll deal with this and… figure out what to do with you later."

"What to do with me?" Damian repeats, and he hopes his voice didn't squeak. It probably did. That sentence somehow hurts more than anything. "You mean… get rid of me?"

Now Richard looks up, his eyes as wide and shocked as his red rimmed eyelids would allow. "Damian-"

"You're finally done with me," Damian continues, standing up from the bed and crossing his arms to hide the way his hands are beginning to shake. He can't breathe. "I make one mistake- I try to explain- and you want to get rid of me?"

Richard shakes his head. "No- no of course not-"

"You said you trust me." Damian feels something wet gather at the corners of his eyes. He ignores it. For all he knew, it could simply be blood. Murderers don't deserve to cry real tears. "And I can trust you. You said you'll always take my side."

Something hot falls down his cheek. Richard looks genuinely lost on what to do now. Of course he is lost. Father  forced  him to  deal  with Damian because no one else wants to bother. Damian's always been different from the others. A parasite. Something unwanted. Father chose the rest of his kids, but Damian was involuntary in every sense of the word. 

Damian's killed a lot of people. Damian's hard to get along with. Most people don't invite him places because they know he'll bring down the mood. Richard was the  one  person who looked past all that and gave him a chance. Saw the good in Damian that Damian had once thought was a weakness. 

Damian didn't  murder  the man tonight. He saved a baby. He was… defending himself. He- he let his instincts take over. So why is Damian to blame for that? Why should he be made out to be a monster when his instincts are still very much the very things he was brainwashed to believe since he was big enough to hold a sword? 

"You  promised , Richard," Damian chokes. Why is he getting so emotional? Somewhere, deep inside him, he’s always known this would happen. It was always just a matter of time before everything came falling down around him. That he'd chase everyone away to the point that neither his mother's family nor his father's would want him. 

He wipes his eyes. 

"I  trusted  you."

"Damian," Richard finally speaks, but Damian shakes his head and runs towards his bedroom door without a single glance back.

He's through the hall, down the stairs towards the library, and into the cave all before he finally sucks in a jittering lungful of air. He scrambles for his bike, wiping blurs from his vision. He's speeding out the cave right as a voice shouts his name. 

He's too far away, driving too fast, to care. 

-o-o-o-o-

Damian's never had a panic attack before, but by the time he skids his bike to a stop in some random part of Gotham, he thinks he might be experiencing one.

His nerves are shot. His hands don't want to hold still. His vision keeps blurring and his chest really  really  hurts like his heart is finally deciding it doesn't want to belong to him anymore.

Why is he panicking like this? He's overreacting. He knows he is. He's still in a stupor thanks to the events that conspired a few hours earlier. He's still in disbelief that Richard has finally shown how little he actually values Damian's opinion. But these things don't warrant a panic attack. 

He's literally been through hell and back.

This should feel like nothing compared to that. 

And yet? It feels like a single pin has cracked through the surface of a frozen lake. A simple, stupid little thing hit the exact right places to send him spiraling. 

He hates this. He can't breath. His ribs hurt like they're broken. His head is fuzzy and he's overreacting and maybe Richard didn't actually mean what Damian thought he did. 

His knees give out and he scrambles backwards, splaying his hands on the ground and trying to grasp onto  something , but his back just hits the wall. With blurry eyes, he looks up to see he's parked in an alley. Of course he has. He can practically imagine a tall, chain link fence and a corpse laying in front of it, blood pooling around him like spilled ink. 

He sucks in a breath, or maybe he sobs, and buries his head in his knees. His hands fly to his hair and he tries to  think . 

But he can't. Because father doesn't want to deal with him. Richard deals with him because he's obligated to. All the other so-called siblings of this—that—family don't even have Damian's number. They don't want to talk with him. They don't invite him anywhere. They always look at him like he's made of slime. 

Damian understands. If he met someone exactly like him, all he'd see would probably be an irredeemable murderer too. 

Something suddenly sounds from down the street. Damian startles out from his cradled position to see moving shadows further down the alleyway. Panicked, Damian scrambles to his feet; his vision tilts and his legs shake as he does so, but he forces his body to move. He's dressed as Damian Wayne. Robin's cycle is right besides him. 

Damian can't mess up a second time tonight. 

He thinks maybe about jumping on the bike and riding away, but he can still hardly breathe. Do panic attacks normally last this long?! How does he get them to stop?!

Knowing it would be dangerous to ride in the state he's in, he uses every drop of will power he had to shove the vehicle behind a dumpster— a  dumpster where a sobbing child lays, vulnerable to the nearest person with a taste for death and a gun in their hand. He shakes his head, biting the inside of his cheek to try and focus. Once he's sure the bike is hidden and out of the way, he turns around to find an escape route he can take while still compromised like this. 

His vision wobbles and he stumbles. A voice he doesn't recognize calls out. 

How would Richard say it? Oh yeah.  Fucking  Christ. 

Damian turns, heart in his throat, and begins to run the other direction, but somehow his unexpected guests catch up quicker than what they should. A rough hand the size of his entire bicep wraps around his upper arm, tugging him out of his uneven retreat and into a sturdy chest that  reeks  of marijuana. 

"What's a kid like you doing out here all alone?" A voice asks. Woman. Damian tries not to choke, but the stupid panic attack isn't  leaving . It's just getting worse. He brings his free arm to grab at the restraining hold on him, but he gets nowhere. 

The man holding him chuckles. Tightens his grip around Damian arm and chest. Damian can’t stop the whimper that leaves his throat; the pressure is enough to easily bruise. His eyes sting traitorously. 

A third man steps in front of Damian. He looks like a rat personified. "The poor thing looks terrified," the man sneers. "Maybe we should take him somewhere safe. Off the streets."

Damian shakes his head, gasping, tears streaming down his face. Pathetic.  Pathetic . He's better than this. He tries to breathe, but he just chokes again. He fights to be back in control of his own mind again and pulls his free elbow back, hitting the man holding him in the gut. 

The man groans, meaning Damian has managed to actually hit him effectively even in his compromised state, but the man doesn't really let go. In fact, the opposite happens. The man tightens his grip to an almost agonizing kind of pressure, then throws Damian to the side and against the dumpster. 

Damian hits awkwardly, his arm in front of his chest when he hits face on. He hears something snap. He hears his own scream. But he doesn't feel the pain until he's blinking stars from his vision, curled up on the ground. 

And now? Nothing makes sense. He's trapped in a haze of pain and terror that all he can see through his teared up vision is three vague, human-like forms approaching him. All he can hear is echoing laughter and the distant sounds of sirens going in the opposite direction. 

Damian would cry if he wasn't already. 

A heartless hand wraps around his arm again, dragging him to his feet with an uncaring roughness that sends Damian reeling with pain. It's this moment that Damian knows he's lost. He can't fight back like this. Not dazed and trapped in his own mind like this. He wonders what they'll do to him. Gotham criminals aren't like others. They don't care if their victim is a kid. 

They'll torture, beat, abduct,  rape  him the same they would any adult. 

He wants to fight back. He wants to go home and fall to his father's feet and beg forgiveness. He doesn't want this. He's being manhandled further down, away from the mouth of the alleyway, away from his bike, away from the home he was so sure he used to have. 

With his good arm, he clutches to the shirt of the person dragging him away. He can't find his feet, he can't find his brain. 

He doesn't want this. He didn't mean for this to happen. Not any of this. 

He closes his eyes and tears drip.

However, right as he lets his eyes fall closed to accept his fate, a fourth voice shouts into the alley. A familiar voice. One that has him shooting his eyes open in shock. 

Richard is wearing an old Nightwing suit. But it's still undeniably him. Looking pissed as hell. The escrima sticks in his hands already sparking with electricity. 

Damian let's his eyes fall back closed. He goes limp as Richard makes embarrassingly quick work of Damian's would be kidnappers. Embarrassing for who? Damian's not sure. He feels mostly like crap.

Soon enough, he's back on the ground, gasping for air as familiar arms wrap around him and pull him closer. And even though Damian feels betrayed and lied to and broken, he immediately relaxes against Richard's chest, forcing himself to listen to the breaths Richard takes and match them accordingly. He has his broken arm cradled to his chest, and Richard is impossibly gentle while lifting him up so he hadley feels it jostle. 

"I've got him B," Nightwing says, sounding breathless and angry. "I'm bringing him back."

-o-o-o-o-

"I watched the cowl footage," Richard says while driving the Batmobile; Damian sits in the passenger seat as they make their ways back to the cave. 

Damian doesn't speak. Just looks out the window. Pretends his arm that's in a makeshift split doesn't hurt to high heavens. 

Richard takes a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Damian."

That gets Damian's attention. He looks over at Richard and his eyebrows raise at the sight before him. Richard looks… torn. Face a mixture of a deep sadness and guilt that surely must be turning his knuckles white around the steering wheel.

"Bruce saw you kill someone. I saw you pinned and protecting an infant. I saw you grab the wrong blade with your wrong hand, but use it in the way I taught you. If you were using your left handed sword, you would have hit him with the blunt side."

And the missing pieces slowly fall into place. 

"The police aren't going to press charges," Richard continues, "as far as they're concerned, it was out of self defense."

And just like that, things make a perfect picture. 

But Damian... doesn't feel as relieved as he should be, even though now he has proof that his natural instincts aren't to kill, but only to disable. 

"You didn't believe me," Damian whispers. But it's so loud inside the car. 

"I know," Richard replies with a tight and wet voice. "I know. I… you were right. I told you I'll always take your side… and I  didn't  this time. I was frustrated and angry with Bruce and I took that out on you instead of doing what I promised I'd always do…"

"You only came because father  forced  you to."

Richard winces. Bites his lip. Inhales deeply. "He couldn't force me to stay away from you, Dami… I just… it's been a really long week. And it… it frustrates me to see that even after all these years, I'm still more of a da- guardian to you than he is. He calls me whenever he doesn't understand something about you. I just  wish  he'd learn to understand. I know he's doing his best, but… I'm not your dad. I can't… I can't run at every dime to help you when he should have… I guess I'm saying Damian is that I would drop the whole world to be with you. I just wish Bruce would… "

Make the same effort. 

Damian understands. 

"You're so easy to love, Damian," Richard whispers. "So  easy ."

Damian licks his lips. "So… you still mean what you said?"

Richard frowns slightly. 

Damian elaborates. "All those things you said. That I can trust you no matter what. That if father never came back you would have adopted me yourself."

"Yes," Richard says immediately. 

"So if I asked you," Damian continues, tugging at the fabric of his pants with his uninjured arm, "right now to turn around and drive to Blüdhaven. Let me take your guest room. Tell father he can't have me back. You would do it?'

"Yes."

Immediately. Damian feels his throat tighten. 

The Batmobile slows to a stop off to the side of the empty streets just outside Bristol. Richard breathes for a moment. Then turns towards Damian fully. 

"Is this… you asking?"

Is it? 

Damian bites his lip. 

Then he shakes his head. 

"No. I know my father is trying his best. I wish… to try a little more with him."

Richard nods. Just nods. Doesn't express disappointment or relief. And Damian feels like the world is right again. 

"He loves you Dames," Richard says. "He's terrible at showing it. But I meant it when I said you're so  easy  to love. Just not everyone is as awesome at what makes you tick as I am."

"Careful to not be too humble, Richard," Damian teases, wiping at his cheeks which are wet again.

Richard laughs and leans over the seats of the Batmobile to pull Damian into a careful embrace. 

"I'm sorry," Richard whispers. 

Damian smiles. His chest feels lighter than what it has in awhile. 

"It's okay. I trust you.”

"I trust you too…” Richard takes a deep breath and lets go of Damian. He pulls the batmobile back onto the road. Damian almost thinks that the rest of the ride will be spent in companionable silence. But then Richard says one more thing. “I love you, Dames. More than anything in the world."

Damian trusts Richard. He believes him. He finds a smile spreading further on his lips. A warm feeling settles in his chest.

“I love you too, Richard.”

[what-if-i-imagine]

Can you write a fic about the bay us going on a quadruple date? Dick with Wally, Jason with Roy, Tim with Kon, and Dami with Jon. I just think that would be chaotic and amazing

I’m so sorry about how long this took to write but I finally got the boost of motivation combined with a free schedule to finish it!

Ao3 Link

“This is so boring,” Superboy I complained in a mumble beside Red Robin. They were watching the empty warehouse from the rafters laying on their stomachs, waiting like they had for three nights now. The fresh Sicilan air was something more similar to Gotham’s in the warehouse bogged down by the deaths that had happened in its walls as well as the unkempt state of it all.

“It’s a stakeout, what did you expect?” Red Robin asked his partner, glancing down at the watch he had brought. “If what we heard is true, they should be on their way here with the hostages. A family of three with links to a powerful crime family in Gotham.”

“It still doesn’t make sense,” Superboy I said, shaking his head. “Why did they go after this family? From the intel you gathered, they’re from either an Australian or Puerto Rican crime family with no links to the Sicialian Mafia or any of its criminal organizations. What would our guys want with them?”

“That’s what we are here to find out,” Red Robin replied before pressing his index and middle finger to the com by his ear. “Are any of you there?”

“Orical patched us in, we’re here,” Nightwing replied in his left ear. “Flash and I are in place.”

“Superboy II and I are also in place,” Robin said.

“Are you two sure you don’t want to go back to Red Robin and my hotel?” Superboy I asked, clearly worried for the two teenage boys. “We can handle this without you.”

“I can assure you Superboy, we have fought much worse than Siciilian crime lords without backup,” Robin assured without being reassuring. The boy had definitely softened in his older teenage years, but was still as prickly as ever when his skills were hinted at being doubted. If the job weren’t so dangerous, Red Robin and Nightwing might consider their brother’s behavior adorable.

“I told you to leave this case to me but you never listen,” Red Robin mumbled.

“And I believed Superboy and I were picking a different case. It’s not my fault we didn’t realize they were connected,” Robin huffed. “Let’s just get this over with.”

“That won't be a problem,” Nightwing chimed in. “They’re here.”

“Just like you said Red Robin. There’s a family of three in the truck,” Flash said through the coms after a short whoosh of air. “Two fathers and a teenage girl. They all have bags over their head with their wrists and ankles bound, wrists in front of them.”

“Thanks Flash,” Superboy I said. “What else did you see?”

“There are four henchemn in the back of the truck guarding them. The crime lord we’ve been after is in the front with his second in command and the driver. They’re saying something about teaching them a lesson.”

“Probably referring to their family,” Red Robin explained. “We know these three are only pawns in their family's game. I doubt they would get the desired effect by killing them.”

“If they’re so important, they wouldn’t have been kidnapped at all,” Nightwing agreed. “But we could be wrong. These men could be more dangerous than we thought. We didn’t even notice all of this was the same case until we ran into each other in town.”

That was true, and Red Robin let himself consider it a moment.

He and Superboy had arrived in Palermo as Tim Drake and Conner Luther-Kent, under the guise of a vacationing billionaire couple. In reality, they had gone to Sicily chasing a case as their alter egos.

The case had seemed cut and dry enough. A small offshoot of the Sicilian Mafia had been creating drugs in a factory not far from Palermo and dealing them in Gotham. It was a next level drug that the Gotham civilians had taken to calling The Dust of Rome, as lame as it sounded, misdirecting the partners at first before Red Robin figured out the factory’s true location.

While outside of costume in town, they had run into Nightwing and Flash as Dick and Wally Grayson-West. Once in the safe confines of their hotel room, Nightwing had explained they had chased a gang of arms dealers from Gotham to Italy, and now to Sicily. It didn’t take long for them to realize they were chasing the same guy and team up.

That night while on their way to stalk the warehouse the second time for Red Robin and Superboy I, they ran into Robin and Superboy II who were the only ones there not working undercover. They had explained that they arrived in Sicily that day for the case Robin had chosen in place of the one Red Robin had taken. It was a case much simpler than the one the other four were following, just a gang stirring up too much trouble in Gotham that needed stopping, but none of them were blinded to the truth. Despite Batman and Oracle's careful checks of all three cases, they hadn’t realized they were all the same group.

There could have been more to it than they were seeing judging by the confusion it was able to cause among the three detectives, two kryptonian hybrids and speedster. Red Robin didn't pay it much thought though. As their brother said, they would burn that bridge when they crossed it (definitely not the best advice, but that was to be expected from the person who gave it).

Cutting off Red Robin’s thoughts was the opening of the warehouse doors. The comms went silent as everyone froze in their positions to listen in on the scene about to unfold.

The guards were half carrying half pushing the family of three into the middle of the wearhouse before they were roughly shoved to sit on their knees side by side. The guards each put a gun to the back of one of their heads with the last one standing at the end. The crime lord they had been chasing circled to stand in front of the family with his right hand man by his side typing away at his phone.

“Remove the hoods,” the crime lord instructed. The guards obeyed and pulled them off, tossing them to the side at the exact same time like a choreographed song and dance.

From where he sat, Red Robin couldn’t see the faces of the family. He didn’t think it was really important, but Nightwing’s sharp intake of breath told him otherwise.

“What is it,” Robin hissed in a whisper.

Before Nightwing could answer, the teenage girl threw herself into one of her father’s lap. Her sobbing voice echoed through the warehouse as she spoke in rapid, pleading spanish, too fast for Red Robin to properly translate.

The guard who had been holding a gun to her head roughly grabbed her by her red hair and pulled her back into a sitting position, shouting for her not to move. The girl continued to cry and plead, and her father who she had thrown herself over’s voice joined the rapid spanish. He wasn’t crying or pleading, instead yelling something to the guard. Red Robin was able to pick out enough to know he was yelling for the guard not to touch his daughter.

Something about the man’s voice sent off alarms in Red Robin’s head. It was familiar. Too familiar, especially when mixed with that fast paced spanish and biting tone.

“Papi,” the girl cried as she tried to go back to hiding in the safety of her father’s lap. The gun pushed against her head stopped her from moving, along with her father’s quick order.

“Mija don’t.”

“Papi, Papa, tengo miedo,” the girl blubbered through her tears, Her accent was off to Red Robin’s ears, raising another red flag. It seemed too forced, with a completely different accent being carefully covered up underneath.

“Let my husband and daughter go,” the man snapped, his accent purposely laid on thick. But Red Robin could recognize the hidden lower Gotham from a mile away in his sleep, even if these men couldn’t. “It is me you want, they have done nothing wrong!”

“You are not really in a place to be making demands Mr. Gunn,” the boss tisked.

“Pero, it’s time,” the man’s husband spoke softly. He had no thick hispanic accent like his husband and daughter, instead opting to take on an upper Gotham accent that almost reminded Red Robin of the people he worked with at galas during his daylife.

“Not like this,” Pero shook his head, chin meeting his chest.

“Papi,” the daughter whispered one last time.

Tim recognized the way the three had set it up. A question by one, followed by confermassion by the others through simply speaking in succession down the line. It wasn’t clever by any means, but for its purpose it was more than effective.

With what would be no warning from the gang member’s point of view, the three family members, who were in fact a real family but not the one they claimed to be, snapped quickly into action. Their bonds were gone in the blink of an eye with three of the gaurds’s guns now their own and said guards lying unconscious on the ground.

The husband, who was unnamed in the gangs' eyes, didn’t hesitate a second to disarm the last guard and shoot him in the knee while Pero and the daughter held the crime boss and his right hand man at gunpoint.

“This has been fun while it lasted Mr. La Rosa, but I’m afraid it ends here,” Pero said, now without the fake accent. “On your knees, now.”

The crime boss and right hand man obeyed the order and got down on their knees while the husband walked over with four pairs of cuffs of which each guard wore a matching pair on their wrists and ankles. The crime boss and right hand man were effortlessly stuck into them in the same fashion.

“In this folder is all of the proof of your trafficking that we need for you to go to prison for life,” the daughter explained, pulling out a manila folder she had pre stashed behind one of the crates close by. Her accent, just as her father’s, had slipped away into her real one. Instead of the masked lower Gotham of her father’s voice, she carried a mixture of lower Gotham and Russian that never failed to chill Red Robin with how empty and deeply emotional it managed to sound at the same time.

“When you wake up, you’ll already be behind bars for your crimes, and all those people will be free,” Pero said, before he and his daughter turned their guns around at the same time to harshly hit the men in the temple, rendering them completely unconscious.

As soon as they were under the belief that they were alone, the first father dropped his gun and cupped his daughter’s face, checking her for injuries.

“Where does it hurt?” he asked softly. His husband came over to stand beside them, gently stroking a hand through their daughter's hair.

“If doesn’t,” she reassured. “It was only a light tug, I’ve had worse.”

“It doesn’t matter if you’ve had worse,” the husband said in his original Star City dialect. “It shouldn’t have gotten that far. Next time we go undercover, try and use some of the self preservation skills we’ve taught you, yeah?”

“Yes dad,” she said, a smile clear in her voice.

“I’m impressed you didn’t shoot that guy for touching her,” Nightwing’s voice came as he dropped down from his hiding spot. The other five who had been hiding did the same, causing the family to whip around in shock.

“What are you all doing here?” Jason asked, not harsh but almost scolding.

“We should be asking you the same thing,” Red Robin said.

“We were closing a human trafficking case,” Roy explained. “Taking Scarlet on her first undercover mission.”

Nightwing looked over at Red Robin and he could practically hear the ‘I told you so’ regarding there having been more to the case.

“We have a lot to catch up on then,” Red Robin said, handing over a thick manila folder filled with all of the other six’s evidence they had collected. “Turn this in with your evidence. Not even the best lawyer money could buy can fight this. Meet us at the Rocco Forte Villa Igiea near the Permo bay when you’re done.”

~~~

“Of course you would go with the fanciest hotel you could,” Jason snorted, causing everyone to turn around. They stood in the lobby of the famous five star hotel, all now dressed in their everyday civilian clothing.

“We are a billionaire power couple, it’s what’s expected of us,” Conner shrugged, arm around Tim’s shoulders.

“So that was your cover story?” Jason asked, though it wasn’t a real question.

“It’s kind of hard to do undercover work when you’re famous,” Tim said. “I honestly expected better than Pero Gunn from you.”

“Flashing around my grandma’s name gets the job done quicker when I need to be kidnapped,” a grin tugged at Jason’s lips. “The Peter equivalent was just all Roy could pull out on the time crunch.”

“Speaking of, where is your handsome husband?” Dick asked with a slightly teasing tone.

“Dropping Sasha off at the airport. Oliver offered to babysit her, Duela, Biz and Lian while we were out of the country. We figured I could just text him the name of the restaurant when we got there,” Jason paused. “You are treating us to dinner, aren’t you? We did do your job for you after all.”

“I hate that you’re right,” Tim said with no real heat and a smile. “There's a great restaurant down the road I went to last time I was here, tell him to meet us there.”

“Great, I’m starving and all we’ve had to eat today was a salad and chicken nuggets from McDonalds.”

On the way to the restaurant and inside the waiting room, the four brothers and their partners caught up on life events they had missed out on, joking and chatting endlessly until they were seated.

“Sorry I’m late,” Roy said as he stepped up to the table. He was in his civics, in one of those trucker hats they all knew Jason barely tolerated. Dick had often joked about being surprised Jason didn’t try to go full Donna and burn all of them, but Jason always mumbled his reply that he married the man which meant he married the hats too.

“Sasha didn’t give you too much trouble at the airport?” Jason asked, leaning over to kiss him.

“Our little girl? Trouble? Never,” Roy grinned.

“Got it, so you both caused trouble together.”

“Speaking of, how have the kids been?” Dick asked. “Star City treating you nicely?”

“Weekly family hunts for corrupt capitalists and crooked businessmen that I’m free to shoot as much as I please,” Jason shrugged. “Yeah, I guess living in Green Arrow’s city has been nice so far.”

“Oh shut up you love it,” Roy said before turning to Dick, “It is nice being back in Star. The kids are loving getting to spend some quality time with my side of the family too, and Artemis has found some good work in the area. I can tell Jason, Ella and Sasha are itching for the Gotham streets though.”

“You can take the Gothemite out of Gotham but you can’t take the Gotham out of the Gothamite,” Tim nodded. “All three of them were born and bred.”

“Well Sasha was born in Russia, but basically,” Jason nodded. “I’m sure she was happy to see her favorite uncles, even if her actual favorite uncle and aunt weren’t there.”

“It would be insane if Duke and Cass ended up with the same case too,” Tim said. “It’s crazy enough all of us were working the same group without knowing it. Throw them, Steph and Chris into the mix and that would just be blatantly bad detective work on our parts.”

“Still would have been fun to have them here too though,” Jason shrugged.

“Wait a minute!” Jon’s face lit up. “Are we on a quadruple date right now?”

“Absolutely not,” Damian cut in. “I refuse to ever go on any sort of couple outing where I have to witness my brothers being disgusting with their partners.”

“No way Gremlin, this is totally a quadruple date,” Tim said. “You hating it cements that.”

“No, this is not a date, it is just a family dinner after an idiotically tangled mission,” Damian insisted.

“If it were a family dinner then Bruce, Cass, Duke and their significant other would be here too,” Dick said. “Sorry Little D, you need to face the facts. This is a quadruple date.”

“That’s an event to go in the scrap books,” Wally snorted. “Quadruple date with our out of six Wayne kids. It’d be a spectacle.”

“An event worthy of the circus,” Dick was smiling so wide his face was sure to split.

“I regret agreeing to this,” Jason said in a stage whisper to his husband. Roy chuckled while Dick squacked about Jason being on Damian’s side.

“Never a dull moment with these four,” Kon commented aside to Roy.

“Even two of them in a room is an event,” Roy agreed.

A pinched off piece of bread was tossed in Roy’s direction and he just laughed. They were surely disrupting the upper class dinners around them, but they couldn’t care less and they continued their impromptu date night.

[huilian]

Old Pains

AO3 Characters: Bruce Wayne, Damian Wayne, Tim Drake, Jason Todd, Dick Grayson, Cassandra Cain

Summary:Bruce knew his would be a life of pain. From the moment he decided to do this, he knew what it would cost. His time, his body, his soul, every single thing he owned. He chose this, he knew. But pain when you receive an injury is not pain every time you breathe. It is not pain every time you walk. It is not pain every time you want to sleep and found that you can't because all those pains you have pushed away in the day and night all came back to haunt you in your sleep.

A/N:Merry Christmas, have some pain! I had the idea when my ankle was acting up, but uni life got the better of me, so it had went away, but then act up again before I post this fic. That's how long it took to write this. Sorry!

***

Bruce had quite forgotten how it felt to be painless. There was always something bothering him, treading through his consciousness. The mangled joint he called his shoulder, which was always aching. The broken spine, the one he had almost succumbed to. Broken and mended, and then re-broken bones gave phantom pain Bruce could never quite ignore completely. The hundreds upon hundreds scars decorating his skin, which either itch or returned to him the pain he got receiving them. Bruce couldn't quite decide which one was worse, the itchiness or the pain.

Bruce knew his would be a life of pain. From the moment he decided to do this, he knew what it would cost. His time, his body, his soul, every single thing he owned. He chose this, he knew. But pain when you receive an injury is not pain every time you breathe. It is not pain every time you walk. It is not pain every time you want to sleep and found that you can't because all those pains you have pushed away in the day and night all came back to haunt you in your sleep. 

It will someday take his life too, this crusade of his. This he knew. It was not really something he would oppose. He knew that going in. It would take his time, his body, his soul, his life, and every single thing he owned. He would gladly give it. He knew that going in. 

He did not know that there would be others that would share this pain with him. 

Bruce did not know everything there is to know about Damian. It was a mistake he was trying to correct, but it was hard the way chasing a kitten is hard. The kitten itself would not come to you if he didn’t trust you, and the more you chase it, the harder it would run. Damian had not trusted Bruce, with a yet in that sentence if Bruce was feeling particularly hopeful that day. He had to keep reminding himself to let Damian come to him instead of chasing Damian around demanding answers. (It was Dick who gave him the kitten metaphor. It was very apt. It seemed that Dick knew Damian better than Bruce would ever be able to know him.) 

Bruce would try this way of letting Damian take the lead for some more time, then he would go and ask Dick again. It did not seem to work, because Damian had not gone to Bruce for anything at all, not from the smallest of things to the important ones. 

Like his spine. Damian’s spine. 

Damian was not even twelve yet. He had not gone through puberty, had not felt the awkward changes to his own body that would make doing a simple maneuver felt like trying to juggle ten maneuvers at once. He had not even been to high school. 

And yet, sometimes Bruce would find him laying down on his bed, clutching a hot compress to his back. The first few times Bruce just thought he had sprained something, and let him be. Damian did not appreciate it when you needle him with small things. But it happened again. And again. And again. 

Bruce was a detective. He was good at this. He knew what repeated pain in the spine meant. He knew that Damian would be feeling this pain for the rest of his life. Bruce wished Damian would have a long life, living until all his wishes and dreams had come true, but he knew even if Damian lived a long life, this pain would haunt him for the rest of his days. And Bruce would never wish pain on any of his children. 

"Damian?" Bruce asked. 

"Yes, Father." Damian said. He did not offer any other information. It had been like this every time Bruce asked Damian something. Damian expects you to already know what was happening in his life, and would never offer any additional information. It didn’t help that Dick was the one caring for him before. Dick could see through Damian as easily as he could see through Bruce, and would not need any more information. 

Bruce decided to go through this another way. “Have I told you the story of when I broke my back?” 

That got Damian’s attention. The boy was always interested in hearing Bruce’s stories as Batman. Maybe it was because he was raised to see Batman as something that should be attained, but nevertheless, it suited Bruce’s purposes for now. 

“No, Father, I believe you have not told me this story yet. I think that Mother or Grayson may have mentioned it, but I would be glad to hear the full story of it.” 

Bruce sat down on the sofa, and expected Damian to do the same. He did not disappoint. Bruce watched Damian sitting down on the sofa, cataloguing every movement he makes. There is no pain, not today, at the very least. Not from recent injuries nor from old ones. No pain on Damian’s back, at least for today. 

As Bruce began the story of how Bane had broken his back, and everything that entails from it, he realized that this was not the story children usually hear about their parents. Any other twelve-year-old would not be hearing about the time a criminal broke their father’s back. Any other twelve-year-old would not be taking notes on how to improve in their capabilities as a fighter from this story. But Damian was not any other twelve year olds. 

It should concern Bruce that the parts he was glossing over was not the violence, nor the destruction. No. The parts that Bruce was glossing over this story was Dick and Tim’s brief partnership as Batman and Robin, because he knew that Damian would take offense in that. Damian would not be bothered by the violence, because he had lived all his life in it. He had borne the marks of that, from the way he moved, to the way he did not move. The way he would bite his tongue instead of screaming out in pain. The way he hides his pain even though it bothered him every single day. 

As Bruce finished his tale, he very deliberately gave out lists of things that would lessen the pain, if not relieve if immediately. He gave out strategies to deal with back pain as a part of his story, knowing that Damian would be able to pick it up. A smart child, this one. How lucky was Bruce to be able to have him, and how it broke Bruce’s hearts that he missed ten years of Damian’s life. 

When Bruce saw Damian implementing the strategies he told him in the story, he pretended not to notice. Not just because Damian would stop using that tried and true methods if he even suspected for a second Bruce would not agree with it, but because he truly did not know how to feel about it. He was glad that he could bring relief to Damian’s pain, but at the same time, a child of twelve should not be dealing with spine problems. And so Bruce pretended he didn’t notice, and made a note to keep the heat packs always stocked. 

Bruce did not realize that Tim had worn his ankle brace to patrol. 

Tim had periodically worn the ankle brace off and on; Bruce had expected that. Any joint that is prone to injury, yet still used again and again will need to be supported. The ankle is one, the knee is another, and yet another is the shoulder. Bruce's most painful one is mostly the shoulder, even though all of those joints hurt on a daily basis. That is why he was not surprised to see Tim sporting an ankle brace. It was easy enough to explain too, most of the active children had a brace somewhere on their body, and Tim was notoriously a skateboarder. 

Tim had not skateboarded in so long, not since he became the CEO of Wayne Industries. He had not worn those ankle brace in quite some time either. 

Bruce just realized that Tim had worn his ankle brace underneath his costume when he returned from patrol. It was not weird that Tim had worn it, it was weird that Bruce did not realize that as something pressing. 

Had this really become their reality? Of pains and aches everywhere?

"Is your ankle okay?" Bruce asked. 

Tim startled. It was as if he didn't expect Bruce to care about this. It was as if he didn't expect Bruce to care about him. 

(Bruce cared. Of course he cared. It was just expressing it was sometimes difficult.)

"Yeah, it's fine. It's just acting out, you know?"

Bruce knew. He knew intimately how that felt. Bruce still wished none of his children have to feel that. 

"Do you need to take a break from patrol?"

"What?" Tim genuinely sound confused. Is it that confusing for Bruce to want his children to be safe? "It's nothing Bruce, just my ankle acting up. It does that sometimes. Nothing to worry about.” Tim shrugged. “I’ll be fine. It’s not going to be a liability on patrol.” 

Did Tim really think that Bruce only cared for him being a liability on patrol? Bruce just didn’t want his children to be feeling pain on a daily basis, not like he is feeling pain on a daily basis, but it seemed like all of them are. Tim, who is not out of his teens yet, who is not legally allowed to drink yet, is already feeling pain that will stay with him for the rest of his life. This was not supposed to happen. Bruce was supposed to protect them from this. 

“I’ll take it easy tomorrow if you’re that worried, Bruce, but honestly, I’m fine. I’ve been having this on and off for years now. It didn’t bother me that much anymore.” 

Bruce took from that sentence that it used to bother Tim, but he ignored it because he saw Bruce ignoring his own pain and thought he should too, and now it didn’t bother him anymore. It was not as reassuring as Tim no doubt meant it to be. 

Bruce wanted to say so many things. Bruce wanted to keep this precious child that he had been given safe and sound. Bruce did not do any of those things. Words are not his forte, especially words filled with emotions. He could play with it just fine, could solve questions and intellectual riddles, but when it came to emotions? Bruce did what he had always done. He grunted. 

Tim laughed. He honestly laughed. Why is he laughing? His safety is not a laughing matter. 

“Good night, Bruce.” Tim smiled, and then he head up to the Manor, hopefully to get some sleep. He had not been sleeping enough. (Bruce is aware that he is being a hypocrite, but he is allowed to be a hypocrite if it’s for the wellbeing of his children.) 

It was good to hear Tim laugh. He had not done that nearly enough too. 

“Bruce!” 

“Yes, Jason?” Bruce would still not be able to comprehend that his child, his Jason, is here in the Manor. He never imagined that he would be able to see Jason again, to hear him again. He never thought he’d be able to see Jason all grown up, instead of the lanky teenager he was before… Before. 

It was a gift that Jason was in the Manor, because it was very rare. It was even rarer that he would walk around the way he is now. Shirtless, with his whole torso open??. 

Bruce was still bitter that Jason grew up to be taller than him. Mostly because while he was a child, Jason was short. It figures that he would be the one to finally be taller than Bruce. But what really struck Bruce the most was how rigid and muscled up his boy had become. Oh, he had muscles as a child too, he wouldn’t be Robin without it, but it was not to this extent. Batman was supposed to be a shield, and so Bruce cultivated his body to be such. Broad and able to take the most damage. He did not want any of his children to make themselves to be like that too. (He did not want any of his children to make themselves take damage. He was supposed to take that damage for them.) 

Nevertheless, Jason is as broad as Bruce is now. Bruce had known it, had seen Jason with this new stature that is so different yet similar to his stature as a child, but with armor and uniform on, Bruce hadn’t really registered that Jason is now very, very different than the skinny, lanky child he had been. 

Bruce had also never seen the scars that littered Jason’s torso. Some of it Bruce knew he got from before Bruce had ever met him. Life on the streets in Gotham is harsh, doubly so if you are a child. Some Jason got from his tenure as Robin. Some, Bruce knew is a remnant from… the explosion. Most disturbingly, there is much more that Bruce didn’t know where those came from. 

Bruce knew, or suspected, that Jason had training before he came back to Gotham. He must have. His skillset is so much more diverse and honed than it was when he was Robin. Bruce never thought about, or didn’t want to think about, what kind of training that he would have gotten. 

Bruce was not a kind teacher. He knew that. He trained his children so that they could live. That result would not be from kindness. Gotham streets are not kind, and so Bruce trained them the way Gotham streets would treat them. But he was not harsh, either. He would not injure them for training purposes. Training is training, not grounds for punishment. 

Jason was hurt a lot during those years he was away. That much Bruce knew. Bruce wants to go hunt out those people and make them pay, yet he knew he would never do that. (He knew once he started, he won’t stop.)

“Bruce!” A snap of fingers. “Hey, Bruce, are you listening to what I say?” 

Bruce blinked. Cleared his mind. “Sorry, Jay. What were you saying?” 

“Did you know where Alfred put his cleaning supplies? I spilled marinara sauce on my sweater and I need to soak it, like, now. I won’t get it out if I don’t.” 

Bruce knows a lot of things, and Bruce knows most of the things in the Manor, but the location of the cleaning supplies was not a thing that he knew, or that Alfred deemed it fit to let him know. “I don’t know, Jay. Maybe ask Alfred?” 

Jason scrunched up his face. It looked exactly the same as the expression he used to have as a child. “Yeah, I should have known you wouldn’t know. Should have gone to Alfred right away. See ya, B.” 

As Jason walked away, still muttering under his breath, Bruce was greeted with the sight of Jason’s back, which had as many scars as Jason’s torso. Bruce wanted to ask how he got those scars. Bruce wanted to keep him safe so that there would be no more scars on Jason. Bruce wanted to ask if those scars bother him as much as Bruce’s own bothers Bruce, and Bruce wanted to share his tricks to mitigating the pain. But most of all, Bruce wanted to take all those scars and injuries, now and at the time they were inflicted, and let Jason be free of it all. 

Jason being in the Manor is as rare as it is. Bruce did not want to lose that. (The last time Bruce said something Jason didn’t like, he didn’t come to the Manor for months, not even to see Alfred. Bruce did not want that to happen again.) Bruce kept his mouth shut, and watched Jason walk away from him. 

Bruce would like to think he knew Dick. Bruce had spent almost half of his life with Dick, and that was the majority of Dick's life. But Bruce did not even really knew Alfred, and he had spent all of his life with him. So. He did not know Dick as well as he would have wished to. 

He did not know the story of every scar on Dick's body. There was once a time that he knew that: a time when Dick would tell it excitedly to him and he would pretend not to freak out because this was a child, his child, and he had gotten hurt. Now Dick tend to hide his injuries from him, or simply disappear until that injuries had healed. Bruce knew that Dick is a more than capable vigilante, and an adult. But Bruce will never be able to see him being hurt without remembering the nine-year-old boy. 

The man before him had many more scars and injuries than that nine-year-old boy. 

"B, stop staring," Dick said without even removing his hands from his eyes. It was like he had a sixth sense of knowing when Bruce was staring at him. (He probably did. Bruce had stared at him for so long that he would.) 

Bruce grunted.

“I’m fine, B. There’s no new injuries I’m hiding from you this time.” 

This time. Bruce wished that Dick would not hide any injuries from him at all, but of course that is not what happens. Bruce grunted again. 

“Ugh, fine! It’s the leg. I miscalculated someone’s weight and didn’t land as I should have. It’s fine. I’ll go and get the heat pack in a moment. I know I should have known better, and I should take more care of my leg. Just...let me stay here for a minute, okay?” 

Bruce loved it that the two of them could communicate without him saying anything. Dick had been with Bruce almost from the very beginning of it all. There is no need for him to say anything. But sometimes, like now, Dick did not understand fully what Bruce meant. Bruce knew Dick was expecting a lecture on thinking before leaping, or to amp up his training as to not make anymore mistakes like this again. Bruce knew Dick interpreted his scowl as displeasure on him making a mistake. 

This was not the case. Bruce’s scowl was because Dick had been hurt, again, in the crusade that was not his to begin with. Bruce wanted to say that to Dick, to let him know that he was both proud and worried about Dick’s achievements. But he will never say that, not in any foreseeable future, anyway. 

So Bruce did the next best thing. He went and took the heat pack from the (very big and extensive) first aid kit, and put it on the very spot that is hurting on Dick’s leg. Bruce knew precisely where it is. That injury, and every other injuries Dick had sustained during his lengthy career as Robin, Nightwing, and Batman, were his fault, because he was the one who put Dick in that costume. If he could not stop it from happening, then Bruce would memorize every single spot that Dick, and the rest of his children, had been injured in. 

(The spots that he knew of, anyway. Bruce was not so blind as to not know that there are many, many injuries his children hide from him. It broke his heart to know it.) 

Then Bruce put his hand on Dick’s shoulder, and kept watch as Dick went to sleep. 

“Cassandra?” 

The girl in question was sitting on a bench, staring at her leg. She gave no indication that she had heard him, but Bruce was sure that she had. 

So he spoke again. “Cassandra?” 

When even the second mention of her name elicit no response, Bruce walked to where she was sitting and crouched in front of her. “Cassandra?” 

She did not smile. She did not acknowledge him in any visible way, but he knew that she knows he is there. Her hand did not move from its position in her back. 

Oh. How could he not realize that when he came in? Bruce may not know every single injury on Cass’ body, but this one is hard to miss. David Cain was lucky that Batman did not do worse to him. 

Bruce lifted his hand, and slowly reached for Cass’ back, to the spot she was touching too. Cass wordlessly shifted herself to let Bruce touch it. God. She had been hurt here before, had been shot here and expected not to flinch as a girl, yet she still let herself be touched by Bruce. 

Bruce let his hand stay on Cass’ back. She finally looked into Bruce’s eyes. Bruce looked back. 

Moments passed. Words did not. They just looked at each other. 

Then finally, Cass smiled. A small one, unlike the ones she usually give him. (Cass have multitudes of smiles, and Bruce had the biggest one directed at him. It was a privilege he knew he did not deserve.) Bruce smiled back.

Bruce knew going in that his would be a life of pain. He did not regret any of his choices that led to this life. He regretted that his children’s life would be a life of pain too. 

[thepartyresponsible]

here’s the first fic for inbox cleaning week! i’ve received a few separate prompts for deadpool and dc crossover fics, but i’ve never actually had any luck writing them. i think the problem is that i was trying to throw wade wilson at jason todd, and that’s a molotov cocktail, not a love story.

so here’s deadpool falling absolutely in love with dick grayson. it’s ridiculous and fluffy and shockingly low on violence.

Word comes through the various superhero backchannels that Batman’s got himself murdered again. Or kidnapped. Stolen, dimension-hopped, married. Whatever. The point is, the Dark Knight is brooding in a better place. Or a worse place. A different place, definitely. That much, Wade knows, is true.

A power vacuum in Gotham is never a good thing. The local villains go wild in Bat’s absence, and it’s not the fun kind of wild with foam parties and naked dancing and drunken mistakes. It’s the kind of wild with blood in the streets and monsters rising from the sewers and terrible deaths played out to the soundtrack of mad laughter.

That kind of thing spreads, is the problem. It’s infectious. What starts in Gotham will spread to New York, and Wade doesn’t wanna deal with Gotham bullshit in New York. He doesn’t want New York to feel like it has to one-up Gotham’s weirdness. New York is weird enough.

So Wade, a concerned good-hearted citizen, a real man of the people, swings by Gotham to check up on things.

He expects to see Robin, if he’s lucky. Or maybe Batgirl. Red Hood, if things get especially spicy.

The last he heard, Nightwing was over in Bludhaven, so he doesn’t expect to see him at all.

It’s hard to tell, honestly, if Wade would’ve been prepared to see him if he’d had some kind of warning. It is not at all hard to tell if he’s prepared to see him unexpectedly. The only hard thing is him. Specifically, it’s his dick. Immediately.

It’s not his fault. Nighwing comes back-flipping into a street brawl like he’s qualifying for the Russian women’s gymnastics team. He’s lean and muscular and beautiful, wearing something blessedly skintight, and Wade thinks the entire world stops on its axis, stretches out time, just so he can stare, open-mouthed, at the shape of Nightwing’s ass as it spins under the murky glow of Gotham’s streetlights.

“Holy shit,” Wade says, when Nightwing kicks off a wall, knocks a man unconscious with his thighs, and then does a full twist in the air before hitting the sidewalk in a perfect three-point superhero landing.

“Oh my God,” Wade says, barely breathing. “Do that again. I missed my chance to shove a twenty in your utility belt.”

“Deadpool?” Nightwing stands up, rising from the busted concrete like Aphrodite from the sea. There’s a chorus of angels singing in Wade’s head; he doesn’t know Latin, but he thinks it’s a cherubic cover of Baby Got Back. “What are you doing here?”

“Fighting the good fight,” Wade says, staring helplessly at the bulge of muscle under all that sinful spandex.

Nightwing’s head tilts to the side. “The good fight?”

“Trying not to jizz in my pants,” he clarifies.  

It’s not his best first impression. But at least it’s an honest one.

Nightwing makes him promise not to kill anyone within Gotham city limits, and Wade feels like that’s a perfectly reasonable ask, because he was prepared to offer up three kidneys, half his teeth, and all his childbearing years.

He has a bit of trouble early on. Deathless crime fighting falls outside his general oeuvre, and there’s a whole caper two days in where a guy drops dead of a heart attack, and Wade spends twelve hours desperately hauling the body from one dumpsite to another, trying to find one the Bats don’t know about. But all in all, he does alright, and Nightwing takes him on a romantic picnic a week into his stay to celebrate.

“Is this a date?” Wade asks, as he kicks his heels over the side of the building, biting happily into the cheeseburger Nightwing handed him out of a takeout bag. “Because I’m not really that kinda girl, but we can totally do butt stuff on the first date if you want to. It’s just that you’re so gentlemanly and svelte. You’re completely overwhelming my natural modesty.”

“Svelte,” Nightwing says, laughing. He takes all of Wade’s flirting in stride, and Wade honestly can’t tell if it’s because he’s not interested or because he gets hit on so much and so often that he thinks it’s just how people talk to each other.

Last night, Wade slapped him on the ass in a last-ditch effort to clarify his intentions, and Nightwing just ass-slapped him back and then yelled “Good game!” over his shoulder as he executed a perfect double tuck off a fire escape.

“Bluebird,” Wade says, with a heavy, wistful sigh. “You’re breaking my heart.”

Nightwing looks over at him. He’s got a smear of ketchup right before his bottom lip, and his jawline makes Wade want to lick him from his chin to his ear.

Well, and everywhere else, too.

“You’re a funny guy, Deadpool,” Nightwing tells him. “When Batman comes back and runs you out of Gotham, you’re welcome to take sanctuary in Bludhaven.”

And isn’t that the perfect metaphor for the pair of them? Nightwing, human embodiment of grace and goodwill, ushering Wade, sack of sin in human skin, into a place of sacred safety?

“Okay,” Wade says. “But only if I get to show up in a nun costume and confess my sins on my knees.”

Nightwing nearly chokes on his food. When he looks up at Wade again, he’s smiling, wide and cheerful, a little crooked. He reaches over, pats Wade on the knee, and his fingers must slip on the way back, because they run halfway up Wade’s thigh before he pulls them away.

“Whatever makes you comfortable,” he says.

Wade finds Red Hood in a shoot-out, and the pair of them go through some genuine gymnastics to get the whole thing calmed down without murdering anyone. Wade gets shot five times toward the end, when he gets bored of all the tireless back-and-forth and hops out from behind cover to go chase down the last guy. One of the bullets nicks his spine, so he ends up lying on the floor, face mashed into a growing puddle of blood, waiting for that to heal, but Red Hood’s a real sweetheart and comes along to drag him bodily to a dry patch.

“Hey, Red,” Wade says, when he can finally roll over under his own steam. “First of all, great color scheme.”

“Thanks.” He doesn’t sound like he means it. He’s doing some Florence Nightingale cosplay routine on the criminals, patching them up while they lie there unconscious or bat at him weakly, cursing the whole time.

“Second of all, about Nightwing.” Wade pushes himself up on his elbows, tries to move his feet. They don’t respond, so he leans back, settles in to wait a little longer. “What’s he like? What’s he into? Flowers? Wine? Fellatio?”

Red Hood’s head swivels his direction. There’s a long pause. His hands move suddenly, and the trafficker on the ground underneath him screams.

“Yikes,” Wade says.

Red Hood ignores him and goes back to work. Wade watches as he takes a marker out of some unseen pocket in his suit and writes TOURNIQUET 1:21 AM on the criminal’s forehead. When he stands up, his pants stretch over his prodigious thighs, and Wade hears angels signing again, but they’re a little half-hearted about it.

A minute or so later, Wade climbs shakily to his feet and stretches while his nerves get their shit together. “I mean it,” he says, walking across the warehouse. “Nightwing. I’m trying to woo him. Got any tips?”

“You could fuck off,” Red Hood says, off-hand.

“Novel approach,” Wade says. “Don’t see how it’s gonna help.”

“It’s gonna help me.” Red Hood surveys the bloody scene, hands on his hips. He points directly at a pale man in the corner, whose leg is so badly broken than his toes are somehow pointing directly behind him. “You’d better not fucking go into shock. EMS is five minutes out. You’re alive when they get here, or I’ll kick your ass.”

“Yeah,” Wade says. “Me too.”

Red Hood shakes his head and stalks out of the building. Wade follows at his heels. All these Bats have really amazing asses. He wonders what their workout routines look like.

“How many squats do you do?” Wade asks. “I mean, hourly. What’re we talking? Two hundred?”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Red Hood ducks into an alley, and Wade ducks right along beside him.

“Nothing. I’m just curious about those thighs.”

Red Hood lets Wade follow him all the way up the fire escape, but then he turns around, blocks his path, and stares at him through the eyes of the helmet. “Stop following me. I promised not to kill anyone in Gotham, but you can’t die.”

Wade blinks at him. “What’s that mean?”

“It means,” Red Hood says, leaning in, “that I can do anything I want to you. Won’t kill you, right? And I’m in a real bitch of a dry spell.”

“Jesus, Red,” Wade says, clutching at nonexistent pearls, “did you mean that to sound as sexual as it did?”

Red Hood makes a low, disgusted noise. “Aren’t you panting after Nightwing?”

“Sure,” Wade says. He swallows, shakes his head a little. If Red Hood is the scintillating demon in skimpy red lingerie, Nightwing is the beautiful angel in white lace, and he’s trying to be good here. He’s trying to orient himself, dick-first, toward the side of light and beauty. “But, hey, I’m a flexible guy. Listen. If you put on a domino mask, maybe spray paint that red bat blue, we could have something.”

Red Hood visibly recoils. “I’m gonna throw up,” he announces.

“Yeah,” Wade says, nodding. “A lot of my romances start that way.”

Red Robin won’t give him any advice, either. He won’t even talk to him. He scampers away into darkness every time Wade so much as gets close.

He corners him, finally, when Red Robin’s in the middle of doing something complicated with what appears to be an actual, no-shit time bomb. There’s a digital timer counting down and everything. It looks like something out of a 90’s movie.

“Hey,” he says. “Sorry. I can see you’re busy. But if you had to seduce Nightwing in five minutes or less, how would you do it?”

“Are you serious?” Red Robin points empathetically at the bomb. “I’m working.”

“Yeah,” Wade says. “I see that.” He glances at the timer. “Looks like you’ve got at least thirty seconds to answer the question.”

Red Robin make a series of persecuted noises. “I can’t believe he was serious,” he says, when he’s done.

Wade feels a flutter in his chest. It could be the chalupas he fished out of the dumpster four blocks back, but he thinks maybe it’s love instead. “Who? Nightwing? Was he talking about me?”

“No, Red Hood. He mentioned your weird crush in the group text.”

Wade gasps. “I made the Bats’ group text? Batman’s gonna see my name?”

Red Robin peers up at him. It’s hard to tell, given how much of his face is covered, but he looks pained. “Nightwing likes redheads,” he says. “Busty redheads.”

Wade thinks it over. “I can get surgery,” he decides. “And a wig.”

“Oh my God,” Red Robin says, and severs a wire.

They don’t blow up. That’s probably more important for Red Robin than it is for Wade.

Wade gives him a companionable slap on the back. “Hey, look at you, kid. You’re doing great.”

The look Red Robin directs his way is bleak. “Honestly, I was kind of hoping for a quick death.”

The smallest Bat doesn’t speak to him at all. He just comes at Wade with a sword. It’s maybe the single most adorable thing Wade’s ever seen.

“Look at you!” Wade coos, as they dodge and spin, blades clashing against each other. “You’re so cute and angry, oh my God!”

Robin shrieks something shrill and then tries to take his head off.

Nightwing and Red Hood arrive to break things up before the fight can get out of control. Wade loses a couple fingers in the brawl, but he manages to keep Robin from getting nicked even the littlest bit. He gives the kid a jaunty wave as Red Hood hauls him away in a fireman’s carry.

“You’re doing great, sweetie!” he yells. “I’m so proud of you!”

Robin flips him off with both hands, and Wade honestly tears up a little.

“Kids, huh?” he says, knocking his shoulder into Nightwing’s. “They’re the future.”

Nightwing runs a hand down his face. He seems embarrassed. “I’m so sorry,” he says. “Red Hood made a joke about protecting my virtue, and Robin didn’t get the humor.”

Wade nods sympathetically. “They’re very literal at that age.”

“Yeah,” Nightwing says, sighing heavily. “God, that’s embarrassing.”

Wade checks on his hand. The last three fingers of his left hand are just tiny little spurs of skin and bone, re-growing as he waits.

Nightwing breathes in sharp across his teeth. “He cut off your fingers?”

“Yeah.” Wade shrugs. “He’s a scrappy little thing, huh? But they’ll grow back.”

“I’ll have a talk with him,” Nightwing says. His hands land on his hips. He sounds deeply aggrieved on Wade’s behalf. Those butterflies come back, and Wade hasn’t eaten since he stole a box of Fruit Loops this morning, so he knows it’s not indigestion this time.

He nudges Nightwing with his shoulder again. “You could kiss it better,” he offers, with blind, desperate optimism.

Nightwing turns to stare at him. His eyes are an unreadable white behind his domino mask, but his mouth is twisting up into a dubious smile. “You want me to kiss your bloody stumps?”

Wade swallows. “Can I, uh.” He stops, swallows again. “Can I pick another stump for you to put in your mouth?”

Nightwing snorts and then shakes his head. His smile is breathtaking. Or would be, if Wade hadn’t snuck a quick glance down at his ass while Nightwing had his eyes closed. As it stands, Wade doesn’t have any breath left to take.

“Let me buy you dinner,” Nightwing says. “To make up for Robin.”

“Oh,” Wade says, perking up. “A second date, huh? Can we do it without the gargoyle chaperones this time? No offense, but they’re a real buzzkill.”

Nightwing shifts beside him. He makes a low, thoughtful noise in the back of his throat. “We can do it at my place,” he offers.

“Jesus, baby blue,” Wade says, “I can’t deal with the innuendo anymore. You gotta cut it out. I’m gonna ruin my pants.”

Nightwing grins, smug and crooked, and reaches up to scratch at the back of his neck. He’d seem almost shy, except Wade can’t believe for a second that a man who’d willingly leave the house in that outfit has a single spare ounce of modesty left in him.

“Who says it’s innuendo?” Nightwing asks. He glances up at him, sidelong through the domino mask, and Wade’s heart swoops, spins, and settles into the pit of his stomach. “Maybe it was just an offer.”

Wade wonders if he’s hallucinating. Maybe that tiny little Robin drugged him somehow.

“What?” he asks, turning to face him straight on. “What was that, Bluebird? Sorry, I hallucinated.”

Nightwing laughs. He’s still smiling, bright and friendly. “Come on, Deadpool. Let me buy you dinner. We can take it back to my place.”

“Maybe you’re hallucinating.” Wade steps closer, checks Nightwing over from the top of his artfully messy hair to the tread of his boots. “Did that little demon get you? Hit you on the head? Stab you with a needle, dose you up?”

“Hm, maybe.” Nightwing doesn’t seem the least bit bothered by how close Wade is. His voice is a little lower, though, dropping into bedroom range. “Maybe you’d better check.”

Wade stares, open-mouthed.

Nightwing shakes his head a little, still smiling, and then he reaches down and takes Wade’s hand, knots their fingers together, and tugs him toward the door. “You coming?” he asks.

“God,” Wade says, stumbling after him, ready to follow him to hell and back, right through the worst parts of Gotham. “God, not yet. But I’m really close.”

[redhoodieone]

Don’t Tell Me Part 3

Don’t Tell Me Part 3

A/N: Okay!!! Here is Part 3 to “Don’t Tell Me” and I gotta say…it’s a little darker than I intended for it to be. Of course, I took Tim Drake’s storyline from “Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.” In this particular story, Tim (as a young fairly new Robin, of course) was kidnapped by the Joker and was tortured mentally and physically for three weeks until Batman found him and saved him. After Tim healed, Bruce believed Tim was fine because after everything that happened, Tim seemed happy and normal. But…as the story goes…maybe Tim never healed and never got over what happened, especially since Tim’s a very emotional person.

But what will the Batfamily have to do now that Tim’s an enemy? Can they save him, or will Tim possibly have the same fate as Joker?

 Warnings: Language, bird killing, betrayal, and more later on.

   Jason didn’t know what to expect when he discovered Y/N was pregnant with his child, let alone what to expect when he would actually become...a father. Father... Jason Todd had a father once, before he became a ruthless crook, and went to prison. Even after, he never returned home. Jason’s mother and himself had more than a rocky relationship between drug addiction, and soon found himself alone on the streets. Which gave poor street rat Jason an opportunity to steal the Bat-mobile’s tires...and the rest is history. Bruce was a good father to him; despite his and Jason’s constant ups and downs. After the longest time of feeling replaced and betrayed, Jason even forgave Bruce and learned to love Tim as a younger brother. But in the end, Jason always considered Bruce his father, and even secretly thought that if he were to become a father, he would hope to be a worthy one as Bruce. But Jason knew he would never admit it out loud. Who would believe Jason had thought once or twice about being married and having children? No one, especially those who knew him as an angry, scarred, and troubled young man. But underneath the hard and difficult armor, Jason had always wished to have his own family at one point in his life. Ha. Family. Family... Jason still couldn’t believe Y/N is pregnant. The thought of a beautiful, wonderful, and kind woman like her carrying his child makes his heart soar and expand, as if finally, he could have the family he’s secretly hoped for most of his life.

He silently hopes Y/N got pregnant the night of his birthday, but he wouldn’t count on it. He admits he knows nothing about how conceiving works besides sex and wouldn’t know how to do the math to figure it out.

If anything, he just remembers how Y/N looked underneath him; with her hair spread out on the pillow, the sweat beading on her forehead, her breasts bouncing, and her kissable lips parted when she tried to breathe but Jason kept knocking the air from her lungs.

The fact that Y/N is even pregnant with Jason’s child makes him want her more.

But Y/N’s pregnancy is a secret to everyone else, except himself of course. Jason knew about her secret doctor’s appointments. But Jason’s questions were answered when he spied on Y/N throwing away her failed birth control.

The sickness, the little bump, and how Y/N keeps to herself just proves she’s different than before. Jason knew he was guilty as Y/N was; even when she didn’t keep up with taking her birth control, he didn’t wear condoms on most of their sexual activities because he wanted to feel her hot, wet, and tight pussy with just his bare cock. And a condom would surely prevent his fantasies and desires with Y/N.

Is it a boy? He would surely convince Y/N to name the little boy after him, since Jason was positive his son would be the spitting image of him (looks and personality, of course) and it would just make sense for a Jason Peter Todd, Jr. Is it a girl? Oh...Jason knew if he were going to have a daughter, he would love her with all his heart and do whatever it takes to protect her and Y/N for the rest of his life. Maybe this is life’s way of forgiving him, for all his sins and mistakes, so Jason can finally have the happy ending he deserves. And maybe...just maybe...Jason can be the man he’s always wanted to be. “Red Hood, you imbecile! Your communicator’s off!” Robin spats, and lands beside Batman, who are now behind Red Hood. “Are you asking to die, Todd?” “Robin...” Batman warns. His voice already deep and low, and his Bat glare already permanent on his face. “No personal names called in costumes.” “Yeah, you little shithead! What the hell do you guys want?” Red Hood snaps and twists his body around to face them. After patrolling for a couple of hours and with only a mugging and some goons stealing from a jewelry store, Jason found himself bored, and sitting next to his favorite gargoyle. He stands, and towers over Robin. “I already did my job around here, and so far, nothing has happened.” Batman growls. Jason knew his attitude and mouth weren’t helping the situation. “Okay fine, what’s going on now?” Red Hood asks as kindly as he could, which isn’t a lot. “The Joker has been missing for three days.” “So, what else is new? Joker’s been missing before, and we find him, kick his ass, and throw him back in fucking Arkham. And when he’s out again, we repeat. How’s this time any different?” Red Hood questions. “No clues. No sightings. No lead. This is different. I don’t know what he has planned this time,” Batman answers grimly. “Usually, Father and Drake always know the Joker’s actions and schemes before he does. This escape seems as if it was calculated before Joker could even thoroughly plan it himself. The escape may have been designed outside of Arkham, from a source who knows every detail of the premises and is well informed with the employee’s schedule to successfully bail him out. The question is, who could have pulled it off?” Robin asks, he hums in questioning. “Names...Robin,” Batman reminds. “Sorry,” Robin mumbles. “It’s a damn habit...” “Look, normally I would have already ranted about how your golden rule of “not killing and justice not vengeance” would have ended this cat and mouse game YEARS ago, but this is not new, Batman. I can’t fucking count how many times you’ve practically allowed Catwoman to walk out of Arkham for a booty call, or how you hand over the bad guys to Arkham for them to escape within one day. What’s so special about this one particular Joker escape?” Red Hood explains, and even lifts his gloved hand to count his fingers to name off a few ideas. “Is he going to blow up Gotham? He’s tried and failed miserably before. Is he going to kidnap Robin to attempt to turn him against you? He’s tried a million times, and it’s only worked once but that was taken care of. Is he planning to Batnap you and propose to you on top of Wayne Enterprises, because of the whole ‘chase me and I can’t live without you’ running joke, while the rest of us are tied up and gagged with bombs strapped to our chests? Maybe...” “Red Hood!” Batman shouts angrily. “Hold on, he might be onto something...” Robin considers it. “What? It’s not like Joker’s tried that yet. It’s just a fucking suggestion, old man,” Red Hood defends himself. Nightwing jumps down into a kneeling position and faces his father and brothers. A somber frown is on his face, and he gives off a negative vibe. Something’s wrong, and the rest know it. “Where’s Red Robin?” Batman asks Nightwing. “I don’t know. He hasn’t been answering his communicator all night. I can’t even get Oracle to trace it,” Nightwing answers truthfully, despite his eyes not meeting anyone’s. He exhales, and finally forces himself to look up to his father. “I...I think something’s wrong with him, Batman.” Batman breathes deeply, and walks closer to Nightwing. “What do you mean, Nightwing?” “This...this isn’t the first time this has happened. Oracle noticed he’s been MIA for a week. He hasn’t been cooperating. He hasn’t been patrolling with anyone,” Nightwing lists off his concerns. “Oh please, Grayson. Drake slacking off is hardly a concern or issue to even be worried about him. Perhaps he’s being too intimate with Y/N. He’s most likely back at the Manor, doing the baby-making process I’ve been reading up on lately. I would like a nephew, and I hope Drake’s sperm cells are sufficient swimmers and impregnate Y/N rather quickly. She has been different lately...perhaps she already is with child,” Damian reveals. “Damian!” Batman growls enraged. Jason felt his heart beat faster than before. Just hearing about Tim trying to be intimate with Y/N makes his blood boil like a volcano. “No, that-that’s not what I’m trying to talk about,” Nightwing sighs, and shakes his head. “I don’t want to say this...but I guess I’m the only one who can tell you the truth.” “Nightwing,” Batman begins and pauses instantly. He fears the worst. Batman knows he would be a fool to think all is well when the world keeps getting darker and shittier every day. “Just tell me the truth.” With one last sigh, Nightwing’s teary eyes look up to Batman’s. “O-Oracle...she has...reason to believe...t-that Tim was the one who released the Joker out.” The air got thicker. The silence between the four men shocked them; and made them question why Tim Drake would help the Joker escape. If anyone knew Bruce Wayne, they would say he’s a loving, protective father of all his children. And if one is being accused of something horrific and questionable, he would defend them until he died. “What did you just say, Dick?” Batman asks, appearing to have not heard Nightwing clearly. “W-we think Tim is responsible for allowing the Joker to escape. Y-you see, Oracle was able to go through Arkham Asylum’s surveillance cameras, and Tim had to be the one to get passed all of them successfully,” Nightwing explains hastily. “So, he’s not even on camera?” “Well, no but-“ “Then you have nothing to prove your accusation. If you have no evidence, then you can’t accuse Tim of doing something as wrong as letting an insane, murderous, criminal out of Arkham,” Batman says angrily. His breathing is uneven, and his temper is about to burst. “Let me just explain it,” Nightwing tries to reason. “No, no I don’t want to listen to your reasons, Dick. H-how dare you accuse Timothy of doing this? If anything, why not accuse Jason or Damian?” Batman yells, unable to keep his rage under control. The brothers stepped back, because Batman’s anger is frightening; even to them growing up. “Why not accuse me? After all, I don’t kill, and when I don’t kill, they’ll just keep escaping, murdering innocent people, and destroy every ounce of happiness I gain for only a short while. Because maybe I did it. Maybe Alfred did it, too.” “Do not bring Pennyworth into this,” Robin threatens. “Just listen to me for a minute. He wasn’t caught on cameras, but couldn’t someone who knows Arkham as well as us have done the job and not get caught? It would have to take a genius to go in undetected, do the job, and get out as if nothing happened? The only problem with this theory is, what would Tim get out of it? Why would he want the Joker out?” Nightwing clarifies his case. Batman stays silent. He turns to face Red Hood and Robin. “He...he wouldn’t, though. He is different. He’s always so aware and sure of everything. Why would he do this?” Batman whispers, mostly to himself. “He never had a bad past; not like the rest of us. I...I always thought he was going to stay good. I thought I would never have to worry about him.” Jason couldn’t believe this. He didn’t want to believe Dick, but something in his gut was telling him to hear him out. Could someone as good as Tim really turn bad? Would Tim happen to know his and Y/N’s secret? Oracle beeps into Nightwing’s communicator. “Go ahead Oracle.” “Nightwing...I-I have some bad news for you. Well, for all of you really. Get online now,” Oracle commands. Red Hood pushes a button inside his helmet where he is watching the screen load the video. Batman and Nightwing look down to their wrists where a screen lights up, that links them online with Oracle and Alfred. A shaky video loads, and it appears someone unknown is recording a brown shoe box, where a dark and reddish bird, a robin to be exact, is lying down dead with its eyes open outside of a nest with two small bird eggs inside. “Well! Isn’t this precious! This robin birdie was a mother,” the voice belongs to Joker. His high screeching laugh made the men silently gasp. The camera moves away from the mother bird and zooms in on the eggs. “Aww...new life. They say in death, live continues on...but not for these unborn children.” The camera then turns around and Joker’s face takes up the entire screen. His dark eyes send shivers down the Batman and Batboy’s bodies. His painted red lips curved up into a deadly smile. “I finally have your attention now, Bats? You’re probably asking yourself, ‘Now why would the Joker attack and brutally kill a bird, who just laid her eggs, and didn’t have the beautiful opportunity to see her children hatch from their little eggs, and take that first breath in this dark, evil, and deadly world I, Joker reign in?’ You know, while I usually take my sick pleasure in torturing your family Bats, or some innocent people I don’t even know or care about. But I must say Bats...even your family can surprise me!” Joker laughs hysterically, before he dramatically frowns. With a hand holding his cheek, his mouth opens wide. “And let’s just say, this wouldn’t all be possible without your third Robin...” Batman growled and shut his eyes tightly. This was too much for him. Red Hood feels his insides burning with rage. No, no there’s no way Joker could know...he thought to himself. Tim wouldn’t do this... “I am beyond surprised Bats! Even I couldn’t have done this all by myself! After all, who would have thought that the second former dead Robin would have knocked up a woman, who is supposedly dating your third Robin? Did you know that, Bats? The so-called damned Prince of Gotham knocked up the Batfamily slut, Y/N Y/LN. Now that’s a mouthful! And now I bet you’re wondering where your faithful and more-than alive Robin is,” Joker says, and turns the camera and it zooms in on Tim Drake, dresses from head to toe in his former Robin costume but painted in exact Joker makeup. “Who would I thought I could manipulate and influence his mind twice? He must not be as sane as you believed, Bats!” Batman’s breathing heavily in panic. When Tim Drake was younger, Joker managed to kidnap him and manipulate him into being Joker’s son. But luckily Batman was able to treat him and stop Joker’s influence from taking over his mind. But maybe Joker is right. Maybe Tim isn’t as sane and good as he once believed. Red Hood watches in complete horror how Tim glances up at the camera and smiles, very similar and terrifying as Joker’s. “Whoever this Robin was...his spirit is destroyed, as I have destroyed the second’s, and even yours, Bats!” Joker cackles. Joker turns the camera once more as he holds up the robin’s eggs to the lens. “Oh, and as for these baby birds? I can’t wait to eat them, just like I can’t wait to eat yours, Red Hoodie!” Joker tosses back the robin’s eggs into his mouth and his teeth breaks apart the poor, unborn birds’ eggshells. The liquid from the eggs, blood, and flesh stick to his teeth, creating a grayish ooze with blood, and his maniac eyes shine as his laugh echoes throughout the tape. “Now, that was very delicious! Those robin eggs were tasty, and I know Red Hoodie’s and Y/N’s will be very tasty too! Isn’t that right, Y/N?” Joker asks, and turns the camera to face Y/N, lying on a dirty, torn up hospital bed, but she appeared to be groggy and unresponsive to her name. “Well, she’s just tired because being pregnant with Red Hood’s baby MUST be exhausting! That kid’ll come out like a cannonball!”

Jason clenched his teeth and fists. He was pissed off; angry and frustration weren’t enough. A sudden strong energy takes over his body. He feels the urge to protect his love, and his child. No matter what. Even if he must kill Joker.

Jason no longer cares about the golden rule. The love of his life and unborn child are in danger, and if he doesn’t find them, he’d lose them both.

He’d even lose Tim…his brother.

“I’ll even eat her egg when she’s just three months along! You know me Bats!” Joker’s laugh ends when the tape ends.

The screens are off when Red Hood notices Batman, Nightwing, and Robin are glaring at him. “We’ll talk more about that at home. Until then, we need to find the Joker, and save Tim and Y/N,” Batman announces, and motions the boys to follow him. “How dangerous could Drake even be? He has the anger and the strength of a toddler,” Robin claims sarcastically. Batman stops, and faces his sons. There is the worry, the anger, the tears in his eyes he can’t fight back anymore. “None of you remember how Tim was back then. You had your own life Dick, the solo career as Nightwing. Jason, you were back into Gotham with your vengeance. And Damian, I didn’t even know you existed. So, none of you were there when Tim was just starting off as my Robin. He was a happy kid, a kid who loved to learn and be the best. But Joker got to him before me. He tortured him for three weeks. Brain washed him. Torment him mentally and physically. Used him as a solider to get back at me. But because of Tim’s natural innocence and happiness, he was made a perfect target. Tim…was and still is an emotional guy. If something were to snap in his head, it would be the end for him. If he wanted to, Tim could have killed hundreds, maybe even thousands, just to hurt me. Tim was and still is the perfect solider, and I’m going to be the one who pays, again,” Batman confesses. “Why would you pay? I’m the one who should be paying for what I’ve done,” Red Hood asks quietly. Batman releases a choked sob. “Because I knew about Tim’s pain...and I never helped him. I didn’t think he’d ever need help.”

“What do you mean?” Nightwing asks. “Did you know this was bound to happen?”

“Yes. I knew it was eventually going to happen. And now that it’s happened…I have to stop him myself.”

Jason knew what Bruce meant, and while Bruce may have a plan, Jason knew he wasn’t going to stand beside him when it comes down to the Joker.

Jason wants nothing more than to put a bullet through the Joker’s skull.

“If he hurts Y/N, the baby, and Tim,” Jason chokes out before he manages to pull himself together. Hot tears are streaming down his cheeks, and he thanks God he has his hood on. “I’m going to kill the Joker. I don’t give a fuck about your golden rule anymore. If you get in my way, I’ll kill you too. If you kill me right after, I’d still not give a shit. Because what’s it going to take for you to realize he’s a fucking monster who’ll keep doing this over and over again until you’re the last one standing? So, how many more people have to die or be crippled for you to see he needs to die? Me?! Barbara?! Tim?! Y/N?! My fucking unborn child?! Or does Alfred, Dick, or Damian have to be the last ones for you to see it?” Jason screams.

Batman exhales. A pained look is on his face, and he looks defeated already.

“Maybe this time…I won’t stop you from doing that…if it needs to be done.”

[jcmorgenstern]

@superohclair oh god okay please know these are all just incoherent ramblings so like, idk, please feel free to add on or ignore me if im just wildly off base but this is a bad summary of what ive been thinking about and also my first titans/batman meta?? (also, hi!)

okay so for the disclaimer round: I am not an actual cultural studies major, nor do I have an extensive background in looking at the police/military industrial complex in media. also my comics knowledge is pretty shaky and im a big noob(I recently got into titans, and before that was pretty ignorant of the dceu besides batman) so I’ll kind of focus in on the show and stuff im more familiar with and apologize in advance?. basically im just a semi-educated idiot with Opinions, anyone with more knowledge/expertise please jump in! this is literally just the bullshit I spat out incoherently off the top of my head. did i mention im a comics noob? because im a comics noob.

so on a general level, I think we can all agree that batman as a cultural force is somewhat on the conservative side, if not simply due to its age and commercial positioning in American culture. there are a lot of challenges and nuances to that and it’s definitely expanding and changing as DC tries to position itself in the way that will...make the most money, but all you have to do is take a gander through the different iterations of the stories in the comics and it’ll smack you in the fucking face. like compare the first iteration of Jason keeping kids out of drugs to the titans version and you’ve got to at least chuckle. at the end of the day, this is a story about a (white male) billionaire who fights crime.

to be fair, I’d argue the romanticization of the police isn’t as aggressive as it could be—they are most often presented as corrupt and incompetent. However, considering the main cop characters depicted like Jim Gordon, the guys in Gotham (it’s been a while since I saw it, sorry) are often the romanticized “good few” (and often or almost always white cis/het men), that’s on pretty shaky ground. I don’t have the background in the comics strong enough to make specific arguments, so I’ll cede the point to someone who does and disagrees, but having recently watched a show that deals excellently with police incompetence, racism, and brutality (7 Seconds on Netflix), I feel at the very least something is deeply missing. like, analysis of race wrt police brutality in any aspect at all whatsoever.

I think it can be compellingly read that batman does heavily play into the military/police industrial complex due to its takes on violence—just play the Arkham games for more than an hour and you’ll know what I mean. to be a little less vague, even though batman as a franchise valorizes “psychiatric treatment” and “nonviolence,” the entire game seems pretty aware it characterizes treatment as a madhouse and nonviolence as breaking someone’s back or neck magically without killing them because you’re a “good guy.” while it is definitely subversive that the franchise even considers these elements at all, they don’t always do a fantastic job living up to them.

and then when you consider the fetishization of tools of violence both in canon and in the fandom, it gets worse. same with prisons—if anything it dehumanizes people in prisons even more than like, cop shows in general, which is pretty impressive(ly bad). like there’s just no nuance afforded and arkham is generally glamorized. the fact that one of the inmates is a crocodile assassin, I will admit, does not help. im not really sure how to mitigate that when, again, one of the inmates is a crocodile assassin, but I think my point still stands. fuck you, killer croc. (im just kidding unfuck him or whatever)

not to take this on a Jason Todd tangent but I was thinking about it this afternoon and again when thinking about that cop scene again and in many ways he does serve as a challenge to both batman’s ideology as well as the ideology of the franchise in general. his depiction is always a bit of a sticking point and it’s always fascinating to me to see how any given adaptation handles it. like Jason’s “”street”” origin has become inseparable from his characterization as an angry, brash, violent kid, and that in itself reflects a whole host of cultural stereotypes that I might argue occasionally/often dip into racialized tropes (like just imagine if he wasn’t white, ok). red hood (a play on robin hood and the outlaws, as I just realized...today) is in my exposure/experience mostly depicted as a villain, but he challenges batman’s no-kill philosophy both on an ethical and practical level. every time the joker escapes he kills a whole score more of innocent people, let alone the other rogues—is it truly ethical to let him live or avoid killing him for the cost of one life and let others die?

moreover, batman’s ““blind”” faith in the justice system (prisons, publicly-funded asylum prisons, courts) is conveniently elided—the story usually ends when he drops bad guy of the day off at arkham or ties up the bad guys and lets the police come etc etc. part of this is obviously bc car chases are more cinematic than dry court procedurals, but there is an alternate universe where bruce wayne never becomes batman and instead advocates for the arkham warden to be replaced with someone competent and the system overhauled, or in programs encouraging a more diverse and educated police force, or even into social welfare programs. (I am vaguely aware this is sometimes/often part of canon, but I don’t think it’s fair to say it’s the main focus. and again, I get it’s not nearly as cinematic).

overall, I think the most frustrating thing about the batman franchise or at least what I’ve seen or read of it is that while it does attempt to deal with corruption and injustice at all levels of the criminal justice system/government, it does so either by treating it as “just how life is” or having Dick or Jim Gordon or whoever the fuckjust wipe it out by “eliminating the dirty cops,” completely ignoring the non-fantasy ways these problems are dealt with in real life. it just isn’t realistic. instead of putting restrictions on police violence or educating cops on how to use their weapons or putting work into eradicating the culture of racism and prejudice or god basically anything it’s just all cinematized into the “good few” triumphing over the bad...somehow. its always unsatisfying and ultimately feels like lip service to me, personally.

this also dovetails with the very frustrating way mental health/”insanity” or “madness” is dealt with in canon, very typical of mainstream fiction. like for example:“madness is like gravity, all it takes is a little push.” yikes, if by ‘push’ you mean significant life stressors, genetic load, and environemntal influences,  then sure. challenge any dudebro joker fanboy to explain exactly what combination of DSM disorders the joker has to explain his “””insanity””” and see what happens. (these are, in fact, my plans for this Friday evening. im a hit at parties).

anyway I do really want to wax poetic about that cop scene in 1x06 so im gonna do just that! honestly when I first saw that I immediately sat up like I’d sat on a fucking tack, my cultural studies senses were tingling. the whole “fuck batman” ethos of the show had already been interesting to me, esp in s1, when bruce was basically standing in for the baby boomers and dick being our millennial/GenX hero. I do think dick was explicitly intended to appeal to a millennial audience and embody the millennial ethos. By that logic, the tension between dick and Jason immediately struck me as allegorical (Jason constantly commenting on dick being old, outdated, using slang dick doesn’t understand and generally being full of youthful obnoxious fistbumping energy).

Even if subconsciously on the part of the writers, jason’s over-aggressive energy can be read as a commentary on genZ—seen by mainstream millennial/GenX audiences as taking things too far. Like, the cops in 1x06 could have been Nick Zucco’s hired men or idk pretty much anyone, yet they explicitly chose cops and even had Jason explain why he deliberately went after them for being cops so dick (cop) could judge him for it. his rationale? he was beaten up by cops on the street, so he’s returning the favor. he doesn’t have the focused “righteous” rage of batman or dick/nightwing towards valid targets, he just has rage at the world and specifically the system—framed here as unacceptable or fanatical. as if like, dressing up like a bat and punching people at night is, um, totally normal and uncontroversial.

on a slightly wider scope, the show seems to internally struggle with its own progressive ethos—on the one hand, they hire the wildly talented chellah man, but on the other hand they will likely kill him off soon. or they cast anna diop, drawing wrath from the loudly racist underbelly of fandom, but sideline her. perhaps it’s a genuine struggle, perhaps they simply don’t want to alienate the bigots in the fanbase, but the issue of cops stuck out to me when I was watching as an social issue where they explicitly came down on one side over the other. jason’s characterization is, I admit and appreciate, still nuanced, but I’d argue that’s literally just bc he’s a white guy and a fan favorite. cast an actor of color as Jason and see how fast fandom and the writer’s room turns on him.

anyway i don’t really have the place to speak about what an explicitly nonwhite!cop!dick grayson would look like, but I do think it would be a fascinating and exciting place to start in exploring and correcting the kind of vague and nebulous complaints i raise above. (edit: i should have made more clear, i mean in the show, which hasn’t dealt with dick’s heritage afaik). also, there’s something to be said about the cop vs detective thing but I don’t really have the brain juice or expertise to say it? anyway if you got this far i hope it was at least interesting and again pls jump in id love to hear other people’s takes!!

tldr i took two (2) cultural studies classes and have Opinions

[thecomicsnexus]

TEEN TITANS #20-24 SEPTEMBER 2018 - JANUARY 2019 BY ADAM GLASS, BERNARD CHANG, SCOTT HANNA, MARCELO MAIOLI AND HI-FI DESIGN

SYNOPSIS

The “new” Teen Titans is formed by Robin (Damian Wayne), Kid Flash (Wallace West), Red Arrow (Emiko Queen), and joined by newcomers, Djinn (a free genie), Roundhouse (a Viewtube star with a special self-made armor that allows him to transform into a ball) and Crush (daughter of Lobo and a mystery female).

Unbeknownst to the team, Robin is incarcerating the criminals they are hunting down in their headquarters (an old juvenile reformatory), gathering information about “the other”, a fabled criminal mastermind. He is also receiving advice and tips from Red Hood (Jason Todd)... also without his team knowing it.

In their first mission (of this story) they defeat Brother Blood (first issue of this arc, it was mostly to showcase the powers and new members of the team). We later learn that in their prison, they already caught Black Mask, Onomatopoeia and Atomic Skull, but there are other criminals trapped there as well.

During their confrontation with Gizmo, the fiend booby traps himself with a nuclear bomb. Damian and Emiko’s instinct is ordering Wallace to drop him in the middle of the ocean, but Kid Flash refuses to be part of a solution that kills Gizmo. But they may not have many chances, as a nuclear explosion would kill more people in the city. Roundhouse saves the day, seemingly dying in space (he was fine, but in-communicated for a while, and later grounded).

When the team reunites again with Roundhouse, the chase Lady Vic, who just tried to kill commissioner Gordon (really Djinn in disguise). When they corner her, they find her dead with the “signature” of “the other” (some claw marks with blood). The building implodes, and they are only saved by Crush, who is pretty much holding the ceiling for them.

The team realizes they have certain limitations, but still manage to survive.

REVIEW

This story could have been a 10, but I have some problems with the art, and possibly the editor.

I usually enjoy Bernard Chang, it’s not a matter of not liking his art here. It just has errors. Errors that could have been caught and corrected by a good editor.

Take a look at Kid-Flash costume. This is how it is supposed to look like:

Compare it to how he is depicted here:

Sure, the two other version are not very consistent, but at least they make sense in terms of theme. Chang’s Kid Flash doesn’t scream “lightning” to me.

My other problem is with Black Mask... but to be honest, I no longer know what’s canon and what’s not. In the origin I know, Black Mask’s mask isn’t optional, it’s merged with his flesh. But I think that may have been undone recently or during the new 52. I have too many continuities in my head. So, if this is still canon, somehow, his mask cannot be half broken (or half whole, depending on how you see life). But I will give them the benefit of the doubt.

The rest is fine. We even got Scott Hanna for the Lady Vic episode, which is great, as he inked her on her debut (in Nightwing). By the way, I am now doubting everything about that title. Hanna’s style here looks a lot like Scott McDaniel’s style. Or was it always the other way around?

In any case, she dies. Which isn’t cool. I don’t know why editors keep letting characters die. My problem with this is that no one will remember she is dead and she will creep out somewhere else to die again.

The other problem, and I guess, this will be other people’s complaints as well, is Robin’s prison. But I am surprisingly ok with this. Let me elaborate on this: Damian was raised by assassins. No matter how much he adapts to Batman, or Jonathan Kent, he will come back to his former self every now and then. He was like... 10 years old? when he met his father? In ten years, a person is pretty much formed. Whatever you add after that is learning. You can change, but you will be fighting your nature all the time. At least you will know if you are doing something wrong, which is what I assume is the problem with this. But it makes sense. Damian is entering his teenage years and he is starting to think less like Grayson and more like Todd, it’s probably a phase. It doesn’t seem too wise, though. Now these criminals can tell the authorities that Robin kidnapped them.

Now, for the actual good parts. I usually compliment Wolfman and Perez for the way they started New Teen Titans up and running, the team was already formed (by the end of the first issue, but was already introduced before), they got along pretty well, everyone had their role in the team, and each brought different types of stories to the fold. So you had different story possibilities: space (Starfire), supernatural (Raven), Science (Cyborg), Gods (Wonder Girl), and then the normal superhero stories.

In this group we have a very similar set-up, but there are two characters that are too similar between themselves, to the point they are redundant. Those two characters are Emiko and Damian. They have very similar skills and bring the same type of stories to the table. Let’s take a look at the other members.

Djinn brings supernatural stories, like Raven.

Roundhouse is the gifted kid that is still fighting his hormones and his self-esteem, like a mix of Beast Boy and Cyborg.

Crush is the tank, she doesn’t think much about strategies and is always eager to attack, this makes her more similar to Starfire. I honestly don’t enjoy Lobo’s derivatives, I would much prefer a character that is not connected to him.

Red Arrow seems to be the deputy leader. She, like Robin, is well connected in the world and has been trained by ruthless people. I am tempted to say she is more like Donna Troy, at least in terms of the role she is taking.

Kid Flash and Robin are pretty much like Kid Flash and Robin. The similarities between Wolfman’s Wally West and Glass’ Wallace West are very interesting. Although the characters are not the same, they have the same personalities (everything is a bit black and white to them). Dick and Damian are very different from each other.

I think that even the character moments are very well thought, so this title is actually surprising me. I wasn’t really expecting this amount of quality from a publisher that has been confusing Titans fans for the past 20 years. The fact that the new characters are a mystery on themselves, promises a lot of stories to come, and I hope Glass gets to tell them.

I give this story a score of 9