#this is about the time Dick set the We are Robin gang up

[ultimate-marysue]

Dick: I can't stand Bruce. He's always making decisions for you. He thinks he knows better and "It's what's best for you, Dick". Maybe I don't want what's best, maybe I want to make my own informed decisions. Like, can't he just trust I'll know what to do if he gives me the info?

Duke:... isn't that what you do constantly, all the time, unapologetically???

Dick: that's different because I'm actually right.

[alyakthedorklord]

Chiroptophobia: the Fear of Bats.

Bruce Wayne is Scared of Bats. This is a Canon Fact.

In a difference from canon, Batman pretends to actually BE a bat man.

(Again, “Loading and Aspect Ratio” by JUBE514 situation with fake wings. Please go read it I love it so much.)

Bruce turns himself into a physical manifestation of his personal worst nightmares, and sets out to be a street cryptid. People see him flinching from bright lights and loud noises (he hasn’t slept in three days and he really hates guns) twitching weirdly (testing his wings function/stimming) not fully understanding human social niceties (you cannot tell me this man isn't Autistic) and, duh, wings, and go ah yes this being is Inhuman.

However, people KNOW Brucie Wayne™ is petrified of bats. There was an incident at a party when one flew through a window, another at a zoo, there was this one time Manbat showed up and he practically teleported away. No one saw him for a whole month, even after Batman had captured Manbat. (He got injured in the fight.)

By extension, this means that Bruce Wayne is afraid of Batman. Just- absolutely terrified of him. No ones seen them in the same place. Ever. Bruce Wayne actually publicly refuses to even believe in the cryptid for YEARS past when he's already been proven to exist.

When the Justice League gets called in to protect Bruce and his smattering of children from some plot (batman conspicuously absent, despite Gotham being his territory) Bruce straight up tells the league that he doesn’t believe in Batman, and he feels much safer with “real heroes” rather than “a urban legend spawned from overdramatic furries and gang wars.”

The justice league is, obviously, confused.

Certified little shits Dick, Jason, and Tim, (because we’re going with JUBE514’s canon and jason doesn’t die they’re all brothers f off-)

ANYWAYS: Certified Little Shits Dick, Jason, and Tim, ready for chaos/solidifying secret identities: “Don’t worry! We believe in batman! We saw him!” :D

They then proceed to tell the justice league that Bruce HAS met Batman, but he has a phobia of bats, so when Batman saved them at a gala Bruce screamed so loud and shrill he threw off the bat-hearing and then punched batman in the face so hard he knocked him out cold, grabbed then-baby Jason and ran. (Nightwing and the second Robin had to HEROICALLY rescue a dazed Batman, Dick saw it with his own eyes!)

Bruce was so scared of the bat coming to take revenge that he jumped at every shadow for a whole month. Why, Jason, (who was younger then) had slept in Bruce's bed to keep him safe! (Dick is crooning about his cute little brother. Jason, who is hitting his growth spurt and not a little kid anymore, is infinitely embarrassed.) Right now, Brucie has settled into firmly denying Batman’s entire existence so that he can sleep soundly at night.

“Why is he so scared of bats?” The Justice League is wondering. Oh, they are so glad they asked!

“Alfred told us a story once,” Dick says, eyes wide and innocent as he prepares to lie through his fucking teeth, “that when Bruce was little, really little, he got trapped in a cave filled with bats, and his dad had to come rescue him. Apparently, Little Bruce had been crying about a massive bat, even bigger than he was, with glowing red eyes and human hands and (gasp) wait oh my goodness gracious what if that was the BATMAN :0”

“The baby batman.” Jadon adds.

“Batboy?” Tim wonders.

“Alfred, do you think Bruce met Batman when they were little?” Dick asks.

“I believe,” Alfred “the greatest enabler” Pennyworth hums, offering fresh baked scones to thier gleeful audience, “that Master Bruce referred to what he saw as ‘the bat king’ and reported seeing him outside his window several times over the years.”

“Maybe it really was him! Will you ask Batman for us?” Tim asks, already planning to hack the watchtower cameras and set up some popcorn with his brothers.

The Justice League, who have learned more about the Batman in one conversation than they have over MANY years of working together, tell the Wayne children that it will be their Genuine Pleasure to quiz batman on his interactions with BRUCIE WAYNE who has, apparently, laid batman out cold with one punch.

Alfred adds on that he personally thinks the Batman is being rather courteous to Master Bruce, as “bat king” sightings were after “difficult times” and he doesn’t come near the manor otherwise, as robin had been the one to return some family heirlooms that one time they were stolen. He calls the batman and his robins “polite young gentlemen” and then leaves.

But now the gears are turning in the justice leagues heads. Batman? Courteous? Polite? Batman is not Courteous or Polite. Not unless something else is going on.

Now. From their point of view. Batman lives in the cave systems under the richest houses in Gotham, Phantom of the Opera style, hiding his meta form (because this batman is playing cryptid really well. Maybe he was a mutant baby of some Rich Gothamites, who threw him into the caves in shame!) He’s been watching Bruce Wayne, likely as he struggled with the highly reported on demise of his parents, seeing the effects that crime had on the boy that fell into his cave all those years ago. Batman has always been so protective of children, so hateful of guns, obviously the Wayne tragedy is part of what motivates him. He loves Gotham dearly, territorial of it to the point of keeping other heroes out, and yet he breaks that rule here, for Gotham's prince, solely for Bruce’s comfort.

Bruce, another person who obviously loves the city of Gotham just as much, putting millions into charity and relief efforts. Who is clearly very protective of his children, even if he usually has no spine, to the point of attacking his greatest fear to keep then safe, and good enough to land a hit, even. (Bruce Wayne is also considerably attractive.)

Its all so clear to the Justice League: Batman is madly in love with Bruce Wayne. Has been for years. To the point of watching him sleep, on occasion. How very tragic! Batman, in love with someone he can never be with! Not only would it paint a massive target on Bruce’s back if they ever did get together- there’s no questioning what Gotham villains would do if they discovered this, (and denying himself love out of an attempt to keep others safe is EXACTLY the kind of self-sacrificing nonsense Batman would pull) But Batman can’t even truly see the man he’s in love with without Brucie running away in terror! Well, the poor guy… how sad…

This conclusion can be supported by the following evidence-

Batman being the one to catch the guy who put the hit out on Bruce. He sent them to babysit/make sure Bruce was safe while dealt with the actual threat. (Bruce had a suspiciously long bathroom break/a nap)

Batman’s first appearance being right after Bruce Wayne returned to Gotham. Was the bat following him to protect him in those missing years? Or maybe he decided to clean up the city now that his beloved had returned?

Batman always being seen near where Bruce is. He’s never once been at the watchtower when Bruce has a public appearance- he must be watching over him, a silent guardian in case someone gets it in their head to kidnap Gotham’s Prince.

Batman insisting that Bruce is innocent in a corporate scheme, despite evidence to the contrary. (Hes right in the end, of course, but they’ve never seen him ignore evidence so clear.)

Batman casually referencing Wayne Tech/Foundation inner workings- he keeps an eye on them, of course. (If he can’t be close to the object of his affections, the league reasons, of course he’d make sure that Bruce’s company and projects are on the right track)

Nightwing, when asked, confirms the Bruce Punching Batman story. He says “honestly I think B was impressed! Caught him off guard!” (Since when does Batman lower his guard? Only when he’d be… distracted, perhaps…)

Superman saves Bruce, who thanks him with a kiss on the cheek. Later, justice league was teasing Clark, batman huffs and leaves the room. He’s CLEARLY jealous! Superman feels just awful!

Batman inexplicably knowing social dances/high society manners- he must have learned by watching (stalking) bruce! He can navigate high profile talk if he wants to, he just doesn’t want to most of the time. but if the situation calls for it he can talk like the Richest of Pricks in a way that only comes with observation.

Batman bristling when some of the league members start making Comments on Brucie Wayne’s Physical Attributes. (Jealousy? Defensiveness? Perhaps… embarrassment at GL’s detailed explanation on what he’d do with a chance in bed with Brucie.)

Batman absolutely freezing up when confronted with any of the above evidence. (He’s trying SO HARD not to laugh/go tell his kids)

Dick/Jason being big enough to wear the Bat-wings rather than thier own and be convincing- they save Bruce, though the man passes out (from fear? Blood loss from an injury? Perhaps- he is faking) and Dick/Jason, either out of genuine concern for their dad or general “how can i stir the pot” chaos, gently strokes his hair away from his face in an act of compassion that the cameras just so happen to catch. (There’s a few tears shed in the justice league- poor batman! He can’t be with his love!)

The robins (in both identities) telling the justice league that they've seen batman watching him.

“oh yeah he does background checks on aaaaaall bruces conquests. Had a conniption when brucie found a mafia boss that one time.”

“And when he found out Bruce and Two-face had a fling!”

(The league notes that often, if a criminal gets too close to Brucie, they’re put away not long after. B is usually collecting evidence in his civilian ID. But it looks like angry Batman wanted them to get the hell away from his mans.)

The Justice League is swooning over this tragic, forbidden love story. Batman is a little creepy but hey. He apparently grew up in a cave system. Its a wonder he's as well adjusted as he is. Batman has their sympathy, he seems less unflappable/untouchable, they’re a little more understanding with him now. Superman is all too happy to be a rebound, if needed. There are magic users offering glamour spells. Green Lantern is making exposure therapy innuendos.

The robins can’t believe how lucky they got. They’re def grounded but B can’t be too mad bc his secret identity is FUKIN SET.

Alfred is rather proud of Batman's new nickname in the league being “the bat king” and keeps sending batman along with cookies. The league thinks Batman is checking up on bruce with his butler. Its a mess.

Eventually, Batman loses a bet to one of his kids. Committing to the Bit with an exasperated sigh (he’s definitely not having fun, shut up jason.)

He admits to his crush.

[necrotic-nephilim]

I think what I love the most about Reverse Robin AU TimJay is the absolute potential for hero worship with Jason toward Tim. In canon we often forget that Tim didn't really care for Jason as Robin, meanwhile as I never shut up about, Jason has been weirdly respecting and obsessed with Tim since finding out about Tim's existence. So if you flip their order, make Tim Red Hood and make Jason Red Robin, there's so much room for hero worship from Jason.

As Robin, Jason has always teetered that edge of being pro-murder or not. Whether you believe he killed Felipe or not, even in his Post-Crisis introduction as Robin, he almost kills Two Face. Those concepts of lethal justice have always been brewing inside him, just reigned in by Bruce. So if you have Robin!Jason witnessing Red Hood!Tim start killing people and quickly making noticeable change in the landscape of gangs in Gotham, Jason would take quick notice. I think Tim as Red Hood would still be lethal, but there'd be a different application than Jason's Red Hood. Heads in duffle bags isn't Tim's style, even if he kills. I think you'd see something much more akin to that time Tim almost killed Boomerang, where it's such an elaborately thought out set up, it realistically doesn't even look like Tim killed anyone. It'd take months for Bruce to connect this string of deaths as anything other than coincidental, let alone link them to Red Hood. And Jason is wickedly smart, even as Robin. Jason, putting those pieces together before Bruce does and witnessing the undeniable positive change for Gotham it's enacting? Robin!Jason would be incredibly drawn in by that, and then even more-so, a Red Robin!Jason who has to grapple with being replaced to make room for the next Robin would I think, in anger, turn to Red Hood. And Tim would push him away at first, his plans don't have room for a scorned teenager who's trying to get back at Bruce and Nightwing!Damian like this- but I think Jason would wear him down. Prove to Tim that Jason can think on his wavelength.

Slightly related, what interests me about Red Hood!Tim is how it'd implicate his closeness to Ra's. Jason is taken into the League by Talia in Lost Days and Ra's doesn't necessarily approve of Jason's presence, especially not of Talia dunking him in the Pit, but Ra's has always canonically been A Little Weird about Tim. I think in a world Tim dies as the second Robin, it would be Ra's who dunks Tim to preserve his mind that Ra's thinks shouldn't be wasted, and you have the potential for 'apprentice of Ra's' Tim wrapped up in it all, even without him experience the Red Robin arc. So when it's Jason as Red Robin, instead of him going to Ra's when he's scorned by the Batfamily, he goes to Tim. The person he once idolized, because I think Tim would've been Jason's Robin. Smart, competent, a strong legacy to live up to. And now he's back, and he's pro-killing, an edge that Jason has always teetered on and would feel even closer to when he's replaced by a young Dick. I think Tim wouldn't ever be able to get rid of Jason.

Then on Tim's side, I think his reaction to being replaced after his death would be a complicated one. Objectively, being the Robin who believes Batman needs a Robin, he'd respect the logic and know Bruce was always going to replace him eventually. But still, there's always going to be that instinctual emotional reaction of betrayal and replacement. I think he'd view Jason at first with anger and distance, but then, seeing Jason as this street kid with begrudging potential, I could see Red Hood!Tim testing Jason. Constantly throwing things at Jason, seeing how he reacts, if he lives up to being Robin. Tim has a need for analyzing people, understanding their strengths and weaknesses. And he seems the Robin mantle very uniquely, he'd need to have it proven to him that Jason can handle it.

So you would have this dynamic of Jason hero worshipping Tim, slowly believing in Tim's methodology. While Tim is at first dismissive of him, but then starts to test him, see what makes this kid tick. And I think the TimJay potential of Jason trying to prove himself to Tim could be Neat.

[dairy-farmer]

Damitim Fuck or Die

Young Robin and Red Robin get captured by some bad guys in a warehouse. There are too many guns and weapons for either of them to safely fight their way out, and perhaps luckily for them this particular gang really doesn't want to incur the wrath of Batman by murdering the birds. But they still want revenge and to make them suffer, as well as give them time to finish clearing out the warehouse.

So the gang says they'll let them go, but Red Robin has to fuck Robin first: not only will it keep them too distracted to cause problems, but they're also banking on ruining the relationships of the bat family by having RR rape his 'little brother'. Tim refuses and there's some arguing back and forth, and Damian even tries to talk him into it ("I have been taught how to withstand many torture techniques, this will be no different! At least this way we will live to fight another day!") and the gang members are tempted to just straight up shoot Red Robin at this point for being so difficult.

Until! Tim shouts that it's not that he isn't willing to go through with it to save their lives, but that he physically can't! Damian and the gang both pause in confusion, trying to figure out what he means. One gang member scoffs about him being too young for ED and if the issue is fucking a preteen, he just needs to think sexy thoughts. Humiliated and furious, Tim drops his pants and states that he quite literally does not have a dick.

Everything in the warehouse stops for a few moments well everyone, Damian and the gang members, try to wrap their heads around trans Red Robin and marvel at the pretty little pussy now on display. The leader rallies first, and says it's fine, they'll just have Robin fuck him instead! He even jokes that they won't even stipulate that Red Robin has to cum as well, since they're not sure Robin's baby dick will be up to the task.

Cut to a nervous and completely inexperienced 12-year-old Damian rutting into Tim's cunt, hands fluttering around Tim's hips, chest, stomach, unsure what to do with them. They decided on a missionary style with Tim flat on his back, having insisted on this position because it keeps most of the 'action' from being directly observed by the perverted gang members, and also means that Tim can keep an eye out so that no one sneaks up on Damian. Also Tim doing his best to try and distract Damian from the jeers and cat calls of the gang members (Tim being convinced that this is all incredibly traumatic to Damian, while in reality Damien is lost in the sauce i.e. that hot puss!), hugging him close, petting his hair, and murmuring soothing nonsense. A random gang member at some point drags the top of his uniform up so it's bunched under his armpits, putting his cute little tits on display. Damian blindly latches on immediately, alternating between suckling and panting gasps into the abused nubs. Someone makes a joke about Robin really being a baby.

The only possible silver lining to the whole situation, in Tim's opinion, is that there will be no videos or pictures or recordings of the incident, since they got in this mess in the first place after he set off an EMP to shut down a lot of the gangs tech and communications, which is also what knocked out their emergency beacons.

~❤️🦇

P.S. Just for the record, after everything is over with, Damien takes to trailing behind Tim like a lovesick duckling.😘

damitim

damian following tim around like a lovesick duckling!!!! tim is convinced that damian will have horrible trauma as a result and so when he notices damian following him around is just like 'oh no he's so traumatized he needs to keep me in his sight at all times so i don't surprise him 😟'. in reality all damian can think about was how it felt to cum inside a hot, tight hole. all he can think about is the plushness of tim's tit in his mouth and how pink and glossy his cunt was as damian rutted against him, his cock getting wonderfully jacked off by the twitching walls around him. damian is utterly incapable of NOT thinking about it, he's masturbated so often and is so desperate for a repeat because despite the goons at his back damian had never felt so good since his "first time".

[camshell]

Watched '89 Batman just so I could read the original script and get mad at the changes. Spoilers, but also this won't make a lot of sense if you haven't already seen the movie

Starting off strong with the descriptions. I'm sure cranking up Jack's age some 20 years wouldn't make much of a difference to the plot...

I was going to say that the casting director is no Andrea Romano, but considering his name drops before Keaton's, I'm sure Nicholson was chosen through a more particular process. I wonder though, was that choice alone responsible for the "Joker kills Bruce's parents" idea? (side note, did Joker 2019 come up with *anything* new at all??) Or was it something that came up after they decided to erase Dick Grayson from the film to replace the original conflict?

Oh yeah, the Flying Grayson's episode happens in the original script. But let's look at Ace Chemicals first — which is not the name they used in the movie, just to piss me off

They cut out a whole section of the gang breaking into the plant. It's not a bad choice, I just liked the date makeup observation. Now to the meet cute--

Paralyzing talons? Are you kidding me, they got rid of that?? Oh, silly me, of course they did — that would get in the way of Batman's classic blowing-up-thugs rule.

Bruce didn't throw Jack off the platform here, but interestingly enough we still see him feeling guilty when he finds out that he inadvertently created Joker

And yes, this is almost the exact same moment that Tom King wrote in Batman/Catwoman. Gotta love the trope of Bruce bringing up his guilt over creating his arch-nemesis in the middle of an intimate moment with a beautiful woman on his bed. Now some random things they changed that stood out to me:

Every single time Joker acts blatantly childishly or is described as being on the verge of a tantrum is so funny. Sad that we could've had this instead of him thirsting over Vicky Vale.

This is the during the attack of the mimes on the city hall. I assume they decided to cut it out because that sort of ptsd goes a little against installing machine guns on the batmobile and striking down your enemies with military grade missiles.

They didn't pull a Joe Chill/Joker switcheroo here, Vale's guilt just dreamed of this scenario. The script goes a little deeper in expanding her relationship with Bruce. She figured out he's Batman on her own — saving up Alfred's skin — but unfortunately so does her colleague. As a self-designated nice guy, Knox tries to get Batman to break things off with Vicky. He's also waiting for the news of Joker's attacks to quiet down before exposing Batman's identity, but don't worry, the scripts solves this beautifully later on.

Anyways, instead of the confrontation at the apartment of Vicky Vale (also known as Bruce's "let's get nuts" moment and the devil in the moonlight quote) we have a chase scene that leads to Dick's introduction. Before that though comes probably the second scene I most wish they had kept in the movie

Yes, Batman chases Joker on a horse, first wearing a tuxedo, then his whole gear. Do you see what they took from us? What could've been?

Joker kills the Graysons with pretty explosions, Dick jumps onto Joker's van and tries to kill him but alas is detained by Batman and batnapped.

Batman then asks Alfred to take care of Dick and the last act is set in motion. Pushed by anger and guilt, Batman blows up Ace Chemicals (tho here we're supposed to believe the thugs managed to run out before the place crumbled) but Joker escapes and goes to set the balloon parade in motion.

Before he can blow away the public, Knox and Vicky create the bat signal to alert Batman about the balloons and Joker's plans are thwarted. Unfortunately (cough) this costs Knox his life. But hey, at least Batman's identity is safe.

Big explosions ensue, the batwing goes down and Bruce is almost left dead in the debris. Dick Grayson, now dawning his makeshift Robin suit, saves him and runs to enact his revenge on Joker.

They enter the cathedral, Joker and Dick exchange some bullets and Batman eventually catches up with Dick, knocking him out again. Then Batman manages to crawl up the stairs through inhuman effort against his fatal injuries, passes out just before reaching the final floor and uh... I'll just post this next part in full

He's made a friend... Attempted murder-suicide... Joker's taken out by a horde of Bats... This would probably have replaced Fight Club in my list of favorite movie endings if it ever came into existence.

Before I close up on our villain and hero's demises, I do have something to point out that I think was improved in the final script. Joker's Smylex — basically Joker Gas, originally meant to be called Smylenol — got added to beauty products and caused some people to die in the movie. I say some, because while we see 13 deaths reported there, here it's something that comes closer to the class of hundreds. He doesn't even invent it, originally; he just steals the formula from an old CIA project. Because the fatal product doesn't happen only when certain products are mixed together, a whole lot more end up becoming victims and Batman can't do much about it except cut out the source. It's just a detail, but I liked that they thought of an alternative. I may not like the Joker mob boss origin, but at least they let him keep his chemical prowess.

Now to the ending. Batman had a last minute bout of clarity and threw the bomb away, tangling it in the helicopter's ladder

Something something Batman offering Joker a last comfort before death... Endgame and Arkham City and...

Okay, that's pretty much what I've got. Am I mad we didn't get to have this? Kinda. But also, I didn't have big expectations for what actually came out, and it's still a pretty funny film. Besides, I think when it comes to Batman and mainly Joker, sticking to the comics, games and animations is the best way to go. Best to keep the incels focused on the live adaptations anyhow

[luxaofhesperides]

greener on the other side.

Danny makes a habit out of hopping into portals and exploring he places he ends up. It just so happens that this time, he ends up in Gotham right as the Signal begins his patrol. Duke meets the strangest, funniest, cutest guy on the roof of the Gotham City Public Library. He knows Batman would not approve of literally anything he’s doing, but sue him, he wants a meta friend and this guy seems to up for it. – OR: how Duke and Danny got together despite having secret identities and living different dimensions.

chapter two: how it grows - 10.7k

read chapter one here or the entire fic on ao3.

here's the duke pov! one chapter left from danny's pov, then this fic is complete and i can get started on the rest of the series focusing on their relationship! . . .

Duke doesn’t like to make a big deal of things. He’ll try to handle things on his own and roll with the punches. As long as he keeps his cool, things will work out. 

Unfortunately, feelings are not one of the things that just ‘work out on their own’ and he has to admit that he might just need some outside help for this. The problem, then, becomes a question of who he can go to.

He’s come a long way since he was part of the We Are Robin gang and knows that he can rely on the rest of the Bats for help. He’s one of them, something that still feels surreal when he thinks about it for too long, but Duke has his place with them both in and out of the mask. He gets along well enough with Damian, trains often with Jason, bothers Dick for help when he gets in over his head, and makes fun of Bruce with Tim and Cass and Steph. 

They’re good people and he trusts them. They’re messy, with lots of history and fights between them all, but what family isn’t like that? 

They’re good people and he wants to ask them for help, but Duke can’t bring himself to go to the Manor. They’re all just… Some of the advice they give him for his civilian life is suspect at best. So instead, he’s going back to Jay’s house, hoping his cousin will have some normal advice for him.

Though he spends a decent amount of time with the Waynes, Jay technically still has custody of him; Duke doesn’t want to leave his family behind at all, not if he has any other choice, but he knows that looking after a teenager while being single and not having the biggest paycheck is stressful. Plus, it allows less time for any resentment to spring up between them with the amount of secrets Duke is hiding from him. 

As unprepared for him as Jay was, he still does his best. He’s waiting in the living room when Duke arrives, dropping his keys into the dish on the side table in the entrance hallway. A bowl of popcorn and two glasses of ice tea are set on the coffee table and Duke gladly takes one and drinks half in one go before he even sits down.

“Alright, man,” Jay says, “What’s going on? You never ask me for advice.”

Duke sighs. “It’s, uh… dating problems? I guess?”

“You guess?”

“I don’t actually know if it was a date or not and I need a second opinion.”

Jay gives him a long look. “Usually, just having to ask tends to mean it was a date and you just didn’t notice in time. You getting back with that Izzy girl?”

“No! We both decided to stay friends, and it’s not like we’ve been hanging out much at all since the break up. This is someone new.”

“Anyone I know?”

“Nah, he doesn’t live in Gotham.”

The smile falls from Jay’s face and he leans closer to Duke, suddenly growing serious. “If this is an internet friend, I’m going to have to lecture you on stranger danger. Come on man, I know you’re smarter than that.”

Duke shakes his head, pushing his cousin back into the couch. “No! No, no, definitely not! Do you really think I don’t know anything about internet safety? Not the point. The point is, he’s from out of town and he’s really cute and I spent most of yesterday just hanging out with him and took him to the best food trucks I could find. Was that a date?”

“Honestly? Sounds like it. Good for you man. Just make sure to let him know if you want the next one to officially be a date.”

See? Simple, normal advice. Jay is just telling him to communicate like a normal person. It’s not that simple, of course, since Duke isn’t going as Duke but as The Signal, but it’s still good advice. Once he finds the courage to ask Danny out on a proper date, he’ll do it in a way that leaves no confusion.

It won’t be any time soon, though. Not when they’ve just met and Danny doesn’t even know his name.

“It’s that easy, huh?”

“Sure is,” Jay grins. “How do you think I got all the girls when I was in school?”

“Is that also why you can’t get any dates now?”

“Alright, you little shit,” Jay laughs, throwing an arm around Duke’s shoulders to trap him in a noogie. “See if I give you advice ever again. Is this the thanks I get for looking after you?”

Duke can break free from his grip easily, but it’s been so long since he had a nice, easy interaction with his cousin that he just sinks into it, laughing. Time apart has made things better between them; there’s less stress involved with hiding his identity, and Jay isn’t worried out of his mind about raising Duke right while also making enough for rent and groceries. 

“You staying the night?” Jay asks, finally releasing Duke.

“Nah, the Waynes want me over for game night and I really wanna see them try to kill each other. But I got a couple of hours until they’re expecting me.”

“Up for a movie?”

“Is it another zombie movie?”

“You know it.”

Duke shrugs. “Sure, put it on and I’ll try not to laugh too hard when you get scared.”

It’s nice and lets his mind finally stop spinning in circles, going over everything he can remember from his not-date with Danny. He’s missed spending time with his cousin even if living away from him is a lot less stressful. As great as the Waynes are, they can’t give him this.

What they can give him is chaos and embarrassment.

“Caught you slacking yesterday,” Jason says casually as he drops onto the couch next to him. Both of them watch as Steph and Damian team up to kill Bruce for taking all their properties in Monopoly, and Duke suddenly has a feeling that he should have stayed with Jay after all.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he replies, “I’m never slacking as the Signal. I’ve never done a single thing wrong, ever, in my life.”

“Didn’t you lead a gang?”

“Didn’t you decapitate eight men?”

Jason pinches his side in retaliation, making Duke jump. “So, you pulling a Superman? Flirting with a civilian you saved?”

They didn’t go anywhere near Crime Alley. How did Jason just happen to stumble across them? He probably should have expected someone to have spotted him. None of the Waynes care too much for other people’s privacy. 

“No,” Duke says slowly. He is flirting with a civilian, but Danny is not someone he saved. Danny is someone who helped him out when fighting crime, and is fun to be with. “I was just showing him around Gotham?”

Jason’s eyebrows go up. “An out of towner? Didn’t think they’d have the balls the stay in Gotham longer than a few hours.”

“Yeah, well, he’s not one to be scared away so easily.”

“And does this someone have a name? If he’s spending time with you, I wanna know his name.”

Duke side eyes him. “Why do you want to know?”

“Look, it’s good to keep an eye on any civilian that gets close to us. In case they’re a threat, and in case they get caught up in the bullshit that saturates every part of our lives. The longer they’re with us, the more danger they’re in. But I can help you look out for him. So: name?”

That is… a depressingly good point. Duke can’t save everyone despite how hard he tries. It would be good to have someone else looking out of Danny while he’s in Gotham, just in case. 

“Danny. His name’s Danny.”

“No last name?”

“I don’t know it. Look man, I only met him two days ago. He’s a meta like me and he’s not from Gotham. That’s about all I know.”

“That’s it?”

“Again, we literally just met. If he decides to keep coming around, then I’ll learn more about him.”

Jason gives him an assessing look, then gives him a sharp grin. “Oh, I’m sure he’ll be coming back for you. Boy was giving you doe eyes the entire time he was with you. Don’t drag him along too much, yeah? Poor thing’s got it bad for you.”

“He does not!”

“I’m not blind, Narrows. And I know you saw it too.”

That’s the problem. He did see how flustered and cute Danny was around him, always finding some way to bump into him or have their arms brush as they stood around, always sticking close as they soared through the air almost close enough to hug. It was cute, so adorable that Duke wanted to squish his cheeks and also lie face down on the ground. But it wasn’t Duke who was causing Danny to blush was the slightest of touches. It was the Signal, the daytime hero, and Duke knows they can’t build anything good together when it’s built on a foundation of secrets. 

Danny’s got his own secrets too. Being a meta is only one of them and he’s not sure he’ll ever get to know those parts of Danny when the guy can just choose to never return to Gotham again. 

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to try. It’s stupid and reckless when they’ve only known each other for two days but no one has ever made him feel so normal before. Even in the midst of using their powers and hopping around Gotham fighting crime, there was a sense that they understood each other, that their lives rhymed and it made everything so easy and comfortable between them.

“And?” Duke sighs. “He doesn’t even know my name. It’s not really anything right now, okay? We just get each other and it’s nice to spend time with someone like that.”

“Want me to find him for you?”

“Please don’t.”

Jason shrugs. “Alright, your loss.” He looks back to where Bruce is calmly stealing Steph’s Monopoly money as she has her arms around his throat, trying to choke him as she clings to his back. Damian is trying to steal everything back. None of them have caught on to the fact that Tim and Cass have teamed up and have taken over the bank and are steadily taking properties on the board, fully and shamelessly cheating. 

He’s so glad he chose to sit this game out. 

Jason seems content with leaving the conversation there, so Duke cuts his losses and leaves before Tim and Cass have to fend off everyone else and turn this entire game night into a blood bath. 

It’s not like anyone’s going to win against Cass anyways.

Duke fully intends to go up to his room and get a full eight hours of sleep while everyone else goes on patrol. He’ll take some time to think about how excited he is to see Danny again when he brings his friends over next week, but only for a bit. His sleep is so important.

Batman could never compare to how much he values his sleep.

He’s got good priorities, okay? He’s not changing them for anything.

Instead of sleeping, though, he ends up laying on his bed for hours, all his thoughts swirling around in a restless tangle. This is why he can’t ask the Waynes for advice on Normal People Shit. They just make him overly paranoid and sure that everything is going to go wrong. 

Danny’s a mystery. He didn’t feel like one when they met; Danny was just an average citizen standing on top of a building, and the Signal had a duty to check up on him. 

But when Danny turned to face him, his eyes were a bright blue, practically glowing, and there was a light emanating out of his chest, as if he tucked a star into his ribcage. No normal human looked like that, and Duke would know. He’s seen a lot of weird shit with his powers, especially once they started affecting his eyes even more, but even people who dabble in magic didn’t look like that.

Danny had looked ethereal. Unreal. As if he wasn’t from this world at all. Like someone who had stepped out of a story and into the real world.

And he was fun.  

That’s what’s tripping Duke up. He’s met other metas before. They tend to either be 1) homicidal, 2) depressed and traumatized, or 3) serious and heroic. Sure there were some that had a sense of humor, but it was just to keep the mood light as they went around saving people and being more Hero than Person.

That’s what Duke had become, growing into his role as the Signal until he worried that it was taking away from Duke Thomas. The other Bats seemed to have no problem with their various identities, or enjoyed being in the mask far more than they enjoyed taking it off. Duke, as he usually was, is the outlier. 

It’s why he always has to wrestle with imposter syndrome, forcing himself to stick around until he can finally feel like he belongs with the heroes of Gotham. He can act unbothered as much as he wants. It will never change the fact that, at his heart, Duke is still the terrified and angry boy sneaking out of foster homes and orphanages to search for his parents, refusing to find a place in the world that wasn’t by their side.

As the only meta on the team, his powers are both a blessing and a curse. They’re another reminder that he’s the odd one out, the one who doesn’t fit in as easily as all the others, but also a tool that lets him help in ways no one else can.

He always has something to prove when he’s out as the Signal. He always has to make himself worth keeping around as Duke.

With Danny, all of that fell away.

Using his powers was fun with him. They darted around the city, from rooftop to rooftop, stopping crimes and teasing each other as they went. There was no pressure to conform or prove himself, just the easy joy of feeling the air rush by him as he swung through the skyline, hundreds of feet in the air. 

It doesn’t hurt that Danny is cute, too.

Sighing, Duke rolls over and shoves his face into his pillow. 

He hadn’t realized how lonely he was until he met another meta who wasn’t trying to attack him. Sure, he has other hero friends, but they’re either regular humans or not human at all. One day with another meta, just shooting the shit, enjoying their time together, makes him all too aware of how much he’s wanted something like this since his powers first manifested. 

Jason said that Danny was down bad, but Duke’s not doing any better, honestly.

He can’t wait until he sees Danny again.

It takes putting on some soothing music and trying not to let all his thoughts drift back to Danny before Duke finally feels sleep take a hold of him and gladly gives into its embrace. . . .

The glow appears suddenly, a flash of light in the distance, and that’s all Duke needs before he takes down two muggers and zip ties their wrists together quickly. “Stay safe!” he calls to the victim, quickly grappling away as she glares at her attempted muggers. She’s looking rather violent, and if she wants to whack them over the head, then that’s her right. 

Duke doesn’t need to worry about it. He’s already dealt with the problem and now he can make his way to Danny, falling into the familiar rhythm of catch, fall, and release as he chases after the cold star-glow of Danny.

He makes his way to the glow until he can see Danny standing on the roof of the mall in Diamond District. Duke stops a few buildings away, taking the time to catch his breath and make sure he’s in Signal mode instead of Duke Thomas. 

Then, as prepared as he’ll ever be, he shoots his grapple out.

Danny and his friends are already facing him when he lands, eyes flickering between him and his grapple gun.

Duke tucks it away and offers them a small wave, giving Danny a soft smile. 

“This is him!” Danny announces, turning to face his friends so he can do a little flourish and show off Duke. “This is the Signal, and he’s a legit hero here.”

A goth girl looks him over with an unimpressed gaze, then clicks her tongue in a way that reminds him way too much of Damian. “Too much yellow,” she says, “You should update your armor to be less… this.”

“Sam!” Danny says, smacking her arm. “Uncalled for!”

“What? I’m right. That’s way too much yellow.”

The other boy pushes his glasses up his nose and glares at Duke. “So you’re a hero, huh?”

Duke blinks and the sudden hostility, then nods. “Yeah, sure am.”

“And you save people?”

“I do my best.”

“Even if they’re not human?”

Oh, Duke realizes, they’re just being overprotective of Danny. It kind of sucks to be on the other end of it, but he’s glad to know that Danny has people that will stand by him. Being a meta without any support is awful and often dealy; human traffickers especially love to target vulnerable metas. 

“Even then,” Duke says. “If anyone needs help and I can help them, I do. It’s how I got into the hero business.”

“Quit the interrogation,” Danny hisses, then turns to Duke with a strained smile. “I am so sorry about them. This is Sam, and this is Tucker.”

“Well, welcome to Gotham.”

Danny hooks his arms with Sam and Tucker’s, pulling them closer to himself with enough force that they stumble. “Stop being mean, guys. We’re here to have fun, remember?”

Sam sighs, then gently knocks her head against Danny’s. “Yeah, alright. We’ll behave.”

“ Thank you. Let’s hit up Wayne Tower first, then the botanical gardens and maybe lunch after that?”

“Sounds good,” Tucker says, pulling his arm free from Danny’s grasp just to hop onto his back. With Tucker secured, Danny sweeps Sam up into a princess carry, and all three look at Duke like this is something totally normal that happens all the time. And maybe it is! It’s probably normal for them and Duke is not going to judge them because he wants to make a good impression and not be a hypocrite.

He’ll just… not talk about the Bats and how bizarre they all are. Duke himself is not exempt from this.

“You gonna be able to hold them both and fly around?” he asks, just to make sure. He definitely doesn’t want anyone falling to their deaths while he’s leading them through Gotham.

Danny just offers him a grin, the tips of his sharp canines just barely visible. The glow in his chest gets a little stronger and his eyes flicker from blue to bright green. “Don’t worry. I’m strong enough to be their Uber today.”

“We’re not paying you,” Sam and Tucker say at the same time, then high five. Danny rolls his eyes, and Duke can’t help but smile seeing their little routines.

They must have been friends for a long time to be so close.

Duke makes a mental note to spend a day just hanging out with his own friends soon. It’s been a little too long, hero work and school taking up all his time, and though they understand and try to keep him in their lives through texts, it’s all too easy to slip away from each other. 

Focus, Duke, he tells himself. Today is for Danny and his friends. 

He’s the Signal. There’s no time for Duke’s problems. He’s got crime to fight and three teenage tourists from who knows where to show around Gotham. He’ll deal with his own shit later.

“I’ll lead the way to Wayne Tower then,” he says, walking backwards to the edge of the roof. Danny lifts up from the roof, hovering a foot in the air, and it’s so hard to look away from him when he’s literally glowing, eyes bright and hair turning white. “Also, just as a heads up, I may have to leave for a few minutes to deal with crime, but I will come back. Just stick to the roofs and you’ll be safe.”

Sam looks around, assessing the city. “Lots of crime here?”

“We’re called the Crime Capital of America for a reason,” Duke responds wryly and she grimaces. 

“Well. At least the aesthetic is pretty nice. I’m digging all the gargoyles.”

“Wait ‘til you see some of our churches. Stained glass, dark stone, really Gothic. I think you’ll like it.” Then, to Danny, he says, “Ready?”

Danny nods, and Duke turns and jumps off the roof. 

Behind him, he can hear a gasp, and then he shoots his grapple out and begins swinging through Diamond District, trusting that Danny is following behind him as they fly above the busy streets. And sure enough, when he flips off the edge of another building, Duke catches a glance behind him and sees the shimmer of an invisible Danny flying towards him, with two additional little shimmers that must be his friends.

He goes back to grappling through the streets, keeping an eye out for any crime. 

“Come in O,” he says quietly, activating his comm. 

“Signal, everything good?” Oracle asks, hopping onto his frequency within a second.

“Yeah, I’ve just got a few visitors I’m escorting around Gotham. Can you keep an eye out for any crimes that need my attention? Just let me know where they are and I’ll deal with it.”

“Sure thing. Who are these visitors?”

“Out of towners. One’s a meta and they wanted to do a little sightseeing, and you know how this city is dangerous for people who aren’t used to it. And with meta human trafficking…”

Oracle makes a small sound of understanding. “Yeah, best to stick close to them while they’re here. Good call, Signal. I’ll keep an eye out and let you know if anything pops up, but so far, it’s all looking quiet.”

“Good to hear.”

There’s a pause, and then Oracle’s voice turns teasing, bringing more Barbara into the forefront. “Soooo,” she starts, and he can already hear the grin in her voice. “Making friends, Signal? Looking to start up your own team? It’s tradition, you know; we’ve all done it.”

“Nah, they’re not looking to join the cape scene. They just want to see the sights, hang out a bit. Are you looking for information on them right now?” He can hear her typing loudly, fingers flying across the keyboard. She’s supposed to be working in the library, but she’s also got her own office in there now that she’s the most senior employee. It would be just like her to pass off patron duties to the other libraries and bust crime rings from her office desk. 

Zero separation between regular work and night work. The curse all bats and bat-adjacent folk struggle with. 

“Who do you think I am?” Barbara scoffs. “If you’re making friends, then it’s my duty to make sure they’re good friends. At the very least, I can’t let you run off with villains in the makings, or cultists wanting to sacrifice you or something.”

“They’re normal civilians,” Duke hisses into his comm. He casts another glance behind him to see Danny flying off to the side. From what he can make out from the movement of the shimmer, like a heat mirage given form, he’s pointing something out to his friends. “And how likely is it that they are villains? I doubt anyone looking to hurt me is going to ask me for a tour of Gotham.”

Barbara hums. “You never know. Tim befriended Anarchy. And a couple of League assassins.”

“Tim’s a special case. He can befriend literally anyone. I mean, didn’t Jason and Damain both try to kill him? Now look at them. Thick as thieves.”

“He is something special,” Barbara agrees, amusement coloring her voice. “Say, can you tell me their names?”

“Who?”

“Your tourist guests.”

“Danny, Tucker, and Sam. Why?”

There’s a pause, even the clicking of her keyboard going silent. Oracle being stopped in her tracks is never a good thing and Duke is suddenly worried that she did find something that will connect the trio to some evil world domination plan.

“I can’t find them.”

“What?” 

“I’ve run their faces through the databases, I’ve searched for people matching their descriptions, I can’t find any tech on them that I can hack into… It’s like they don’t exist. Digitally, that is.”

Duke lands just a block away from Wayne Tower, staring up at it. The glass glistens in the few rays of sunlight that force their way past the clouds hanging heavy in the sky. It’s taller than any other building in the district, overlooking Gotham all the way to the bay. He hears the slight shuffle of feet as Danny lands on the roof behind him and sets Tucker and Sam down. 

He wants to keep talking to Barbara because he can’t recall a time she wasn’t able to find something. She’s ruthless in the pursuit of information, effortlessly hacking into even the most protected files, capable of finding people and vehicles and buildings and everything else someone might need for a case. 

The fact that Danny and his friends have hidden themselves from Oracle’s all seeing eyes has him on edge. 

He really hopes it’s nothing. He wants to be friends with Danny. He wants to trust him to be a good person just trying to live a quiet life as a meta. He wants just one thing to not blow up in his face. 

“Here we are!” Duke announces, showing off Wayne Tower with a flourish. “I can’t get you much closer to the tower without people noticing you pop in out of nowhere, so you’ll have to walk the last two blocks to get to the building.”

“Impressive place,” Tucker comments as invisibility slides off of him. Sam appears a moment later, followed by Danny, the glow in his chest softening and growing a little dimmer. 

“Wayne Enterprises is always striving for perfection,” Duke agrees. “Though, between you and me, I’m 99% positive that the only reason this building is as big and impressive as it is stems from Wayne’s need to be better than Lexcorp.”

“Lexcorp?”

“Rival company in Metropolis. Lex Luthor is the CEO and we all hate him for a lot of reasons.”

“I kinda want to pit Vlad against these guys,” Sam says, shooting Danny a grin.

Danny snorts and shakes his head. “Vlad has a cheese castle. I think he’s already lost.”

Duke is really interested in hearing about the cheese castle, but a quick glance at the watch hidden in his wrist gauntlet (put there only so he can dramatically check the time and leave with some insane excuse when criminals were complaining to him about their own poor choices) tells him that it’s nearly time for the next tour to start. 

“Alright, folks,” he says, “You’ve got around eleven minutes to sign yourselves up for the next tour, so if you want to make it, you’d better get moving!”

Tucker swears, then sprints for the edge of the building. “Danny! Get me down there! I’m not waiting another hour for a tour!”

Danny rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling fondly as he flies over to Tucker and scoops him up. They both disappear over the edge of the building, leaving Duke alone with Sam.

“So,” she says, and her tone could be mistake for conversational if it wasn’t for the coldness of her eyes. “You’re getting pretty friendly with Danny, from what I’ve heard.”

Duke smiles nervously. This is the beginning of a shovel talk, isn’t it? “I guess so. I mean, I’d like to be friends with him.”

“How old are you?”

“What?”

“How. Old. Are you?” she bites out, walking closer with a glare.

“Why do you want to know? I can’t just be giving out information about my identity, you know.”

“If you’re not a teenager, then I am going to have a few knives sharpened for when you make a wrong move towards Danny.”

“Wait, wait! I’m still in high school! That’s fine, isn’t it?” He definitely shouldn’t be telling anyone this, but if one of his friends said they were hanging out with someone they don’t know outside of a mask, or a username, or whatever, he’d want to make sure that person wasn’t a creep. Her protective anger is admirable, really. And besides, he gets it. If telling her his age (or age range) will reassure her that he’s not going to… groom Danny or something, then he’ll tell her. 

He’d never fault someone for looking out for their loved ones. 

“You better be telling the truth. For your own sake.”

“Cross my heart,” Duke says. 

Danny pops up through the roof a moment later, startling both of them, easily breaking the tension. “Come on, Sam, Tucker’s signed us up and doesn’t want to wait for you to get over there.” He picks Sam up, then glances between her and Duke. “Wait. Sam. Tell me you didn’t threaten the Signal.”

“Do you want me to lie to you?”

“I can’t take you guys anywhere, I swear…” Danny mutters, then flies down to the street.

Duke blinks at the empty roof, then decides that he’s just going to move on with his day and enjoy spending time with Danny. 

He grapples closer to Wayne Tower, following Danny’s glow to make sure they get inside just fine. It’s only a block, but anything can happen in Gotham; better safe than sorry. As soon as he watches them go into the building, Duke sets a timer to display on the corner of his helmet visor and gets back to patrolling, keeping watch over Gotham while he waits for the tour to finish.

“Signal,” Oracle says, and Duke snaps to attention, landing on the next building at the end of his grapple, hopping down from the ledge with ease. 

“What’s up, O? Got something for me?”

“Not quite. I’d like you to keep an eye on your guests. One of my drones picked up a strange reading that’s similar to magical residue.”

“You think they’re magic?”

“I think there’s something going on with them that we should keep an eye on. I know you said they’re just here as tourists, but you know we can’t take chances in Gotham.”

As much as he understands Barbara’s concerns, Duke can’t bring himself to be suspicious of Danny or his friends. They do have secrets, and none of them have even hinted at how they arrived in Gotham, appearing suddenly and without warning on a rooftop. But he’s always been one to give the benefit of the doubt. To try to talk things out, figure out a solution where no one needs to get hurt. Most of the time, it doesn’t work since whoever is causing problems really only cares about venting out their pain and frustrations through property damage and loss of life. Sometimes, though, the people causing problems need a little help, need protection, need some space to calm down and get themselves under control, and having a horde of Bats chasing them only makes things worse. 

“They really are just tourists,” Duke says. “I know how you feel. I get it, there’s definitely something more to the three of them. But it’s not causing any harm right now, so I say it’s none of our business.”

He hears Barbara sigh down the line, but she’s always been good at respecting boundaries (when it doesn’t come to privacy) and will let people do as they believe they should. It’s why she helps out Jason every so often despite his violent methods and familiarity with killing. It’s why she has her own group and leads them without controlling them the way Batman tries to. 

“Alright,” she says, “You make the calls since they’re your guests. Just be ready for me to say ‘I told you so’ when something goes wrong.”

“Yeah, yeah, we know you’re always right, O. Let me make my mistakes in peace, alright? We’ll fix it when we need to.”

“This is why you’re my new favorite,” Barbara jokes.

He makes to respond, maybe poke fun at some of the others with her, when he catches sight of two guys trying to break the lock on a bike to steal it from the sidewalk. Dropping down from the roof, he casually walks up to them, then clears his throat and shakes his head in disappointment at them when they jump and whirl around to stare at him.

“Really?” he says, judging them harshly, “Stealing someone’s bike? In broad daylight?”

They both flush with embarrassment, scowling at him.

“Well, we gotta get home somehow!” one of them says, kicking at the bike in frustration.

“Can’t you take the bus or something? Walk?”

“We don’t have any money on us for the bus and we’re heading to Robinson Park. I ain’t walking that far.”

Well. At least they’re just trying to get around and weren’t planning on selling the bike off. 

“Two options,” he says, and both guys tense up immediately, prepared for a fight. He hates that that’s the reaction people have to Gotham’s heroes. As soon as they turn to a crime, no matter how petty, they’re prepared to be beaten down into submission. It’s a precedent set by Bruce that he’s never really liked and Duke does his best to embrace how different he is from the rest of the Bats to show the people of Gotham, criminals and all, that everyone can turn to him for help.

“I can buy a week-long bus pass for you both. Or, I can give you two a ride.”

They share a glance, slowly relaxing. “Can we do both?” one asks. “Get a ride from you and the bus pass?”

Duke glances at the timer in his visor. He’s still got forty minutes before he needs to go back to Wayne Tower. 

“You know what? Yes, we can do that. Let me get you those bus passes and then we’ll get going.”

The two men share an excited grin, stepping away from the bike and its slightly mangled lock. They follow Duke to the nearest bus station where a little kiosk is tucked under the awning. Barbara, listening in as she always is, buys the bus passes for him, getting them to print within seconds when they get there. 

“Sending your new motorcycle to your location,” she says as soon as he hands both bus passes to the men. 

As far as Duke knows, he only has one motorcycle. He wishes he could ask what Barbara meant with new motorcycle without anyone listening in, but he’s gotta give the guys his attention, keep them company while they wait. 

They make small talk for a bit, the two asking him what being a hero is like while Duke chats about life in Gotham and shares some Batfam gossip (mostly patrol blunders of one of them slipping while crossing the rooftops and eating shit). 

It only takes seven minutes for the motorcycle to arrive, appearing in front of them in the street as the cloaking turns off. 

“Woah,” one of the guys breathes, staring at it in awe. “Man, you heroes get the coolest shit.”

“Perks of throwing ourselves into the line of fire. Literally.” 

He sees why Barbara sent him an entire new motorcycle (!!!) because his original plan of having three people squeeze onto the seat of one motorcycle was clearly going to end in disaster. This new one, Signal Yellow as it should be, is more armored, a little larger, and has an extended passengers seat attached to it so three people can ride it easily.

Duke swings his leg over it, settling into the seat and grips the handlebars. “Come on,” he smiles, inviting the men to join him. They do, nearly tripping over themselves as they get seated, excited grins on their faces. 

It’s nice to know that no matter how old people get, a cool motorcycle is the way to most people’s hearts. 

And what a change it is to see two men, likely college students in their final years, go from scared and unhappy people to acting like kids again, jumping at the chance to ride a motorcycle with a hero. 

Small interactions like this, where everything goes right, is exactly why Duke is determined to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, a chance to choose differently and be good.

“Hold on tight!” He revs the engine, then takes off, the men letting out whoops behind him as they rush down the street. The motorcycle picks up speed quickly and runs so smoothly it’s as if they’re flying, easily dodging all the cars around them. 

Normally, he’d go invisible and use the cloaking mode on his motorcycle to get around, but with two civilians riding with him, he’d rather be visible so cars don’t accidentally hit them.

The ride to Robinson Park takes fifteen minutes at the frankly dangerous speeds Duke was going, and he has no regrets about speeding because 1) it’s fun as hell and 2) the guys with him are clearly having a blast.

He slows down once they reach the park, then pulls over to the side of the road.

“Thank you for riding with Signal Wheels. Be sure to leave a review!”

“Five out of five!” one guys says as he gets off the motorcycle. His hair is a mess, completely windswept and tangled when Duke turns to look at him. “Holy shit, dude, I think I’d marry your motorcycle if I could.”

“Oh same,” Duke laughs, holding out a hand for a fistbump which is readily granted. 

The second guy needs a moment longer to get off, laughing breathlessly. “Ten out of ten,” he says, once he’s next to his friend.

“Trying to one up me, huh?” 

“Just being honest here.”

“Alright, well you two take care now,” Duke says, shifting his weight to one foot in preparing to kick off and head back to Wayne Tower. “And be sure not to lose those bus passes!”

“Thanks Signal!” they both call out as Duke heads back down the road, turning invisible as soon as he gets to a good speed.

He’s got just enough time to make it back to lead Danny and his friends to the botanical gardens. He cuts it close, but he makes it, pulling into an alley and hopping off the motorcycle.

“O, would you mind getting this back to wherever you piloted it from?”

“Not going to take your new friends on it?”

“Nah, I get the feeling they prefer flying.”

“You got it, Signal.”

The motorcycle pulls out of the alley silently, then heads down on road once cloaking is enabled. It’s gone just in time for his guest to walk out of Wayne Tower, trailing after Tucker who talks with his hands moving around energetically, too distracted to watch where he’s going as Sam and Danny pull him this way and that to keep him from crashing into other people. 

Danny spots him first, after he stops and his brow furrows, a look of concentration on his face. Then his head turns and his eyes snap onto where Duke leans against the wall at the mouth of the alley. He grins, the glow in his chest flaring brighter for a moment, and Duke offers a small wave, unbearably charmed by how cute Danny is, especially when he’s so clearly delighted to see him.

“How was it?” Duke asks once they’re close enough to hear him.

Tucker immediately launches into a rant about WayneTech and the R&D Lab and how he would give his liver to work there. Then he starts rambling about technology and coding and a few of the things he’s created and how he’d love to look through what WayneTech does. He doesn’t stop even as Danny flies him up to the roof, Duke following after with his grapple, Sam clinging onto his back. 

“So, so cool,” Tucker gushes, “I could probably take over the government in Amity with this kind of tech.”

Okay. Kind of a concerning statement to make, especially in the wake of Barbara’s suspicions of them.

Sam snorts. “You could take over the government in Amity now, if you wanted to.”

“Yeah, I could.”

“Not that you’d be good at it. What would you do as mayor?”

“Create a steak festival to celebrate steak and all the meals you can make with it.”

“Oh you little—” Sam lunges at them and Tucker falls back with a shriek. And then they’re tussling on the rooftop, arguing about meat and veganism and the farming industry, which, what a subject change.

Duke looks over at Danny, who watches them wrestle with fond exasperation. “Should we… stop them?”

“Let them get this out of their systems,” Danny replies. “They’ve been having this fight for years. I’ll stop them in a few minutes, and then we can go to the botanical gardens.”

So they stand together and watch Sam and Tucker roll around the roof, trying to choke each other out. And all Duke can think is, Man, I can’t ever let them meet the Bats. They’ll get along like a house on fire.

Or, it’s all he thinks until Danny shifts closer to him, just a few tentative steps. He’s suddenly starkly aware of how small the space between them is, how Danny’s close enough to touch, how much he’s been looking forward to this moment since Danny left a week ago.

Boy was giving you doe eyes the entire time he was with you, Jason had said. Duke saw it, when he was with Danny, reveled in it, basked in the attention. It wasn’t that he didn’t reciprocate, but he knows it can be hard to convey anything through his helmet, but there’s only so much action can do.

But it’s what he can do, so Duke shoves away his nerves and wraps his arm around Danny’s waist, pulling him closer.

Danny lets out a cute little squeak, cheeks filling with color immediately, and Duke is so, so endeared he wants to cry. 

“So, what’s the story behind this fight of theirs?” he asks, leaning closer to ask his question quietly in Danny’s ear.

“Oh! Um,” Danny blinks at him, visibly flustered, and Duke wants to squeeze his cheeks together, he’s so cute. 

Oh, he really is down bad. Damn. He hopes Barbara isn’t watching through his helmet camera, but he knows better than to expect her to not be collecting blackmail on him for this.

Which is whatever! Jokes on Barbara, he’s not at all ashamed of what he feels for Danny!

He could do without the ribbing from the rest of the Bats. They have no leg to stand on when it comes to relationships and being honest about their feelings. He’ll turn every conversation about Danny into improvised therapy if he has to.

“Well?” he prompts.

Danny glances at his friends, then leans into Duke and turns to him with a small smile. 

“So,” he begins, then launches into a wild story from his freshman year about Sam and Tucker splitting the school into two groups to have a mini civil war over meat vs vegetarian food. Which lead to eating grass (?!) for lunch, a ghost lunch lady attacking the school, and the teachers having their own hidden meat lunch kept secret from the students, which lead to more chaos once it was discovered.

“That was a wild school week,” Danny concludes, just as Sam and Tucker’s fight winds down.

“Dude,” Duke says, staring at Danny, unsure if he wants to laugh or ask follow up questions. “What kind of life have you been living? That’s so much. The only thing we’ve got here is shootings and so much crime. Also a zombie in the sewers.”

“See, you drop info like that on me and suddenly I’m convinced that my life is actually pretty tame compared to whatever’s going on here.”

“No, no, listen. In Gotham, you expect this kind of nonsense. But your story started so deceptively normal! ‘Just a fight between friends’ and then a ghost attack? Betrayal from the teachers? Grass? Danny, everything you said left me reeling.”

“It’s not that bad!” Danny laughs. “The ghosts barely cause any problem anymore. They’re just kinda like anyone else, now.”

“What’s this about?” Sam asks, brushing her skirt off as she stands. Tucker pushes himself up to his feet and takes a moment to wipe the lenses of his glasses.

“The first time we met Lunch Lady.”

Sam and Tucker make a sound of understanding, nodding. “That sure was something,” Sam says.

“To think we were so young and innocent back then,” Tucker says with a fake sniffle. “So innocent!”

“You’re still as insufferable as ever,” Sam replies, taking his smack to her arm with grace.

“You two ready to head to the botanical garden now?” Duke asks, getting them back on track. Danny moves out of Duke’s grasp, unfortunately, to return to his role as their personal Uber, this time getting Tucker in a princess carry while Sam clings to his back like a koala.”Well. Guess Danny’s decided you’re ready.”

His friends snicker while Danny rolls his eyes and mutters about their unending arguments, then nods at Duke to lead the way.

Giving him a little salute, Duke readies his grapple, then takes off, leaping off the building to return to the skies. Danny follows him effortlessly, a soft glow that occasionally passes by in front of him playfully, sticking close as they head north. 

The botanical gardens are a large spot of green in the otherwise urban landscape. It’s a few blocks away from Robinson Park, close enough that everything nearby is deemed Ivy’s territory, but far enough away that most people can pretend it’s like any other building and visit it safely. It’s been a long time since the botanical garden was attacked, or use for Villainous Purposes™, so Duke is comfortable letting Sam, Tucker, and Danny explore it on their own. 

Plenty of other people are also in the gardens, from what he can see a roof away. And no one’s run away screaming, which is definitely a good sign.

“Oh, wow,” Sam says once she hops down from Danny’s back. She stares at the gardens with something unreadable in her eyes, as if she’s seeing more than what’s there. “There’s so much…”

“Poison Ivy—one of our rogues who can control plants and is doing a lot better these days, don’t worry—she takes care of most of the gardens. The greenhouse in the middle is hers for studies and experiments with plants, but she lets the public walk the garden. She’s even added little informational cards for kids to read so they can learn more,” Duke says, walking up to where Sam is leaning concerningly over the edge to get a better look at the gardens. 

“That explains it,” she says, explaining nothing. “Do we have to pay to go in?”

“Just five dollars per person. It’s her income, and we’re all encouraged to leave a donation so she doesn’t turn to crimes to get enough money to support herself again.”

“Well!” Danny claps his hands together. “Let’s go, then. Jazz made sure we had cash on had, so it should be fine.”

“I can cover our tickets,” Sam offers, “Since this is for me.”

“Then I’ll cover lunch,” Danny says.

Tucker shoves his hand onto Danny’s face to push him away as he says, “No, I’ll pay for lunch. Danny, you’re not spending anything since you’re the one that scoped out this place last week for us. Got it?”

“Yeah, yeah, got it. Thanks, guys,” Danny smiles, then turns to Duke. “Would you mind waiting here for a bit? I’m gonna check out the gardens for a bit, but then I’ll be back.”

“Sure,” Duke says easily. It’s a quiet day anyways, and he’ll take any excuse to spend more time with Danny.

“Great. I’ll be right back!” And then he wraps an arm around both Sam and Tucker’s waits, picks them up like they weigh nothing, and casually hops off the roof. 

Duke sits down on the edge of the building, watching as they cross the street and enter the botanical garden, Sam pulling out her wallet to pay for their entry. He idly kicks his heels against the wall, looking around the street, enjoying the rare Gotham peace.

No one is calling for help and Barbara hasn’t alerted him to anything. This is a good thing, but it doesn’t change the fact that Duke is bored.

He pulls out his phone, which he knows he shouldn’t have while he’s in the suit but it’s his day shift, he can do what he wants, and checks his friends (no Bats allowed) group chat and sees that Izzy is active. He opts to leave the chaos of the group chat to message her directly.

flashlight: hey izzy u know how we broke up

2(00)chains: oh boy. strong opening. but yes i am aware we broke up

flashlight: would u be mad if i started dating someone new or is it too soon?

2(00)chains: OMG DUKE??? WHO IS IT YOU NEED TO TELL ME RIGHT NOW

flashlight: izzy.

2(00)chains: babe u gotta give me something to work with so i can know if i should give u my blessing or not

2(00)chains: but also if u want to date and they make u happy, then yes u can date

flashlight: okay thanks!! wasn’t sure and didn’t know if it would be rude

2(00)chains: rude to date when ur single?? it would have been a problem if we were still together but that ship has sailed bby

2(00)chains: but duke PLSSSS i need deets. give me some tea… a girl is parched…

flashlight: lmao. so dramatic. but uuuuuuh

2(00)chains: little concerned by that pause there duke

flashlight: ok hes a meta

2(00)chains: ok strong start, u dont need to hide powers from him

flashlight: he’s not from gotham and doesnt live here so idk how well long distance would do

2(00)chains: duke. is this an online friend u’ve never met before.

flashlight: no!! i met him in person in gotham!! he’s just visiting!!!!

2(00)chains: ok ok go on

flashlight: uh

flashlight: he may only know me as the signal?

2(00)chains: DUKE. 

2(00)chains: i understand the need to keep ur identity secret

2(00)chains: but PLS do not be a superhero love story cliche. im begging here. u didnt even keep it secret from me

flashlight: he may also not exist in this world (universe?)

2(00)chains: .

2(00)chains: u know i think u can make it work

2(00)chains: u have my blessing! if he says yes when u ask him out (which he better do 🔪) then i demand to meet him!!

flashlight: u got it izzy

flashlight: thanks!! u always got my back ☺️

He only has a faint prickle on the back of his neck to warn him of Danny’s approach, looking up through gut instinct only just to see Danny’s fuzzy glow fly up to him.

Danny pops into visibility a moment later, pouting. “I was hoping I could sneak up on you.”

“It’s gonna take more than that, babe,” he laughs. “I’m hard to sneak up on.” Bar that time Cass… and Bruce… and Tim… Dick, also… Jason, too…

Okay, so anyone who isn’t a Bat won’t be able to sneak up on him easily.

“Babe?” Danny repeats, his voice suddenly much higher. Duke freezes and takes a moment to curse his loose mouth; he and Izzy love pet names and still call each other terms of endearment even now when they’ve broken up. And since he was just talking to her, habit made him put his foot in his mouth.

“Yeah,” Duke says, committing to it, “Babe”

Danny makes a little whine in the back of his throat, face going red, and then his hides his face in his hands and floats up higher, curling his body up into a small ball. The movement reminds him of the videos he’s seen of astronauts in space, moving in lazy circles in zero gravity.

“Sorry,” he adds on, “I was texting a friend and we call each other things like that, so I just… slipped up. Didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“I’m not,” Danny mumbles.

“What?”

“I’m not uncomfortable.”

Duke smiles. “Alright. Wanna come down and join me, then?”

Danny continues hiding for a few moments longer, then reaches a hand down towards Duke. He doesn’t look at him, shyly turned away, still red in the cheeks. 

How is he so sweet?  

Duke has never met someone so cute, and full of light, and literally glowing. He never stood a chance.

He takes Danny’s hand, gently pulling him down to the roof, wrapping an arm around him once he’s sitting to make sure he doesn’t go floating away.

“So, what did you want to talk to me about?”

“Oh, I was just… I really like hanging out with you and you’re super cool and I thought I should explain a few things about myself.”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“I do,” Danny says, resolutely. “First, I’m not from here.”

Duke stares at him. “Yeah, I got that. Kinda obvious after we spoke for the first time.”

“No, I mean. Really not from here. From a different dimension.”

Oh. So Danny’s just casually walking the multiverse, apparently, and chose to return to Gotham to spend time with Duke. That’s honestly really flattering. 

“Makes sense,” he says.

Now Danny’s staring at him, incredulously. “How does that make sense? Do you not have questions about what that means, or where I’m from, or how I got here?”

Duke shrugs. “Not really. Listen, there’s a lot of weird shit in Gotham. Like, a lot. Batman was lost in time once and presumed dead until Red Robin helped get him back. There’s incomprehensible magic and time travel and so many aliens, dude. This is not that out of the ordinary.”

“YOU HAVE ALIENS?” Danny shouts, then claps a hand over his mouth, eyes wide. And then, whispered, “You have aliens?!”

“Yeah, we have aliens. Some try to kill us and conquer Earth, some live here as superheroes.”

“No way,” Danny breathes. “Can I stay here forever? My dimension doesn’t have aliens. I really want to meet aliens.”

“If you stick around long enough, it’s kind of inevitable that you’ll get caught up in some crazy shit, and you’ll probably be able to meet Superman then. Or maybe Martian Manhunter, if he’s available.”

He watches Danny mouth Martian Manhunter in awe and is so charmed by him and his visible excitement about aliens. Most of this is just how he lives life, knowing all these impossible things are out there but have very little to do with him. It’s only mind blowing when he actually meets Superman and all, but that’s because meeting big heroes is like meeting celebrities and it never stops being cool.

“Wait, I’m getting distracted.” Danny shakes his head, then lightly claps his hands against his cheeks. “Okay, so. I’m from a different dimension. And Tucker has made a few phones that can work literally anywhere. But only to contact other phones he made for interdimensional communication. I had him make one for you so we could keep talking even when I go home, if you wanted.”

“I want it! I very much do want it.”

Danny grins. “Great! Perfect, okay.” He reaches into his own chest (?!) and pulls out a phone.

“Um.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I can use my insides like a pocket dimension for extra storage.”

Sure. This might as well happen. Duke takes the phone and looks it over; it looks like a large, square flip phone, but when it opens, the screen and keyboard are both touchscreens the glow a faint neon green. He opens up the contacts menu, finds Danny, and shoots him a quick text that consists only of a smiley face. 

“Man, this is so cool,” Duke says. “Thanks for giving it to me! I really am glad I can talk to you some more.”

“I feel like I should be thanking you for giving me the time of day.”

Duke knocks his shoulder against Danny’s. “Come on, man, don’t say that. Anyone would be happy to spend time with you. Besides, I’m really not as cool as you think. I’m a normal guy outside the suit.”

“You still have powers.”

“I do, but I’m not the only one.”

“I know this is a bit of a bad question, and I do understand how important secret identities are! But do you think I’d ever get to know you when you’re just… you?”

Duke thinks about how much Batman would disapprove, the lengths Tim went through to protect his own identity as Red Robin, how everyone around him would become a target if anyone figured out who the Signal is…

But then he thinks about how much keeping this secret puts a strain on his relationship with his cousin, how much of a relief it is to have his friends in the know so he doesn’t have to constantly lie to them, how he’s the only hero Danny knows in this dimension and the only person who can help him while he’s here.

“I’ll tell you one day,” Duke says, “Promise. When we get to know each other a little more, yeah?”

“Yeah, alright, that’s fair. Thanks, Signal.”

“You need to get back to your friends?”

“Nah,” Danny shakes his head, “They can manage on their own. Besides, they agreed to one hour each place, and Tucker’s hungry enough to drag Sam out as soon as it hits that hour mark.”

“Well, in that case, why don’t you tell me a little more about your dimension while we wait? Or any other place you’ve visited.”

Danny grins, leaning closer, and says, “Have you ever met a yeti? Cause I have.” . . .

He doesn’t get to see Danny or his friends off when they return to their dimension. They’d been in the planetarium for hours, and Duke had to end patrol and turn in for the day to look over cases with Steph and Tim, then work on his college application. 

He does get a text from Danny, his new phone going off with a soft sound of a wind chime, in the middle of looking at different colleges and stressing out.

Danny: got home safe! off to fight dinner now 🤺

Danny: wanna talk more tomorrow?

Signal: sure! i’d love to!! good luck with dinner?

There’s a brief pause, and then Danny sends a blurry picture of a rotisserie chicken flying through the air towards a woman with red hair, holding out a steak knife, ready to attack. 

…Yeah, he’s going to question that tomorrow. For now, he just sends Danny a thumbs up emoji and goes back to staring at his list of potential schools he wants to go to with growing despair.

Does he want to stay in Gotham? Gotham City University isn’t all that bad, and he’s familiar with the campus. Or maybe Montclair State University. Rowan University and Rutgers University don’t sound bad either, and both are still in the state, so he wouldn’t be too far from Gotham. Maybe he could go to his parent’s alma matter; UCLA and Penn State are both out of state, though, and way more expensive, even if Bruce offered to cover his tuition.

What would he even study?

So lost in thought, Duke almost doesn’t realize that his regular phone is ringing until the noise cuts off. His head jerks up and he stares at it, wondering who could be calling him right after he finished eating dinner. 

Then it rings again, Barbara’s name popping up on the screen, and he lunges for it, worried that something’s going down in Gotham without him noticing.

“Babs! Is something wrong?”

“No. Should something be wrong? I was calling because you didn’t check in with me before you ended patrol, and you haven’t been responding to any of my texts,” she says, sounding distracted as the sound of her keyboard continues on steadily in the background. She must be working as Oracle already, preparing to assist the Bats on their patrols.

“Oh, sorry. Everything’s fine, our visitors were from another dimension and they really were just here to sightsee. Nothing to worry about.”

“I saw that you got a gift.”

Duke understands exactly what she’s calling about, now. He should have expected Barbara to fall to the siren call of new tech. “I did,” he says, offering nothing else just to mess with her.

“Duke,” she says, “It’s a matter of safety.”

“Just admit that you want to check out interdimensional tech.”

Barbara sighs, then says, “I want to look at interdimensional tech. Come by the Clocktower tonight and drop it off.”

“I don’t know, Babs,” he says teasingly, “I think Tim might want a look at it first.”

“I should have never believed Dick when he said you were well behaved. ‘The good one’ my ass,” she grumbles. “What do you want?”

“A favor to be decided in the future. No questions asked expect what’s needed to get that favor done.”

“Deal.”

“I’ll swing by soon. Do you think you could help me with my college apps while I’m there? I have no idea what to do or where to go.”

“Sure,” Barbara agrees, her voice warm, “I’d love the chance to big sister you. Jason hogs you too much.”

He does, and Duke doesn’t really understand why Jason gets along so well with him, but he’s not going to question a good thing. Street kids gotta stick together, after all. Even if neither of them are living on the streets anymore. 

It’s nice to know that the others are just as willing to help him out, even if he works separate from them most of the time these days. 

“Oh, and the phone I got from Danny has contacts already added to it. Please don’t text Danny or anyone else without saying it’s you.”

“That sounds like you’re giving me permission to talk to me.”

“I figured you’d want to talk to Tucker some, since he’s the one who built it.”

“Well,” Barbara says, and he can hear the smile in her voice, “Thanks for the permission. I’ll be sure to get as much information as I can from him.”

“Please don’t ruin this for me.”

Barbara laughs. “Oh, don’t worry Duke. I know how to be nice, especially with people you’re trying to impress. It’s Dick you should be worried about.”

She’s right. 

Duke drops his head onto his desk with a groan.

“I’ll see you later, Duke.”

“Yeah, alright. See you, Babs.”

She ends the call and Duke sighs, contemplating taking a nap before he heads out. But that would mess up his sleep schedule, and he’s willing to do a lot, but not that. Instead, he flicks through his phone to the group chat with his friends, and sends a quick question about when they can hang out again.

He’s missed them. Seeing Danny with Tucker and Sam reminded him of how much he loves his friends and spending time with them. He should take a page from Danny’s book and spend a day with them, just catching up and enjoying their company. 

And if they tease him about his crush on Danny, well, better them than the Bats. 

[soleminisanction]

I’ve been thinking about Steph and cass lately, especially with my recent re-read of Batgirl 2009. You’re totally right in that Steph does not even once spare Cass a single thought or even speak about her at all in the entire run. But it also got me thinking, didn’t this exact scenario already play out except with Tim? I’ll admit it’s been awhile since I’ve read her run as Robin, but I feel like once she got the mantle of Robin (again, taken from someone else- this time Tim) she never really spared him a second thought either. And then when she gets the Batgirl mantle from Cass, she never spared her a second thought. I know that the writers probably did not intend for this sort of characteristic to shine through, but it’s interesting nonetheless that this has happened twice. Does Steph just view people as disposable? Or as extensions of herself? And that’s why the second she gets what she wants from them or can’t get anything more from them, they drop in importance in her eyes and she doesn’t spare them a second thought? What are you views on it? (Also supergirl showing up in the middle was so damn random lmfao, did they have any previous links before that issue? Or even after that issue? I feel a bit bad for Kara that she constantly has to be besties with whoever the newest batgirl is T-T)

That is how I tend to view her, when I'm not taking steps to deliberately soften her character (like with Batgirl, Repentant). She does think about Tim a few times while she's Robin, but it's mostly in passing -- first explaining to Cass why she's in the Robin suit in Batgirl; then because he got a hold of her over the phone, briefly; and then because her last case involved an assassin, Scarab, who was hired to kill people who looked like him. Once that's established, he's out of her thoughts.

After that she thinks of him again in the lead-up to War Games, namely in the "Prelude," from Batman 12-Cent Adventure #1, which is partially an excuse to do set-up/recap flashbacks for anybody tuning into the event who hasn't been reading Batman regularly, but is also when we actually get to see the Incident that kicks off the gang war -- and it's told from Steph's perspective.

And a little later on when she hears his school got shot up, she's devastated, fully bursts into tears and is terrified that she might've gotten him killed.

That said, her writing in War Games is largely an outlier -- for all the problems with that story (and there are so many problems, don't get me wrong), it legitimately has some of the best, most selfless and heroic characterization Steph has ever been given. It's tragic heroism, but it's still genuine heroism all the same.

The rest of the time... Yeah, she just doesn't really seem to make many connections or think much about other people when they're not directly involved in getting her what she wants. That's the vibe I get, too.

As for Supergirl: they did actually establish that. There was a 4-isuue World's Finest miniseries in 2009 that told one semi-ongoing story but also used each individual issue to team up a member of the new "Batman Reborn" Batfamily up with one of the similarly-revamped "New Krypton"-era Superfam.

Issue #1 was where Tim (as Red Robin) was reintroduced to the 15-year-old Chris Kent Nightwing (and Thara Ak-Var Flamebird). Issue #2 was Damian and the Guardian. Issue #3 had Babs call in Kara to rescue Steph from a death trap and then they teamed up. and Issue #4 had Dick-Bats and Clark come in to bring most of the threads together for a big finale.

The mini overall is... okay, though there's some characterization I'm not fond of, and something about the art style just. Really empathizes how much I fucking hate Steph's ugly Batgirl costume.

(Why. Does she wear her fucking belt so loose. They do it so it'll hang akimbo on her hips but it's made of huge weighted pouches, it'd spin around her waist when she tried to grapple like a goddamn hula hoop!!)

[random-movie-ideas]

Nightwing: Under the Red Hood (Movie Outline)

Here is the third movie for Nightwing set in the same cinematic universe all the rest I've written so far came from. This, like Batman & Batgirl: Arkham Assault, would come after the Crisis on Infinite Earths event, with the two coming out around the same time, as their events happen parallel to one another. This one features the resurrection of Jason Todd, with Black Mask and Firefly acting as major villains as well.

The movie begins with Nightwing, Robin, and Spoiler all landing outside of a warehouse. Inside, the disgraced makeup mogul Roman Sionis has become a drug kingpin in the time since his company went under, wearing a black mask to cover up the damage done when he was attacked by Poison Ivy. At his side is his personal hired bodyguard, Garfield Lynns. Our three vigilantes interrupt the drug deal, and Lynns activates the special suit he’d been given, allowing him to fly while using a flamethrower to attack. At one point, Tim and Steph make a joke about him being a literal firefly. In the end, Black Mask and Firefly make a getaway.

The next day, during daylight hours, Dick, Tim, and Steph visit the grave of Dick’s deceased brother Jason, which had recently been dug up, the body missing. Dick is visibly distraught about this, Tim and Steph trying to console him to no avail. He decides he’s going to investigate this and assigns them to keep their tabs on Sionis.

Later that night, Nightwing follows the trail as much as he can, calling up Barbara for aid, discovering that only Alfred is around, while Bruce and Barbara are both busy with a situation of their own. As they talk, he and Alfred talk about Jason, remembering some story of their time together that will serve as a callback later in the story.

Meanwhile, Tim and Steph trail Roman and Lynns to another meetup, attempting to meet his buyer once again after the previous mission was botched. They watch on as they meet the mysterious buyer, a man wearing a red mask who seems to be staying to the shadows. They jump into action when the man ends up drawing a gun and shooting Roman right in the chest. A fight breaks out between the three parties, Firefly protecting Roman and helping him get away, while the man in the red mask seems to be going after Roman’s head. Tim and Steph intervene, and the man seems taken aback by Tim’s costume. After a brief battle, the man gets away.

Tim and Steph report to Dick and tell him about the strange man. Steph jokingly calls him Red Hood after Black Mask. Despite Dick still wanting to search for his brother’s body, he decides to help them against this person. Meanwhile, Roman and Lynns return to Roman’s penthouse where he is treated by doctors. Roman instructs Lynns that he wants that man’s head on a platter.

We get a montage of the heroes trying to track the Red Hood down. Dick reaches out to an underworld contact who tells him about the rumors of a new player in drug-running circles, a man who’s been killing off drug kingpins and crime lords. Dick asks why he hasn’t heard about any of this and the contact says the gangs have been trying to keep it hush-hush. The contact doesn’t know anything else, but he knows Roland Daggett is supposed to be getting a shipment that night.

Dick tails Daggett, telling Tim and Steph to hang back as backup. The meeting takes place, and once again, the Red Hood shows up, gunning Daggett and his men down. Dick steps in and the two fight. After a brief scuffle, the man’s mask is knocked off, and Dick sees his dead brother underneath, very much alive, with a shock of white hair and scars across his face. In Dick’s surprise, Jason gets away. Meanwhile, Lynns watches from afar.

The next day, Dick tells Tim and Steph about what happened. He tries to contact Bruce, Barbara, or Alfred, but no one answers at the mansion. He leaves to figure out things, and orders Tim and Steph to stay home. He revisits Jason’s grave, and follows the trail he followed before, coming up with nothing. He then revisits the scene of Jason’s death, the burned-down warehouse, and searches for answers there. Just as he’s about to leave, he hears “Figured you’d show up.”

Dick turns to see Jason in the flesh. He asks how this could possibly be happening, because he watched him die and held his lifeless body. Jason confirms that he did die. As for how, Jason’s not certain. A short time back (around the time of the Crisis on Infinite Earths event in this universe), he’d felt himself suddenly awaken inside of his casket. He’d clawed his way out and found himself picked up by a strange group that called themselves the League of Assassins, and how their leader had bathed him in a pit full of chemicals that restored his body and made him stronger than ever.

Dick is confused but moves to welcome him back when Jason rebuffs him. Jason says he’s not here for him, or for Bruce. He’s here to do what they could never do. When Dick asks what he means, Jason asks why Roman Sionis is still alive. Why people like the Joker and Batman’s other rogues are still alive. No matter how much they are beaten, they always come back, and innocent people always pay the price. He is now a member of the league, and he has come to finish people like Roman once and for all.

We get a brief debate between them about the ethics of killing, but that debate is cut short by Firefly, who’d gotten a look at Jason’s face the night before and had been tailing him ever since. The two brothers work together to fight the Firefly, having an intense battle, but eventually they beat him down and destroy his flamethrower. Jason makes to kill him, while Dick tries to stop him. Jason asks what happens when an innocent kid like the one he was ends up as Firefly’s next victim because of Dick’s weakness. When Dick can’t answer, Jason brutally murders Firefly and walks away.

Tim and Steph find Dick sitting on a roof nearby, having trailed him there. They comfort him, and Dick has a scene talking about all his regrets surrounding Jason, and Bruce, and everything they’ve ever done in their lives as vigilantes. We also get scenes intercut of Jason revisiting things of his childhood, calling back to the earlier memory. Tim and Steph are at a loss for anything to say, and simply stay with him.

We cut back to Roman in his base, recognizing that Firefly has stopped calling in. He looks at the picture Firefly had left him, showing the Red Hood’s identity. A short time later, the Red Hood shows up in his office to finish him off, only for Roman to spring his trap, his men taking Jason down and unmasking him. Making an educated guess, he reasons out that Nightwing’s identity is most likely his estranged brother Dick. A note is left at the apartment for him to come alone.

Dick arrives at the old burned-out warehouse, with Roman and his men holding Jason hostage. Roman boasts at Dick, saying this is probably a familiar sight to him. He threatens Jason with a crowbar, but Jason retorts that he’s not that kid anymore, breaking his bonds that he’d been cutting and attacking Roman. We get a fight scene of Dick and Jason working together against them again, with Tim and Steph showing up after finding a note from Dick.

The four make quick work of them all, but Roman makes a getaway. Our heroes pursue him, Tim reaching him first, only for Roman to take him by surprise and knock him unconscious with his crowbar. Dick and Steph manage to catch up, but Roman holds Tim at gunpoint to keep them back, boasting that that’ll be another Robin on the list. Before he can pull the trigger, Jason appears behind him and shoots him in the head. Dick is only relieved that Tim is alright, letting Jason go.

A few days later, Dick, Tim, and Steph are having breakfast together, with Dick getting a subtle prank message left by Jason somewhere to mess with him, also calling back to the memory. Dick tries to call Bruce or Barbara again, as he hasn’t heard from them in a while. Barbara actually picks up this time, saying she’s in the hospital, while Tim and Steph both notice a news story about a fire at Arkham.

What do you think? Would you watch a movie like this? From here, I'll do the animated movie starring the Golden Age heroes.

[theaceofarrows]

Reasons why I would kill for a Batfamily/Six of Crows crossover⬇

Bruce and Kaz having a glaring contest that last for a whole hour before Alfred and Inej tell them to stop

Dick and Inej trading circus stories and showing and teaching each other different acrobatics moves

Jason and Jesper having a shooting contest where they just keep doing more and more outlandish shots

Tim and Barbara show Wylan all the different bat gadgets and they start nerding out over crazy inventions

Matthias meets Damian's animals and very formally introduces himself to each of them. Damian tells cute stories of Titus and Matthias tells him stories of Treskell (don't think I'm spelling the right-)

Steph and Nina debating what the best toppings are for waffles

Dick, Steph, Nina and Jesper having bisexual solidarity✨

Bruce: "killing is wrong. If you take a life you're no better th-" Kaz: [gags]

Cass and Inej being the most lethal and absolute badass duo in all of Gotham

Alfred and Colm talking over tea about how exhausting it is to deal with children (Bruce included) who are always putting themselves in mortal danger

Damian and Wylan having a violin and flute duo

Everyone keeping a tally of how many times Bruce and Kaz say something emo, and taking bets on who will say more

Steph and Nina having a heated argument about which is better between purple and red

Matthias getting his ass kicked by Damian after asking why a child is here. Nina and Jesper are laughing at him the whole time

Kaz criticizing EVERY. SINGLE. Gotham rogue about how they are all pathetic excuses for criminals, and then whacking them with his cane

Jesper seeing the Discowing suit, followed immediately by himself and Dick talking about their shared (terrible) fashion sense

Damian and Inej bonding over knives. Inej immediately mastering throwing batarangs

Jason and Kaz casually talking about traumatic stories about being child criminals living on the streets

Nina falling in love with Alfred's cookies, followed by her joining in the batfam fights over who gets the last cookie

Steph, Cas and Wylan having the "my father is an evil piece of shit" Club™

The crows stealing the batmobile for a joyride. Jason laughing his ass off

Wylan and Jason exchanging formulas for different kinds of explosives

"Why would you go with go with robins?? Crows are CLEARLY way cooler-" "[unholy screeching]"

Someone brings up Lex Luthor and it just goes "rich blackmailing piece of shit who lies for political gain? Yes, we know the type"

Kaz: "-and so then after I cut his face with an oyster knife, I ripped his eyeball out and then tossed him over the side of the ship" Jason: "Nice, nice. Points for creativity. There was this one time that I cut off the heads of all the major gang lieutenants in Crime Ally, placed them all into an old duffle bag and then tossed them to the bosses while they were all in a meeting I set up" Kaz: "Hmm, I'll have to remember that" Jason: "I got it all done in only 2 hours" Kaz: "Very efficient"

I will probably add to this

[hoffmannwrites]

On My List

1  - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 + 1 Masterlist

Author’s Note: I'm gonna just post part 2 now because the response has been overwhelming and also I need to ride this train until it runs outta steam, yfm?

Pairing: Steve Harrington x Eddie Munson

Description: 5 Times Steve and Eddie kiss as friends, and one time they don't.

Warnings/Tags: Everyone lives, Nobody dies, 5+1, Kissing, Fluff, Idiots to Lovers, Friends to Lovers, some pretty brief mentions for drinking, smoking, being inebriated (the gang is drunk here but nothing too bad, just in a fun way), uhhh they're gay your honor, no beta we die like Barb, vague medical issue, fainting, let me know if I missed anything?

Every Breath You Take

Two

The second time Eddie and Steve kiss it’s not really a kiss at all. Robin and Steve are working a shift at Family Video - well, trying to work at least, because Eddie’s there which means everyone’s just sort of dicking around. Steve is processing some returns while Robin and Eddie argue about some sort of incomprehensible music shit. They’re both such fucking nerds about it that it makes Steve’s head hurt hearing them discuss the rhythm vs the beat and the symbolism of the song's accompanying music videos. Steve doesn’t understand why they have to analyze everything, why they can’t just like shit.

He’s not really paying attention until he registers the panic in Robin’s voice as she suddenly pushes off the counter and says Eddie’s voice just a little too frantically. Eddie has slumped slightly forward over the counter, eyes rolled a little too far back, and not responding to her calls for him. Steve immediately jumps into action, thinking about seeing Max in an eerily similar situation, about the fits Will had when he came back. Steve grabs Eddie and lays him gently in the ground, immediately crouching over him to do CPR, not bothering to check for a pulse or breathing. Just starting compressions, counting the way he learned how while hanging out at the hospital waiting for Max and Eddie to wake up. He couldn’t just sit there, and the hospital offered free training courses in shit like this, so he went. And he’s so glad he did as he starts doing rescue breaths on Eddie, ignoring Robin’s “ohmygodohmygodohmy-“ as she struggles to remember Hopper’s number when she finally stops freaking out enough to grab the phone. It doesn’t matter though, because by the time Steve is halfway through his second set of 30, Eddie’s eyes are fluttering open and he’s breathing heavily, but just fine on his own.

“Oh thank fuc-“ Robin starts as she drops to the ground on the other side of Eddie. “Are you okay? What happened? You just-“ Robin starts rambling, panicking that this meant the worst wasn’t over.

“Robs. Give him a minute. Go grab a water bottle,” Steve softly commands, his instinct to protect and help and heal outweighing his ability to do anything else. She does as he asks, and Steve starts to help Eddie move to a sitting position. “Easy does it, man. You can keep laying on the floor for a little if you need.”

“No, no. I’m okay. Sorry. I just, uh, had a minute. It happens sometimes. Happened a lot more when I was little. Stress, ya know? Was real bad right around the time I started living with Wayne. Had a really bad couple of weeks after Bonham died, too. But since, ya know- everything, it’s been happening again.” Eddie explains, rubbing the middle of his chest where Steve had previously been pressing. Steve just nods as Robin hands him the water bottle, watching, waiting for everyone’s adrenaline to slow.

“Jesus, dude. I think you almost cracked a rib. Way to put those muscles to use,” Eddie jokes, in between sips. Steve cracks a smile, but his eyes are still filled with worry. “Thank you for trying to save my ass, but in the future, I’m just fainting. No CPR required. Just make sure I don’t hit my head on the way down,” Eddie explains.

“Sorry,” now it’s Steve’s turn to ramble. “I just went into panic mode and I didn’t even check for a pulse or-“

“Don’t sweat it.” Eddie cuts him off. “I appreciate you wanting to save my life. Again.” He adds that last part a little quieter, knocking shoulders with Harrington. As Steve helps him to his feet, he adds even quieter “You sure you didn’t just wanna plant one on me again, Big Boy?” And Robin is too busy fussing over Eddie and asking questions about his fainting and yelling at him for not warning anybody that they’re both too busy to notice the blush that creeps up Steve’s neck and the way he flexes his hands like touching Eddie hurt. 

A/N: Not so fun fact! John Bonham, drummer for Led Zeppelin died in 1980 after a heavy drinking binge. This would have been absolutely devastating to a young Eddie Munson, as it was for everyone else with ears and a soul at the time.

Also, Steve does the Pride and Prejudice hand flex every time he touches Eddie. Convince me otherwise. I dare you.

[nabtime]

Our Empty Graves V

Fandom: Danny Phantom / Batman: Under the Red Hood

Pairings: Danny Fenton/Jason Todd (Dead on Main)

Rating: Mature

Tags: batfamily, hazmat AU, Nobody Knows AU, Mute!Phantom, potential ghost king danny, slow burn?, DC means Disregard Canon, AU means AU nothing is exactly the same, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, more than canon typical violence, danny is a Halfa and also a Fetch, no beta we die like basically everyone

Summary: They say that Red Hood has a loyal mutt. The man rules his territory in Crime Alley with an iron fist and a guard dog at his side. They say that Hood calls him Fetch, sometimes Fetcher. No one's ever heard him speak. Anyone who's ever seen him says he looks like an experiment gone wrong, that Hood picked him up somewhere unspeakable. They say he'll do anything Red Hood asks of him and he'll do it well. That he's strong and fast and probably inhuman. The girls say he's sweet; quiet but charming in his own way. Rival gangs say he's vicious; that he'd sooner rip your throat out than let you go.

Jason just wants to help him.

Chapter 5: they call me devil (and you should be afraid)

Chapter Summary: Red Hood keeps running into Fetcher, who disappears on him each time, until he decides to take the matter into his own hands and hunts the other down.

Chapter Notes: title from Call Me Devil by Friends in Tokyo Links: AO3 // Chapter 1 // Chapter 4 // Chapter 6 // Spotify

There was a part of Jason that knew he wouldn’t find Fetcher in the safe house when he returned, but there was another (stupider) part of himself that had hoped to find the sassy little shit where he’d left him. He knew the first time had been a miracle and probably owing to the fact that Fetcher had been exhausted and recovering. He really hoped the kid had healed fully before he left. It looked like he already had a pretty fast healing rate, but Jason still worried. Like an idiot, really.

He wondered where Fetcher went. Jason didn’t believe for one second the kid actually had a place to go. But then again he literally glowed green and walked around in a Hazmat suit, which meant he was kind of hard to miss. So he had to have a place to go, to hide. Because Jason sure as shit hadn’t seen him since he left. And no, he had not looked. Well, maybe he looked a little. But it didn’t matter because he hadn’t found the fucker anywhere. There and gone again in a single night.

Jason should not be as preoccupied about it as he was. He had plans. He needed to focus. Didn’t matter that he’d felt almost calm for the first time since he resurrected around the kid (four long, long years of mindlessness and anger and a sort of helplessness and despair he hated). Fetcher was gone now and all he could do was sink back into his rage and learn to swim willingly within the haze all over again. He’d done it before and he’d do it again. Rage was useful. Anger was something he could mold and carve to his satisfaction. He would use it as a tool to strike down those that needed striking and avenge those that needed vengeance. Himself for one.

Tall, Dark, and Emotionally Repressed wouldn’t know what hit him. The Batman had failed him. Bruce had proven that while he may have loved Jason, he hadn’t loved him enough. And wasn’t that just the story of his life? Jason had never been enough. Would never be enough. Always second-rate. A good Robin, sure, but not near enough to live up to the first one. To Dick’s spark and skill and flamboyance. Dickie had set the standard for what a Robin should be and Jason had never been able to live up to it. His Replacement got closer than he ever could and it stung. Too arrogant, too forceful, too angry, too reckless. Too much, yet never enough. Jason was loved but it always came with conditions. Jason was mourned but his death had still not been enough to put a stop to the Joker. Just another page in his story instead of the catalyst to his end. He hadn’t cared that Bruce was too late to save him, he’d cared that Bruce had still not considered his death enough to put a permanent end to Joker’s murder sprees.

It pissed him off.

If the Batman, so-called protector of Gotham city, wouldn’t put an end to the festering blight on humanity at large that was the Clown Prince of Crime, then someone else would. Jason was not afraid to bloody his own hands if it meant more innocents could live. If it meant that people like Jason had been wouldn’t have to die anymore. Die broken and bleeding and scared. Thinking that Batman would save you, would pull you out of the wreckage and make sure everything was alright. Thinking that Batman would go to the ends of the earth to make sure you lived. Thinking that Batman would do anything to avenge you if you didn’t. He would not let anyone else live that lie. Die with that lie.

Because that’s all it was. A lie.

If Jason, a child he had brought in and personally trained, was not enough, then there weren’t many others that were. How many people would finally be too many? How many lives would end before the Joker’s? His hadn’t been worthy enough to count as the sacrificial lamb to end it all. Though, he supposed, he hadn’t been worth much anyway. Bruce could bluster all he wanted, pretend to be angry that someone had trespassed on Jason’s grave. But the fact of the matter was that nowhere on that headstone had he been given the name Wayne. Unclaimed and unwanted and unavenged. He wondered, sometimes, if it had been Dick that had died instead of him, if that would have been Bruce’s breaking point. But Dickie had never been stupid enough to get himself killed.

Not like reckless, angry, arrogant, Jason.

But, now, now he had a plan and he would put those traits to use.

He would continue to take over the Alley. Expand his territory and take over all trade from Black Mask and any other Kingpin trying to rule the underground. He would control the drugs, the arms, and any other goods. He would destroy what he couldn’t control and control what he couldn’t destroy. Drugs would sell no matter what he did, so he would make sure they were pure and out of the hands of minors. He would provide refuge for the weak and weary, clean spaces and warm places. He would do what Batman could not and rid the city of its more heinous strains of crime. And he would be as ruthless about it as he needed to be. He would not hold back because of some old moral code, not if it meant doing what needed to be done. He would not be so selfish as to put his conscious above the lives and well-being of others.

He would show the Bat what the city could become before he put Bruce’s morals to the test. Before he found out what Batman’s breaking point really was.

═════ ◈ ═════

Six months he’d been running everything. Killing off rival gang members, making sure everyone knew the rules and the consequences for not following them. Pissing off Black Mask and eating more and more of his territory, claiming the Alley for himself. Teasing Batman and dodging his attempts at a take-down. He wasn’t ready to give up the ghost just yet, Brucie needed more patience than that.

It was just another run-of-the-mill patrol of the area. Checking in with his lieutenants, keeping them in line and making sure no one was breaking the golden rule. Checking in on the Corner Workers, making sure they had everything they needed and that no one was trying to rough them up. Checking in on the camps, making sure everyone had food and water and shelter and anything else they needed. Keeping the pigs away from all of them.

So, imagine his surprise when he finds trouble. No, not that he just finds trouble, that was expected and the reason for the patrol in the first place, but that he finds trouble and Fetcher was in the middle of it. Trying to stop it? From the looks of it?

Taking in the scene, there were three figures. Fetcher, some guy in a black jacket and ski-mask (like you couldn’t get anymore cartoonishly criminal), and a girl all done up in high-heels and a short leather dress. Nadi if he had to take a guess. Looked like some bozo had been trying to mug one of the Ladies of the Night. Had been because Fetcher had the guy in a headlock and was- Giving the guy a noogie? The girl in question seemed to just be watching, hands on her hips and grinning, make-up and hair without a single smudge or ruffle. Fetcher must have intervened before Bozo could get very far then.

Jason joined her in watching the show. Bozo tried to pull a knife and Fetcher just kept one arm around his head and used the other to snatch it away without effort. Then he density-shifted it into his suit and gave the guy a finger wag. Like some naughty kid.

“That’s the third knife he’s done that with,” Nadi said, sounding on the brink of hysterical laughter.

Nadi, from what he had learned of the sex workers under his protection, was always one to deflect with humor when things went south. Served her well in this instance because it kept her calm and able to enjoy the show. She wasn’t new to the block either so this probably wasn’t the first time she’d had a knife pulled on her. Probably the first time a walking radiation hazard saved her though. Or, knowing Gotham, maybe not.

“He hurt you at all?” he asked her, just to make sure.

“Nah,” she said turning to him with a smile that didn’t falter at the sight of his helmet.

He was trying his best to keep his reputation good with the ones under his protection, so he was happy to see her without fear around him. The ones who should fear him were the ones that broke the rules, not the ones he made the rules to protect.

“Little man in the funky suit,” she said, pointing to Fetcher with an impeccably sharp nail, “jumped in the second I started yelling at that asshole.”

“Good,” Jason replied. “How long has this been going on?”

“Mm,” she started, brown eyes looking up in thought, “about ten minutes, I think. Glow-boy’s been keeping him down for a while.” Her eyes gleamed. “I just wanna see how many knives is gonna get involved.”

Fetcher had been keeping that man in a headlock for ten goddamn minutes. Amazing.

“Oi, Fetch,” he called, watching as the vicious little nightlight jumped at his voice and dropped the guy, who flopped to the ground, boneless, with a groan. “What are you-”

Jason watched, stunned, as Fetcher held his hands up in surrender and then disappeared. Just fucking vanished into thin air. He switched his helmet to night vision, heat vision, anything and everything. No readings. Nada. Nothing. What the fuck.

“Aw,” Nadi whined, disappointed, “you scared ‘im off.”

“I did not!” he protested. Because really, he hadn’t meant to spook him. He was just glad to see the kid up and about and apparently well enough to take on random muggers. At least Batman hadn’t gotten to him, from the looks of things.

“Big bad Red Hood,” she sang, “scaring off my savior!”

He sighed. At least someone was having a good time.

Bozo groaned, face still planted in ground of the dirty back alley. Oh, right. Assholes to punish. He moseyed over, making sure each boot thunked heavily against the asphalt. He watched Bozo grow tenser with every step he got closer.

“Talk,” he commanded. Fetcher wanted to play good cop (silly cop? ridiculous cop?) to Jason’s bad cop, so be it. He had a reputation. He could be a bit playful with the girls or soft with the kids, but trouble-makers got no mercy.

“I-I didn’t do nothin-,” Bozo started, stammering and struggling to move up onto his hands and knees.

Red Hood took care of that with a swift kick to the ribs.

“Try again.”

He wouldn’t stand for someone trying to shift the blame. Trying to get out of the consequences of their actions.

Bozo groaned and curled up on his side. Jason had no sympathy.

“Fine, fine,” Bozo said, face still one with the concrete. “Know the girls always carry a lotta cash from workin’. Figured it would be an easy grab. Wasn’t plannin’ on hurtin’ her.”

Nadi scoffed. “I worked hard for my money, asshole.” She loomed over him, hands on her hips, and Jason let her. “You thought you could just grab it off me?” She pressed a threatening heel against the guy’s bruised ribs. “I’da fought you off myself if little cujo hadn’t tackled you.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Bozo said miserably. “Just throw me to the cops already.”

Jason tsked. “No pigs in the Alley.” He paused, thinking it over for a moment. Guy looked young and scruffy. Desperate for money by the sounds of it, if he was willing to go for someone in Jason’s territory. Knew to keep more than one knife on him, so stupid- but with some street smarts. He could work with that. “You’re working for the girls now, as penance.”

“What?!” Bozo and Nadi shrieked at the same time.

Jason held up his hand for silence. He pointed at Bozo first. “Room and board and something better to do than trawl the streets for blood money.” Then pointed at Nadi, “Extra set of hands to do whatever you want.”

Nadi’s eyes gleamed again at that. “Whatever I want?”

Smart girl.

Bozo collapsed back down with another pitiful groan. Served him right. Jason crouched next to him, making sure he had the guy’s attention and letting a little murderous-intent bleed into his voice.

“Pull this shit again and there won’t be another second chance.”

He bared down on him, making sure it got through that thick skull just what would happen if he crossed the line again. He was lucky he’d gotten away without any maiming this time. Next time, Hood would have his head.

Bozo nodded, face pale and clammy. Jason stood up, satisfied, before turning to Nadi again.

“He tries to pull anything, let me or any of my crew know.”

And with that he grappled off, climbing back to the rooftops and running his route with a distracted air. Looking for a neon green glow he knew he wouldn’t find.

═════ ◈ ═════

The second time Jason caught sight of Fetcher out and about, it was a much bloodier encounter.

Some of Black Mask’s men had ambushed him mid-patrol, thinking they could catch him by surprise and bring him in to their increasingly irate boss. Too bad for them that Jason wasn’t a man so easily caught off guard. If there was one thing that Bats taught all the Robins that served them well- it was paranoia. If you think they’re always out to get you, you’ll be prepared for the many times they actually are.

Five against one, but Jason was packing all five of the Bennett sisters tonight and he had more tricks up his sleeves besides.

One shot to the jugular. One pistol whip to the face. One kick in the ribs and two shots to the kneecaps. Two men trying to grab at his arms at the same time, missing, and getting swept off their feet by one of Jason’s own.

One guy got an arm around his neck in the aftermath, pulling tight, and one of the two he’d knocked over popped back up and wrestled Lizzie out of his grip. Two were completely out of commission but that still left three stubborn bastards. The third one got in a shot to his thigh while he was throwing off the others.

He hissed, the bullet was unable to pierce his armor but still left a nasty bruise.

He pulled Mary out of her holster and took a rapid shot at that third guy’s hand, taking out his gun and leaving him out of the game for the rest of the fight- screaming and trying to staunch the blood pouring from his missing finger.

The other two had backed off, noticing that their odds were dwindling fast.

One guy pulled a knife, the blade glinting strangely in the light of the street lamp. Looked like it was coated in something. A paralytic, a poison? No matter what, it wasn’t likely to pierce his jacket or his armor. And the guy should know better than to bring a knife to a gun fight.

He took the shot but the guy dodged.

Idiot number two pulled a gun himself and fired off, three shots, all going large. One to the brick behind him, one to the pavement, and one to the dark of the night beyond them.

Idiot number one, being faster than Jason anticipated, made a lunge toward him and his knife skimmed the sleeve of his jacket on the left side, cutting a long and jagged stripe before just barely nicking his wrist where his jacket ended before his gloves.

His hand went numb. Fuck.

Whatever was on that knife, which shouldn’t be able to cut through his jacket, was potent. The edges of his jacket where it’d been split open began to sizzle. Double fuck. That one was his favorite.

He swung around and shot at idiot number one, being careful to dodge around the bullets being fired by idiot number two.

The tingling sensation of numbness was starting to crawl up his arm.

Idiot number one fell to a bullet in the shoulder, poison knife clattering to the ground while the guy screamed. Idiot number two was starting to look antsy, realizing he was the last man standing. Jason may be down an arm but he wasn’t about to let the guy go running. He shot- but the guy was squirrelly and dodged so that it only grazed his shoulder.

The numbness was reaching his chest. Would the paralytic kill him? Stop his heart? Or just leave him trapped? Either way he needed to end this, now. It’d already gone on too long. If he hadn’t been so fucking distracted… He hadn’t seen Fetcher in a week and a half now…

And then, well, think of the devil and he shall appear.

Last idiot standing was being held in a choke-hold by the glowing green halfling in question, which was a little funny from how short the kid was. Fetcher held him there until he passed out before dropping him and running towards Red Hood.

“Long time no see, Jellyfish,” he said, trying for a casual tone as his left leg started going out on him.

The kid gave him a flat stare before standing underneath him and swinging Jason’s left arm over his shoulder.

Fetcher was- cold to the touch. Like he’d been standing in a snowstorm and the chill had permanently sunk into his very being. He felt like static shock, like pinpricks of electricity were swirling around under the latex-like material of the suit. He felt completely unnatural and yet somehow familiar. Jason wondered, not for the first time, just what, exactly, a Fetch was.

Jason pointed to the dropped knife, sitting so innocently on the dirty pavement. “Gonna need that. Doc Thompkins’ll need to know what got me.”

Fetcher bobbed his head in a nod and scooped the knife up, being careful of the blade before shifting it into his suit like he had all those others.

“How many knives you even got in there?” Jason asked, trying to distract himself from the numbing sensation crawling further through his chest. His lungs were starting to stutter.

Fetcher held his free hand up in a gesture reminiscent of a shrug that didn’t move his occupied shoulder. So he didn’t know. That wasn’t concerning at all. The little glow-worm got them to the mouth of the alley before motioning to the street before them. Asking for directions.

Jason jabbed the thumb he could still move towards the left. Man he hoped Leslie would help him.

It was only after Leslie reluctantly let him go and he exited the clinic that he noticed Fetcher had disappeared again.

═════ ◈ ═════

Twice was a coincidence, three times was a pattern.

This time it was in the rain, heavy downpour obscuring everything in sight and the occasional flash of lightning spearing the dark in a thunderous roar.

Bruce had caught him on one of his runs.

They were on the edge of the roof, his boots slipping just the slightest against the slick concrete that bordered the ten story drop as Batman gripped the shirt that covered his chest armor in his fists, holding him up and being the only thing between him and the pavement below. One hand of Jason’s scrabbled against the slick armor on Batman’s arm and the other held a gun against the man’s head.

Red Hood laughed, bordering hysterical, the sound crackling and grating through the filter on his helmet. “Let me go, Batman,” he demanded, gun digging against the mask over Bruce’s temple.

“Who are you?” Batman growled, agony underpinning his words and it flooded Jason with a righteous glee that made him ache. Oh, Brucie, Brucie, Brucie he thought. You’re so close to figuring it out but you’re still not sure.

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” he said, trying not to cackle. The sweet, sweet fury painting his father’s ex-mentor’s face was delicious. He might not be ready to lead Batman to his pièce de résistance but he could still enjoy teasing in the meantime.

“Tell me,” Batman demanded, shaking Red Hood within his grasp, making Jason’s boots slide ever further toward the edge.

“Or what,” he snarled, “you’ll kill me?”

He nudged his gun to an angle beside Batman’s head and shot, the bullet flying into the air but the blast and the noise pushing Bruce away and startling his grip loose. Jason used the momentum to push up and arch in the air, feeling the rain and the wind against him as he flew. He flipped and felt the beautiful, intoxicating rush that came with free falling. Distantly he could hear Batman yelling, but all he wanted to concentrate on was feeling the pull of gravity before he landed.

He pulled out his grapple and aimed. It slipped and he cursed. The building was too short to sustain his fall for long and he didn’t have time for another grapple to hook and swing. He was meeting the pavement fast. Too fast. He wasn’t usually this sloppy. His landing would be messy and painful, but if he moved right, he’d live.

Cold hands caught him a single story from the ground and slowly lowered him down until his boots hit sidewalk. The glow around them told him he knew who his savior was.

When he was released he turned. The hands that had caught him were gone, and so was the rest of Fetcher. He tsked in annoyance. He’d need to hunt the kid down at this rate.

He looked up to see if Batman was still there. But if he was, he couldn’t see anything through the rain.

═════ ◈ ═════

Of course he was living in a graveyard. Because why not, right?

It was one of the last places Jason tried searching. Ever since Fetcher had risked Batman’s wrath again by catching him a few days ago, he’d doubled his determination to find him. He shouldn’t let himself get so distracted from his main goal, but keeping Fetcher within his sights and making sure the kid was safe was now part his master plan, apparently.

He could see a faint glow up in the branches of the single hickory tree planted in the cemetery Fetcher had originally been chased from. The one Jason was buried in. He tried not to have any particular feelings about that. He watched as the green shell of a hickory nut fell from the branches and bounced on the ground. Well, at least the kid was eating.

“Hey,” he called, watching the branches shake when Fetcher startled. “Get your radioactive ass down here.”

He backed up and watched in fascination as the other man swung down from a branch like a monkey before he dropped like a stone. If the forty foot drop did anything to his ankles when he landed directly on his feet, he didn’t let it show. What the fuck was this guy?

Fetcher walked closer, posture cautious but casual. Like there was at least some modicum of trust but he still knew to be wary. He tilted his head to the side, a question.

“How many crimes have you interfered with on my turf?” he asked, crossing his arms. He was genuinely curious though. He’d gotten reports from his lieutenants that mister nightlight had been spotted multiple times preventing a mugging or defending a Corner Girl. A little vigilante in the making, all he needed was the blue eyes and black hair and he’d be perfect Wayne Bait.

Fetcher scuffed his shoe against the grass and hid his hands behind his back before shrugging, trying to act innocent. Little shit.

“Listen,” he said, “if you’re gonna play vigilante here, it’s gonna be on my orders.”

Fetcher raised his head and tilted it to the side again. Another question. He sighed.

He walked closer, steps slow and careful so Fetch wouldn’t disappear on him. He didn’t want to spook the guy. “No more living in trees and popping in and out of nowhere,” he said firmly, close enough to see his curious glowing green eyes. “If you’re gonna work in my territory, then you’re gonna be on my payroll.”

The green glow narrowed and Fetcher crossed his arms. Defiant. Defensive.

Jason scoffed. “If you mess with things you don’t know about you’re going to get hurt. Or get someone else hurt.”

The arms dropped but stayed crossed, his head tilted to the side. Accepting but still questioning.

“I’m not going to stop you from saving people,” he said, “since that seems to be something you want to do.”

“But,” he lifted a finger, “you gotta listen to me. And you’re going to live in an actual goddamn house, you heathen. And eat actual food. I don’t care if you’re not human, no man under my protection is living like a monkey unless they are one.”

He paused. “You aren’t some type of monkey, are you?”

Fetcher seemed to double over. Shoulders shaking in silent laughter. Probably a no then. But, yeah, sure, laugh at him for not knowing what the fuck a Fetch was and trying not to make any assumptions.

“Alright, alright,” he grumbled as the other seemed to finally gather himself together. “You coming or not? I’m setting you up in a safe-house and then putting a fucking bell on you so I know where you are.”

He wiped a tear that wasn’t actually there from his tinted mask and mimed catching his breath before nodding and gesturing for Jason to lead the way. Then he paused and tilted his head. He lifted his arms and made a little paw motion beside his head and moved his head back and forth. Jason could almost see green ears and tail appear.

“Don’t ever do that again.”

Fetcher leaned forward, arms out in some sort of questioning shrug. Why not? he seemed to say, with some mocking edge. Little shit knew what he was doing.

God, Jason really hoped he wouldn’t regret this.

[scattered-winter]

ok winter...it's my turn now: jaykyle. i am intrigued, and i'd like to know as much as is feasible to tell me. (it's killing me to send something this open-ended but i feel like i don't actually know enough about them to be more specific.)

TEEHEE <3333 SOOOO GLAD YOU ASKED BECAUSE I CARE THEM <33

jaykyle is a ship between two of my favorite dc characters, jason todd and kyle rayner. they're both sooo fascinating on their own AND as a pairing and I just <3333 this is gonna get long because 1) they both have very long and complicated stories that's gonna take a bit to unpack and 2) I love them <33 and I love to talk about them <333 a bit of forewarning, but comics storylines are RIDICULOUSLY complicated and pretty much every single character has more origins, timelines, and personalities than you can shake a stick at. in the comics fandom we take marie kondo's words to heart because if we tried to stick to What Canon Says, we would be running in circles all day because everything contradicts itself. everything is canon and nothing is canon and if it doesn't spark joy, it isn't true <3 I'll explain everything to the best of my ability but it's gonna get Real Complicated Real Fast

tw for death (child and otherwise)

jason todd (playlist) is part of the batfam (group of vigilantes associated with batman) and he's also part of the wayne family (by adoption). I looked everywhere for the panels to show how he was introduced because it's objectively the funniest way to introduce any character but alas, they have eluded me so I'll just tell you: he grew up in the poorer parts of gotham city with his parents, catherine and willis todd. willis got caught up in two-face's gang (because gotham city as a whole has a trend of eating its people alive/forcing them to do crime because they're desperate and have no choice etc etc) and ended up getting killed because of it, and catherine died of an illness, leaving jason to fend for himself on the streets.* he is brought into the story by jacking the tires off the BATMOBILE, and getting caught by batman himself. in response to this he hits batman with a tire iron, calls him a big boob, and runs away (and in the process making bruce laugh out loud in the same place his parents died which makes me SOO OUGHOUGHOUGHOUGH)

*catherine and willis both loved jason very much, but recent comics have portrayed willis as abusive/catherine as neglectful, which doesn't spark joy for me personally so I tend to ignore those ones and stick to the others where they were genuinely loving parents who fell on hard times.

the original robin, dick grayson, recently moved on from the mantle and went to live somewhere else,* so bruce adopted jason and started training him as the new robin. he was a very bright, very loving boy who enthusiastically went to school and read books and loved bruce so so much and bruce loved him because that was his KID.**

*I can't remember if he went to live with the titans or went to gotham's sister city, bludhaven; but in any case he ends up in bludhaven eventually and operates there as nightwing

**In more recent comics, jason's robin days are portrayed as him being brash and violent (new drinking game: take a shot every time a comic describes robin jason as "angry" or "reckless" smfh) and of course while being a vigilante involves violence, and being a well-rounded character, jason did indeed have moments of anger, I strongly dislike this way of thinking because it takes so much away from his character and you'll see what I mean by that in a minute.

however, the happy days weren't gonna last. jason discovered that catherine todd wasn't his biological mother, and he had found some evidence pointing to who his birth mother was. (I think it was a birth certificate that was partially damaged so he couldn't see the whole name but it's been a while since I've read the comic where that happens so don't quote me on that) but regardless of how he found out, jason set out to find his real mother. he'd narrowed down the list of possible mothers to a few different women, so he found them each in turn and ruled them out as he went. he ran away from home to go on his little self-discovery mission, and the only reason bruce didn't go after him was because the joker had a big scheme with a nuclear missile that kinda took precedence. but by pure happenstance, they ran into each other and decided to work together for both their goals (stopping joker AND finding jason's mom). eventually jason and bruce narrowed the list down to one woman: sheila haywood. they travelled to ethiopia to find her, and jason actually did, but moments after meeting her, sheila betrayed him and handed him over to the joker, who proceeded to beat jason within an inch of his life with a crowbar while sheila watched.

(batman: a death in the family)

he then tied up sheila and left them both to die in the warehouse because he rigged it with a bomb. jason, despite being betrayed by her literally minutes before, stopped to untie her to get her out instead of saving himself. but the bomb went off with them both inside, just in time for batman (who had been frantically rushing to the warehouse as soon as he heard that jason had been captured) to see the explosion <3

(batman: a death in the family)

and the thing that REALLY fucks me up is that even after everything she did to him, jason still used himself as a human shield to try and protect sheila. these two panels have literally caused me lasting damage

(batman: a death in the family)

this is also why the narrative of jason being reckless makes me so angry. he didn't die because he was a reckless idiot who rushed into danger without a thought, he died because he tried to save a woman who nearly got him killed. he died shielding her with his own body even though she betrayed him literally a few minutes earlier. some comic writers have rewritten the scene to take out sheila entirely, but that takes away a huge part of the story!!!! jason didn't die because he was reckless!! he died because he was trying to save someone!!!! I will literally fight people on that to my grave smh

bruce brought jason's body back to gotham and buried him, and was never really the same after that (but that's a topic for another ramble because this is about THE BOY <3)

this is where things get a little trippy <3 first thing you gotta know about comic books is that death is RARELY permanent. the exact details are lost on me since I tend to avoid the big crisis events (and the headache they give me) but basically superboy-prime punches the fabric of the universe and kinda .. breaks some things. and jason wakes up in his coffin (slightly zombified), six feet underground. after clawing his way out of his own fucking grave, jason gets hit by a fucking CAR and is then taken in by talia al ghul (one of bruce's past lovers, daughter of ra's al ghul [leader of the league of assassins]). talia put jason in something called a lazarus pit, which is basically a pool of green bubbly goo that can resurrect someone (ra's al ghul is hundreds of years old and keeps himself alive with the pits). jason came fully back to life and stayed with talia for a time, during which he travelled the world to be trained by some of the best/most notorious fighters and assassins all over the globe. at this point, he'd been dead for quite a while (a year AT LEAST) and so when he finds out that the joker is still fucking ALIVE, it's .... a shock, to say the least. it's a very complicated issue because batman's deepest-rooted rule is to Never Kill, and there were a lot of underlying circumstances preventing him from killing the joker right after jason's death (despite really, really wanting to) but the thing is. the joker just keeps killing and hurting people, and he gets put in arkham asylum, and escapes and kills more people, then gets put in arkham again, and it's just a vicious cycle where the joker just keeps hurting more and more people. and like. jason got murdered by the joker and the guy is still fucking alive and murdering more people. so he heads off to gotham with a huge plan to confront bruce and make him choose once and for all: kill the joker, or let jason die. this whole arc is my very favorite comic book of all time, batman: under the red hood <333 basically jason becomes a crime boss called red hood (which was the joker's old alias before he became...well, the joker) and plots CIRCLES around bruce, joker, and the other crime bosses. they're literally his pawns the entire time <3 but this all comes to a head when jason traps batman, the joker, and himself in a room where he finally reveals his identity to batman and gives him an ultimatum: kill the joker, or kill him. he had the whole place rigged with explosives so that no matter what bruce chose, they would still blow up (as a form of insurance? as a form of suicide? who knows!)

I'd like to point out the obvious and say that jason was NOT in a great state of mind during this whole thing. like. this post highlights it very well imo, but tl:dr jason didn't really...make a plan for after the showdown. it was clear that he had a single goal in mind, which was facing off with bruce and the joker once and for all, and it was also clear how it would end because he knew deep down that bruce would never kill the joker. so he knew he would die going into it but he didn't really care. he did in fact die at the end of under the red hood, since he was originally meant to be a one-off character, but he was so popular that dc sorta erased his death at the end of utrh and established him as a main batfam player.

jason's post-resurrection characterization is REALLY inconsistent, but really at his core, he's deeply traumatized and angry, and his driving motivation is to save gotham in what he deems is the "right" way: killing criminals so that they're no longer a problem. which, considering how many times supervillains break out of arkham and wreak havoc, isn't really that far of a stretch. but because of batman's firm moral stance on killing, the two have a very .... complicated relationship. but regardless jason has one of the coolest designs in the entire batfam in my opinion <3

(batman: three jokers)

(red hood and the outlaws) (I hate this comic for what it did to the other characters but the art was pretty at least)

sometimes he's drawn with a white streak in his hair (a side effect of the lazarus pit) which is one of my FAVORITE looks for him <33 and he's a regular contender for my icon because he's my blorbo bingus blob boy <3333

BUT ANYWAY <333 ON TO KYLE <333

disclaimer: I haven't been reading kyle's comics as long as I have jason's (jason was my gateway character who first got me into comics in the first place so I had a lot more time to really dig into his comics and characterization) and there's a lot of info about each character that's kind of...absorbed over time. because there's so many different stories and comics about each character, it's hard to find everything they appear in, and since I haven't been reading kyle for as long, I don't consider myself an expert on him in any way but I'll do my best to talk about him because he's my favorite green lantern <3

(playlist) in order to explain kyle, first I need to explain hal jordan. he's the Original green lantern (meaning when you think of the dc superhero green lantern, he's probably the one who comes to mind despite there being more lanterns than I can count. he's the most well-known by FAR) but basically, the green lanterns are an intergalactic military/police force led by the guardians (a bunch of really tiny blue guys). they use green power rings that are fueled by willpower, and so only someone with a lot of willpower (specifically, the will to "overcome great fear") can be a green lantern. (there's a ring for every color on the spectrum, but that's another ramble for another day). hal jordan had been losing faith in the lantern corps for a long time, but the last straw was when his hometown, coast city, was destroyed. hal basically went into a massive grief spiral and tried to bring back the entire city and didn't have enough power to do that, so he took on the name parallax and murdered pretty much the entire corps, and most of the guardians to absorb the main green power source to get enough power to Resurrect The City. but one guardian managed to escape to earth, where he found kyle rayner and gave him the last green power ring.

being practically the only green lantern left, kyle had to defeat parallax and restore the corps practically by himself. and the thing about kyle is that he's the GOOFIEST guy on the planet (affectionate). upon finding out that he's now a superhero he proceeds to immediately go tell his ex-girlfriend about it (alex <333) and they have a photoshoot of him in his suit. I fucking love them <333

but alas!!! happy days don't last <3 kyle leaves alex alone for literally only a few minutes to go be a hero, and while he's gone, one of green lantern's biggest enemies breaks into her apartment and murders her. kyle comes back to find her dead body stuffed inside the fridge (fun fact: that's actually where the term "fridging" came from <3) and he proceeds to. torture and almost kill the guy who did it. we love an unhinged icon <3

(green lantern #55)

it's been a while since I've read his origin comic, but kyle eventually defeats parallax. further down the line, he becomes a white lantern (mega-powerful because it has the powers of all the colors in the spectrum, not just green) and in my personal favorite comic, also becomes ion (basically the living embodiment of green lantern power. also basically a god) and tbh it's his BEST look of all time

(ion: guardian of the universe)

like I said, I don't really have as clear of an idea of kyle's timeline since there's a few gaps in my reading, but the essentials is that he literally can't keep a girlfriend because they keep dying, and he continuously gets the power of a literal god and is so humble and heroic about it that it never goes to his head. but he also consistently tortures and kills without really showing any remorse whatsoever <33 he has the range <33

BUT. AT LAST. WE GET TO JAYKYLE. THE THING YOU ASKED ABOUT IN THE FIRST PLACE. there's only ONE comic that I know of where they actually interact on-panel, and that's countdown presents: the search for ray palmer. it's tied in with countdown to final crisis, which is one of the biggest dc events of all time, and I haven't read it and probably never will because the big crises always give me SUCH a headache to try and understand </3 but I HAVE read search for ray palmer because <3 of them <3

essentially it's a story where the atom (ray palmer) gets lost in the multiverse and so 3 people who are already kind of...Outside the Mainstream Timeline embark on a multiverse journey to find him. those 3 people? jason todd, kyle rayner, and donna troy. jason is only alive because the timeline shattered, kyle was literally a time-and-reality-altering god not just once, but multiple times, and donna troy has also died and come back and like. is the only comics character with Self Awareness (remember when I said every comic book character has a gazillion different origins and reboots? donna remembers ALL of them <3) and so all three of them are affectionately referred to as "cosmic mistakes" because. they're literally irregularities in the cosmic timestream. and I love them for it <3

the reason I'm a jaykyle truther is because. they're so fucking funny in that comic. they argue in pretty much every single panel they share, but their internal monologues are....very, very homoeretic.

(kyle, about jason) (countdown: search for ray palmer: wildstorm)

(jason, about kyle) (countdown to final crisis #33)

and honestly, it's about how fucked up they would be together. they would tear each other apart and also tear apart everyone else and it would be a horrible time for everyone involved <3 there are ships for cute cuddles and then there are ships for fucking killing each other and jaykyle is the second one <3333

[karlyanalora]

Hi, I recently found the post you made awhile ago talking about Burns family ships while looking for Graham/Amy stuff, and you mentioned writing a fic set ten years after the show ends. I don't know how long ago that was, but would you mind sharing more about that fic, I'm personally very intrigued.

Ah yes! It might not be happening anymore, but here were some of my plans.

It would have been part of a crossover involving both Star Wars, Marvel, and DC. A lot of work had gone into setting up how DC, Marvel, and Star Wars coexist earlier in the series (that part I am still planning to write) before Transformers entered the picture (which probably won't happen anymore.)

The year is 2025. The Batmobile is a Decepticon OC of mine named LS. IDW based Drift is partnered with Nightwing. IDW based Red Alert is also partnered with Red Robin. TFP Soundwave is partners with Black Bat. Whirl Sr. and Harley Quinn are partners too.

The Coruscant Guard (who are alive after Order 66 due to some Marvel based shenanigans) have moved to Gotham and work with the GPD. Also, Mandalore has an embassy in Gotham because they think the city is neat. (It's trying to kill them, just like home!)

Chief Burns had grown up in Gotham. His mom had run away from home (Griffin Rock) for love, but her husband turned out to be a jerk and left her and the kids. She died from an illness, and Charlie joined a gang to put bread on the table. Charlie killed a man from a rival gang in self-defense at the young age of 16. Woodrow was worried for his bro, and in an age before Batman, reached out to my oc hero Foxglove. Foxglove in turn reached out to Jim Gordon's dad, who took in the two Burns boys.

After reconnecting with his grandfather and losing his wife to Crime Alley, Chief moved to Griffin Rock. But Dani, Kade, and Graham are old enough to remember and consider Gotham home.

Kade is also Babara Gordon's favorite cousin.

The year is 2025, and Babs is getting married to Dick Grayson. Kade thinks his cousin can do much better than that bimbo and is very vocal about it. Babs invites Kade to come and see why she's not settling.

Dani has also been dating a guy online named Thire, who works for the GPD. He's let her know he's got some "interesting life facts" he'd like to share in person, and she knows she'll have to tell him about Blades if things are going to get serious. But her Uncle Jim says Thire is a real good guy so she's not too worried.

The We Are Robin has also started and is not going away. They are joined by the Blanks, a group of anonymous young clones going behind their older brothers' backs to protect their new home in Gotham. Commissioner Gordon calls in Chief Burns to negotiate with the teens to find an agreement the adults can live with.

So this gets Chief, Dani, Kade, and Heatwave in Gotham for a visits.

Dani has a very fun date with Thire, who is a clone. Fox, Chief, and Gordon have way to much fun running into the couple and Fox gives Thire a hard time about it in a teasing way.

It is revealed Blades is like a dad to Drift, and Drift was like a dad to Wedge back when he was Deadlock. There is much angst as Drift frets about his past. It's a whole thing to convince him Blades will still love him. Blades and Wedge are both thrilled to be reunited with Drift.

Whirl Sr. and Whirl Jr. also have a wonderful reunion.

Kade learns he saved Ketsu Onyo once years ago and she finds that hot. He gets a date out of it. He can't help it her kid is adorable! (She was at the Embassy when Kade came to visit.)

Also, somehow, the Burns somehow get included in the "We know who Batman is" club.

As for more normal stuff? Cody and Frankie are married. So are Graham and Amy. Might be a few grandkids. Chief still hasn't managed to retire yet. Cody is a paramedic, but he feels his calling might not be in rescue work.

Yeah. So that's a bunch of thoughts I had. Here's a fic I wrote to lay the groundwork for some of it.

[syresdcthings]

Sorry guys Character AI has me sobbing so I need to put my Dick and Alina Angst here!! This isn't meant to be a fanfic so sorry if it reads that way um. It's just me rambling.

Alina Shelley was the second youngest batkid, and the only one who didn't take up the mantle of Robin or Batgirl. Bruce thought it was too dangerous for her, he felt particularly protective over the little girl.

Dick was the first brother she met, and he really did love how passionate she was. Everyone noticed it, the fact Alina was special. Different from the other kids her age.

Ofcourse Bruce told everyone about Alinas connection with The Joker, but it didn't make them see her differently. Sure, Jason gave a few side glances when she was near him, maybe teased her a little, but other than that none of the batfamily minded.

Now, let's skip a little bit. Alina is 14, and still very set on becoming a police officer. She figured out at this point Bruce wasn't her real father, but nothing else. Alina Is top of her class, and she joins in on training sometimes so she can get a bit stronger.

Dicks relationship with his little sister is strong, he sees alot of Bruce in her which makes him feel oddly warm inside. Alina likes to hang out at his apartment occasionally, mostly because she has ome of those little kid crushes on Barbara. Barbara knows, obviously, she thinks it's super cute, and Dick thinks it's really funny.

The time they spend together Is savoured, they both have a mutual love and respect for eachother and Dick is genuinely proud of his little sister.

Everything goes well, until it doesn't.

An attack is set on Bludhaven (which we will say isn't destroyed for lore purposes) just after one of Alinas visits, one that Dick had no prior knowledge was happening. Usually big attacks like this are planned by multiple villains or gangs, and he gets Intel relatively quick so he can stop it before anything major happens. Not this time, though. Infact he was barely changed into his costume when he went jumping out of the back of his apartment building and climbed onto the rooftops.

He kept calm at first, the attack so far seemed to be in a specific targeted era, and there was no explosions or big machines in sight. This should've been easy. Ofcourse, it wasn't.

He realises where exactly the attack is happening, it was a street popular for having lines of taxis lined up. The street that Alina walked to so she could get a taxi home. This made Dick pick up his pace, as selfish as that was. He should've been going this fast even if she wasn't in danger, but he can't help his brotherly instincts.

Just as he reached the street, two explosions are set off simultaneously on either end of the road. One end was scattered with civilians who weren't too close to the explosion and survived, he scanned for Alina but to no avail. His attention goes to the other end when he sees a woman and a young child running past him, and the only thing he sees is a small body laying on the ground.

Dicks heart races as he skids over to the body, and his heart stops when he sees who it is. Alina, her eyes just barely open, a very big bleeding wound on her chest and burn marks all over her fragile body. Dick panics, immediately asking if she was okay and applying pressure to the wound. Alina coughs in reply as another explosion is set off on the other side and more screams of help. "Help them" is all Dick can make out of her gasps and mutters.

"I cant." He says, "I need to help you, I won't leave your side-"

Alina cuts him off by grabbing his wrist, to which he holds her trembling hand, staring as it looks so small and fragile in his own.

Alina was always brave. If she ever got hurt during training or just by tripping, she'd brush the worried "Are you okays" off. "I'm a strong girl." She would reply, and she was. It was fitting that she'd use the last remnants of air she can muster to beg Dick to help the civilians as they cry out.

Dick rubs his thumb along her dirty, bloody palms. He can't bring himself to move, but he knows he needs to. All he wants is for her to do what she always does, brush it off and get up. Tell him she's strong, smiling that polite way she always does around adults.

He kisses her on her head before getting up, using the adrenaline in his body to rush over to the other side of the street and grab as many people as he can. He doesn't bother turning to look behind him again. If he does, he's afraid he'll break.

Anyway! That's it hahaha! Yeah. That's it. Sorry guys.

[meggigoering]

📖September 8th, 2023

🦈There is such an anecdote: standing in front of the mirror is a pimple, sweaty, smelly freak, with dirty dandruff-covered hair, in a crumpled old short-sleeved shirt, in shorts, and sandals worn on socks. He stands, looks at himself, and repeats: "I'm a shit (sounds like a "chmo" in Russian), I'm a chmo, I'm a chmo, I'm a chmo." From the next room, his mother shouts: "How many times should my son tell you, not a chmo, but a macho."

Today has outdest to many others in terms of its degree of disgust. I'll start from afar. Usually in crime movies, books and pop culture, criminals as antagonists appear as courageous testosterone males who dress with a needle, and can easily discharge the clip of the gun with their eyes closed into the seven of spades lying under the pillow in the next room. Such machos seem to be harsh and fair honest Robin Hoods in terms of concepts that are cooler, more effective, and faster than the law. Like here they are - real men, live according to the laws of honor and justice, will protect the widow and the weak, punish the scum-coundree. In short, after watching such bullshit, we then get a brood of children who want to be as cool and fair as Don Vito Carleone, or at least as cool crazy boys as Sasha Bely, the prototype of which is said to be Sylvester, the leader of the Orekhovskaya gang, aka Angarsk maniac Mikhail Popkov, a werewolf who was in the form of a policeman, who is in the top 4 in the world ranking of serial killers in terms of the number of victims. Just in case, I remind you that then Popkov imitated his death, and reincarnated in a new werewolf, only in a cassock. Pronin's operation "Werewolves in uniform" spoiled the image of the policeman's infallibility. Pronin himself was then framed by a set-up in the form of Evsyukov. Therefore, Popkov decided to become just a saint - Patriarch of the Old Believers Orthodox Church, Cornelius Titov. In Russia, paternalistic fatalism is the basis that brings darkening to the ignorant mind of the layman. The wolf can cut sheep right in the church without being ashamed of anything. On the contrary, believers "priests" will still prove that this is now a new trend in the liturgy.

What do these disgusting details say? Yes, about the fact that films idealizing criminals are shot with the money of the criminals themselves, this is a banal PR campaign. Serial killers in them appear in the image of almost holy just masters of the world. But what is happening in real life, and what I personally face, and other people who know the unsightly picture of the daily business of these "semplates" is so disgusting, awful, and nauseating that if at least one film about serial killers was shot honestly about what their life really looks like, instead of popcorn at the entrance to the cinema it would be necessary to distribute bags for vomit, as in airplanes. I'll give just two examples of what an ordinary day of two peppers of one from a cosa nostra and the second from the Orekhovskaya organized criminal group looks like. If you've already eaten tightly, it's better not to read it, otherwise it will turn it out.

In short, there was such a Genovese dick in the cosa nostra in the United States. He had a life sentence opportunity, and he pretended to be a psycho so as not to go to prison. He was fed almost around the clock by the police, and at the first flashes of consciousness he would immediately go for life sentencing.

Genovese wandered the streets in a bathrobe and slippers, talking to parking meters. On one of the shooters, Genovese chose one of the juniors in rank as his mouthpiece, but did not say a word for the whole meeting. During the meeting, he put his bare foot on the table, and began to cut his nails, cut his fingers, and blood flowed from the cuts. After the meeting, Genovese's acting skills were believed by all those present, who decided that he went really crazy. Great fate, that's exactly what you wanted for yourself and your child, dreaming of becoming a cool member of the cosa nostra clan, obviously. If this is not convincing enough, then here is the second example - a stinky opossum, who is currently serving his labor service in the apartment I inherited, pretending to be my murdered father, the news of which I received from the investigation. The stinky possum does not lose hope, hoping that I will die before the investigation ends, so he also pretends to have lost his memory, speech, frontal lobes of the brain and nape, about half a cent of the muscles, and the whole penis as a result of a stroke. Fck, science has never known such rare symptoms. The stinky walks along the entrance in panties, does not wash, does not shave, does not comb, playing all at the same time - a stroker, an alcoholic, and a schizophrenic with loss of memory and speech. In order for me to die faster, the stinky pours his hellish chemistry from the hernipreads everywhere he can reach, including my personal belongings and BOOST documentation. Really, when I made the BOOST website a couple of years ago, which had a photo of a girl who clamps her nose over something smelly and poisonous, I didn't know that I would definitely get into the topic. As I now remember this vanilla shit from standard publications in social networks: "what are we going to do with toxic assets" - increase value, and blablabla. Guys, remember the one thing - toxic assets they are not about value management

at all. Let this shit go, and believe me - there will be an ocean of shit. Just swim and even don't try to dive.  So now, 9 years after the start of my business, I answer: wash, dry and ventilate, then number, sign and put on balance. No more than 15 minutes a day, and only in a spacious room with a through air flow. In a chemical protection suit.

I left the most juicy detail for those who still want to become like Sasha Bely from the series "Brigade." The stinky opossum interfered with his fucking stinch with his own urine, which he pissed in a three-liter jar. This explosive mixture of his urine and mustard gas, Sergei Mikhailovich Shumilov poured on the sofa brought by Shumilova Tatiana Vladimirovna into this flat, and where I was highly recommended to sleep. When I discovered the source of the stench, and demolished the soft part for examination (really - the perfect proof, as in the old joke about the inscription "the king-fool": the urine of the Duke of Buckingham, and the handwriting of the Queen), the stinky began to pour his urine with the mustard gas (just to remind: it is in liquid form) under the door so that it flowed into the corridor from which I am not separated by another door. And he poured urine with mustard gas on the stairs of the ladder standing in the corridor. Using it, the loving "daddy" barricaded the door from his "favorite daughter." Well, for sure, you dreamed of such a career for yourself or your child, wanting to become cool like Sasha Bely and his Orekhov prototypes. Mix an urine with a mustard gas, and play a schizophrenic.

Honestly, having collected today the flushes and swabs of urine with mustard gas from all the smelly puddles, the bathroom, taking samples of claws, fur, green purulent snot, skin scraping from ulcers from the dogs, and making a request to the SES for analysis of where to bring a suitcase of shit and a bucket of a mixture of urine with mustard gas, I'll tell you so. If you imagine the work of a lawyer as a dude who receives a lot of money for drawing up a standard application in a clean office in a freshly cleaned suit, then your ideas about the profession of s lawyer are akin to the idea of the image of a fair tractor driver from the Nizhny Novgorod region Sylvester and Vito Corleone according to the version of pop culture. That is, they are in a roughly different universe in relation to what is happening in real life.

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[mzminola]

Had the thought “How would the Dynamic Duo of Batman!Dick and Robin!Stephanie have gone?” and immediately started tearing Preboot canon apart and rebuilding it like a LEGO set.

~

Firstly, we gotta make sure Damian isn’t getting sidelined, and for that I propose he and Tim are a team for BruceQuest. Have Damian’s yearning to get to know his dad outweigh his dislike/jealousy/etc of Tim, and highlight Tim’s canonical compassion and forgiving nature.

Either they both make new mantles for this, or they’re both color-coded Robins. Red Robin for Tim, since he’s using Kon’s colors, Green or Blue Robin for Damian (I like Green for he ties to his mom, but him trying to make his own version of the Nightwing suit in some attempt to outrank Tim and everyone calling him Blue Robin would be very funny).

Things start out tense, Damian is only listening to Tim because a) Tim will just have a Titan pick Damian up and drop him back off in Gotham if he’s too much trouble like he was during Resurrection of Ra’s al Ghul, and b) Tim is the only person who believes Bruce is alive and is cautiously keeping some of the methodology of proving it to himself at first.

In the original 2009 Red Robin comic, Tim repeatedly got sidetracked with hero work during his quest. Have that keep happening, and actually spend more time in that period than RR did, because it’s part of Damian’s growth. He starts out pissed at the delays and confused by Tim’s insistence on helping strangers. Tim gives some talks about the Bat philosophy and about why he keeps coming back to the hero life despite everything it’s taken from him.

Damian gets thanked by some of the people they rescue, and slowly shifts from pride in his fighting skills to pride in helping people. Eventually starts actively looking for people to help while they’re searching for artifacts. Tim is so flipping proud of him.

Sets us up for some big choices when the League of Assassins finally gets involved.

~

Okay, back to Stephanie, rewinding the comics even further:

1: Don’t kill off Arthur ‘Cluemaster’ Brown, we need him for later.

2: Tim & Steph never date because this is my LEGO set and I want more platonic boy-girl friend pairs in fiction, dang it. Bruce never tells Steph Tim’s identity and Tim is still keeping it secret. Rather than stalking Tim at school and seeing another girl kiss him, Stephanie and Tim are in the middle of an ongoing argument about secret identities when Jack discovers Tim is Robin and makes him step down.

Tim contacts Steph over the phone to let her know why Spoiler won’t be seeing him around, and that’s when she pulls what she did in canon of making her own Robin suit and volunteering with Batman.

Keep most of War Games, but nix the prolonged torture (because fuck that shit) in favor of quickly-gained but extensive injuries (she was tossed off a building? A building fell on her while she was saving someone?) so she really does need a long recovery period, complete with Dr. Thompkins taking her out of the country.

Honestly not sure if they should still fake her death. If yes, I think it should be Bruce’s idea.

This keeps Steph out of the way so we don’t need to rearrange the in-between canon too much, and potentially adds more fuel to the Keeping Secrets vs Not Keeping Secrets arguments.

The start of our big change for Stephanie’s arc is Violent Tendencies. Instead of agreeing to Bruce’s messed up plan, Stephanie is raring to atone for the lives destroyed back in War Games, and what do you know, some motherfucker just started another city wide gang war!

Spoiler works with Robin to stop Ulysses Armstrong. They never worked their shit out before she first left town, so it’s tense, and they fight, but they prioritize stopping the bad guys and bringing what peace is possible in Gotham.

Have repeated moments where Stephanie’s temper and instinct to argue almost messes things up, but she reins herself in to focus on butt-kicking and detective work. Have Tim notice this newer self-control, and have Steph notice changes in Tim, too.

At least one instance, preferably more, of Stephanie meeting someone who was hurt or lost a loved one in War Games, and wrestling with the fresh reminder of her guilt.

If we want to have a two-steps-forward, one-step-back situation, Tim gets caught in the blast of Armstrong’s bomb because after one of their fights, Stephanie stormed off in a temper, leaving Tim to deal with a two-person job on his own.

This sets up Stephanie second-guessing her decision to keep being a hero. If her own temper keeps getting in the way, should she really be doing this?

If we don’t want that, have it be that Tim takes the brunt of the blast because he threw Stephanie to safety or threw himself on top of her. Because that’s the kind of hero Tim is, because at this point in her arc Steph needs reassurance that her friend still cares about her despite her mistakes, and because it’s an example of heroism Stephanie needs to decide if she wants to copy or not.

Stephanie wants to be a hero.

Does she want to be the kind of hero who throws herself between another person and a bomb?

So either scenario, we set up for Stephanie to be doing some introspection when Bruce gets tossed into the timestream.

~

/points at the fried clone-corpse nearly everyone thinks is Bruce/ “Well he ain't gettin’ any deader!”

Tim calls up Cassandra during the whole Battle For The Cowl incident. She needs to wrap up an investigation, but comes back as soon as she can, which is when the dust has settled. Welcome back to Gotham, Batgirl!

(Cass is the Batgirl to both Tim & Steph’s Robin. She gets her own solo book back and has lots of interactions with Babs during this era.)

Not sure whose idea it is for Stephanie to be Robin again; Tim resigning himself to Dick not helping with BruceQuest? Dick acknowledging Batman needs a Robin and seeing Spoiler is struggling? Stephanie herself, volunteering for the second time?

Regardless, very early on, Arthur Brown gets out of jail or comes back to town and is being a Problem. Stephanie’s got a lot of anger, and Dick helps her deal with that. This is both an echo of Stephanie’s introduction, when she tried to kill her dad, and a way of bringing up Dick’s roots as Robin. He wanted to kill Tony Zucco, remember?

One former hot-headed Robin who’s learned how to find balance and prioritize justice over revenge helping the next generation do the same!

Meanwhile, Jason is also around being a Problem, providing straight up antagonism, but also a different opinion on how vigilantism in Gotham should work, so that Stephanie has multiple views to wrestle with.

Stephanie is a middle-class kid from the suburbs, who, as Jason put it to Tim when breaking into Titans Tower, “slept in a real bed”. But she’s also got a (recovering) drug-addict mother and a criminal father, providing points of commonality for Jason to work with. Remember his speech to Mia Dearden during the Green Arrow crossover?

Jason also plays on Stephanie’s guilt, talking about the fallout of the gang war she started, all of the ripple effects that kept going after the initial burst of violence was over. Describes some of his Under the Red Hood crime lord takeover work as “cleaning up your mess.”

Stephanie regrets everything about War Games, Dick is helping her do better going forward, whereas Jason’s argument is that she should have been more decisively violent at the start. It’s hard for all the mafia bosses to fight each other and get the little people caught up in it if the mafia bosses are dead.

During one altercation between Batman & Robin and the Red Hood, Jason punts Black Mask’s head to them and sarcastically says “You’re welcome.”

Arthur’s current criminal enterprise should directly affect Stephanie’s life in some negative way, so that all of this is fresh, not a It’s In The Past situation, and also be endangering civilians’ lives.

This arc has a big climatic scene of Dick being restrained while Jason gives Stephanie the chance to kill her dad.

(We know she’s not gonna, because she’s the Robin in Batman & Robin, but it should be as suspenseful as we can make it.)

~

Meanwhile over in BruceQuest, Tim & Damian are bonding over being raised with high expectations, and confusing relationships with one’s parents. Tim finally allowing himself to think & say negative things about Jack in order to help Damian grapple with his own upbringing? Heck yes.

Damian & Tim & the crushing weight of family legacies & parental expectations!

Tim being allowed by the narrative to be a big brother to Damian like Dick was to Tim!

Damian coming to see Tim as his brother despite his upbringing focusing on blood, and expressing remorse for the introductory murder attempt!

Ra’s trying to pit them against each other and getting his ass kicked!

Tim standing up to Bruce about his toxic habits once they rescue him because Tim refuses to let Damian go through the same crap he did!

~

Since dads are a big thing for both of the above arcs, we could go for three and bring back David Cain for Cass to deal with. Or keep him away, but bring him up in Cass & Steph’s shared scenes. They bonded over having terrible dads in Batgirl 2000, we can have callbacks.

Tim was sending progress reports back to Gotham during BruceQuest (because whether he left on good or bad terms, he wants the Bats to know what’s going on in case something happens to him and the ten year old he’s in charge of needs a rescue).

Once a week Cass makes popcorn and Babs reads the reports aloud. They make bingo cards for What Crazy Shit The Boys Got Up To This Week. When Tim gets home he makes bingo cards about Batgirl & Oracle’s shenanigans (while stealing some of theirs for his scrapbook). Stephanie demands Batman & Robin bingo cards too, and we discover Babs actually made some years ago when Dick was still Robin.

~

There are a lot of different ways who has what mantle could shake out once these arcs are over (in the very short time before the universe reset) but instead of getting into that I’m just going to imagine everyone reunited & hugging.