#where dick absolutely lost it once he realized what bruce had done to jason

[shahrwrites]

I’m a normal amount obsessed with them.

[bluejaysandblackbats]

Five Stages of Mamma Mia

Fandom: Batfam, DC Comics

Summary: AU where Catherine Johnson is Jason's bio mom and Jason doesn't know who his father is. (Jason Todd is Jason Johnson for fic reasons).

Chapters: 11/?

Characters: Jason Todd, Jason Blood, Catherine Todd Mention, Bruce Wayne, Willis Todd Mention

Relationship(s): Past Catherine Todd/Jason Blood, Past Catherine Todd/Bruce Wayne, Past Catherine Todd/Willis Todd

Additional Tags: Canon Divergent AU, Mamma Mia-inspired AU, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Long Lost/Secret Relatives, Father-Son Relationship(s), Jason Todd Experiences the Five Stages of Grief

Chapter Eleven: When All Is Said And Done (Bargaining)

Jason slept until late into the night, tossing and turning, mumbling something about his mother. After a few minutes, he sat up with a start and called out for her. Jason took a breath once he realized where he was, but seeing Bruce in the room startled him so terribly that he hit the back of his head on the headboard. "Ouch!" Jason whined. Bruce jumped up from his chair and checked the back of Jason's head. "I'm okay, you just—. You scared me," Jason reassured him. Bruce relaxed his shoulders. "I've only had one other child in my life, and —objectively speaking— I was terrible with him. I made a lot of mistakes with how I—. That's not your problem. I'm oversharing, aren't I?" Bruce smiled an awkward half-smile.

"It's okay... Does your other kid not like you or something?" Jason asked. "Dick's his name... Right?" Bruce nodded.

"How do you feel?" Bruce asked. Jason nodded. "You—." "Mr. Blood went out, didn't he?" Jason interrupted. Bruce nodded his head. "You're probably not doing as bad—. Well, I'll show you." Jason carefully pulled out the small stack of photos from his mother's diary and looked through them until he found one of himself and Catherine when he was four. He handed it to Bruce. "How'd you end up in the hospital?" Bruce asked. "I met the third guy once, I think. Willis. He babysat me for a couple of days when my mom was sick. He gave me a watch. I tried to sell it to buy food when I got older, and do you know the pawn shop owner had me arrested?" Jason chewed his lip as he held back tears. He took a deep breath. "I never thought that he could be my dad. Why would I? I mean... What kind of dad offers you a watch and then beats you so badly that you end up in the hospital for a week and a half because you won't take it?" Jason turned his head and wiped his tears away with one swipe of his sleeve. "Jason—." "Before that happened, he was nice to me. So nice that after my mom came home and called 9-1-1 and I woke up in the hospital, I lied to the police. My mom told me to tell the truth, and I wouldn't. I didn't want to get him in trouble. I'd never seen my mom that mad at a guy before... I think that's the only time I was ever afraid of her. Looking back, I think she was hurt because she trusted him. She'd only ever left me with him. Nobody else. Ever," Jason let out a shaky breath, "I wished I had told the truth when she was alive." "He's dead," Bruce revealed without thinking. Jason pulled his knees up to his chest and swallowed hard. "Did you—? Did—?" "No. No, absolutely not. I don't kill anyone," Bruce reassured Jason. "I wasn't supposed to tell you that until Jason—. Mr. Blood got back. And if you said all that to me because you're afraid of me, you don't have to worry." "I didn't tell you because of that. I told you because I couldn't remember it until now, and I wanted you to know the bar isn't all that high for me," Jason whispered. Bruce sat at the edge of Jason's bed. "You're gonna stay here even after I go back to sleep, right?" Bruce nodded. Jason lay down, and Bruce pulled his blankets up. "I feel like I should say something comforting," Bruce whispered. Jason shook his head. "Can you tell me a story instead?" Jason asked. Bruce nodded and moved to sit in the chair across the room, but Jason grabbed his arm. "I just shared something about my childhood with you. You don't have to go." Bruce nodded and lay back.

"Okay... Are you too old for fairy stories?" Bruce asked. Jason nodded. "You want something real or a metaphor?" "A metaphor," Jason whispered. Bruce settled in and took a breath. "There used to be a strawberry patch at the center of the world. It was the first of its kind, and since then, there's never been another like it... In that strawberry patch lived all sorts of creatures. Snails and frogs, cats and dogs, but most importantly, birds... And as I said, the strawberries were special. The seeds were no ordinary seeds. "The seeds weren't seeds at all. They were jewels that granted wishes. Their heart's deepest desires were just a bite away, but there was a catch, as there always is... They could only make one wish a day. There were a variety of birds that lived near the strawberry patch. A starling, a magpie, and a jackdaw were among the few. "The first to make a wish was a goldfinch. The goldfinch ate a single strawberry and wished to be warriors. They fiercely protected their own but often succumbed to bouts of cruelty. "The magpie came next. It had stars in its eyes and wished for riches. However, the concept of wealth was subjective, and the magpie's eye for things that glittered in the sun proved to be too much for the little bird—." Jason breathed heavily before throwing an arm over Bruce. "Jason? I never told you what the jackdaw wished for," Bruce whispered, "The jackdaw wished for nothing... And in turn, he got everything..." Bruce patted Jason's arm and smiled at him. Etrigan entered through Jason's window and pressed a kiss to the boy's forehead. He left the room without a word, and Bruce stayed in place by Jason's side. "I think you ended up with three fathers anyway," Bruce grinned, "Sweet dreams, I guess." He stared at the ceiling, wondering if he'd made a mistake telling Jason about Willis Todd. He'd have to explain that to Mr. Blood in the morning.

[justcourttee]

Hey. Can you write one where the batfam visits Marinette at school and the class is just plain surprised and chaos ensues. You can include any salt (if yes, preferably Alya and a jealous Adien). Ship is daminette with sibling Jasonette or something like that. Thanks

Sorry It’s a little late! I hope this is something like what you had in mind :)) @long-lost-peace

Career Day

“-And it was just terrible Damian! Lila literally stood in front of the class and told them how she tried to get you all to come for career week, but that you all were just so busy in Thailand on a business trip that you just didn’t see how you could make it.”

Damian chuckled at his exasperated girlfriend. He knew how agitated this sausage haired woman made her, but his laughter couldn’t be helped. After all, every time she enters a rant, her little nose scrunches up in the cutest way that he couldn’t help but compare to the hamster she’s always wanted.

“Damiannnn, this isn’t funny! I was literally going to ask Dick if he could come for Friday’s session, Madame Bustier knew that too! So for her to step up and claim that it was all her idea? Gods, now he can’t even come because everyone will praise her for ‘convincing’ him to show up.”

“I know my love, what if father and I show up instead? Dick is on a business trip in Thailand right now, attempting to expand the company into further international business, but I’m sure even he would drop the meeting if you asked.”

Marinette let out a sigh as she slunk down into her seat, only the top of her head visible in the laptop camera.

“I know he would, but I’m retracting my ask. I really don’t want to deal with the backlash. Besides, it’s getting late. Chat will be expecting me for patrol in an hour and I haven’t even started my homework yet.”

Damian nodded as they said their goodbyes before signing off his computer. His hand absentmindedly reached for the small token the Marinette had given him just last summer. It was a river stone that she had engraved with the name he had first called her; Hobi.

He spun the stone several times before gently setting it back in its rightful spot. If he wanted to help his love, then he was going to need more chaotic energy than his own. Picking up his phone, Damian dialed a number he had learned by heart over the years. The phone had barely rung twice before the man answered.

“What up demon spawn? Ready to cause some trouble for dear old dad?”

Damian rolled his eyes trying not to imagine what Jason could’ve possibly meant. Instead, he turned his focus to the task at hand.

“This is more important Todd. Marinette needs our help.”

There was a momentary pause on the other side of the phone and for a brief second, Damian was tempted to check to see if Jason had accidentally hung up on him. (it wouldn’t have been the first time.) He was both relieved and perplexed when a sound rang through the background that was suspiciously similar to a gun being loaded.

“Well, why didn’t you start with that Damian? Who exactly do I have to kill?”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . .

Career week couldn’t come to an end fast enough for Marinette. Hearing Lila’s false tears over her Damiboo and favorite brother-in-law not being able to make it despite her constant begging was both infuriating and a bit nauseating. She was almost certain that if Damian heard the word Damiboo uttered in a half-mile radius of himself, he would bring down his sword on that person’s neck.

“Alright class, settle down.” Madame Bustier walked into the room, an ear-splitting grin accompanying her. “We have a few very special guests to finish off this Career Week. In fact, one of your own classmates made this meeting happen!”

The class muttered excitedly as all eyes landed on Lila in the front row. Marinette placed her head on her desk, ignoring Adrien’s hand attempting to rub calming circles in her back. She was 100% done with this week.

“Please welcome Bruce Wayne and his associates here to talk about the world of Entrepreneurship.”

Several jaws hit the desks as Bruce walked in, Jason and Damian in tow, all wearing bright smiles. Marinette sat up so fast that her back crushed Adrien’s hand into the bench behind them.

“Ouch, excited much my lady?”

Marinette ignored his teasing as her eyes narrowed in on her boyfriend standing in the front of the room, an absolute shit-eating grin gracing his face.

“Oh no.” Adrien followed her stare down to the boy in the front of the room, instantly feeling a dislike for him. If his lady was uncomfortable, then so was he.

“Thank you for having me Madame Bustier and on such short notice. I realize that Marinette said it would only be my son Dick Grayson, but seeing as he was away for a business trip, I just knew I couldn’t leave our favorite Parisian high and dry.”

There was an instant silence across the room as all eyes turned from where Lila sat in the front row to where Marinette sat in the back. She wanted to shrink in her seat and disappear from the number of people looking at her, but it felt impossible.

“Anyways, I would like to start my presentation by stating-”

“Excuse me, sir!” Alya’s hand shot into the air, her stare intense as some of Gotham’s finest.

“Uhm I haven’t covered any information yet Miss, did you have a question about my flight?”

A few chuckles sounded throughout the classroom, but that didn’t seem to stop Alya as she stood, her arms crossed in front of her body.

“I believe you owe my best friend an apology. Marinette didn’t get you here, Lila did.”

Bruce’s eyebrows furrowed as he looked back to where Jason and Damian stood.

“I didn’t get your girlfriend’s name wrong, did I, Damian?”

Damian shook his head, his grin pulling into a smirk as his eyes met Marinette’s.

“I would hope you didn’t father. After all, you have known her for years now.”

Bruce nodded thoughtfully as if considering Damian’s information as a possibility.

“So as I was saying, thanks to Marinette-”

“You mean Lila? Damian, how could you mix up your own fiancee with a shell of a human being like Marinette.”

Damian took a step forward, one hand on his shoulder holding him back as Jason sent a wink in his direction.

“Madame Bustier, if I understood right, Brucie here offered a free trip for your class to the Thailand location this winter if they could sit through just one measly presentation. Are you really going to let this rude child ruin that for the rest of the class?”

Bustier’s smile wavered as she turned her attention to where Alya sat, motioning for her to sit and zip her lips. With a great huff of annoyance, Alya compiled.

“Excellent, now that we can begin-”

“I’m just saying, Mr. Wayne. Lila did all this hard work, attended all your charity functions, helped your city’s heroes, and is betrothed to your son. How could you not recognize her?”

Madame Bustier tried to wave Alya down once more but it was useless.

“Alya, is it?” the girl nodded confidently as she slung her arm around Lila’s shoulders. “I suggest that whoever this Lila person is, you should reconsider your friendship with her. If you or she were caught spreading rumors about another billionaire besides myself, you might not make it off so easily. We take defamation very seriously as it could hurt our empires. Take that as lesson one for Entrepreneurship; always know who you’re working with.”

Alya’s mouth gaped like a fish out of water as she slipped back down into her seat, her eyes burning holes into the side of Lila’s head. With the new peace, Bruce continued his presentation with the full attention of the rest of the class. When the time came for questions, every hand but two were raised high.

“How about you sir? The blonde in the back beside Marinette.”

Adrien stood, his eyes narrowed in on Damian.

“You said the first lesson was to always know who you’re working with, well, did you know that your son is a liar?”

Another round of hushed whispers echoed through the room as Adrien took the first step down toward the front of the classroom. Bruce cocked his head to the side as he instinctively put out a hand to catch Damian before he could move forward.

“How would you justify that kid?”

Adrien stepped closer, his posture rigid as his stare never left Damian’s face.

“Well, he’s been telling you that he’s been dating Marinette, but that is a lie. Marinette is my girlfriend.”

Damian’s fist curled as Jason took a step to intercept the two boys.

“I think you forgot to put a space between the girl and friend sir. You see, demon spawn here and pixie pop up there are together, no space. You and pixie pop are just friends.”

Everyone’s eyes shifted uneasily between the men, unsure of who was going to strike first. No one was given the chance as Marinette raced down the stairs, pulling Bustier to the side. Her whispers were harsh and rushed and when she pulled back, all the color from the teacher’s face had drained.

“That’s enough Adrien, I wouldn’t want to bother your father over an inconvenience like this.”

The boy's mouth closed tightly as he turned his attention to where Marinette stood, a sudden feeling of nausea coursing through him. Did she really just pull that card here? In front of everyone?

He couldn’t say a word as he marched back to his seat, ignoring the many questions that were thrown his way.

“Well, I’m sorry to everyone that had real questions, but this stunt seemed to have taken up all of my time. Madam Bustier, do you mind if I check Marinette out of school early?”

The teacher could only nod as the men swept Marinette out of the room before she could protest. She waited until they had reached the car before turning on the men, hitting each of them as hard as she could. Three simultaneous ow’s sounded through the courtyard.

“Pixie pop, what was that for?” Jason’s whining was shut down instantly with one cold look.

“I told you all not to come! You totally just made everything worse.”

Bruce risked a step forward as he pulled her into a hug.

“Marinette, you mean the world to this family. Defamation to the Wayne family needs to be shut down instantly. That Alya girl is bad for your emotional state, the Lila one as well.”

Marinette tried to deny his accusations, but Bruce refused to hear any of it. He pulled back, opening the door to push Jason inside, slamming it shut before he could fight back. With the other two gone, Marinette was forced to face her boyfriend.

“Hobi-”

“Don’t start with your cute nicknames. What was that scene with Adrien?”

“He was the jealous one! I can’t help if he tried to attack me.” Damian crossed his arms in defiance, ignoring the daggers Marinette’s eyes were shooting.

“You know he’s just a friend mon amour, you are the only one I want.”

Damian grumbled under his breath as he allowed himself to be pulled into Marinette’s embrace. After a few minutes, he pulled back, a curiosity overtaking his face.

“What did you say to the teacher to cause her to stifle Agreste?”

Marinette’s smile was devilish. It would almost be cute if it wasn’t so terrifying.

“I just reminded her that defamation was taken very seriously and that if she didn’t stop Adrien, he could have started a full-blown legal battle between two very powerful men, leaving the school and her job in the crossfires.”

Damian placed a kiss on her forehead before moving towards the car.

“Hobi, you amaze me at every turn.”

Marinette rolled her eyes as she allowed him to help her into the car. She would deny till her last breath that she was grateful for that particular Career Day, but the one thing she couldn’t deny was how much she loved the Wayne boys.

Permanent Tag List:

@damianette-is-life @ash-amg @rebecarojas07 @long-lost-peace @heaven428 @thequeenofpotatoeunicornss @moongoddesskiana @nach0ava

[catxsnow]

I want to see Tim go absolutely feral.

Tim Drake, the guy who always has the right intentions, even with the sometimes wrong means of doing so. The guy that always seems to know what he's doing and is always one step ahead. The guy that always has everything under control because he's already planned everything out from the moment he steps into a room.

It always seems that he's so in control of every situation that nothing could go wrong. It's true for the longest time. Bruce trusts Tim to keep everyone safe on his own. If there's anyone that's going to get every civilian out alive, it's him. Everyone knows that Tim won't ever cross that line.

Until he does.

It was an accident, it really was. Tim had been getting stronger, his moves more agile than ever before. He didn't realize just how hard he could swing his bo-staff and just how precise a hit to the temple could be. Tim didn't realize that he had taken the last breath of a man until it was too late.

He wasn't scared of what Bruce was going to say, or Dick, or Jason - or anyone. That wasn't what he was scared of. It wasn't that he was petrified at how easy it was to kill someone. No, Tim was scared because everything that he had ever done finally clicked into place. Why was he the one that had to risk his life to save the bad guys? Why was he the one that needed to reach the brink of death just so that some scumbag could live and breathe again?

Tim couldn't take it anymore. He couldn't keep putting himself out there when he knew there was a better way. And so he did the one thing Batman refused to do: he killed. Tim broke free of this ridiculous rule that Bruce instilled into him. He was tired of it, tired of coming home broken and bruised.

They were minor at first - criminals scumbags that had no family and no one to miss them. Breaking free of Batman's vice grip of justice to find his own way - the better way. His brother's trying to bring him back before it was too late. His friends were unsure of what happened to their headstrong leader.

Tim got lost in the darkness far quicker than some of their enemies. He worked his way up from petty criminals to the ones that really matter. Boomerang. Calculator. Clock King. Kid Crusader. Mad Hatter. Joker. Ra's al Ghul.

It's Ra's that finally tips the scales. His brother's siding with Bruce on his quest to stop Tim. Cassie and Bart realizing that Tim has completely lost his moral sense of direction. It's Kon that stays with him. Kon believed in his best friend because Tim has never proven him wrong.

It's when he's standing above Ra's dead body does everyone realizes just how far he's gone. The league in shambles, blood soaking his hands, the criminals of Gotham - hell, of the world are starting to fear the Robin that they never had to worry about before. Everyone is scared because Tim's lost it.

Tim's gone completely feral against his enemies because he's so fucking bad at himself for wasting his years bedridden and in pain when he could have been doing this all along. He's pissed at Bruce for persuading him to fall under his moral code and keep everyone alive. Why is it his choice that everyone gets to live?

Why does the Bat get to decide that the people that have killed so many get to keep breathing themselves? He shouldn't have that power. No one deserves to say that people like Joker get to keep living after everything they've done. Tim couldn't stand by anymore - whether or not Bruce agreed with his plans.

So when the day comes that Bruce has to face his son, it's horrendous. It's not very often that Tim has seen Bruce cry. Damian's death. Jason coming back to life. Dick getting shot in the head by KGBeast. There are very few cases that Bruce breaks down. Seeing Tim for the first time since Boomerang's death? That was one of those times.

Tim's bo-staff is blood-stained. His knuckles bruised and scarred far worse than ever before. New cuts on facing from facing his foes like never before. It's not the physicality of it all that makes Bruce like this. It's the look in Tim's eyes that breaks his heart.

The look of someone who doesn't care that they've killed, that takes pride in those that they've killed. Tim's got that empty, horrendous look in his eyes that Bruce has only ever seen that look in the people that Tim's already killed. No one came back once they had that look in their eyes.

It's that night that Tim realizes that he can't have anyone getting in his way - not when the safety of everyone is at stake. Why stop at the Joker or Ra's? Lex, Deathstroke, hell even Darkseid? Why let those people roam free when they can be stopped? Tim has the power, he's always had the power to put an end to it.

It was Bruce's code that held him back before, and now, it was Bruce himself. So Tim gives him the ultimatum - stay out of his way, or become an enemy. If there was one thing about Batman that Tim knew, it was that he was never going to stand aside when someone was in harm's way.

So what was Tim supposed to do? Let Bruce take him to Arkham to miraculously bring him back to his old self? Nothing about him had changed - he was still the same boy he once was. The difference was now his mind had been cleared of all tainting Bruce had cast on him. Tim couldn't lose to Bruce, not when he still had so much work to do.

Tim did what he had to. He did what no one else in Gotham managed to do. He got rid of the Bat, once and for all.

With Bruce Wayne gone, Tim had no one holding him back. No one to try and sway his moral compass that all this killing was wrong. No one to stop him from cleaning up the world from people that didn't deserve another breath. Batman was gone, and it was Tim's turn to be the protector of Gotham - the right way to protect Gotham.

It was at that moment did everyone realize just how far he was willing to go. Clark, who swore that Bruce could bring his son back home. Dick, who was horrified that Tim was able to go as far as to kill his adoptive father. Kon, who swore that Tim always knew what was right, suddenly faltering at every choice he's made.

Kon, who realizes that this whole time that he was back Tim up, that he was only pushing his father and father towards the edge. Killing Bruce, that had been the final push to get him to fall. Tim would never be able to return to that ledge, not when he had dived headfirst off of it. Kon, who realized that he was the one that was encouraging his best friend to become a monster.

Dick, who knows that he has to face Tim for what he's done. Dick, who tries to stand up against his little brother who murdered their father. Dick, who's on his knees, pleading for Tim to realize what he was doing and that he was going too far. He could forgive him for Ra's, JOker, hell all the other petty criminals that had been disposed of. But Bruce?

Bruce who had given them so much had created this life for them when they had nothing else. Dick couldn't look past that, he could never look past that.

When Tim gives him the ultimatum - the same one that he had given Bruce - Dick can't accept. He can't get on board with this, this mad way of justice. Dick lets Tim defeat him because he can't fight his brother, not even after everything that he's done. All he can see while looking up at Tim from his knees is the little boy that was so filled with joy, so filled with hope to make the world a better place.

Dick's broken because how the hell was he supposed to stop someone who he practically raised, that would now go to no end to take out every criminal he could. How is he supposed to take down Tim until he can't get back up when all he can think about was the first time that he brought Tim to the Titan's Tower and seeing the same joy on his face the first time he arrived all those years ago.

Tim falters, only for a moment. He can't take Dick down as easily as Bruce because he knows that the only reason that he's given up is because he is too broken to fight back. Dick has so much hope in him that Tim will realize that this is wrong. He doesn't; he doesn't realize that what he's doing is wrong because he's not wrong.

It's that split second that everything happens so fast that he can't control it for the first time since he started this mission. Dick moving so fast in one last hope that Tim will come back as himself because he sees that flash of hesitance. It's his last mistake. Tim moves out of reaction, not thinking about his movements but pushing Dick so hard that he stumbles towards the ledge of the building they're upon.

Dick grabbing onto the ledge with all his strength with Tim just standing above him, staring at his brother without thinking to help him back up. He gives him the same ultimatum once more. Dick doesn't have the voice to reply, his throat is tight and it feels like claws dragging down it. He can’t breath, can’t think properly. Dick’s destroyed at what’s become of his brother. 

He doesn't need a response, it's his release of the ledge that answers Tim's question.

Dick takes a final fall, just as his parents had. The fall that started this whole thing - that brought Tim to where he is now. The fall that ended the Grayson family, once and for all.

another (longer than ten minutes this time I promise) ficlet angst! Because apparently I like making you suffer. Had some help this time with @pricetagofficial @river-bottom-nightmare @screennamealreadyused and @subtleappreciation

[iphoenixrising]

More on the Robinpile Soulmate au

You know, babes, people and their wonderful, encouraging comments on that work in progress are fucking beautiful, so.

I’m going to put a little snippet down that’s probably going to rip at your heart strings and spoil the story a bit for you if you decide to read this small bit. So, just FYI Spoiler. 

But, if you’d like a little more on how that story is going to go, welp. here you are *bows*

Note: not formatted or beta read. 

After so much careful planning and preparation, Plan C is a go. 

Robin is running over rooftops, scanning every shadow for a hint of Red Robin in Gotham. Nightwing and the Red Hood, Black Bat, Batgirl, and Signal are all in crucial parts of the city, on the lookout as well.

He, Jason, and Dick have spent weeks preparing for this, hoping their last-ditch effort would be enough to convince Tim his time as Robin hadn’t been in vain, that he was still, would always be a Bat. 

That is the goal tonight, not to try convincing him to give them a chance as soulmates because that is likely impossible, but they could start a much more important mission, to try in their own ways to give him back something they’d all taken. To try to show they knew what they’d done to him, and perhaps could start them on the road to make it right.

(He hopes there’s still a chance.)

Fabrication didn’t take long, but the coupe de gras certainly did. 

Word Red Robin would be in Gotham on the down-low gave them a chance to finally act, and Oracle promised them she would do her best to stall their soulmate until Robin could get to him.

And it’s a pang of pain, a lightning strike, when he catches up with Red on the roof of the Wallstone Apartments. The memory of the cut grapple line in the foreground of Robin’s thoughts.

“Please help,” Robin makes himself fall off his grapple to his knees, bent over, panting. “Red Robin, please.” 

(Not all of it is an act, not with how hard he was running to get to Red before he vanished into the city.)

The older vigilante kneels by him, out of immediate reach. 

“Where?” Is Tim’s Red Robin voice, a hand almost reaches out, clenches tight at the last second to draw back, and Robin sees the aborted move, has a flare of hope.

“Cannery Row–” and Robin rocks to the side, looks up at that closed expression, dares to let the fluttering in his chest give him strength.

Hands and arms around him, steady him, pull him up on his knees. He thinks about the grip Red Robin has on his shoulders to hold him up, how tightly Tim is able to hold on. A finger taps his mask so the whiteouts slide up, taking away some of his nightvision. He’s not concussed, is perfectly fine, but through his research, an injured (seemingly) teammate in need is one of Tim’s weaknesses. 

“Robin–”

“We need you, there is too much happening in the city tonight. We are all stretched too thin,” and there is nothing but the truth in his eyes, his demeanor, the way his gloved hand tightens in the cape over Red’s shoulder. 

“All right, stay here, call Hood or N to pick you up–”

But Robin staggers to his feet, “I can’t. I must get you to the safehouse. Everything we need is there.”

He keeps himself from a triumphant bellow when Red Robin paces him to the edge of the roof, grapple already in hand. 

Luckily, Cannery Row is close enough they don’t have to go far, just their past hanging between them, the connection that’s agonizingly cold and silent even when they’re side-by-side. 

Robin lands it this time on the roof of the familiar warehouse. He taps the comm unit on as he touches down, hopes Red won’t notice. 

They climb through a service elevator shaft, the two of them prying open the doors once they hit the underground floor. 

“Give me the details,” Red’s whole body tense as they lower themselves down into the darkness.

“Black Bat is in the Central Business District, Hood is by the Iceburg Lounge, Nightwing is in the Diamond District. Father is tracking down leads for a case, Batgirl is on her way to the Steel Mill. We still have no coverage for the situation in the City Hall District, but you cannot go alone.”

When they get the doors pried open, when Red Robin was close enough for his cape to brush against his, the underground is revealed in shadows, just as he, Jason, and Richard left it a few hours earlier.

(This is a newer Batman Incorporated holding. Robin is banking on the fact Tim might not know this, his heart starting to beat harder, faster when they get closer to the first stage of Plan C.)

The lights kick on as planned, and in the large expansive floor, a drop-cloth-covered something waits.

That’s all.

Red Robin is looking around for anything, searching for traps, evidence, something to give him an idea of what he’s walking into, back pressed against the elevator before he starts to step out. 

His vigilante instincts aren’t going crazy, but he stays close to the shadows as he sneaks out, leaving Robin behind in the elevator shaft to stay or follow.

(Where Damian has the next step in the plan waiting, a duffle bag he’d hidden in the panel of the elevator shaft. He’s fast and silent, throwing off his gloves, gauntlets, cape, and utility belt–)

His instincts still aren’t blaring dangerdangerdanger and his wrist computer isn’t picking up any foreign tech when Red Robin finally gets to the drop-cloth with a frown, wondering if they’ve come across a piece of shady tech or something. 

Which is really the only explanation for why Robin would come to him at all, everyone else busy in Gotham notwithstanding. 

He grips the cloth and pulls hard, muscles tense for whatever fuckey waits for him underneath. 

When he gets an eyeful, his knees go terribly weak for a long painful moment as he stares at–

The Red Bird.

“Oh...fuck,” because his eyes are instantly hot and full, making him blink rapidly behind the whiteouts.

And it gleams in the overhead lights, red and black and shiny, looks like it did the day Bruce showed it to him in the Cave, ready to tear into the night. 

His chest hitches and the possibility this could be a cruel joke hits him hard enough to choke.

(It’s because he rejected them. This sick shit is because he refused to let bygones be bygones.)

“Open the door, Tim. Everything you will need tonight is ready for you.” 

It’s Dami’s voice echoing behind him, not Robin’s, and Red can’t bring himself to look away, too many things churning in his brain pan around the shock and anger and regret and grief. It might be stupid for him to reach out, to make his wobbly knees work, to open the door with a bigger hand than the last time he did this. 

The inside is immaculate, even after years of disuse that Red Robin has to wonder how and why and what the absolute fuck is happening here?

But on the seat, folded neatly with all the bells and whistles, the shuriken R on the red tunic gleams bright in the halogen glow. His throat gets tight when he realizes it’s his original red, gold, and green–the colors of joy. 

The colors from the best years, before it all started to go horribly wrong.

A noise comes out of him, something low and pained before he can rein it in, before he can remind himself he’s already moved past the point this should still mean something. 

(But it does, it always has, it’s always meant so much, especially back when he was just a kid in a silent, empty house. It meant he had a place, a purpose, a presence at his back when things got to be too much, too overwhelming.)

And it’s stupid how helpless he is, how some part of him –small and weak as it is– can’t stop himself from reaching out to touch, to grab, to try to hold the fuck on.

(Not because of the name itself, never that, but everything he’d lost the second it had all been taken away. A final nail in the coffin, back to being that boy in an empty house.)

When he reaches for the suit, he holds it in both hands like he’s seeing things, chest stuttering on a breath when the scent of new leather and Kevlar proves he hasn’t been drugged or the sleep dep severely fucking with him. 

Stepping from the shadows, no longer in Robin but a black suit of some nameless ninja, Damian Wayne is holding the hood and face covering he’s going to wear for the night, waits until he sees how his soulmate will react to this possibly disastrous plan. 

He takes careful, tentative steps closer, taking in the hunched shoulders, bowed head, reaching into the Bond when it is ice cold in his chest.

“Wh-what the fuck is this?” Hoarse and painful from his, their Tim. And Dami’s hands automatically reach out in desperation to comfort before he remembers himself and hesitates. 

Even if the Bond on his side is closed, cold, silent, Damian breathes in and attempts to send calming, soothing feelings, tries to let his own emotions, his hope, his affection, his protectiveness, his respect, his reverence for this man be available should the Bond at any moment open even slightly. 

His soulmate’s rigid control to close himself off from them comes from years of training, of trying to protect himself is such a point of pain that some part of him thinks the three of them together could crash through if they tried, could break down those walls by force. 

But he’s here tonight, had worked so hard with N and Hood and Father and Batgirl and Black Bat and Oracle to plan it all, set it all up, because he’s different now, has learned what his actions had cost him, has realized he can’t go back to the old ways. 

Instead, he hopes they will have this last chance, will give Tim enough reasons to open up without fear, without pain.

(“It started with taking the cape,” Dick thinks aloud once the three of them are together after a long night, finding comfort, “he thinks he was kicked out of the family, so...this shouldn’t have been about soulmates in the first place.”

“I do not understand, Beloved,” Dami yawns, buried himself deeper against Jason’s chest.

“It’s not about gettin’ him like that, Sweets,” Jay replies, stroken a hand through his hair. “Might never happen…” 

“But, we could give him back some of what we took. He could finally come home again–”

Dami’s eyes open, “we...could give him back his place in the family. Or at least try to do so. Is that what you are saying?”

“Hm,” Jay grunts out, arms stealthy when he wraps them both up, rolls to put himself in the middle, “sounds like we godda last resort, now don’t it?”

“We’ll call it Plan C since it’s our last chance.”)

Plan C, indeed.

“Tim,” and he gives them only a few feet of space, no domino, no hood, no face coverings, no masks, holds up both hands in what he hopes is a peaceful gesture. 

Red Robin spins with a growl, muscles tense in fight or flight, ready to throw the fuck down because why fix up the Red Bird and bring it here of all places? What game is this? Haven’t they broken him enough?

But Damian isn’t in the tunic he was wearing less than ten minutes ago, and Red Robin stops cold at the obviously planned costume change.  He takes a careful step away from the very familiar suit Damian is wearing now, one that looks crazily like B’s when he was Tengu, trying to get himself back enough to take the cowl from Jean-Paul back when shit was crazy but even then he still had Nightwing at his back and–and…

What is wrong with him? He hasn’t thought about any of this in years. 

But still. But still, his eyes go to the gleaming Red Bird, and those better times well up from within, a place so deep, he’d convinced himself he’d left all of it behind. 

(Nightwing and Spoiler, school and the Cave, new baddies in Gotham to throw more crazy into the Rogue Gallery mix, teenage angst and sidekick wins, people at his back and front even in the worst of times. Being Red for the Titans was good, so good, but not ever the same. Not like it was when he was that Robin.)

He’s still holding the tunic in both hands, fists clenching it tight like something would have to pry his hands open to take it away (again) when what he really needs to do is throw it back in the Bird and get the absolute fuck out of here. Because this isn’t his anymore, apparently never should have been if the last few years were any kind of indication on the Tim Drake policy. 

“This is cruel, even for you,” is snarly and low, is simmering anger trying to cover up old pain, pissing him off even more because he’d finally gotten to the place where he could forget for a while. 

(And he’ll get there again. Even after all this.)

He makes his fingers unclench, throws the tunic back on the driver’s seat, but none of that covers up how hoarse his voice is, how tight his chest feels.

Dami just moves one hand, slowly pulls out his phone, thumbs the pass code to unlock the screen, and turns the device around to show Red what’s doing on the main screen.

His brain doesn’t process the image that’s him, one of the few existing pictures from years ago when he was still with Young Justice, the one of the core four making stupid faces, torn up from whatever space battle they’d just come back from, half-insane with sleep deprivation and injuries, only back to the planet for moments to celebrate not dying with pizza and Zestis, arms thrown around each other with rips and bruises and blood still staining the uniforms.

Why the fuck it meant something to Damian is the real question. 

“I was wrong, when I came to the Tower,” Damian takes a tentative step toward him, still holding the phone out like a distraction that was really a message. “I told you I wanted to know this man you are now. The man that is one of my soulmates. However...however, I was wrong, Tim. You were my soulmate even back then. You were mine, and even if you weren’t, you were already part of the family when I came to Father, and I did not even give you a chance. I did not see how important you were, what lengths you went to make that symbol your own.  I was terrified, young, foolish, but that is no excuse. What I should have been doing all this time is learning who you were back then before I attempted to approach you. Only by knowing that boy could I hope to understand this man.”

Wait, what now? How is this happening right now? All the awful things he’d secretly wanted to hear from the blood son, another chosen one. Another crux of his tangled emotions.

“I already told you I don’t need fucking soulmates. I rejected you.” He bites out, trying to breathe, trying to shove those emotions back down where they belong, trying to pretend the sight of the car, the tunic, the things he used to call his own, can’t touch him anymore. 

(But it still has power, so much fucking power to break him down to this, that scared kid in an empty house.)

After all these years, he’s moved on...right?

“I know, Beloved,” Dami puts his phone away, green eyes never leaving Red Robin’s tense form. “But this? Tonight? This has nothing to do with soulmates.”

Which is absolutely not what he expects to hear.

“Tonight is about my predecessor, Beloved, not my soulmate. This is for the Robin that stood in Gotham before me,” and it’s gentle in ways Red Robin never imagined Damian could be, not with him. “This,” and Damian sweeps a hand over the car, the suit, “is for the brother we never should have driven away. The one who gave this name his own brand of honor and power, the one who carved a place for himself in the family. Not as the third Robin in line, but as the first Tim Drake.”

Red Robin’s hands fall enough to be less of a threat. Other than that, he isn’t moving, is listening even if it’s grudgingly, even if it’s with disbelief, even if it’s with skepticism, and Damian smiles softly, so softly, at this beautiful, broken man before him.

“My place?” Is hoarse, a warmer edge that isn’t blank coldness, isn’t so much control. “In case you missed it, my place hasn’t mattered in the last few fucking years–”

“Hasn’t it?” And Dami’s eyes are so green, dark jade that catches in the light, easy to pick out. “Hasn’t it mattered?”

The obvious drawback is an opening, a misstep in the detective’s assumptions that Dami takes the opportunity for what it is.

“I know how it must seem,” and he makes himself stop stepping forward when every instinct in his body screams to approach, to reach out, to take this man in his arms, to whisper endearments, to apologize until the tears dry, until Tim’s arms can unlock, until he can start with the smallest measure of belief with splashes of powerful violet.  

“I know the years we’ve let you draw further away. I know there’s been disdain and cruelty until that’s all there was between us. And I did not choose to acknowledge it, my wrongdoings. It was easier to hide, Tim, just as it was for Jason and Richard and Father. We were cowards, but not once in all these years have you ever been simply forgotten.”

And here is where preparation for their detective is perfectly done when Damian whips out his utility belt computer and quietly holds it out, his hand trembling ever so slightly.

The evidence is there in clips of Todd sneaking into a familiar penthouse apartment with a bag of coffee in hand or taking a First Aid kit from under the kitchen counter to restock it, it’s there when video shows Richard in the Batsuit, in Nightwing, in Officer Grayson, in workout clothes, in jeans and t-shirt with both hands always pressed to the glass case with Tim’s first Robin suit, it’s there when Father sits on the bed in Tim’s old room over the years with a familiar shining, shuriken R flipping over the fingers of one hand. It’s there in the attempted hacks of Titan’s Tower when the Batcomputer pings with alerts of a bad fight for the Titans. It’s there in all the protocols when Ra’s starts movement against Red Robin, when their worst enemies are cataloged to the nines and contingencies from each member of the Batfamily are so obviously ready.

(With some pride in himself, Dami is the one that came up with the plan to take down Brother Blood, while Jason’s shoot-now-ask-questions-later is crucial to dealing with The Light. Grayson’s  experience with the Fearsome Five, Father’s methodical touch to deal with The Insiders.)

It’s there in the smallest details they’d silently done over the years (these things happening without the need to point out how necessary and does Damian ache with the knowledge how easy it could have been to reach out so many, many times), could be enough at a glance to start the seedlings of doubt in Red Robin’s firm belief his place has simply been forgotten.

And Damian hears it in the catch of breath, a soft inward draw. He can’t see behind the whiteouts of Red Robin’s mask, but he hopes, hopes there might be a spark of indecision.

“You were never forgotten.” Gently, Damian reaches out slowly, just enough to close gloved fingers over the screen. “But, you don’t need to hear it from me, Beloved, you need real proof and that we shall provide tonight. Get changed. You’re needed.”

Conflicted as fuck, Red Robin processes as much as he can in that few minutes, muscles in his shoulders unbearably tight. “I’m not going to just patrol with the Bats, especially under your name.”

“It is not as simple as patrol, I’m afraid. We have several Arkham escapees, a possible gang war, and several other take downs lined up,” which is the absolute truth. “I did not lie when I said we needed your help with the overwhelming criminal activity in the last twelve hours.”

Carefully planned twelve hours for one night they’ve been putting into motion for months. 

With the computer in hand, feeling more vulnerable than he’s felt behind the mask in years, Red Robin grits his teeth because only the Bats can do this to him. “I can still help the hell out without the bullshit emotional manipulation. Let me guess, this is Dick’s idea.”

“All of us had a hand in it, actually. The Red Bird itself was my idea. Jason and Father helped to restore it to its former glory. Dick, however, had the idea to make it authentic with the suit.”

“Do you even know how messed up this is for me?” Tumbles right out when he wants cold fury, when he wants to snarl at the obvious manipulation at play–

(while being stupidly impressed they actually seemed to know him to put all the pieces in place, make him play right into their hands with a well thought-out plan. Fuck.)

“The point of all of this, Tim, is to give you one last Robin Ride.”

Cue being at a total loss here because what multiverse did he fall into? Seriously, this can’t be his world, not when those words popped out of Damian’s mouth, and along with it, so many possibilities looming right in front of him.

At the same time, dread crawls up his throat, spills bitter into his mouth.

“Even if you never want us, we will, as you said, learn to live with it.” Damian fights to keep it neutral as just the thought of continuing on in this way as they have for weeks, always aware of the empty spot where their fourth should be, makes him cold all over. Still, this cannot be for them, not if they are serious about setting things right in the only way they can. “Even if that is the case, Tim, I...we. We still want to give you this,” his hand sweeps over the Red Bird again.

Because it’s all so much in one go, things he never thought he’d hear, never could have thought would be offered. Unconsciously, his eyes go to the gleaming fender behind the whiteouts. “None of this is– I brought the Bird back years ago so B could remake it for you.”

And Dami chances one more step closer, “but it is yours, Tim. Father made it for you, to keep you safe, and it will always be yours, Robin or not. It should have been given back to you long before tonight, and for that, I apologize.” He tries smiling just a little, “but, better late than never as they say.”

Red’s got nothing for that, for any of this, stares helplessly while Damian pulls on the hood and face covering, only his green eyes visible. 

Red’s jaw is tight, clenching down because he finally gets it. He isn’t going to wake up in the Tower, asleep at his workstation, thinking this is a terribly embarrassing message from his subconscious.

“You will need this,” and Damian holds out a hand again. This time, a Batcomm rests in his palm. “The others are waiting for you, Robin.”

“I-I can’t–” because this is fucking real, this is really happening. As much as he’s sure Damian is bullshitting him about this not being a soulmate thing, his eyes are still getting hot, his chest aching, his throat tight. “I can’t do this.”

“You can,” Damian counters gently. “We...I owe you this. Dick will argue he does also. Jason as well. We cannot give you the things we have taken, not completely. As much as I wish we could change things, overcome our own insecurities to remind you that you will always have a place…” Dami sighs, “we cannot go back, either. Not really, but in order to go forward, we can give you the proof you need to see you have always had a place. So, just for tonight, Tim, be our Robin again.”

Damian doesn’t give him time to formulate a reply while he feels like he just got fucking stabbed hearing that out of the current Robin’s mouth. 

“This is wrong, this isn’t–”

Damian lays the Batcomm on the top of the car and slowly backs away, melting into the shadows.

“On the contrary,” echoes around him and the lights go out in the underground, only a section of them lighting up the Red Bird. “This may be the one thing we’ve gotten right.” 

The flutter of paper he hadn’t noticed is on the ground from where he’d tossed the old/new suit. 

The chime on his wrist computer is a surprising upload of locations in Gotham pinging his algorithm, indicating a little vigilante action wouldn’t be amiss. Damian apparently wasn’t lying about too many fires and too few Bats. But, there’s too much happening in hot spots, and he won’t make the most crucial if he’s swinging. He needs a Ducati or–

His eyes go back to it, another symbol of his best days. Back when he could call himself a Bat, and it wouldn’t have been a lie.

Under the mask, Tim Drake breathes out, shuttering through the old pain that lights up his brain pan. 

He could turn right the fuck around and walk out of this warehouse with his heart still in check, with his emotions back under control. He could reject this attempt as sure as he’s been rejected for years. 

But the tiny part of him that’s always mourned the loss of his tunic is a stronger voice this time, and his hands twitch in his gloves before moving to pick up the discarded suit again, to look at those short sleeves, the green gloves, the shuriken R that was his design – not Damian’s or Jay’s or Dick’s but his. 

The suit blurs and Red Robin realizes it’s because his eyes are spilling over behind the whiteouts.

[odos-bucket]

So I was reading @andillwriteyouatragedy​‘s incredible Brand New Day where Bruce and Clark adopt a young Dick Grayson together, and was thinking about a sort of companion story where they take in Jason together too. Using that story as a rough reference, I’m gonna say they’ve been together for a decade or so here. Dick is somewhere in his late teens. I’m figuring Clark probably offers to tag along on Bruce’s annual trip to crime alley every year. Bruce always politely declines. It’s basically become a part of the day’s bleak tradition. Clark is surprised when for once his offer is accepted. Later on, if pressed, neither of them would be able to pinpoint what was different about that night that made Bruce decide that it might be okay to have some company for once. Clark probably feels weird about it at first. Even though he’d asked Bruce if he wanted company, and Bruce had said yes, which he never would have unless he’d absolutely meant it (and Clark knows that). It still feels a little like he’s intruding on something private, even sacred. Then of course they get there, and there’s nothing going on. Superman’s senses don’t pick up the slightest hint of disruption anywhere in the neighborhood. Maybe they start patrolling around it anyways, maybe they just wander for a couple of blocks. Sooner or later they overhear someone talking about how it’s this night every year that Batman comes calling. Local criminals have picked up on the fact that if they just keep their heads down for this one specific night they can pretty much avoid him. Bruce is all grumbly about it, and immediately goes into ~strategy mode~ like, “Okay, I’ll have to start coming here on different days, on an irregular schedule.” He immediately opens up a dozen different tabs in his brain with calendars, and crime statistics, and is thinking a mile a minute, because that’s what he does. He’s kind of agitated about needing to change something that’s been a ritual for so long (because Batman has OCD, fight me) and he’s annoyed at himself for being bothered by it. Absolutely none of this sudden inner turmoil is detectable in his expression or body language. But Clark knows Bruce, knows how he reacts to things, and that there’s no way he’s not annoyed right now. He says, “Sounds like tonight will be a bust if we stay here,” then when Bruce grunts in response, continues, “We could go back to the manor. Watch a movie.” Then after a pause. “Or we could patrol somewhere else.” A moment passes. When Bruce says, “Okay,” Clark isn’t sure which suggestion he’s agreeing to, but they start back towards the car. It’s not a long walk, but they aren’t moving particularly quickly. By the time they get back to the batmobile it only has one wheel.

Clark frowns as he walks closer, before being stopped in his tracks by a surprising sound. It’s a sound that he recognizes immediately, that he hears all too infrequently. Bruce is laughing. Clark’s mouth quirks into a half smile. He takes a few steps forward, thinking about just picking the whole thing up and flying it back home. Then from a few paces ahead he hears Bruce’s low, gravelly Batman voice say, “Hi there.” Once he’s tuned in to the idea of another presence nearby, it becomes obvious to his advanced senses that someone is lurking behind the car. “Shit,” a small voice says. Bruce takes a few steps closer. “Planning on finishing the job?” He gestures to their remaining wheel. Clark shifts until he can get the kid partially in his sight without the aid of x-ray vision. He’s small, and looks to be somewhere in his pre-teens. “I got no idea what you’re talking about,” he says quickly. “Oh really?” Bruce asks. The boy glares at him. “Nice tire iron,” Bruce continues. “Comes in handy.” “I bet it does.” No sooner than the words are out of Bruce’s mouth, the tool is colliding with his shin. The boy shoots out from behind the car, and down a nearby street. Clark starts toward Bruce, who quickly gestures for him to go after the kid instead. He catches up with him in less than a second. When his hand falls onto the kid’s shoulder he freezes, muscles tightening throughout his body, and heart rate speeding up rapidly. The fear response is so sudden and extreme that Clark finds himself pulling away as if he’s been burned. The anxiety around being feared is something he’s mostly left in his past, but there’s a deep rooted insecurity within him that it still prods at. The kid stumbles when he starts to run again, and by then Bruce has caught up. They hang back, but trail after the boy at a distance, until they reach a condemned building a few blocks away. “Should we go in?” Clark asks. “Probably where my tires are,” Bruce says, before climbing through an uncovered doorway. It isn’t hard to find him again. There aren’t too many heartbeats in the area to distinguish between. When Bruce opens the door to the dilapidated room, the boy’s pulse rate jumps through the roof. Nothing changes externally about him though, and Clark wonders whether or not Bruce can tell that he’s afraid of them. There’s the slightest vibration to his words when he speaks. “Okay, take your stupid tires already. I’m sorry, all right? Just leave me alone!” Bruce isn’t looking at his tires. He’s looking around the room, no doubt noticing the same things that Clark has, mold, water damage, a broken window. The place is freezing. Then in the corner there’s a cardboard box with some pasta and canned goods in it, a small stack of books, and a mattress on the floor. “Do you… live here?” Bruce asks. “Yeah. What of it?” Bruce takes a few more steps into the room. “Where are your parents, son?” Clark asks. “Mom’s dead. I dunno where Dad is; don’t really care, if I’m being honest. Now take your stuff and go already!” He’s holding the iron up again, wielding it in a manner that’s clearly meant to be threatening. Bruce plucks it out of his hands with relative ease, inspects it, then turns it around and hands it back. “Move your thumb up like this, and you’ll have a sturdier grip. And don’t stand with your legs so far apart, it’ll put you off balance.” He sighs. “What’s your name?” “… Jason.” He grabs the tire iron back, shuffling to adjust his grip and footing, keeping his stance defensive. Bruce looks around the place again. “You can’t stay here, Jason.” “Oh yeah? Says who? I can take care of myself! Been doing it for long enough.” Bruce glances up at Clark, who can see the wheels turning in his head, before looking back at Jason. “I’d really like the wheels of my car back,” he says carefully, then hurries to continue before Jason can interject. “Can I make you a deal? We’ll buy you dinner if you reattach the batmobile’s tires?”

There’s a fast food place a couple of blocks away that’s open 24 hours. Jason agrees to accompany them, but walks a few yards behind. The employees at the place aren’t at all phased by the appearance of the two vigilantes. Bruce inspects a suspicious stain on one of the walls, while Jason and Clark look at the menu posted above the counter. They order- Bruce gets two of what Jason asks for- then go outside to eat. Bruce is lost in thought as they exit the restaurant, wondering what it would take to bring free food trucks to the area. Jason’s halfway done with his meal by the time they sit down on the sidewalk. “Do you go to school around here?” Bruce asks, wanting to put together a fuller picture of the boy’s situation. Jason gets a distant look in his eyes in response to the question. He finishes chewing slowly, swallows, then shakes his head, clearing his throat before replying. “No. Not for a long time now.” He shrugs. “I got all I needed to out of it.” “You had some pretty advanced reading material back at your place for someone who didn’t finish middle school.” Bruce recalled seeing The Odyssey amongst his few possessions, as well as a couple of Shakespeare plays. Jason shrugs again. “Reading’s not that hard.” “Some people find it very difficult,” Clark says. “Some people are stupid.” Bruce cuts in before Clark can start on the gentle reprimand he can see him preparing. “Ever think that maybe you’re just smart?” Jason gives him a curious look, like that really wasn’t a possibility that he had considered before, then takes another bite, and stares off thoughtfully. “So, Homer,” Bruce prompts. Jason nods. “It’s a fun story. Odi-seuss is a dick though.” Bruce resists both the compulsion to correct his pronunciation of ‘Odysseus’, and Alfred’s voice in the back of his head urging him to tell the kid not to swear. “What makes you say that?” He asks instead. Jason looks at him like he’s an idiot. “Gee, I don’t know, maybe all the pillaging, and murdering he does throughout the entire book.” “Poem,” Bruce corrects. “What?” “The Odyssey is a poem.” “Wait, really?” Bruce hums an affirmative. “Huh… cool. But the point still stands.” “I’m inclined to agree with you. Have you ever read The Scarlet Pimpernel?” Jason shakes his head. “It’s been a personal favorite for a long time,” says Bruce. Clark shoots him an amused grin. “I’ll keep an eye out for anyone throwing out a copy,” Jason says. Bruce frowns. “You have a library around here.” The remark earns him an unamused snort. “It’s a Gotham library; people don’t go there to read books, they go there to buy, sell and/or ingest drugs, and they tend not to be too happy with anybody who’s lingering around while they’re doing it.” Bruce feels a pang, not for the first time that night. “Jason,” he starts, before realizing he isn’t sure what to say. Jason keeps angled to watch him expectantly as he rises to deposit his napkins and bag in a nearby trashcan. “We’d like to help you,” Clark says. “Yeah,” Jason scoffs. “Right. Just how do you plan on doing that? Because I’ve heard that before. I’ve done the whole foster care thing already, and I’m not about to go through it again.” “No,” Bruce is quick to agree. “But there are residential schools in the city. We could help you to get enrolled in one.” Jason seems taken aback by the offer. “…Why?” He asks slowly. “Well for one, because kids should be in school. You’d be provided with room and board for the duration of your time there, which would leave you with less to worry about.” He reaches out to pass Jason the second takeout bag. He’s still lingering at a distance from them. “At least think about it?” “No. I mean, like, why?” Bruce’s eyebrow raises, tugging at the material of his cowl. “What’s in this for you?” Jason continues. “Why do you even care?” “It’s our job,” Clark says. “You’re job is to beat up bad guys.” Clark smiles when Jason mimes punching someone, before saying, “Our job is to help people.” Jason purses his lips. “Don’t boarding schools cost money?” “Most of them offer scholarships,” Bruce says. “I have a few friends who are deans. I could make the necessary introductions to ensure you a place at one of their institutions.“ Jason’s arms are crossed high over his chest, and his expression is set like he’s deep in thought. “I don’t want to end up stuck somewhere where someone else is the boss of me.” “How about you at least come with us to check a couple of these places out,” Bruce suggests. “Just see how you feel about them. No commitment.” Jason’s nose scrunches up. “Where exactly are these places?” He asks. “It varies,” Bruce says. “All within the city.” They watch the boy chew on the inside of his lip for a moment. “Just to see,” he says eventually. Bruce nods. “I’m not getting into a car with you,” Jason adds. “We can take the bus,” Clark offers. Jason raises an eyebrow at that, and his mouth quirks almost into a smile. “Batman and Superman are gonna ride on Gotham’s shitty public transit?” “Why not?” Clark asks. “… Okay,” Jason says, still plainly unconvinced. “Let’s meet back here,” Bruce suggests. “Tomorrow?” Jason takes a minute, but eventually starts to nod. “Sure,” he says. “Why not.” They part ways after Clark disposes of his empty bag. The heroes return to their car.

While they’re driving back Clark says, “I know that look.” Bruce pauses to take stock of his own expression, and makes sure to neutralize anything on his face that might be out of the ordinary. Clark continues, unbothered by the lack of response. “It’s your ‘I’m already deeply emotionally invested in this kid’ look.” Bruce hums noncommittally. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep tonight,” Clark adds. Bruce doesn’t either, but that’s par for the course at this point.

Part Two

[animebookworm16]

Who Are You? - Angst

For @j3ssisam3ss

This is my angst piece for @maribat-angst-fluff-april, prompt 25 Childhood Friends

It was the middle of winter in Gotham when she showed up. A tiny girl everyone guessed to be about three. She never spoke or made a sound, but she often smiled, even on the coldest nights. The little girl would just curl up to whoever had taken her that day and smile. At first the other homeless believed she'd never make it to spring. But the little girl was full of surprises. Not only did she survive the worst of the winter, she thrived once spring arrived.

Everyone knew she had a name, no one knew what it was, but they knew she had one. They also knew she was old enough to know it. Surprisingly, no one ever tried to give her a new name. Sure she got nicknames. More nicknames than a toddler could ever hope to keep track of, but somehow she did.

The little girl grew. As all children must. And the older children and adults always made sure to enunciate whenever she was in the area, hoping to teach her how to speak. They all banded together, like they always do for the especially young kids, and kept her away from the worst of the drugs, gangs, rogues, and the overall darkest parts of Gotham.  She grew, and most people started calling her Pixie. Their little fairy caused laughter and mischief wherever she went. Even still she rarely spoke, her words as few and far between as they were, were always impactful to whoever she spoke to.

When Jason Todd started living on the street, everything changed. Pixie stuck to his side like glue. She laughed, she started talking, Pixie acted like the entire five years she had been living around Gotham she had been solely waiting for Jason to show up. The ones who raised her would have felt jilted if it hadn't been for how happy the little girl looked. Two years passed and the two ten-year-olds rarely left each other's sides.

Then Jason stole the hubcaps off the Batmobile and Pixie was finally picked up by CPS.

Pixie had to be strapped down by CPS so that she wouldn't hurt anyone. Luckily for her, a young French couple had been passing by when they saw what they were doing, and demanded to adopt the young girl. CPS didn't want to deal with the girl for much longer and agreed. When Tom and Sabine found out she didn't have a name, they quickly named her Marinette Dupain-Cheng and decided her birthday would be the same day they adopted her. 

The newly named Marinette was quickly taken out of Gotham and out of the country as the couple returned to Paris.

She never knew that Jason had been adopted by Bruce Wayne.

Jason was picked up by Batman and quickly adopted by Bruce Wayne. Before long he had taken up the mantle of Robin and was fighting crime.  He looked everywhere for his friend but no matter who or where he asked, no one had any idea. As the months passed, Jason lost hope for ever finding Pixie again.

He would never know that she had been picked up by CPS and adopted by a Parisian couple and taken back to Paris.

In Paris, Marinette always appeared happy, and her new parents were always busy but tried to make time for her. Marinette had taken to wandering Paris. She wanted to be familiar with her new city, even if Tom and Sabine didn't always agree with her new habit.

When she started school, Marinette stayed quiet. Friendly, but quiet. This made her a prime target for the mayor's spoiled daughter Chloe. Marinette allowed it to happen and did nothing to change the status quo. three years passed in this way until suddenly Marinette was seated next to an extremely outspoken girl named Alya, who would absolutely not stand for the status quo, so Marinette filled that space, doing what she'd always done since she'd come to Paris molded herself into what everyone around her wanted. The same day she met her new deskmate, and self-proclaimed bestie, Marinette also became one of the two heroes of Paris, fighting an emotional terrorist who thrived on negative emotions (and just being from Gotham made her a prime target). Marinette became Dame Nuit, with her partner Mister Bug.

She listened to everything Plagg told her, especially the warnings and consequences of using the Black Cat Miraculous.

For the next four years, Marinette would fill every mold she was placed in. The hero, the Guardian, the class president, the perfect baker's daughter, everything. 

Then the consequences started showing up. Marinette knew she had to wrap up Hawk Moth and Mayura quickly. She started pushing it so much that Mister Bug called her out one night and in a single moment of weakness she told him what was happening. What her Miraculous was doing to her.

Mister Bug immediately wanted her to stop and let him give the Miraculous to someone else, but Dame Nuit shut it down saying that even if she stopped now, the damage was done and nothing would change that. In fact, using the Miraculous, while it had started the process, was actually slowing it down. Mister Bug cried when she told him that.

Together they redoubled their efforts to bring Hawk Moth and Mayura down. Of course, Mister Bug insisted on bringing in more permanent heroes, under the guise of keeping one of the two things Hawk Moth was after out of the fight. Dame Nuit then argued that it should be the Ladybug because it's the one that can fix everything which just left them going in circles. But even still she conceded to his request for more backup.

Within six months, Gabriel Agreste and Nathalie Sancoeur had been stripped of their Miraculous and Paris was free to feel their emotions once more. All the Miraculous were returned and Marinette and Adrien revealed their identities to each other.

Adrien stuck to Marinette's side and became an unofficial brother. He helped her as the build-up of chaos in her soul took a physical manifestation, and began to destroy her 

A year after Hawk Moth's defeat Marinette's entire class was granted a trip to Gotham City.

Marinette would have laughed at the irony if she didn't know it would probably be the last place she saw. It was strangely comforting to know that the city that held her most precious memories would also be the place that would hold her last.

In Gotham, Jason grew into a young man. He discovered the woman he thought was his mother wasn't. He tracked down his real mother, then got beaten half to death by the Joker only to be blown up by one of Joker's bombs.

Jason died.

Then Jason was revived by the Lazarus Pits and trained by the League of Shadows. He grew to hate Batman and wanted nothing more than to see the end of the Joker. 

Years later, Jason would return to Gotham only to find he had been replaced and that the Joker was still running free, and alive. Jason tried to kill the new Robin, a kid named Tim Drake, Batman, and the Joker. He managed to end none of them.

Bruce convinced Jason to stick around and one thing led to another and Redhood became part of the Batfamily patrol rotation. He doesn't stay in the manor but he does drop in at least once a month for family dinners at Alfred's request. On the weekends, Jason would take Tim out and teach him how to spot a sniper, an assassin, what different guns look like when someone is trying to hide them, and most importantly, how to defuse a bomb. It becomes a bonding time for the two, but Jason still calls Tim 'Replacement' but now as a term of endearment.

He never forgets Pixie and she is one of the few things that kept him sane during the worst of the Pit Madness.

Then Damian shows up and Jason has no idea how to deal with the tiny Demon Spawn. It's rough going for a while but they all found their ways of bonding and before long they are one large dysfunctional family. 

When Jason turned eighteen, he, Dick, Tim, and Damian welcomed a French class to Wayne Industries for a week-long tour. And that is where he thought he saw someone he would never see again.

Without his permission, Jason called out to her, "Pixie?" It was barely a whisper, but she heard it.

Her head whipped around and she stared at him, "Jason?"

He wanted to say it was a happy reunion. And it kind of was. They hugged. Her class and his brothers stared. Then the tears started. Pixie was smiling but tears were streaming down her face.

One of the other students came over and asked her in French if she was okay. Pixie shook her head and the blond boy asked if there was somewhere she could rest. Jason offered to show them a room. The three of them sat in a quiet room as Pixie cried. She kept leaning into Jason and he wasn't about to stop her. After who knows how long, Pixie dried her eyes and haltingly told Jason what was going on. She told him, how she'd been adopted and went by Marinette now. How she was dying and no one besides Adrien, the blond, knew. How she probably wouldn't make it out of Gotham.

Jason's first reaction was to want to hurt something. His second was to hold Pixie as close as he could and never let her go. Jason cried. 

For the rest of the week everywhere that Pixie went, Jason was close behind. The other Waynes noticed and on the fourth day of their stay, invited Pixie and Adrien to join them for dinner.

There, a not-so-subtle interrogation went down, asking Pixie how she knew Jason. At which point, even Pixie's failing health allowed her to spill so many childhood stories about Jason that even they couldn't resist her knowledge. In return, Jason told Adrien stories he had collected about her as a toddler and little kid. It was the brightest smile Adrien had ever seen on Marinette, and the first real smile Pixie had given Jason all week. He could almost pretend that she wasn't dying.

After dinner Pixie said, "Jason, did I ever tell you about the dream I've had ever since I was a little girl?"

"What dream Pix?"

"I've always wanted to stand at the very top of the Wayne Industries building at dawn, and feel the wind at the top of the world."

"Really?"

Pixie smiled a soft sad smile, "Yeah. Do you think we could do that tomorrow?"

Jason suddenly realized what Pixie was talking about, and had to fight a lump in his throat to answer, "Yeah. Pix. Yeah, we can do that."

Adrien and Pixie stayed the night that night. That morning at about three, Jason woke them up and took them to the top of Wayne Industries. Pixie stood as high up as she possibly could. Adrien and Jason watched her with tears in their eyes. Before long, they were joined by Batman, Nightwing, Red Robin, and Robin, who all wanted to make sure she wouldn't fall. Jason didn't have the heart to tell them they couldn't stop what was about to happen.

As dawn started to creep up on them, Adrien broke down sobbing, begging Marinette to fight a little longer. When the light hit her head, Marinette closed her eyes and smiled. They all saw her start to fade.

Her hands went first. Like dust. As the light increased so did her fading. Before she faded completely, Pixie walked towards them a peaceful smile on her face. Jason was crying now too. His Pixie looked like a ghost.

And as she faded completely, everyone on that roof heard her say, "My name is Jeanette. It's so nice to meet you!"

[peppersonironi]

How I Picture a Batfam Age Reversal

I’m going to write this as a fic (And I want to go on into a young justice world where dick forms the team and his siblings are protective) but here is the outline in bullet points in case anyone is interested. Please note this is VERY first draft.

Ages (At end) & Order:

Damian- 24

Duke- 21

Stephanie- 20

Tim- 21

Cassandra- 19

Jason- 19

Barbara- 15

Dick- 13

Damian is Ten when he is sent to live w/ his father. Bruce is 30.

They don’t really work well together at first. But Selina, Alfred, and Clark somehow get it through Bruce’s thick skull that he has to care for this child.

Damian keeps sneaking out on patrol, against B’s wishes. Eventually, he let’s Damian join and tells him to choose a name (Not what we meant, Bruce!)

Damian wants to go for something like Shadow, or Demon, but Bruce puts his foot down. He says that Damian shouldn’t try to be darkness.

Damian is pouting in the gardens when he finds a wounded robin. It’s wing is broken. He demands that the animal should be taken to a shelter, and carries it in his hand the whole way there.

The bird makes it, and Damian demands to be called Robin. He designs his suit, going slightly more colorful. “I might be called Robin, but I am NOT wearing brown, Pennyworth.”

Bruce introduces him to Superboy (Jon, note: less age dif) and the pair are close friends.

He is Robin for a little over seven years before he begins to fight with Bruce about being allowed to patrol alone, and being his own hero. (basically what happened w/ Dick).

Damian leaves Gotham, opting to claim Bludhaven. Jon joins him. He suggests they call each other Nightwing and Flamebird. Damian thinks it’s a bit childish, but he can’t say no to Jon. They’re costumes are here. (done by @hyperactive-lectiophile! Fantastic job!)

They eventually realize they’re in love w/ each other, all while trying to figure their lives  out. Damian briefly tries to join the police. He hates it. Eventually, he enrolls in BH college for a major in Art and a minor in business.

Later in Gotham, the We Are Robin/Robin War stuff happens. Long story short, Duke is adopted. 

Damian is angry to find out he has a new brother, goes to Gotham to yell at Bruce, but then meets Duke. They bond, and are close siblings. Damian makes his father promise to not adopt any more strays.

Stephanie Brown wants to stop her Father, so she sews up a costume and goes out as Batgirl. Bruce is apprehensive at first, but his family basically yells at him to train the poor girl before she gets hurt.

He does, and after Steph meets Damian, who she absolutely adores (He loves her too. The way she pisses his father off is legendary), Stephanie decides she wants to be Robin. Batgirl was good for dealing with her father, but she wants to belong to this new family, and, w/ Damian’s blessing, she makes a new costume.

Unfortunately, after a while, Stephanie is killed by Black Mask (her death is faked, like in the comics, but the Fam doesn’t know)

Enter Tim Drake. Batman has been going crazy over grief, and not even Nightwing, Catwoman (this is SOOOO batcat, btw) or The Signal can calm him down. Tim steps right up, and demands to be robin.

Damian and Bruce fight over this. Surprisingly, Damian is the one who thinks Tim should be given a chance. He sees how his father has been acting. Damian knows that Tim must be brilliant to figure out their identities, and thinks that should count for something. Duke takes his side, knowing that it takes guts to talk to batman, and be willing to join him. Bruce, meanwhile, is a constant chant of “no more dead robins”. After a while, and lots of arguing, Tim takes his place as Robin. They redesign the suit, and he takes his place as robin.

It’s little while after this that Stephanie comes back. Tim offers Robin back, but Stephanie declines. They talk and grow closer. At one point they talk about Stephanie’s new moniker. She says she doesn’t want to be Batgirl either. She wants something new. Tim suggests Spoiler (Bad pun turned brilliant idea?).

Cassandra Cain arrives on the scene next. She saves the commissioner’s life (like No Man’s Land, minus No Man’s Land), and Stephanie immediately imprints on this tiny assassin child (So do the rest of the family, but Steph claims the fourteen-year old first. She and Bruce fight over custody.). She offers Cass Batgirl. Gotham gained a new vigilante, and Bruce Wayne adopted a new child. (Faster than the comics, I KNOW. But Cass deserves happiness)

Everyone loves their new sister, and everyone spoils her. Duke is the one to take her to a ballet the first time. She immediately begs to be put into lessons.

Somewhere in here Tim’s mom dies and his dad is in a coma. Bruce takes him in.

Eventually, Bruce decides to offer Tim Red Robin, hoping to avoid the strife he had with Damian. (Like in the comics, Bruce was going to give Jason Red Robin)

Tim is unsure of this, and puts off deciding. Then little Jason Peter Todd decides to jack the tires of the batmobile and is immediately taken in.

Everyone is captivated by the tiniest addition to their family, but it's also at this time that Jack Drake finds out about Robin and forces Tim to quit. Tim gives Jason his blessing to become Robin.

Everyone pitches in on helping train the newest Robin. Damian teaches the kid things he learned from the league (non-lethal things, since Damian loves this kid), Duke teaches him escrima fighting, Stephanie (Much to Bruce’s dismay) has a full seminar of the delicacies of glitter bomb making. Tim teaches the kid hacking, when he can get away from his dad. 

Unfortunately, when Jason has been Robin for almost a year, he is killed by the Joker.

The family is torn apart by greif. But this time around, Bruce has a much larger support system. All of them lean on each other.

The only time that Damian ever broke his no-kill rule while living with his father was to kill the Joker. He hunted and murdered the clown, sparing Harley. He had been friends with Quinzel since he was Robin, and knew how the Joker treated her. Harley became the batfam’s honorary aunt after this.

Bruce was too emotionally tired to fight with Damian over his actions, so no one said anything. Eventually, Bruce and Damian did argue. Damian refused to apologize,, though he did promise his father to never kill again. Their relationship was strained for a while, but they worked through it.

Less than a year later, Jack Drake dies, and Tim comes back onto the vigilante scene. He refuses to become Robin, however, choosing to take Bruce up on his offer and become Red Robin. He designs his own suit, and the world seems to slowly become normal. Or some semblance of it.

One night, the circus is in town and the whole family (except Alfred) is home. Duke, Tim, and Steph drag Bruce, Cass, and Damian to go see it.

It is on this night that Dick Grayson’s parents fall to their death. Dick is sent to live in juvi, meanwhile Bruce tries to adopt Dick. He succeeds, and the manor once again has a bright young child running through it’s halls.

Dick figures out the secret identities of his family and instantly demands to be allowed out. He wants to take down Zucko, and won’t settle for every single member hunting for him. Dick wants to take down his parent’s murdered himself. He tries to sneak out multiple times, but is always stopped.

Damian talks to Dick (They are extremely close) and explains the origins of Robin. He says that the mantle was born out of a want to distance himself from the revenge and violence of the league. Dick cries when he learns this and says that his own parents used to call him Robin. He suggests that the mantle is more than a personal need. Robin is Family.

Damian almost immediately demands that Dick be trained and help catch Zucko. Bruce is confused, as before, Damian was strongly against letting a nine-year-old fight crime. Damian explains (after much cajoling. He might be more emotionally open and healthy than when he first arrived in the manor, but the kid is still constipated) what Dick had said, and that Damian understands the kid’s need for direction. “When I first came here, I needed Robin. I might not have known it, but I did. Richard needs Robin now, as well.”

The family took sides on the issue, but eventually Dick (with the aid of his puppy-dog-eyes™) won everyone over. He got his own Robin costume, and they caught Zucko.

Dick refused to stop being Robin, and so Gotham gained a new bird.

Dick was Robin for almost two years when The Red Hood made his appearance in Gotham. No one knew what he wanted, as he didn’t seem to do much beyond killing criminals. They thought he was a vigilante at first, but then he began to take over the criminal underbelly of Gotham, regulating crime. On top of that, Red Hood targeted Robin. Attacking the boy wonder when no one else was around. After the red helmeted rogue let loose a few hints about the league of shadows, Damian interrogated his mother, who explained the identity of The Red Hood, and how she had set him on Gotham.

As soon as the family figured out the newcomer’s identity, and the reason he was alive Damian tracked him down. He knew how to deal with pit rage from his childhood, and brought the lost bird back to the nest.

The family was whole for the first time in years. Jason was still angry and resentful, but he had his family back. Jason was grateful for Damian taking revenge for him, and they were once again close. 

Slowly, Jason let everyone back in, including Bruce. Dick is wary at first of this new older brother, but the little chicken nugget quickly warms up to Jason, and even convinces him to teach him how to shoot a gun (In secret, of course, Dami and Bruce would blow a gasket). Jason couldn’t resist the kid. It was physically impossible.

A year later, Cass decides to pursue dance as her career. She gets a job with the Hong Kong Ballet company. She moves there, and decides to take a new moniker: Black Bat. Her family is so proud of her, but they miss her dearly. Duke visits often, bringing new back to the family.

The absence of Batgirl is filled after a while by Barbara Gordan. She makes her own costume and starts going out. Once again, Stephanie Brown adopts a smol bean (Well, not legally. The commissioner is still alive) and outfits her with a more Gotham-friendly suit and weaponry (I.e. heavy kevlar and leather)

Babs is taken whole-heartedly into the fold, and is made an honorary sister.

[ragingbookdragon]

The Batfamily Summer Pool Party

A/N: Actually, this was the first HC’s I ever did! Enjoy! -Thorne

ª     Headcanon that at the start of summer, Bruce allows everyone to come over to the manor for a ‘Start of Summer Pool Party’.

ª     Meaning, every Kryptonian, every Speedster, any and every alien on earth, the Teen Titans, the Titans, the Outlaws, and the Justice League.

ª     The first time Bruce mentioned doing it, the boys thought he’d officially lost it.

ª     The League did too.

ª     But after the first official pool party, it became a regular thing that kicked off summer for everyone.

ª     Bruce was wary about continuing it, but after seeing the unadulterated, ecstatic joy and laughter from his family, he’d realized it wasn’t so bad.

ª     He always spends upwards to two-hundred grand, but it’s money well spent.

ª     All the food, drinks, and games money can buy, he’s bought it.

ª     There are always three giant tables that Bruce always must explain.

“Middle one has all the food, the one to it’s left is alcoholic drinks-Tim put the Seagram’s back, you’re seventeen-I don’t care if you’ve drank before. You know what isn’t fun? Sitting in a jail cell because I’ve been charged with supplying alcohol to minors. The one on the middle’s right is non-alcoholic-Tim get your Dr. Pepper and stop complaining.”

ª     Jason’s been put in charge of the grill since he’s the best griller.

“Jason, need any help?”

“Nooooope.”

“Want any help?”

“Nooooope.”

“Want another beer?”

“Hell yeah.”

ª     Each person there gets two songs to play.

ª     The standing rule is: It must be PG-13 and can’t be the same song each time.

“I don’t care Dick, you can’t play Cardi B’s ‘Money’.”

“Oh, I can’t play ‘Money’, but Jason gets to play Nickelback’s ‘Rockstar’?”

“It literally has two cuss word in it compared to the twenty-five in ‘Money’.”

“Well can I play ‘Take a Chance on Me’?”

“No, you already played it.”

“Why do you guys hate ABBA so much?”

ª     You know that famous internet picture where the group of guys tries to float an extension cord on flip-flops to run a laptop?

ª     Tim tries to do that every time.

“No.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to do.”

“Go put the extension cord back in the house Tim. We do this every year.”

“One day you’ll let me.”

“Not likely.”

ª     Damian usually sits up on the deck watching and hating every second that ALL THESE PEOPLE are in his pool.

ª     He eventually started to have fun once Jon came over.

“What are you two doing?”

“We’re seeing how high I can toss Damian into the air.”

“For what purpose?”

“Dunno…just sounded like a good idea at the beginning.”

“And Damian went along with it?”

ª     Cue Damian screaming as he plummets back towards the water.

“…Not…exactly?”

*Sigh*

ª     More than once, Bruce had to stop Dick from trying to jump from the balconies and windows.

“I don’t care if the balconies hang over the pool! You aren’t allowed to do it! If all your friends jumped off balconies, would you do it too? That was rhetorical and you know it Dick. What do you mean you used to do it when you were a kid?”

ª     Bruce is constantly reprimanding the speedsters for running around the pool.

“Bart, I said no running!”

“Sorry Mr. Wayne!”

“Wally that means you too!”

“I wasn’t even running?!”

“I’m telling you before you start to.”

ª     He’s constantly telling everyone to keep the water in the pool.

“Can we, I don’t know, keep the water inside the pool, not outside it?”

“What’s wrong with having fun Bruce?”

“Dick, when you pay the water bill, you can talk.”

“Touché.”

ª     The biggest game of Marco Polo goes down.

ª     The Atlanteans aren’t allowed to play anymore.

ª     Superman eventually gets into the pool and Bruce’s ‘No throwing people rule’ goes down the drain.

“Clark, I said no throwing people.”

“Well, yeah, but look how happy they are.”

“Do you know that hitting the water from certain heights is exactly like hitting concrete?”

“You’re acting like I’m throwing them the height of the Empire State Building.”

“…Stop throwing my kids.”

ª     More than once, Bruce has stopped Damian and Tim from trying to drown each other while the others egg them on.

“Tim let go of Damian’s arm!”

“Tell him to let go of my hair!”

“I’ll let go of your hair when you let go of my arm!”

“Twenty bucks on the demon-spawn!”

“Jason stop encouraging them!”

“I’ll up your twenty to a fifty and bet on Tim!”

“Conner. No!”

ª     He’s also stopped Jason from burning steaks for people he doesn’t like.

“Jason quit burning Roy’s steak.”

“Well considering the fact that I’m in charge of the grill and not you old man, I’ll do whatever the hell I want.”

“Why are you even burning it? Aren’t you two best friends?”

“We were until I figured out, he was using my Netflix and Hulu accounts without asking me first.”

“Children. You’re both children.”

ª     Bruce is absolutely one of those people who enforces the whole ‘no swimming after eating, you wait thirty minutes’.

ª     It lasted until everyone just jumped back in.

ª     Diana eventually joins Clark in throwing people up and back into the pool, and Bruce is starting to pull his hair out.

“Diana. I. Said. No. Throwing.”

“You did, but we are not listening.”

“Tell me about it.”

ª     One time, Dick accidently drank too many alcoholic drinks (you know the ones that don’t taste like they have alcohol and then…it hits you) and face planted onto the deck.

ª     No one’s let him live it down.

“Remember that time Dick got so drunk he fell on his face?”

“Ha-ha, shut-up.”

“It was rather funny Dick. At first, you thought the orange pool noodle was me and you kept flirting with it.”

“Thank you for reminding me Kori. Hey, how come we never talk about Jason’s drunk adventures?”

“Because I can hold my liquor lightweight.”

“That’s rude Little-wing.”

“You’ll live Golden-Boy.”

ª     Alfred is sitting on a chair relaxing for once, completely undisturbed by what’s occurring around the pool.

ª     He’s been giving the day off and he’s absolutely taking advantage of it.

ª     Eventually, the sun begins to set and when night comes, everyone goes to the theater room for movies.

ª     The pool party ended up turning into an overnight thing.

ª     The Bat symbol turned on and immediately everyone turned to Bruce who just pointed at them and went ‘No.’

“Absolutely not.”

“C’mon Bruce, with all of us here, patrol will get done faster.”

“And let you teens and young adults have free reign of my city? I’d rather cut my own foot off.”

ª     There’s silence as everyone stares him down until Jason stands up and yells,

“He can’t catch all of us! Run!”

ª     Bruce and the JL spent the next six hours rounding up Teen Titans, Titans, and Outlaws.

ª     Patrol did get done faster; he will give Dick credit for that one.

ª     However, the phone call from Gordon and the mayor about the army of unannounced superheroes and the pure chaos as all the criminals fled in pure terror, was not one that he was overjoyed to get.

ª     But the ‘Start of Summer Pool Party’ had another success, and Bruce was happy to do it again the next year.

“Hey Bruce, can we do the pool party in Bora-Bora next year?”

“There’s no way in hell I’m flying everyone to Bora-Bora.”

“That’s what you think.”

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing, nothing.”

[stxleslyds]

Part 2 of my Under the Red Hood Review

Hello! Here I am again with part two of this review, if you want to read the first part I will link it here!

Let’s continue!

Chapter eight gives us a look into the past, to when Jason was stealing the batmobile’s tires, to one of the first times Jason went out as Robin with Batman and everything was wonderful…then one of the scenes from the past show a Jason that may come off as a bit more aggressive on the job, it’s also shown that he does agree that the level of aggression was unnecessary but that the criminal deserved it anyway.

I know that sometimes people get the impression that Jason was an angry and extremely aggressive Robin, which is not correct, he was a sweetheart (and I am referring to Post-Crisis Jason because that’s what is in continuity in this story) just like Dick (he had forty years of being a sweetheart too, Marv Wolfman misses me with that angsty and angry shit) but I think what’s important here is the fact that Jason saw things differently from Bruce and that does not make him a bad Robin, it makes him a Robin with different experiences and as a human being he is allowed to change his views, also let’s be honest, hormones are a bitch so emotions are at an all-time high so he is bound to change. This does not mean that his death was his fault, Jason felt lost and wanted a mother and he made some decisions but Bruce was the adult and he should have paid more attention to him and his behavior so in this house the only ones to blame for Jason’s death will always be the Joker and Batman.  

Rant over.

Back to the issue we see Bruce, who has been doing tests and analyzing the coffin that Jason was supposedly buried in for hours, he is a whole ass mess but at some point in time he reaches a verdict…There was never a body in the coffin.

In chapter nine we meet Davis McCullen and Alfie Tisner who have a sort of meth lab in Black Mask or Red Hood’s territory, they don’t really know, and they also have a friend that is selling drugs to kids so yeah…they are in big trouble.

As I read I expect Hood to kind of appear out of thin air and kill them but that doesn’t happen, Batman is the one that comes crashing through a window and tells them that if they don’t pack their things and move they are dead because there is a wall full of C4 (that Jason implanted), Batman wastes no time and gets to work on disarming the bomb as he does that Jason makes himself known (trough a microphone) and tells the Bat that there is no way he can do it and that he better run too. Bruce says that the building is empty and there is no reason for him to blow it up which Jason is aware of and then suggests that Batman knows how much good it does to put a little fear into people and…boom.

Look at this little shit.

We soon find out that the building belonged to Black Mask, and that is not the only thing that Hood wants off the map, he is shown blowing up one of Masks trucks that is full of weapons. Here we also learn a bit more about his modus operandi, he never steals drugs or weapons for himself, he just destroys them and while they were expecting that behavior in what Hood deemed his territory, he is now doing it everywhere. We also find out that before he was trying to get Mask’s people to work for him but now he just kills them.

He is, however, taking his cut from wherever he can, so maybe he is building his own empire and his move as of now is eliminating the competition. This theory is proven true when Jason in all his glory and with a bazooka shoots Mask’s office floor.

Mask is pissed off and as he is screaming into the wind an angel answers his call…Deathstroke is here and he wants to play. This is not pleasing for Hood or Batman.  

Slade is working with the Society and Mask wants Hood “Serious dead. Head on a pike, guts on the pavement, me wearing a sweater vest made of his skin kind of dead.” So, Slade sends people to take care of the job.

Mask isn’t pleased though, apparently Captain Nazi (???), Hyena and an unknown third party aren’t enough for him but Slade assures him that they will get the job done, no worries.

The attack on Hood comes when some men are trying to send a “message” to him and here is where weirdo one and two bamboozle our boy.

The fight that ensues is good but is overshadowed by what Alfred says behind the scene, he talks about how Jason as Robin told him that Batman and the legend of what he could do didn’t necessarily scare the “dress ups” the way that it scared the street thugs, so as a consequence they were more dangerous, Alfred true to himself tried to explain that the dress ups probably believe different things about Batman but Jason told him something that shocked him, he said “They all know he won’t kill them.” Which is true, you, me and Alfred know it.

As Alfred continues “talking” the fight welcomes a new player, Batman. He narrates the fight and realizes that they need to team up which comes naturally to them both, in a second they are in synch just like they used to back in the cave all those years ago. As the fight is coming to an end the third party arrives…yep Count Vertigo is here, the fight doesn’t last long though, because there is adrenaline and hyenas and scents the fight is over in no time (I am not explaining that fight, it’s so weird). Captain Nazi is the only casualty and Batman isn’t happy but just like Jason I am okay with it, if he had to kill one of them let it be the Nazi.

Jason obviously leaves and taunts the Bat once more.

Alfred ends the monologue by saying that Jason never understood that it wasn’t Batman’s strength or stealth that scared his adversaries but his resolve.  

So, Batman makes a dramatic promise, “Time for this to end.” dun dun duuuuun

Chapter eleven part one opens with Alfred telling us about one of his and Bruce’s hobbies, they used to collect first editions of books and it soon became a tradition that Alfred then shared with both Dick and Jason…so when he finds a package for him and B that says “Just two to add to the pile. Cheers – Jason” Alfred immediately contacts Bruce.

Back to Black Mask, he apparently decided to set up a meeting with his right-hand men, they think that they are there to evaluate the idea of making a deal with Red Hood so he stops messing up their business and they are right! It’s just that the deal was made between Mask and Hood and it consisted in them being killed off.

 “Are you happy?” Roman asks.

“Getting there” Hood answers.

Back with Alfred we are able to see what is in the package. In it there is a lock of green hair with tissue included so yeah, now they know that Jason has the Joker, and he was nice enough to give them an address.

Once again with Mask and Hood well, let me tell you if Hood is just “getting there” then Mask is just not happy. They get into an argument, a big one, Mask says that killing all his right-hand men should be sufficient but Hood says it isn’t. It goes on for a while and Mask loses his marbles completely, apparently he put everything on the line for the deal but Hood really doesn’t give a fuck. A fist connects with Hood’s face and a fight ensues, while they do that they also yell at each other about the proper way of running the underworld, the fear factor, who is prettier, who is the best gangster and who looks better in biker clothing…you know, the important stuff.

I am not undermining the fight, believe me but it’s just that they talk, punch and throw each other across the room a lot. Sacrifice and what they are willing to do for Gotham or better said what they are willing to do TO Gotham are the last things they discuss.

Just as the end of the fight comes, we once again have Alfred talking in the background about the time Jason died and the time Bruce’s parents died and how different the two instances are, Bruce was a little boy and defenseless when his parents died but when Jason died he had everything, the training, gadgets and abilities the only thing that he lacked was time.

And as it turns out that’s about to happen once more…Batman is going to arrive to the place where Jason and Mask are going at it just in time to see Jason drop dead on the floor.

Don’t worry friends Jason isn’t dead (again) it’s just a random dude with a mustache and Mask is pissed about it, what’s new?

Jason is actually with the Joker, and by “with the Joker” I mean being annoyed by the Joker…he is ranting on and on about how he killed him, how good things come in threes like Batman, Robin and himself. At some point Joker decides that the sensible thing to do next is compare Jason still letting him live with Batman’s no killing rule and then to make matters worse compare Jason’s actions as Red Hood with his own.

I absolutely LOVE Jason in this moment, I swear seeing Joker’s smile fade away brings me joy, he tells him exactly what he doesn’t want to hear. Jason isn’t like the Bat he won’t stay and play his game; this man right here just scared the Joker and nobody can’t tell me otherwise.

Back to Batman, he is trying his best to shake Mask off but the man keeps questioning if he knows who the Red Hood is and why did he let him operate in such a brutal way for so long (and affecting his business, poor thing so sad). Batman basically tells him to stop playing victim, he thinks that Mask crossed a line that someone really didn’t want crossed and that at the end of the day he is just another gagster…which is exactly what Hood had said moments ago trough the helmet to Black Mask, in a moment of great intelligence Mask deduces that maybe Batman actually knows exactly who Hood is.

Batman of course doesn’t answer because he thinks he is slick but the cat is out of the bag. Among the ruble of the helmet that just exploded (yeah the helmet had a built in bomb, that detonated after Mask unmasked the mustache man) Batman finds a message from Hood, a place and “you know where”.

The east end, Crime Alley. That’s where Jason takes him because it’s “fitting”, after all it’s the place where they first met.

Jason tells Batman that the Joker is in the building next to them and that he has it wired to blow it up, so Batman being his stupid self says that he won’t let him kill the Joker (come on Jason why do you want to kill the nice clown man, he is such a sweetheart).

The fight between those two is about to start when the scene changes. An attack, a living bomb called Chemo is being dropped (by the Society) in Bludhaven, Nightwing’s city. And Batman has a front row seat to see the show.

Yep, it’s not a good time to make snarky comments Jason; as far as both of them know Dick Grayson is dead. And the emotion in Batman’s face is heartbreaking, we as the readers have seen impossible situations, characters surviving shit that they wouldn’t in real life but characters within comics don’t know that… so, Bruce just saw another one of his sons die. (Dick is alive though, don’t worry)

Now, Jason has been a little shit during the whole story, but do not think for a moment that the situation somehow brings any form of positive emotion within him, what happens is that he sees an emotionally compromised Batman and well, will there ever be a better chance to manipulate him into feeling even worse?

…If Batman leaves, the Joker dies. So, first choice for the Bat, either he goes to what’s left of Bludhaven and searches for Dick or he stays and doesn’t let Jason kill the Joker.

Batman chooses to fight, and once again they start the same dance but this time B has upgraded his gadgets (you will never catch him wearing the same thing twice! Shame on you!) Jason teases him a little bit about the cape and B burns his jacket…

Batman has a whole speech about how Jason won’t be able to save Gotham or be better than him…that he knows that he failed him and is trying not to do it again. But Jason says that the failure he talks about isn’t really were his problem lies.

There we have it. And I would like to ask the same thing, why is the Joker still alive? Would it actually be so bad if he were beaten to death by someone’s bare hands? (Check out Joker: Last Laugh #6 (January, 2002) for a surprise)  

But that’s not the point, Jason is mad because he doesn’t understand and he feels betrayed, if the mad man kills a fifteen-year-old and then continues to kill and you as Batman aren’t willing to break the cycle of:  1) Joker escapes Arkham 2) Joker does something evil 3) Batman fights and captures him 4) Batman sends the Joker to Arkham 4) Arkham is already corrupt and lets him out after a while or he corrupts/kills a few people into letting him out, then what kind of man are you?

Batman obviously has an answer as to why he hasn’t killed Joker yet. He doesn’t do it because it will be too easy and not only that but he has thought about it…not just killing him but torturing him BUT! he won’t. He can’t really, you see, If he does it once maybe he will never stop (there he goes, the man with a resolve of steel) if he walks the dark path once he will walk it forever. Basically, Batman has zero willpower and zero control…my dude no one believes you!!!! Jason doesn’t either but he does have something to say.

Heartbreaking, that’s the only thing I have to say about these panels, these are panels that have always stuck with me. If you want this conversation to reach a whole new level of emotion I suggest you watch Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010) it’s an animated movie and Jason Todd is voiced by Jensen Ackles (who plays Dean Winchester in Supernatural) which is probably the best casting ever, Jensen is excellent at showing emotion with his voice. I totally know that probably all of you have seen the movie but it’s so good that I really think it’s worth watching again.

It doesn’t matter how emotional it’s for us, Batman can’t and won’t kill him, not even when Jason slides him a gun…so here comes the second time Batman has to make a choice

And he does, well, he uses a batarang to slice Jason’s throat making him let go off the Joker. Jason falls to the floor, a pool of blood around him. As that happens Joker grabs the gun and aims for the dynamite left there (remember that the building was set to go off) and shoots. BOOM!

And that’s the end. All three of them survive although Batman didn’t know that Jason was going to survive, I mean can he actually tell the future or…maybe I am missing something.

And yes, that was the end, I understand that to some it’s just a shitty ending and I don’t blame you…but to me it’s genius.  

It ends with Batman betraying Jason. They don’t make up, Batman doesn’t try to come to an understanding with him, he just makes a choice, he would rather save the Joker before killing or letting Jason kill him, which is bullshit my friends because Jason has been killing this whole story and B has been aware of it.

Jason appears later in Nightwing issue #118 (May, 2006) to #122 (September, 2006) as Nightwing and with tentacles. Don’t worry, you don’t have to read that. After that he appears here and there but personally, I really didn’t catch up with him up until Batman: Battle for the Cowl.

 Anyway, I am going to end it here, I hope whoever takes the time to read this enjoys it, see you around!

[elyreywrites]

when i’m like this you’re the one i trust

a huge thank you to my fellow brainstormers: Aque and Mizuphae, my betas: robinlikeitshot and kitcat, and my friend for introducing me to my favorite dick/tim song, which is also where the title is from!!

title is from The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights”!

please REBLOG - DO NOT REPOST

AO3 Link

Teen 3,107 words Dick Grayson/Tim Drake

Summary:

“You died,” he tried to snap, to hopefully push Dick away, but his voice broke. “You—you fell, and I couldn’t catch you in time.”

- - - - -

Tim reached out, someone was screaming – was it him? – but Dick was still falling and falling and where was his grapple! Dick reached back for him but— he was too far, too far, too far!

“Dick!” He couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even close his eyes as Dick hit the broken concrete with a resounding crack. He watched every second, the sight forever seared in his mind.

The world shifted around him and he found himself in the Cave. Tim didn’t know how he’d gotten there and he didn’t care, Dick was dead and—

“My son’s body is on that table because of you,” Bruce growled. “Jason would have caught him. Damian would have caught him. And he’s caught you before. I knew from the start you would never be as worthy of the Robin title, never as good as them. If I had known it would get my son killed, you never would have become Robin.”

Jason scoffed, sprawled over in the chair by Di—the body. “Shouldn’t be surprised. Everyone close to him gets killed. He got his own dad killed, why not his boyfriend too while he’s at it?”

Damian snarled, tears running down his face, and leapt forward with a knife in hand—

“TIM!”

Tim jolted up, grabbing his attacker’s arm and pinning them to the floor before wrenching their shoulder up and—

The person under him sucked in a sharp breath as they hit the ground. When they spoke, their voice was strained. “Timmy, baby bird, it’s just me, Dick. Sweetheart, you were having a nightmare. I shouldn’t have shaken you awake, but, baby, you weren’t waking up. Come on, Timmy, you’re safe. You’re safe, I’m safe, can you let me up now, sweetheart? We’re okay, but I need you to let me up.”

Dick. A distressed keen slipped from Tim as he threw himself backwards, as far away from Dick as he could get. He’d killed-hurt-maimed him, it was all his fault, oh god. His eyes were glued to the bruise on Dick’s arm as he sat up and gingerly held it close to his chest. Tim did that.

“I’m sorry,” he choked out. “I—I’m sorry, Dick, I’m so, so sorry. Oh god. I should—I need to go, you – everyone will be safer, I have to—I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I did my best but—I know I was never good enough, never should’ve been Robin, Dick, I’m so sorry.”

Scrambling to the window, his fingers clawed uselessly at the latch, shaking too much to actually do any good. There was a shout from behind him before an arm was wrapping around his waist and hauling him back until they both collapsed on the bed together. Tim thrashed – he had to get away, before he could hurt Dick again or get him killed, for real this time.

A strained grunt made him freeze. Just like that, he thought, nearly hysterical. God, how fucking worthless could he get? He couldn’t even stop injuring his own goddamn boyfriend—

A kiss was pressed to the side of his head and Dick started whispering to him. “Hey, Timmy, just calm down, okay? My shoulder’s just a bit sore and you knocked it, that’s all. I’m alright, I promise. Breathe, baby, come on.”

The stream of soft, comforting words didn’t stop even as Tim shakily gulped in air, breath catching on half-formed sobs. When he had calmed down, Dick shifted them to be side-by-side, his good arm still wrapped around Tim, just tight enough that he knew Dick wouldn’t let him leave. Tim kept his gaze locked on the wall. The image of Dick’s body lying broken over cement was still bouncing around in his head, and he needed to hold on to that image, needed to remember what he did to the people close to them.

“Come on, you know the rule, baby bird. If you have a nightmare, then you have to talk about it. And you were the one who made that rule, Timmy,” Dick teased gently.

And Tim couldn’t be a hypocrite on this. On a lot of other things, sure, but… not on this. “You died,” he tried to snap, to hopefully push Dick away, but his voice broke. “You—you fell, and I couldn’t catch you in time, and Bruce and Jason were right. It was all my fault, I got you killed just like I get everyone close to me killed, and I never should have been Robin in the first place! I knew—I knew I would never be as good as you or Jason, or now even Damian. I just—I hoped that I’d been enough, but I wasn’t, and they were right! You caught me and I couldn’t even catch you!” Tim bit his lip hard before he could start crying again.

Dick was silent for a long moment, taking one deep breath after another. “Okay. So. Okay, there’s a lot to unpack there, but first of all: Tim, baby bird, sweetheart… I don’t know how many nightmares I’ve had where I fail to catch you. I think I had that nightmare for a solid month and a half afterwards. Some nights it’s so real that I wake up absolutely convinced that’s what happened. I know I worried Alfred with how often I jumped out of bed to immediately review the footage of that night, just so I could see myself carry you in, beat to hell but alive.”

He pulled Tim into his lap, rested his chin on Tim’s shoulder, and continued, “So, when I say that it absolutely is not your fault, please…” Dick absentmindedly brushed a strand of hair out of Tim’s face, tucking it behind his ear. “Trust that I know what I’m talking about? You don’t get everyone close to you killed. It’s just that most of the people close to you live the same dangerous lives that we do, and terrible things tend to happen to us.”

“As for being Robin…” Dick huffed, a sound that was almost a sad laugh. “Jason wasn’t the same kind of Robin that I was, and you weren’t like either of us. Now Damian isn’t like any of us. We were all Robin, but we were all Robin in our own unique, amazing ways. And you were, Tim. Amazing. You were an excellent Robin, and I will say it as many times as you need to hear it, and then some. I know you aren’t likely to believe me because of how I handled things while Bruce was gone.” He sighed, clutching him just a little bit tighter as he said, “I will fully admit that I fucked up with you. There were so many other things I could have done instead, but that’s on me. You were everything a Tim-Robin needed to be. Bruce and I… I don’t think we could ever regret having you as Robin, except for all the pain you’ve suffered because of it.”

Tim broke with a harsh sob, still not able to forget Dick’s fall. “I—I can’t stop seeing it. Dick, I—”

Dick moved them again so that they were facing each other. “Come on, look at me. I know you haven’t, don’t think I didn’t notice that, Timmy. But I’m right here, alive. You just have to look at me, not at the wall. There we go, see? I’m okay.” He offered Tim a small, sad smile.

Tim lurched forward, burying his face in Dick’s neck, and curling around him as tight as he dared. “I’ve mourned so many people,” he whispered thickly. “Even if most of them came back, I can’t—I can’t lose you too.”

“I can’t promise that you won’t,” Dick said after a moment’s pause. “Our lives don’t allow for that. But I swear, as long as I’m alive, I’ll be here for you. Come on, it’s still only one in the morning. Let’s try to get some more sleep, alright? You’ll feel better in the morning.”

Dick tugged Tim into curling up against his side – the uninjured side – and murmured words of comfort that gradually slurred more and more until Dick finally dropped off to sleep.

Tim waited an extra ten minutes before he slipped out of Dick’s arms. He couldn’t stay. Dick would only keep getting hurt until Tim eventually got him killed, just like he ended up getting everyone close to him killed. It didn’t take very long to grab the things that he cared about that were solely his and pack them into his car. The one thing he hesitated on, though, was his box of photographs. If he was going to leave Dick to keep him safe, he needed to leave all of it behind. Dick, the Bats, the vigilante life. The first step would be to let his beginning, his past, go. And that meant he had to leave the photos behind.

Before he left, though, there were two more people he needed to talk to – even if they couldn’t talk back.

- - - - -

The realization wasn’t immediate when he woke up. He was aware that something felt off, but Dick wasn’t sure what it was. Being a vigilante meant that he stayed limp, acting as if he were still asleep and reaching for Tim just as he would have if he were still asleep. If he could subtly wake Tim up, they might be able to—

Tim wasn’t there. Aaand, Dick had found the problem. He shot up, immediately looking for signs of kidnapping – could Ra’s please stop trying to snatch his boyfriend? – or for Tim to be sitting somewhere with his laptop like he usually did when he couldn’t sleep. Instead, he found a room that was emptier than when he went to sleep. Most of Tim’s stuff was gone. After the conversation they had before going back to bed, Dick really doubted that was a good sign.

His eyes caught on a box still on one of the designated Tim-shelves. Tim’s photos. He wanted to take it as a sign that Tim would come back – because he wouldn’t leave those behind for good, right? – but Dick didn’t want to risk it either. He’d let Tim go once before, expecting him to come back until Tim didn’t. He wasn’t making that mistake again.

Babs wouldn’t be pleased by Dick waking her up, but he reasoned that she would be even less pleased if he lost Tim when they had just gotten him back not too long ago. So he called.

Two rings later, she answered. “Someone better be dying if you’re waking me up at… 3:30 in the morning for this.”

“Something happened. Tim thinks that just by knowing him people get hurt, and he decided to leave after I fell asleep. He’s missing and I need your help to find him before he gets too far. Babs, he took nearly all his things.”

There was a long moment of silence on the other end of the line. Then, “Shit. Alright, while I get to my computer, tell me what you can about a timeframe, and I’ll try to find him on a security camera.”

“You already know we both had the night off tonight, so we actually went to bed pretty early,” Dick started explaining. “But then he had a nightmare and woke up sometime before one o’clock. By the time I got him calmed down enough to get some more sleep, it was about one. I was still awake until maybe 1:30, then I crashed. He must have still been awake and snuck out after that, but it would’ve taken some time to load up his car, especially if he was trying not to wake me up.”

Barbara hummed, the clacking of keys in the background. “Alright,” she said, “That gives two hours to work back through, but that shouldn’t take too long sped up. Once I see Tim’s car in its normal spot, I can work forwards more slowly until we’ve got a better idea of when he left. Then I can follow him on the cams. I’ll call back once I have something.”

Dick sagged in relief as she hung up. Babs would find him, with the Bats’ extensive camera coverage of Gotham at her fingertips. A half-hearted laugh slipped out; it was Tim’s own suggestion many years ago to increase the video surveillance over Gotham. Now, it was working against him.

In all fairness, Tim probably thought Dick would stay asleep long enough for him to get too far and disappear completely, but Dick didn’t want to think about that.

He jumped up and hurried to get ready, throwing on warm clothes and bundling up because it was late October in New Jersey, 3:30 in the morning. It was pretty damn cold out, and Tim sometimes forgot to actually put a jacket on, the spleenless idiot. He’d have grabbed Tim one too, just in case, if Tim hadn’t already taken all his. All Dick could do was hope he’d actually put one on.

By the time he was ready to go, he heard his text tone for Babs, hopefully with a location.

[He’s at the cemetery where his parents were buried. I’ll call if he leaves before you get there.]

“Oh, Timmy,” Dick sighed. His chest ached knowing that Tim was visiting his parents’ graves, something he almost never did. He snatched up his keys and headed out. He had a boyfriend to retrieve.

When he got there, Tim’s car was still parked outside the cemetery, packed just as he’d expected. Tim had really been prepared to just drive off and disappear for good. He made his way through the rows of graves silently, soon spotting Tim in the distance. He was curled up against Jack’s gravestone in a t-shirt and jeans. As he got closer, Dick could hear him talking to his parents, and his heart hurt at the words slipping from Tim.

With a quiet sigh, he tugged his jacket off and draped it over his shivering boyfriend. Tim’s rambling stopped abruptly as he looked up at Dick.

- - - - -

Updating his parents on everything took some time, but he had needed to get it off his chest. But now that he’d gotten to what he had really wanted to ask, he hesitated. “Did… did you guys know?” he finally whispered. “Is this why you were always leaving me, because somehow you knew what I do to the people I get close to? Did you leave to try to stay safe from me?”

He choked out a sharp, bitter laugh, and looked down at his fingers weaving through the weeds. “It didn’t work in the end, did it? You’re still dead and… how can that not be, like, my curse? I get people hurt and killed, that’s… that’s all there is to it, really. I got you both killed, just like I got so many people killed already. Just like I’ll get so many more—”

He cut himself off as a jacket – Dick’s jacket – was dropped on him, head snapping up to find Dick watching him sadly. He settled beside Tim, snaking his arms around his waist to pull him closer.

“Baby bird,” Dick murmured, “you’ve got to take better care of yourself, especially without your spleen. You know this.”

Looking away, Tim could only shrug. “Forgot to,” he mumbled. He climbed to his feet, tossing the jacket at Dick, and began weaving back through the graves to his car.

Dick caught up to him quickly. He draped the jacket over Tim’s shoulders again and wrapped his arm around him for good measure.

“Let go already. I’m leaving and you can’t fucking stop me,” Tim snapped, pulling away.

Dick hummed. “We’ll see.”

“What the hell does that mean?!”

“It means,” Dick drawled, holding up a set of keys with a distinctive dice keychain, “that I’m the one with your keys.”

“Dick! Why do you even care?!” Tim yelled. He tried to grab his keys, only for Dick to hold them out of his reach.

Stopping in his tracks, Dick swung Tim around in front of him and stared at him with a hard expression. “I can’t believe you actually just asked me that, but I’ll leave it be because you’ve had a bit of a rough night. I care because I fucking love you, Tim.”

Tim couldn’t help the way his shoulders curled in, or how he looked away.

“Hey,” Dick whispered. A hand on his cheek turned him back towards his boyfriend. “Tim, I let you go once. I let you run off and I didn’t go after you like I should have. I’m not making that mistake again. If you really have to leave you can, but I can’t imagine not coming with you, sweetheart. If you run… I will be right behind you unless you tell me that you truly don’t want me anymore.”

A raspy chuckle slipped out against Tim’s will. “You aren’t exactly Nick Parker, and I’m no Elizabeth James,” he murmured.

That drew a small laugh, as Dick wiped away Tim’s tears that he hadn’t realized were falling. “You can’t distract me with ‘Parent Trap’ references, Timmy. I’m serious. If you need to leave Gotham, I’ll be right there with you. I’m not letting you run off alone with some dumb idea that you’re protecting me.”

“Yeah,” Tim sighed. He leaned into Dick’s touch and squeezed the hand Dick still held. “I’m starting to get that.”

“Great! Then you are going to get back in your car and drive straight home. When you get there, I want you to bundle up in blankets and put a Studio Ghibli movie in.”

Tim stopped mid-reach for his keys. “And what, exactly, are you planning on doing, if you’re not following me back?”

Dick dropped Tim’s keys in his hand and winked. “I’m going to swing by a 24-hour diner for pancakes, and then I’m coming home to snuggle up with you and watch movies. We’re both taking tomorrow off. And,” the grin gave way to a Bat-glare, “if you aren’t home by the time I get there, I’m calling in the entire superhero community to hunt you down.”

“Okay, okay,” Tim laughed lightly. “I get it. I’ll be there.”

“Good!” Dick pecked the cold tip of his nose. “Head home, baby bird, and… please, don’t try to leave again, unless it’s what you really want?”

Tim pulled Dick down into a full, chaste kiss. “I’ll try not to,” he murmured. “See you at home.”

“Go get warmed up, sweetheart,” Dick said, pushing him towards his car. He had some pancakes to pick up.

[bigskydreaming]

IGN’s recent Bat-focused article (Batman: What Does Red Hood Need to Do to Get A Good Story?) praises fanfic writers and also is an amazing critique of how stagnant Jason has become under recent DC management and I’m so surprised at how good it is and how well thought out the solutions were

Hmmm. I just looked it up and I mean, I’m not trying to start anything but I both agree and disagree? Like, it makes some points for sure, I mean, its not like its saying things that I haven’t said a thousand times about Dick, like.....these characters need to be allowed access to a full range of emotions, both good and bad, in order to be fully fleshed out, so I mean yes on that premise alone I absolutely agree this is as true for Jason as it is for Dick or anyone else.

Tbh my only real criticism of the piece is it thinks Jason exists in a particular predicament the other characters aren’t in as well. And that I just don’t agree with, like they kinda lost me a bit with their first paragraph:

His complexities and moral ambiguity make him a compelling and distinct character among his more strait-laced Robin-brothers. Sadly, the character has seen little growth since his rage-filled reintroduction into comics. The ‘former Robin becomes a villain’ idea was enough for DC to coast on for a while but since rejoining the heroes, Red Hood has done little else.

First off, this may just be me being pedantic but I’m ALWAYS going to go fetch a grain of salt before continuing reading anything that pits Jason against his brothers in a war of his moral ambiguity against their strait-lacedness. Because to me, that’s just a fundamentally shallow view of the Batfam that caters to the idea that they each must have their own distinct niche in order to be fully viable individual characters, when a) no, and b) they don’t fit neatly into the niches people keep trying to slot them into and it never ends well for anybody. 

Like Jason is morally ambiguous in a lot of ways too, yes, but umm, even if we assume that the writer is only speaking of Dick, Tim and Damian, we’re talking a guy who beat the Joker to death with his bare hands and has ten assassins and mercenaries on his speed dial and who co-led the Outsiders, a guy who was deeply immersed in weighing the pros and cons of getting revenge for his father by getting Captain Boomerang killed and is forever being DMed by Ra’s because he’s convinced he can get Tim to say He Has Some Points Actually, and the kid who was an assassin with a body count by age ten and who has struggled constantly ever since his debut to define his OWN personal view of morality that is not wholly predicated on what he was taught by any single individual.

And this is a big part of where I part ways with the article, because I think it falls into the same trap that a lot of people do by believing fanfic is inherently better by doing the same thing from just a different angle. Fanfic CAN be better than the canon, I absolutely believe that, I believe it is at times, but to do so, it has to like, BE BETTER. It has to do things differently, and not just paint a slightly different veneer over the same things. Like, pedantic though it might be, I outlined the above issue because its a mode of thinking the canon absolutely falls into again and again, and just like the writer of that article themselves, like....I think fandom as a whole is no different? 

Like, yes there are great stories about Jason out there, some writers have done great and interesting things with him, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a huge trend in fandom of doing the exact same thing I see here.....which is honestly a huge part of the exact same problem the article is decrying canon for......LIMITING Jason (and all the Batfam) by reducing them and their stories to finite niches as a way of spotlighting them as different from their siblings.....except they’re not that different! And that’s okay! They don’t have to be! Families can have lots in common, families DO have lots in common due to like.....shared variables during their formative years. 

I mean Jason was heavily influenced by environmental factors in how and where he grew up before he ever met Batman, but like the article goes into itself, he was no less influenced by Bruce himself as his father figure.....which is something he absolutely has in common with his siblings, thus its not hard at all to see how his siblings could have similar complexities and moral struggles that stem from trying to reconcile Bruce’s influence with the many other things and people that have influenced their childhoods.

And similarly, while the article is dead-on about Jason’s stagnancy....this is something that applies in equal measure to the rest of his family, because they’re all facing the same issues in terms of how DC views and utilizes them, and fandom as much as it likes to condemn DC for doing just that....frequently does the same thing. Like, Jason’s stuck in canon, absolutely......but Dick keeps being popped out into his own microcosm to experience a couple years of stories that essentially turn him into completely different characters isolated from every communal part of his character’s history, and then ERASE everything that’s happened at the end of each of these stories and reset him to square one.....and that’s just a different kind of stagnancy that again, still never allows for actual character progression or development. Tim has LITERALLY been regressed back to Robin, like a hard reset that’s its own kind of stagnancy and Damian has had years of character development upended just to kick him back to where he started, effectively strip away all the connections he’s developed at least in any meaningful way, etc.....and the same holds true for Babs and Cass and Steph and even Bruce himself IMO, in a lot of ways.

Its absolutely a problem, but its a problem that extends far beyond just Jason even if he is a great example of it. And its also a problem that extends into fic itself, and that’s why I don’t agree with a lot of the conclusions that article draws beyond just the fundamental “these characters need to be allowed access to a full range of emotions.”

Yes. That. That right there, THAT I think is crucial, but I think that writer needed to widen the scope a little to take in the full impact of what that actually MEANS for the characters....so as to not accidentally repeat the same problem they’re being critical of by essentially arguing for a full range of emotions for Jason....while still defining or viewing Jason through a finite lens of “the more morally ambiguous Bat character, at least as compared to his brothers.”

Because its that last part that’s so detrimental, because it seems like such a little thing at first, until you realize that essentially its just putting a ceiling, a cap on how far those full ranges of emotions can be expressed. Like the problem with Dick Grayson in canon and fanon is NOT that he can’t be written with a full range of emotions.....its that his character absolutely can encompass a wide range of opinions and viewpoints and emotional stances from “I don’t believe in killing as a first option” to “I absolutely can, will, and have beaten a damn clown to death for joking about murdering my brother”.....and he can still walk away as Dick Grayson after expressing both those things, because his character is big enough to include them both. HE’S not limited as a character, its canon writers and fandom writers that both heap artificial limitations of their OWN on him, say that his character is so defined in such a specific way that there’s no way for the latter expression of his character to actually be IN character.....and the fatal flaw here is fully fleshed out characters are never just one thing. They don’t fit in niches anymore than people do, and notice the problems we all run into when we try and pigeon hole people as being just one thing, like humans can’t be contradictory or act against their own self-interest or be hypocritical or evolve or even regress past prior viewpoints....basically, any time you try and sum up a human being in one line, no matter how accurate that description is, there’s still SOME things that are going to be left out of that picture. 

Now, these things don’t always have to matter that much, like if I look at a serial killer and say that’s a serial killer, like, I might be leaving out of the picture that once he helped an old lady across the street and didn’t kill her and he doesn’t even know why, and I for one, simply do not care that I leave that out of the picture. Its irrelevant to the big picture for me. I can acknowledge that it adds a smidgen of nuance to that particular picture and then go yeah but also I don’t care, nuance denied.

But in terms of fictional characters, these things that get left in the discard pile when we try and sum up characters as just one thing, like, they can be hugely significant, because characters unlike real people, are simply WHAT WE MAKE OF THEM. That stuff that’s been left out of the big picture look at that character because its stuff most people to DEFINE what that character looks like have deemed irrelevant....its still there, and still perfectly relevant for anyone who wants to pick that stuff up and make something of it, use it to change the overall picture or even just point to ways and places that picture can absolutely encompass and include these other elements and STILL fundamentally be that same picture, that same character.

And this isn’t to say that characters can never be written out of character, its to say that usually IMO what ACTUALLY makes the difference between something being out of character and something just being an unexpected but still valid character choice is just.....how these things are executed. The latter is when writers make the effort to JUSTIFY their character choice, to sell audiences on why and how this is absolutely something this character would do, to take them on a journey of what led the character to making this choice and let them see how those steps actually line up, that’s an actual journey that character might take. The former is when writers just don’t bother and are just like, well here’s a thing that character did, and you know it was in character because well that’s the character and that’s what I wrote them doing lol, what more do you want. No. Yawn. Next.

But the trick is if you’re going to try and make a character a SPECTRUM of emotions and choices rather than just a same datapoint recurring over and over again endlessly, a literal sticking point that never advances, never progresses, never changes......you have to actually give that character free range to utilize that spectrum of emotions and choices.....not just confine them to accessing all those possibilities but ONLY within a narrowly defined niche that is its own kind of limitation.

A character can START from a logline, absolutely. Can BEGIN in a narrative niche as a way to INTRODUCE them as seemingly different from their surroundings or their peers when they do not yet have the backstory, the evidence of past stories and character choices readers can use to interpret their actions or guess their choices.....but narrative niches, IMO, are meant to have a shelf life, an expiration date. They’re a seed for characters to grow FROM, to grow PAST, not return to over and over again.....because that’s when a niche just becomes another house that stagnancy built.

Anyway, thanks for the thoughts and the article mention.....it was an interesting exploration of thoughts for me even if I didn’t ultimately agree with a lot of what was already said....still a worthwhile read though I think and I mean hey, its cool if you still agree with it more even if I don’t, lol. This is just my take.

[cdelphiki]

Tim didn’t like the think about that night. 

It was painful enough just having happened. 

When he landed on the roof, his jaw aching and his lip bleeding, he had looked up and looked around and realized something. 

He was absolutely alone. 

In his own family. He was alone. 

But, no. It was worse than alone. 

Alone was back when he was living with Jack and Janet. Alone was puttering around a mansion, shifting between boarding schools and nannies and a housekeeper who checked in on him during the day and left him to his own devices at night. 

Yeah, being alone sucked, but Tim knew how to be alone. He thrived there. He’d been alone his entire life. 

This was worse than alone. This was…. unappreciated. This was mistreated. This was disliked. This was despised.

And Tim didn’t need this shit. 

If Bruce didn’t appreciate his love and devotion, then fine. Tim was done offering it. He put himself out there again and again, sacrificed himself for his family over and over, gave everything he had just to be pushed aside every single time. 

Every. Single. Time.

Tim was tired of always being the one pushed aside. Everyone was more important than him in this family. Damian was younger and cuter. Jason was bigger and stronger. Dick was older and wiser. Tim was… he was just there. He was a placeholder. Someone to sacrifice when needed. 

Toss aside. 

Ignore.

And now. Now, he was a punching bag, apparently. 

Because when he looked around, no one said anything. He saw a couple shocked faces, sure, but no one said a damn thing. 

It was just another night. Bruce was hurting. Bruce was broken. Everyone needed to move on and not press his buttons anymore. Be nice to Bruce and comfort Bruce.

What about Tim? 

Bruce didn’t even look sorry. 

That’s probably what set Tim off, most. 

Internally, of course, because externally all he did was wipe the blood off his face and stand, a little shakily. 

All this time. All these years. Everything. Tim had given Bruce everything. Even his name. He’d changed his name to Tim Wayne and given his all to help Bruce in his mission to save Gotham. 

But did any of it matter?

No.

Because Tim didn’t matter. All that mattered was Bruce and his hurts.

And Tim didn’t need this shit. 

He didn’t have to take it, either. He wasn’t that little boy, all alone in a mansion, craving the attention of anyone who gave him the time of day. 

Tim was an adult now. Well… in the eyes of the law at least. Emancipated was an adult, even if he was still only 16. 

But he was an adult, and he had friends. 

Friends he knew loved him and cared about him. He didn’t need Bruce or anyone else in this stupid ‘family.’ He’d be just fine without them. 

When no one said anything for a solid minute after he stood, Tim decided he was done. He rolled his shoulders, took out his grapple, and made his way back to his apartment with a quickly swelling eye. 

The entire right side of his face felt both numb and on fire. It wasn’t a foreign feeling to him, but knowing Bruce had done it. On purpose. Out of anger. Just made it….

Tim didn’t want to think about it.

He was so tired of it all. So tired of giving so much of himself to just be hurt over and over. 

But he didn’t have to keep going this way. And when he arrived back at his apartment and changed out of uniform, he debated whether he’d ever work with the family again. Work under Batman. 

And looking at his puffy face in the mirror, he asked why he’d ever started in the first place.

Because was it honestly worth it?

- - - 

The first thing Tim did was change his name.

He’d always kind of hated himself, anyway, for changing it to Tim Wayne, back when Bruce adopted him. It had been the reason for one of his breakdowns, after all. Tim Wayne. 

No one had cared about that break of his, either, now had they?

Honestly, he just felt like an idiot for being strung along so long. But who was he kidding? No one had ever asked for Tim to be around. He just planted himself in the family. Pushed his way in and insisted he be included in everything. 

Like a fungus. 

It was no wonder he got back nothing but hurt. 

But that didn’t matter. He had his friends. They made him happy. They loved him and wanted him around. Why would he need anyone else?

His lawyer had looked more than mildly alarmed, though, when Tim met with him the following Monday.

The swelling in his face had disappeared by then, but the bruise had fully blossomed and looked rather painful. Deep purple right at the jawline, right where Bruce’s knuckle had hit, softening out to lighter purple and greens, the further away from the center one looked. 

It was clearly a fist print, too. 

And it took up a good fourth of his face. 

“Mr. Drake,” his lawyer, Esteban, had said, “if- if Mr. Wayne…”

“It doesn’t matter,” Tim said. He had purposely not covered the bruise in anticipation of the meeting. He knew what image it would broadcast. And he didn’t care. It would help his case, make his lawyer more sympathetic, mean there was no argument over the decision. Removing ‘Wayne’ from their name in Gotham, after all, was not something anyone had ever done. 

Wayne was a powerful name. Even more powerful when Bruce Wayne himself had given it. 

But Tim was done with Bruce Wayne. He was ready to just be Tim Drake. 

Tim Drake. Robin. A member of Young Justice.

Maybe he should think about his superhero name, now. Disconnect himself completely from Batman. 

He had certainly already disconnected himself from all of Bruce’s assets. It was probably only a matter of time before Bruce himself cut Tim off, so he’d just taken the initiative. 

It’s not like he couldn’t support himself on his own. Yeah, Drake Industries had gone bankrupt when Jack was still alive, but Tim had been working on it. And, ever since he became the primary shareholder of Wayne Enterprises, he’d been squirreling away as much as he could without arousing suspicion. 

He had more than enough to live for the next twenty years without changing his spending habits. If he put himself on a budget, though? He could live indefinitely. There was no need to be attached to Bruce’s accounts.

Besides, he took some pleasure in cutting every one of Bruce’s credit cards in half and placing them all in an envelope to mail to Bruce. Just so he could be sure, himself, that Tim was done with him.

“We can press charges,” Esteban said, after taking a breath and putting his best ‘lawyer face’ on, “if that is why, we should press charges. He still has another kid at home.”

“You’ve signed a NDA,” Tim reminded him, “just get my name changed.”

“Which doesn’t apply to child abuse,” Esteban said, “Which you knew.”

Tim did know that. He also didn’t care if his lawyer reported it. Damian didn’t need to be living with Bruce, anyway. And Bruce deserved whatever scrutiny such a report would bring down on him. Tim almost didn’t even care if it exposed Batman.

That ‘almost’ was the only thing keeping him from reporting it himself, to get Damian out of there.

“Yeah, well, I’m not a child. And Bruce didn’t do this. So relax.”

Damian could take care of himself, Tim was sure. He lived with the Teen Titans half the time, anyway. Plus the Kents adored him. They’d watch out for him.

Besides, it’s not like Bruce didn’t want Damian around, right? He loved Damian. So Damian had nothing to worry about.

Except…

He hadn’t really chosen Damian. The boy had kind of just… appeared. And stuck himself to Bruce. Demanded to be made heir and everything else. 

So there was a chance he would end up in the same boat…

Maybe he should report it…

But if Tim told Kon, he was fairly certain Kon would tell Clark, who would deal with Bruce himself. Clark was Bruce’s best friend, but he knew Clark would protect Damian from Bruce if he felt it necessary. There was no way he’d stand for Bruce hitting any of his allies. Especially not one he claimed as a ‘son,’ no matter how superficial the paperwork was.

Yeah. That was the perfect plan. 

That’s what he’d do. 

“Then who did it, Tim?”Esteban asked, gently, as if he were going to get Tim to open up and talk by simply being kind. 

Smiling his ‘Tim Wayne’ smile, Tim just said, “Timothy Jackson Drake is what I want my legal name to be.” 

As soon as he was done cutting himself off completely, he’d call Kon and talk to him. Then he’d start his new life, working with Young Justice and maybe finding a profession. 

The more he thought about it, the more excited he got about his life on his own.

It would be nice to live for himself for once.

- - - 

Weeks passed. 

No one seemed to understand why Tim left.

Even though he told himself no one wanted him around in the first place, he’d still been expecting… something. Someone to react to him leaving. To miss him for him. Not for what he was ‘doing to Bruce.’ 

But Bruce acted like nothing happened. When the media went crazy over the revelation that Tim severed ties, sold his shares back to Bruce, and changed his name, Bruce refused to comment. And still hadn’t said anything about it.

That didn’t stop the various members of the batfamily from trying to convince him to stop ‘hurting the family’ and ‘making everything worse’ by ‘blowing everything out of proportion.’ 

Honestly, Tim was tired of them all. 

‘That’s just how Bruce is,’ Babs had said.

‘He was upset,’ Helena explained. 

‘Dude lost everything,’ Duke reasoned. 

‘Master Tim, you must understand-’ Alfred had started, but Tim hung up on him.

Tim didn’t bother to ask Damian his opinion. 

No one understood, and Tim was done trying to explain it to them.

If he could go the rest of his life without thinking about it or Bruce again, he’d live a happy life. 

He didn’t need any of them, anyway.

Jason, though?

Well. Tim had not been planning on Jason. He was fine alone. Because, again, he had his friends. 

But someone told Jason.

Tim wasn’t sure who, but someone did. It was obvious, by the mere fact that Jason Todd was in his apartment, in the dark, waiting for Tim to get home.

It had been almost a month. 

And while he and Jason might not have had a bad relationship, they hadn’t been much more than friendly acquaintances. Ever. At best.

Hostile enemies at worst.

“Welcome to the club, kid,” Jason said, not even looking up when Tim cut the light on to reveal Jason sitting sideways in the armchair, one leg slung up over the side, as he read something on his kindle. One of the ones that lit up.

Tim didn’t really like kindles. He wasn’t a huge fan of reading, in general, but he definitely didn’t like kindles. Tim would have never guessed that Jason, being a book nerd, used a kindle. He kind of seemed like the kind of dork who would prefer to smell the books, or something, while reading.

“Go away,” Tim said flatly, as he dropped his bag down on the ground and went to fix himself something to eat. He’d been away on a mission with his team for the last week. All he wanted to do was eat a bowl of something. Soup, probably. Lie on the couch and eat it while he watched something light and funny, then fall asleep. Possibly right there on the couch. 

Talking to Jason was not any of those things. 

“Heard you cut ties to Bat completely,” Jason said, “Gotta say. I’m impressed.”

Tim rolled his eyes as he looked through the various cans of soup he had in the cupboard, before he picked a hardy chicken and rice thing. “Don’t care. Go away.”

“Bat’s pissed, of course,” Jason said, as if Tim hadn’t said anything, “it’s kind of great.”

He watched his bowl spin in the microwave, while trying to blow Jason up with sheer willpower. Maybe if he thought hard enough, he’d discover latent super power abilities and make Jason disappear. 

It could happen. 

“But what I don’t get is: What did you do?”

“What did I do?” Tim echoed, spinning to stare at Jason, “What the fuck do you mean, what did I do?”

“To piss him off.” 

“Does it matter?” 

It’s not like it took much to piss Bruce off enough to be on the receiving end of a blow. The more Tim thought about it, the more surprised he was it’d taken as long as it did. Bruce had hit both Jason and Dick many times while angry. And Bruce actually chose both of them. Right from the beginning. 

“Well, sure. You always seemed like a goody-goody to me. Daddy’s perfect little solider. What could you possibly do to-”

“I didn’t do anything,” Tim shouted, “Just like you didn’t do anything, and Dick didn’t do anything to deserve it. No one-”

“Let’s be fair here, Timbo. I tried to kill a dude.” 

“So?” Tim asked, shaking his head, “Why does that make it okay for Bruce, your literal Dad, to attack you?”

Jason opened his mouth, but then just blinked at Tim. 

He’d never really- They didn’t use that word. Tim wasn’t sure why he used that word. 

But, that’s what he was, wasn’t it? Even if he only adopted them out of convenience. Or obligation. That’s what he was. 

Bruce was the one who was there for parental guidance, right? He’d signed Tim’s report cards and everything. Gone to his school performances. Attended parent-teacher conferences. Taken him out for pizza and ice cream and to the movies. 

There had been good times. Several years of good times. Tim had felt… wanted. And loved. For years. Bruce even said he loved him. Loved them all. 

And yet, here they were. 

Dealing with the repercussions of living in a lie.

“He- He-” Tim said, absolutely flabbergasted by Jason’s apparent… acceptance? Of all this? Out of all the people in the world, Tim thought Jason would understand. 

Abuse was abuse. It was wrong. Regardless of what the victim did. Or who they were. 

“I didn’t do anything,” he said, as his hand started to shake. He stepped forward and gripped onto one of the bar stools at his island, and kept going, “And that’s what no one seems to get.”

And Bruce had… Bruce had abused him. 

That’s what this was. It wasn’t just an attack. It wasn’t just….and… he’d done it to Jason before him. And Dick before that. 

It didn’t matter how he came into Bruce’s life. What he’d ever done. Bruce had adopted him. Bruce had adopted them all. 

“Parents are supposed to- Dads are supposed to- supposed to love their kids,” Tim said, his voice quieting with each word, as his focus slipped from Jason, to off in the distance. 

Bruce was their dad. And he was abusive. 

“Tim.” 

“I was just telling him I cared,” Tim snapped, angry Jason was making him feel things when all he wanted was some soup and an episode of The Simpsons. Or, maybe something like Futurama would be better. “And he just- he just…”

“Tim.”

Bruce had attacked him. 

For trying to say he cared about him. 

All Tim had done was love his dad, and that was how Bruce reciprocated. 

“I didn’t do anything,” Tim whispered, letting go of the bar stool to wipe at his eyes.

Jason slowly got up and came to the counter, then sat down on the other side of the island. He placed his hands on the counter, then splayed out his fingers while he stared at them.

Tim never had a good example of a parent. His parents had loved him, he was sure, but they weren’t very good parents. He realized that, now. They cared more about their careers than they did about Tim. So when Bruce came around and actually talked to him. Spent time with him. Smiled at him, as if just his presence was enough to make Bruce happy, Tim had been absolutely overjoyed. Enamored with his new dad.

But Bruce had never been a good parent, either. Had he? 

Nothing like Jack and Janet, but still unfit in his own ways. 

Abusive in his own ways.

Eventually, long after the microwave had beeped, and Tim had ignored it in favor of staring at Jason’s hands, too, while he tried to keep his vision from blurring any further, Jason said, “Sorry, kid.” 

“It was wrong,” Tim said numbly, and Jason just nodded, “it was wrong when he did it to you, too.”

At that, Jason scrubbed at his own eye, just briefly, before he seemed to realize he was doing it and put his hand back down on the counter. “It’s whatever,” he said, so nonchalantly that Tim realized Jason was a much better actor than he’d ever realized. 

“He’s our dad,” Tim whispered.

“Yeah.”

Tim didn’t know much about good parents, but he did know one thing. “That’s not how Dads are supposed to be.” 

[justcourttee]

Daminette Marinette accidental pregnancy reveal in front of the whole family

Love it. Daminette is golden. Hope you like it! @speedybakeryneckzipper

Uhm Surprise?

Marinette felt herself spiraling.

She sat in her apartment bathroom, her head buried into her hands in disbelief. They had finally done it. She was finally pregnant. Oh God, Damian was going to be so happy. Eight long months of trying and failing and here she was, sitting in a damp towel, tears of joy pouring down her face.

“Angel? Are you almost finished getting ready? You know how unreasonable Grayson gets when we are late for this cursed family night.”

Marinette wiped the tears from her face, standing as quietly as she could. The problem with marrying a former assassin was that he could always detect the slightest problems with his stupid hearing.

“I’m honestly just finishing up drying off. It’ll take another 15 at least to get dressed and put on some basic makeup.”

The pause on the other side of the door sent a shiver of fear through her spine. Maybe she hadn’t kept her voice level enough, maybe he could hear her excited undertones, maybe-

“Alright my love, but just know, you are risking the wrath of little Grayson as well.”

Marinette rolled her eyes at his nickname for Dick and Barbara’s child. He had only ever called his niece by name once, other than that, it was always little Grayson, or the spawn of satan. (Honestly though, from the stories they had told Marinette, maybe making him babysit the child was Dick’s revenge for Damian’s own childhood.)

She waited until she was sure he was no longer at the door before she released the quietest squeal she could manage. Maybe she would tell him after family night. After all, they were in every right to celebrate this victory together. . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stepping out of the portal, Marinette didn’t even have the chance to detransform before she lost her stomach in Alfred’s shrubbery. Immediately, Damian was by her side, a wary look on his face as he did his best to hold back her hair from the assault.

“Are you alright angel? Portaling has never had that effect on you before.”

Marinette nodded as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, calling off the transformation.

‘So no portalling for the next few months. Noted.’

Pulling out a can of mints, Marinette swallowed three of them before breathing out a sigh of relief. Giving an okay to Damian, he pushed open the door, offering his arm for her to take.

“About damn time!”

Marinette sidestepped at the last second as Jason tackled Damian to the ground, putting him into a headlock as he ruffled her husband’s hair.

“You two lovebirds realize that you left me in an insufferable situation right? There’s like three kids and that’s not even counting Dickie bird.”

A vague ‘hey’ echoed through the hallways followed by laughter. Marinette shook her head as she tapped out for Damian, helping him up from the ground.

“So what Miraculous did you bring tonight Mari? I’m so ready for another spar.”

“I, uh, forgot. Yup.”

Jason narrowed his eyes at her.

“You guys didn’t drive up so that means you at least have Kaalki with you.”

“I do, but-”

“Great! We’ll practice my dodging later on.”

Jason slung his arms around the couple as he led them into the living room where several more faces sat, eagerly awaiting their arrival.

“And the last to the party, for the seventh week in a row, Mr. and Mrs. Damian Wayne! And the crowd goes wild!” Tim cupped his hands over his mouth as he exhaled loudly.

Before Damian could raise his fist, Marinette reached over, plucking the fresh bread from Tim’s plate, sending him a wink.

“We’re going for a new record.”

“I’ll say, you guys don’t even have kids yet. I can’t imagine how late you’ll be when you have a third one to dress Marinette.”

Damian grumbled under his breath as Marinette bit her lip hard, avoiding looking Tim in the eyes.

“What, no comeback? You’re slacking tonight Mari.”

Jason settled into the couch, gently kicking Tim in the back of the head in the process. For a second, all eyes were on her. She felt her face flush as she tried her best to hide behind Damian.

“She’s not feeling good tonight, but she came to make Grayson happy. Now leave her be or face my wrath.”

Tim and Jason let out a simultaneous ‘ooo’ before bursting into fits of laughter. Marinette saw Damian’s first begin to curl, but before he could completely close them, she forced her hand in between, intertwining their fingers. Instantly he relaxed as he leaned down to place a small kiss on her forehead.

“Who’s ready to party?” Two more faces joined the party as Stephanie and Barbara wondered in, each carrying a respective bottle of wine. “Brucie put the kids to bed, Dick is reading them a story, and we need to pregame before they come to stop us.”

“You seriously are going to pregame with wine?”

Jason raised his eyebrow at the two girls before shaking his head in disappointment.

“I thought I taught you both better than that.”

The pop of the cork made Marinette’s stomach flip. The smell was so potent. Had wine always smelt like this? She felt herself starting to gag as she tried to shove Tim’s slice of bread down before anything could come up.

“Hey! Marinette’s cheating! She’s eating bread before drinking.” Stephanie reached over in a playful manner, swatting at the piece of bread.

Marinette took a step back, but it was too quick of a movement as she felt all the blood rush to her head. Two sets of arms darted out as Stephanie and Damian caught her before she could hit the ground.

“Angel are you okay? You’re beginning to worry me.”

She couldn’t trust herself to speak so instead she nodded, holding up the half-eaten bread.

“Dude,” Stephanie slapped the back of Damian’s head, earning a growl from the man. “Why aren’t you feeding this tiny woman. If she passes out from lack of calories again, I’m sticking Cass on your ass.”

Jason snickered, earning a smack on the back of his head courtesy of Barbara.

“Well, well, well. Look who finally showed up. They finally showed up Bruce! Can you believe your eyes?”

Bruce shook his head as Dick raced forward, encasing Marinette in a bone-crushing hug.

“Dick, not so hard, please.”

She didn’t mean to let the distress slip into her voice, but it was too late. Dick pulled back, his eyes narrowed in concern as he assessed her face. He opened his mouth and Marinette knew it was over. She braced herself for the words that were about to slip out but alas, nothing came. Instead, Barbara pulled him away, handing him a glass of wine and offering one to her.

“Oh, uhm, no thank you. I’m not feeling so good today.”

“Oh, c’mon Mari! Drink with us!”

A chorus of ‘yeah’s’ and ‘drink up’ rang through the room as they waited for her to accept the glass. Gently she took the drink from Barbara’s hands with a small smile. But it wasn't enough, they all stared at her, waiting for her to take the first sip. Nervously, she raised the glass to her lips, the smell overpowering her senses. The wine rose up to the edge of the glass as she tilted it back. It was so close to her lips, so close-

“I can’t!”

Jason stepped forward, crossing his arms as he narrowed in on the girl.

“Why not?”

“Because!”

“Because why? It’s just wine.”

“Because I’m pregnant!” Instantly she slapped her hand over her mouth as her eyes widened. The room fell deadly silent, all eyes on her and Damian.

“Angel? Did you just say you’re pregnant?” She felt him gather her hand, gently tugging her so that she faced his hopeful face. She shrugged her shoulders as a sheepish smile tugged at her lips.

“Uhm, surprise?”

Damian pulled her into his chest as the group cheered behind them.

“Not wanting to spar, the portal sickness, the fainting, no wine? God, I’m so stupid.”

Marinette pulled back with a giggle as she placed a small kiss on the tear rolling down his cheek.

“No, way. Brucie, you’re going to be a grandpa, and Damian’s having a kid, big night huh?”

Jason nudged his side as Bruce pulled the couple into a hug, tears of his own falling.

“You know what this means Steph?” Jason nodded as Stephanie squatted by the bar pulling out a green bottle.

“I’m one step ahead of you. Champagne to celebrate the miracle baby of Demon Spawn and a literal Angel!”

Another chorus of cheers rang through the room as Damian rested his head on Marinette’s forehead.

“I’m going to be a dad?” his voice was quiet and lulling, his love-drunk face filling Marinette with so much warmth.

“I wanted to tell you later, away from the crazy. I should’ve known better.”

His laughter was short and loud, drawing curious looks from the rest of the room.

“I love you so much, Marinette Wayne.”

“And I love you so much more Damian Wayne.”

His face inched closer to hers as she closed her eyes waiting for a kiss that never came.

“So about that sparring?”

Marinette cracked open one eye to see Jason standing where Damian once had, her husband sprawled out on the ground, struggling to lift his brother’s foot off his chest

“Do you think demon spawn could wield the miraculous? Nine months is such a drag to go on without magical training.”

“Todd if you do not remove your foot from your chest I will chop it off and shove it down your throat!”

“Yeesh.” Jason shook his head before raising an eyebrow at Marinette. “You sure you want to have a kid with this dude?”

Marinette laughed as she watched her husband finally push Jason off sending him flying backward. Reaching down, she helped him up once more, a smile tearing across her face.

“Absolutely.”

@damianette-is-life @rebecarojas07 @ash-amg

[astrologista]

jason stop dying

ooooook i just watched ditf. it was PRETTY GOOD.... i only wish there was MOOORE! watching this REALLY brought me back to 2011 times to see it and i think they did a good job with most of the character design and animations insofar as matching it to the original. (maybe i’m totally wrong but i thought it looked good for the most part... also i just really love these character designs in particular). obviously the budget is not what it would be on a feature, so there are a LOT of places where animation gets recycled and many still frames. some parts are basically a slideshow lol. but i only sort of came to that realization awhile after watching, so i think they did a fairly good job of masking this... ymmv

so let’s get into it!!! 

SPOILERS a-head! do not read until you’ve watched it because i’ll spoil everything

now obviously the thing to be aware of if you are not is the fact that this adaptation is not a panel-by-panel adaptation of the original death in the family comic. all references to jason’s mother (save one mention of her dying of illness) are completely removed, they go to bosnia instead of africa, and the circumstances around jason leaving are also heavily altered to fit the new narrative. this adaptation does slot perfectly into the universe established by the under the red hood animated movie from 2011 though, without which one would be pretty confused when watching this. it’s kind of a mystery as to why they didn’t just package this with utrh and release the entire thing as a collectors edition. instead they package it with like 4 or 5 unrelated dc showcase shorts which makes absolutely 0 sense but go off i guess. anyway

i liked that they took the time to adapt the scene from the original ditf where bruce is talking to alfred about jason! (i do not like that alfred didn’t get any lines. bad choice). tbh i can’t understand why they bothered showing us alfred, barbara and dick if they weren’t gonna give them any lines..... like come on........??

HOW INTENSE BRUCE LOOKS WHEN HE FINDS JASON IN SARAJEVO and just. grabs him lol. hes smad :)

ok so one two skip a few and we get to the first branch. instead of calling 1-900 we now get to choose whether jason lives or dies. there are 7 possible endings i think i got em all so let’s see what we got here.

“Hush” Route - Robin cheats death

hgrgdggr. i definitely think this is one of the more interesting endings, if not the most interesting one. this is also the only ending in which both bruce and jason survive the bombing. bruce is still too late, but this time jason barely clings to life and survives. as a hurt/comfort fan i was 100% on this shit from the word go but then jason? runs away from home lmao lmao i thought that was SO funny because 1) hes super messed up, how is he able to just literally run out the house that is SO funny to me and 2) implying that bruce would ever not be keeping an eye on him after that is just, lmao. it’s so zany. i call this the “hush” route because of the bandages but there are no other references to hush so ok. that’s fair. so anyway jason is now angsty for loosely explained reasons but the most fun part is yet to come.

when talia showed up, i really thought / was terrified for a second that they were gonna bring up certain “events” regarding damian’s parentage / who damian’s father is but then she mentioned bruce and i was like OH THANK GOD WE CAN STILL GO TO HEAVEN. i am so so grateful to the writers for NOT going there. cuz it was damn close ok. im not sure what the implication of this route is in terms of talia, jason and damian being a family unit but i want to believe talia sees jason as a son and damian’s brother (which is how she refers to him, damian’s brother) and not... yknow. i mean. jason raising a baby is kind of like a baby raising a baby...

no actually the reality of this scene is really dfuckin interesting like. they actually go with the “birth of the demon” (forget if it was birth of the demon or bride of the demon. one of those.) explanation for damian and that is something i’ve NEVER seen adapted so whoever wrote this can have a cookie and i kNOW this is something a certain someone will appreciate :)

not only that but the implications? are interesting? so talia’s claim is she miscarried so bruce won’t have to “choose” between damian and jason and idk if she’s supposed to be all on the-up-and-up in this universe but. i’m sitting here like GIRL YOU DON’T GOTTA DO THIS HE HAS A PRIVATE JET HAVEN’T YOU HEARD OF SHARED CUSTODY and BETTER YET HE HAS A MANSION JUST GO ON MAURY AND GET THIS SORTED OUT RIGHT NOWwwww

i’m also LAUGHING at the implications of jason thinking theres anywhere on earth that he’s going to go and hide damian’s existence from bruce. because you already know he’s just going to be tearing the planet apart looking for jason so this is actually hilarious. imagine he finds jason in one piece and also a baby. his baby. he’d be like (@ talia) “OMG WHY WOULD YOU THINK I WOULDN’T WANT THEM BOTH u are tearing me apart talia......” BUT THEN HE WOULD BE SO FREAKING HAPPY BECAUSE HE HAS TWO ALIVE SONS AND HE THOUGHT THEY WERE BOTH DEAD / (lost to crime)!!!

please lord imagine all of jason’s angst probably just originating from the fact that he has a brain injury that hasn’t fully healed and the trauma of going through all those surgeries probably gave him a lot of fear / paranoia about bruce and associating him with the joker because his neural pathways are all messed up but after he leaves he starts slowly healing back and regaining some of his lost sanity and thats when he realizes he misses bruce so much... but hes also raising his child... and every day it gets more difficult for him not to just take damian and bring him home and i ;v;

anyway i thought this route, while it had a few inconsistencies in it, was really freaking interesting and it gave me feels and plot bunnies and is probably the one i want to write about the MOST despite the fact that baby damian looks like a character from one of those web flash games in this lol

“True” End - Jason Dies

now if you select that jason dies the route basically defaults to the canon of under the red hood and the fact that utrh does not come packaged with this movie is a rather mystifying choice to me as i don’t think this adaptation would stand on its own very well. like you need quite a bit of background to really get anything out of watching this on its own, which is probably why it’s classified as a “short” and not as its own movie.

instead of showing all of utrh, it seems they took the opportunity to give a ~30 minute recap of utrh with basically entirely reused animation but they allow bruce to sort of. give his dvd commentary over it.

the biggest feeling i have on this is that it’s sad that they had to waste 30 minutes like this that could’ve been used to do something new and much more interesting, but honestly i’m not mad. it seems kind of obvious that this choice was probably made for budget and/or runtime reasons because a short does not get the same budget set aside as a full length feature film does. so they basically took the option of recycling 30 minutes of animation from the movie and dubbing new audio over it.

in evangelion they ran out of budget and that’s why the last two episodes consist of nothing more than still pencil drawings and frames while the characters engage in philosophical debates concerning the nature of reality and human connection. and i really enjoyed that. and for the same reasons, i also really enjoyed this.

i enjoyed seeing the clark kent of this universe. i enjoyed that he was basically out on a date with bruce. i enjoyed that bruce was willing to open up for once and tell clark all of what happened with jason. but what really makes this segment shine bright are bruce greenwood’s line reads. there are SO MANY good line reads in here. and i LOVED how many times he said the word “son”. very wholesome. the way he describes how he felt during the final fight with jason? probs my favorite FUCKING part.

and then him and clark joking together about contingency plans and then they’re going to work together to find jason and i ;_; this is probably the closest thing to a “good” ending but as a continuation of utrh i thought it worked really well. i really want to believe that bruce and clark did find jason in this route and that there was some closure in the end even though we didn’t get to see it.

including clark in this was DEFINITELY the right move as well, considering that he played a rather large role in the original ditf so it’s a welcome nod.

The rest of the branches exist under a separate option where Bruce makes it in time to save Jason from the warehouse... but Bruce dies......... :O

let me tell you bout it... bruce’s fucking DEATH SCENE i don’t know WHAT my man bruce greenwood is on, but the freaking LINE READS in this dialogue had me making INHUMAN NOISES. LIKE NOT ONLY WAS THE DIALOGUE GOOD, NOT ONLY DID HE SAY “I LOVE YOU, SON”, but this man is just an amazing actor. not just voice actor, but actor. he really really really really gave it the most i don’t know how else to say it....... it was very very well done and punched me sideways in the heart and i haven’t recovered and i’m not going to recover. and

ok so once we get past that.... scene.... u have to choose whether you’re going to catch the joker or kill the joker. bruce asks jason to promise not to kill the joker but technically jason doesn’t promise so........

Let’s start by choosing to kill the Joker. Jason attends Bruce’s funeral and various members of the Justice League show up to talk with him and just generally hang out. He has Alfred, Dick and Barbara as his support system, but Jason has some other plans.

This leads to a scene in a cafe where Jason meets with a man who... something something Killing Joke, flashlight, more Barbara being used as a plot device when she deserves better, Jason kills the Joker with a butter knife.

Once you do this you can choose to surrender to the police, or retaliate and escape.

Jailbird Ending

basically if you surrender to the police jason ends up in prison where he can actually attack even more criminals so.... ya

If you retaliate and escape instead you go to the Red Robin route where Jason becomes a vigilante who kills people much like the Red Hood and you get a further choice in a fight with Two Face where you can control how Harvey’s coin lands. 

Tim Ending!

If you choose the coin to land clean face up, the thing rewards you by having Tim show up and I forgot what happened (wasn’t really paying attention lol) because i was so focused on TIM!

Prolly they felt sorry for him what with Jason stealing what is essentially his outfit (ok I know it was Jason’s first, but Tim made it cool) so they let a little baby tim have an appearance :) he’s very smol

I guess in this ending Jason gets reintegrated with the family somehow and Tim becomes “Bat-kid” which is hilarious to me but you know what it’s cute. CUTE.

The one ending where the coin lands scarred side up

i honestly forget what happens if you choose to have the coin land scarred side up but let me just say this is a FUCKED route to take, not only have you had jason survive and bruce die, you’ve now chosen to kill the joker against bruce’s dying wish, you’ve chosen to attack the police, and at the end of that you really are gonna choose harvey’s coin to be scarred face up???? choosing this made me feel like a DICK because here i am supporting jason’s whole fall to madness and villainy thing the way it wants me to and now he’s gonna die HERE? i hate it here.

interestingly enough he doesn’t actually die in this route. he ends up at home with barbara and dick while dealing with the fact that he killed the joker but the route ends with jason saying “i promise” so i guess this is supposed to be kinda sad. im so confused lol ok

So that is all the options if you choose to kill the joker, I believe. You can also make the choice to just catch him instead of killing him but amazingly enough, those routes are even more FUCKED up. 

If you do this option Jason goes home, mourns Bruce with Dick, Barbara and Alfred, and becomes Red Hood BUT with a twist, he’s entirely on a bloodless operation in line with Bruce’s wishes. OR.... IS HE?

Things then follow the events of UTRH until the scene on the bridge with the van and the guys. Jason finally confronts Joker, who reveals the truth. 

Apparently in this route Jason has actually been killing and decapitating his victims just like in the original movie, but he’s repressed it so as to not even realize to himself that he’s doing it.

that is FUCKED. also. i wanna cry because jason doing all of that stuff but not even realizing it ;------; jason blocking it out, because he wanted to honor bruce’s wishes for him not to kill anyone ;______; but he’s doing it anyway ;_____; he’s actually hearing voices telling him to kill ;____; like it’s a very cheap twist in a sense and also really quite cruel but.... damn, son.

There is a branch here where you can choose to spare or kill the Joker at this point (UNDERTALE???) but from what I can tell it seems to be totally meaningless what choice you pick because you end up at the exact same point either way, I think there’s a small variation in what happens after you make the choice but after that they just coalesce back together into the following two endings. Which seems incredibly cheap to me, I mean making a choice like that should alter Jason’s path completely but, it doesn’t! So... ooook....

Either way Jason ends up on the Wayne building and Talia shows up with a re-animated Bruce from the pit. Here’s another fun blast from the 2011 past with more gratuitous Grant Morrison dreck, remember that shit? Well, they’re gonna jam it down your throat here, too.

The reanimated Bruce is the Zur En Arrh Bruce and he’s already dead so this is all meaningless but basically Jason fights him and you get to choose whether everybody lives or dies.

Zur En Arrh - Everyone Lives!

if you pick this, jason actually gets the re-animated bruce back to the batcave and they lock him up down there because he’s still pit-mad and the prognosis is not great. but i’m not sure what they expected, he is the zur-en-arrh guy so I don’t think he’s getting better. 

Zur En Arrh - Everyone Dies!

pretty much there’s an explosion and all three of them die and that’s it

I think that should be all the possible endings there are.

By the way the different ways in which black mask dies in this was actually a fairly clever running gag lollll. let that mf burn we don’t need no water.

overall there are a couple of things i would have done to SIGNIFICANTLY improve this adaptation beyond some of the obvious ones.

- the fact that all of the branching options are branched exclusively under the “jason lives and bruce dies” branch is a huge wasted opportunity. imo this is the most egregious problem with this, i was really looking for a more balanced tree / explanation of different things. i am probably super biased though being a fic writer and used to fic, we’re the ones making huge ass trees every day lol.

- the fact that there is no “good” ending here is something i kind of expected but given the context of this is lackluster. i sort of get it though because granted, the original ditf ends in an unresolved manner but it’s distinctly unsatisfying here. i secretly wanted an ending where bruce, like, figures out about the different endings and hacks reality to try to find a good ending where jason lives and everything is fine lmao. like a bat mite ending.

- i was disappointed in a sense that the narrative given in here is so basically simplistic? maybe i’ve been spoiled by games like 999 and undertale where shit gets messy and that’s not what this is supposed to be but when i play something with multiple endings in this day and age, at least play with the concept a little bit and connect some of the branches together narratively. use different devices. i was also hoping some of the choices would be a little bit meatier like you could choose to “forgive bruce” or something cool like that lol. but it looks like the majority of choices have to do with who lives or dies. and i felt like they couldve been a bit more creative with that ya know? being able to control harvey’s coin was a GREAT example of having some more fun with this.

- it is a huge missed opportunity not to have a “secret ending” on something like this. like where. the fuck. is my secret ending for completing everything. come on. and in a similar vein there should’ve been at least something in terms of bruce and jason interacting in a “true ending”. even if very brief. the closest thing to an ending this has is the “jason died” route and then the ending where he’s talking to clark which i feel like was a REALLY nice good optimistic ending as far as this goes, but it comes off as kind of disappointing i guess

there were SO many interesting nuggets locked into this thing though. i can’t deny it bugs me how many wasted opportunities there were with how they chose to structure things but i guess it’s the best you can do with limited runtime. i thought it was really well done though, makes an interesting companion piece to the original utrh, and is definitely something that i will be re-watching again soon!! overall i give it a 7/10 and some parts an 8/10+!

[heartless-error]

Broken, not perfect, but together. - Chapter 13

Fandom: DC comics, Batman

Pairings: Jonathan Kent x Damian Wayne (JonDami) & Jason Todd x Timothy Drake (JayTim)

Rating/Tags: Family feels, hurt/comfort, mental health issues, running away, brotherly love, adopted children, fatherhood

Other(s) links: AO3

Broken.

The Batfamily was broken.

It was six years ago, and they had barely stood together since then, trying to stand up despite guilt and regret.

Damian  was sure there was nothing to save, not after losing something that he didn’t know he cared about. But when a new opportunity to get back what they had lost appeared, he cannot help to doubt as his past decisions haunt him again.

If you love somebody, set them free. But you don’t know what you have until it’s gone.

Chapter Summary: He knew exactly what he was doing when he helped Tim and Jason six years ago. But at the same time, he didn’t. No one was prepared to let them go the way they did, not even him. And now, after dealing with the consequences all this time, his heart was about to explode, he couldn't breathe. Because they were there, they were right there. His brothers were in front of him, and he couldn't move, couldn't do anything, because, once again, the weight of truth was about to crush him mercilessly.

Chapter 13

 Now

 Silence.

 The batplane was completely silent.

 Technically not entirely, since like the many trips and flights that had been made with it, could be heard perfectly the ambient sound of the wind brushing and surrounding the plane as it advanced on its way, also the noise of the engines accelerating to reach their destination as quickly as possible, as well of the machines and the control panel echoing at the front of the cabin, with all the breaths and movements of those inside.

However, it was they, the bats in there, who were precisely in silence, without having uttered hardly any unnecessary words since they occupied their seats on the plane and taking extreme care of each of their movements, of their postures. The tension in the place and between them was such that they had the impression that any movement or whispering would unleash a true storm among all, although this was already occurring within each of them, it was preferable to keep it hidden and sheltered for the moment, covered and hidden in nobody’s eyes while they were in a clearly confined space and knowing what was about to happen.

 Bruce was at the front of the batplane, paying attention to the control panel, and gripping the steering wheel with more force than necessary. It was curious to see him like this, tense, inflexible and dressed in civilian clothes, especially when they had already been used to see the figure of The Dark Knight handling that transport with his gloves, the hood and the cloak tangled in the seat, not his father, not Bruce.

Cassandra, curled up in the passenger seat, was the only one who had deigned to sit next to him. Her gaze insistently alternated between the screen of the GPS that was indicating their current position, and in front, where she could contemplate the sky and the clouds that passed through them. But she seemed too impatient and agitated to appreciate anything.

Stephanie was right behind her, but at a safe distance from the control panel and the driver, also curled up on herself and quieter than they’d ever seen her be. Dick, on the other hand, was at the other end of the cabin, away from everyone and lost in his thoughts as he stared at nothing.

 Like him, Damian was there. Farther still, almost to the end of the cabin, sitting awkwardly and with his arms crossed, thoughtful, absorbed in his head and in everything that occupied and prowled around it without stopping.

Sometimes he looked up to capture the blue of the sky and the landscape below his feet, but he couldn’t concentrate to observe it better. He settled into his seat as best he could, trying to find a comfortable position that wouldn’t bother his injuries, something difficult after everything that had happened that morning. He also met Dick’s uneasy gaze several times, Stephanie’s too, but no one said anything, no one moved, they just turned away their eyes to continue silently and in the spiral of their thoughts, allowing the tension to build and the journey to become longer, more harrowing.

 Damian knew the distance from Gotham to Florida was not that much, or at least not that much compared to all the places where he assumed that Tim and Jason could be hiding. After all, it was almost eighteen hours by car, and only about three by plane, less on the batplane. Still, he had the impression that this journey was going on for days, weeks. It was endless, exhausting, and every time he glanced at the clock on the control panel, he suppressed a sigh as he realized that only a few minutes had passed when he thought it had been an hour, even longer.

 The fact that the whole situation felt like a countdown against him, calculating how much was left to ruin all his life and efforts these last six years, didn’t help.

 Damian knew exactly what he was doing when he helped Tim and Jason six years ago. But at the same time, he didn’t.

 Contrary to what some people on the plane were thinking, the idea to run away was not Timothy’s, nor Jason’s. No. The idea was his, all his. 100% Damian’s credit. What’s more, they even doubted at first, they were very surprised when he explained the idea to them, and they partially refused. It seemed crazy when after all at that moment they were being watched strictly by a family who didn’t believe in their relationship and Jason was still recovering from an unwarranted aggression that had meant a total rupture between both sides. Although in the end they ended up agreeing, obviously, which he didn’t regret at all.

He was sure that if the others found out about this, that he had not only been an accomplice, but the leader of the entire operation, they would be much more upset than they had already been, maybe he would even receive another punch. And he would probably start to receive the same questions that had already been asked before and had tried to answer ambiguously: How? Why?

 The “how” was pretty easy.

 At first, a simple call to his best contact was enough: Talia. She didn’t welcome the son she now called failure with open arms, but she did like everything that would benefit her and help her obtain the power she was after. His mother was a woman very aware of her own interests and recognized something that favored them at the time, she knew how to choose her battles well. Erase Tim and Jason from the map, make them disappear, it was one that was definitely worth it, so he didn’t have to convince her to agree.

 Jason was a well-known failed project of Talia, a boy who she revived in the waters of Lazarus’ pit, brainwashed, trained and commanded into battle to cause damage to Bruce and all of Gotham under the poisonous ideas that she had implanted in his damaged and resurrected mind, to later see how he not only reformed and fought again on the side of the bats, but fell in love with the one she most wanted to eliminate.

Timothy, no doubt, had always been a clear obstacle to Talia, even from his Robin days. Something she had been waiting to get rid of and get out of the way as soon as possible at any cost. She manipulated Jason and manipulated him to hate him, to break him, to kill him, because she was conscious of the obsession that his father, his grandfather, had with Timothy. Ra wanted Drake for himself, it was a fact. He wanted him, craved him, chased him, for him he was his perfect detective, the only worthy being who could challenge him, confront him. He wanted him to be his successor, his right hand, wanted him at his mercy and wanted to hand over his empire to him. Empire for which Talia had fought all her life and could lose to the third Robin.

Then, hiding the couple meant making her mistakes and her greatest threat disappear. Talia would gain respect and a big advantage with both vigilantes disappearing, she knew that, and she didn’t hesitate to take it all in immediately. Damian and the others didn’t have to wait a single full day before receiving instructions to get it all started.

 After that, only the most difficult thing remained: the metas. Because no matter how much Tim and Jason changed identities, went to another continent, or avoided cameras, they had been friends of metahumans who could easily find them at any time. Any Super could identify their heartbeats wherever they were, and any Speedster could run around the world for them in seconds. They wouldn’t get very far if Superboy, Impulse, or even Starfire were involved in their search.

 But he didn’t have to do much to fix that problem either because Jonathan volunteered. He didn’t even ask him, he didn’t even know that he was aware of what he was trying to do, but apparently, he was inside from the first moment, even before any plans were formulated. He simply appeared before them with a Kryptonian device sneakily pulled from the fortress of solitude and handed it over to them, assuring the red team that as long as they kept it close, it would block the metas and hide them from everyone without problem. It clearly worked, and too well seeing as how absolutely no one had been able to find them despite the many efforts made.

 So, getting it all done was not as difficult as anyone might think. Especially when nobody suspected them or paid attention. Everyone was too busy focusing on all of Tim and Jason’s movements back then, and he and Jonathan were sixteen and thirteen, respectively. No one knew what was happening until it was too late, until they had been at the airport and left that damn note in the cave.

 Regarding why they did it, he already explained how he was allowed that morning.

 His brothers were tearing apart, little by little. Gotham were taking away a lot of things from them and continued to do so every day. Their vigilante lives began to overwhelm them more and more and the family didn’t help but make it worse with their indifference and their way of dealing with problems, including him.

Damian was sure that if they had not run away, if they had stayed in Gotham and continued with the rhythm they were taking, they would have ended up finally breaking and, with them, their relationship.

 He just knows, he knows that’s what would have happened if he wouldn’t have intervened.

As much as Todd insisted over and over that he didn’t need the attention of the bats around him, that he didn’t want anything to do with the family, his actions indicated how badly he needed approval and apologies from Bruce. Like Tim, who had always depended on that kind of acceptance ever since he was a child and had driven him to seek it wherever he could obtain it. And it didn’t matter how much they both fought for each other, for themselves and their relationship, the rejection of the family, of Bruce, hurt, hurt them, made them suffer despite knowing what could happen, despite having hiding it for years to avoid the problem. They wanted to solve it, they wanted to fix it. But besides all of that, both were also rooted to Gotham and its people in a way that Damian could never empathize, sacrificing and fighting tirelessly for the city until they reached that point of no return where they were, where they sacrificed their lives and his whole being.

Their loyalty and sacrifice for the city, for the bats, was too big, it meant too much to both of them and if they didn’t let them go, if they kept tying up that way, eventually everything would have split them in two, it would have separated them, and they would have allowed it in order to keep the place standing and the bat happy. As always, they were able to consecrate their own happiness for someone else even without wanting to, without realizing it.

 But Damian did it, and he couldn’t allow it. He just couldn’t, much less at that time.

 Damian could lie to others and himself all he wanted, but the need for his brothers to be happy was there. The perspective of them losing what they had because the other bats couldn’t see it, sacrificing their happiness for them again, was too much for him. He thought it was too unfair.

He knew he had been an insufferable brat for years, that he had caused too much trouble, done too much hurt, and could have ruined their lives with his mere presence, but whether they wanted it or not he grew up, they all did, and his relationship with them had improved considerably over the years, too much to let what was happening happen in front of his eyes and stand with arms crossed. Damian’s appreciation for his brothers had grown in a way that he never imagined at first, feeling something that never thought what could feel towards no one, because he and Jason shared a similar past that made them lean on the other without words, and Tim… It was Tim, just like that. Both were patient and annoying until the end, but one day he realized that he loved them and couldn’t see how they were about to collapse.

 They were a weakness, he knew.

 But Damian knew too that he had been a participant in inflicting their suffering, and that moment was the best time to fix it, he could fix it. Because the best way to prevent Gotham, the family, and the vigilante lifestyle from destroying their brothers, was for them to leave everything behind, including everyone, including him. They couldn’t hurt them if they weren’t there. It was that simple.

And that was without doubt his best way to earn their forgiveness, to make amends with them: Give them freedom from all the chains that imprisoned them.

 Jonathan felt the same, he knew it. He owed the red team nothing, not in the same way that Damian did, he didn’t need to feel deserving of their affections or forgiven for his past actions, but Jason and he were friends, and Tim practically raised him with Conner. He was also too fond of them to do anything, and most importantly: he wanted them to stay happy together.

 Anyone would say that he and Jonathan, beyond the brotherly love they felt for the other two, helped them because they reflected too much their own relationship in the elders’. And they would be right.

They didn’t have the same story as them, and they weren’t the same people either, but unintentionally and without knowing they had turned in their greatest reference in terms of relationships, their support to carry theirs forward and, without a doubt, the push they needed to start dating. Their parents seemed not want to see what happened between them back then, as if it didn’t exist and everything followed its normal course, they kept doing it even today. They were both young, had not discussed their sexuality with anyone else and the indifference of their guardians stopped them from doing so. Nor did they know how to cross beyond the line of friendship with the one who was their greatest confidant and puberty is the worst time for human beings. They both felt trapped, confused, and the longest and closest healthy homosexual relationship they ever knew was Tim and Jason, who were in hiding and Damian didn’t even find out about them until the end, but they always seemed to understand and accept their situation more than their own parents.

 Then, when everything exploded, both didn’t hesitate when choosing sides, and not when they helped them escape too. The rejection of Tim and Jason may have affected them as if it had been directed at them, their relationship with their parents was almost irreparable, but they turned that pain into stubbornness and courage to confess  their feelings and help them to leave. Because they wanted them to stay together, they needed them to stay together, since that was their way of showing everyone, themselves, that they could be happy, that they were not in danger. Both Tim and Jason, and them.

 So, yes, they did. They helped them, planned, and carried it out, being fully aware of what they were doing.

 However, it was what came after that they didn’t consider.

 They became so focused on helping those two to escape, that at any moment they didn’t stop to think what would become of them and their surroundings once they left.

 They should have.

 The nightmares, the anxiety, the secrets, and the paranoia became his new normality. The enormous guilt that came with their actions hit them too hard and fast, without giving them time to even assimilate or change it, because once it was done there was no going back.

They both thought they were ready to let Tim and Jason go, but they weren’t. Not them, not their families, not their friends, not even the hero community. No one. The huge gap that their absence left in their teams and families was too big, but they had already disappeared and all that remained was that stupid note along with the consequences it produced.

 The batfamily fell apart like a house of cards in a matter of days, and it could have been in hours if they had not been focused on the search, but the fights continued without rest and the resentment along with the tension didn’t do more than increase over time. The Titans and all the metas who knew the missing ones contributed to the search, but there was no clue, making the situation worse if possible. They were all trying to find a common culprit, or a valid and less painful reason than the one they had to leave because they were unhappy, they even hoped to find them, but they weren’t going to get anything.

And as the days, the weeks, the months went by, the tension increased, everything got worse and both Damian and Jon had to get away from those whose presence could no longer bear, either due to a total loss of confidence after what happened, or because they found themselves seeing themselves as those traitors who had brought suffering to their family and friends.

 Damian couldn’t trust anyone, not anymore, not his father, not Grayson either. He felt like everyone had fallen too high from the pedestal on which he had them and had to watch Bruce fall into another self-destructive spiral where no Robin was going to get him out this time. The betrayal and rejection he had felt from them didn’t allow him to have a civil conversation with none until eleven months after what happened at least, and even with Grayson he needed more time without wanting to yell at him until he was hoarse. Yet, he had to endure seeing how Brown, Batgirl, walked away increasingly because she couldn’t bear to see their faces, and how Cassandra came back from his mission in China to find her lost and broken family, how Alfred completed his tasks silently and not daring to say a word of it too, afraid to bring up the subject and cause again all those discussions both new and old that originated after the disaster.

Jonathan also felt deeply betrayed by his father and his lack of response to what happened, for his inflexible opinion in agreement with Bruce’s and his indifference to what his son felt. Damian knew they had a fight much stronger than Jon had wanted to admit, that he threw more things in his face than he said, but he decided not to pressure him on the subject and respect if at any time he wanted to give more details. Besides that, his boyfriend saw how Conner Kent crumbled at the loss of his Robin, how he looked for him without a break over and over again to the point of even neglecting his responsibilities with his team and his own health.

 All that pain, all that loss, all the tears, the screams, the fights, and the problems, they caused it. All of them. Without hesitation. And the best thing is that they weren’t planning to fix it. No. They would take the secret to the grave if possible, because if there was one thing they couldn’t regret or back down, it was to make Tim and Jason happy, despite the enormous price they had to pay.

 In their poor defense, they didn’t know that everything was going to fall apart like that. They didn’t come to think that the reaction would be so strong, nor the chain of disasters that followed. But it wasn’t until they saw everyone suffering and tearing apart that they realized what they had done, and that everyone would get very angry if they found out about their actions.

 So, they had no choice but to keep quiet and move on, because what else could they do? They hid it all, they studied, went together to prom, moved into their apartment in Metropolis, Damian got a job, Jon is in college, and despite the difficult family situation and missing the red team a lot, they looked for their own happiness and normality where they knew they could find it, where they taught them they could get it.

 And they were fine, really.

 They were together and fine. The weight of guilt was not so big if you shared it, and they both learned to lie fairly well together at an early age, also to continue side by side no matter what. They didn’t even have to lie that much, just pretend, because they never had a clue where Todd and Drake were, the best was not knowing it and the moment they saw them go through the airport gate, they too disappeared for them completely.

Mostly, they couldn’t talk normally with their parents, sometimes they had to be too on guard or alert in case someone discovered something, every now and then everything became too much and they lost control of their emotions, but they always ended up overlapping. They had nightmares in which everyone surrounded them and yelled that it was their fault, in which they saw flashbacks of happy moments turned into true horrors, where they heard resentment, poison towards them and pure hatred. But despite waking up screaming, crying, begging for forgiveness, they didn’t forget the most important thing: they did it for a reason, and they weren’t responsible for everything.

 If you love something you have to let it go, and that’s just what Tim and Jason chose to do. As much as they had been the ones to give them the option, it’s what they chose and they had to respect it, they had to deal with it. They couldn’t tie them to a life of misfortune, nor force them to return when they weren’t even part of the real problem there.

 Damian was determined to do that for as long as possible, to protect their new lives with everything he had, during all of his if necessary, because that decision was the only selfish decision that his brothers had made in a long time, the only one they had made thinking of themselves, and he felt they deserved it, he knew they deserved it. He was going to fight to preserve that.

 For that, maybe he should have tried a lot harder in Zodome to avoid this disaster.

 He had to hold back himself not to curse and fall prey to his anger when Gordon revealed in the batcave that the reason they had found his brothers had been because of the explosion in which he had been involved. He had felt so helpless, because he hadn’t found out what had caused the disaster until that meeting, and it didn’t make it better.

The whole time he thought that the terrorist cell he was chasing was on the island because of its black market and its easy access, didn’t come to imagine that they were going after a hidden supercomputer of the league that they wanted to sabotage and that they would also fail in their attempt, almost killing him and uncovering his lies.

 If he had been faster, if he had been more focused, if he hadn’t been regretting and missing his brothers again, if he had been better, none of this would have happened. They definitely wouldn’t be on their way to Florida.

 He could have prevented so many things. And yet he had failed, failed them, again.

No matter how hard he had fought for them, how long he had resisted, in the end everything had fallen apart because he couldn’t fulfill a simple mission or control his temper.

 It was very frustrating.

 Damian dug his nails into his forearms, squirming in his seat. His back hurt, also the side of his face where Grayson had hit him before. His fingers itched a lot, he wanted his phone back, his comms, something. He wanted to call Jonathan and make sure he was okay, safe, at least hear his voice to be able to calm down. But they had both been isolated from each other and from everyone by the time Damian made his confession.

As they thought it would happen, just when the others learned the truth took all forms of communication and kept them under surveillance. Jon was surely under the strict and impassive gaze of Clark after a warning from his father. As if any of them could jump in at any moment and alert Tim and Jason that they had been caught and they were going for them, when in fact they didn’t know how to contact them or where they were.

 He sighed, felt Grayson’s gaze on him again but completely ignored it. He was tired, angry, and resentful. He felt like an animal on the way to the slaughterhouse, his heart pounding and his mistakes hounding him, reminding him of everything he could have done to prevent this. He didn’t want to talk to anyone, he didn’t want to see anyone. All he wanted to do was scream, get mad, scream more, fight and beg for them to turn around, to stop the plane and all this madness, to go back to Gotham and forget everything they knew so they could get on with their lives like until now.

 But that was already impossible, everything had changed, and they were not going to forget it, they couldn’t.

 Looking straight ahead, Damian remembered Barbara Gordon’s soft grip on his arm before getting on batplane, he remembered the way she leaned, whispered an apology and with an indecipherable look said it.

 “Even if you don’t know it or want to admit it, you need this Damian. You need to see it.”

 He considered his answer, but he just gave her a cold look and got on the plane. He sat in his place, waited for takeoff, and hadn’t moved since, still quiet and waiting for this journey to end and see the destruction of what his life had been until now.

 Everything was still silent; everyone was still quiet.

 Damian didn’t care. After all, he had been six years without speaking, what mattered a little more?

 ~0.0~

 They landed before lunchtime, outside the city, about a thirty-minute walk from the town. They were not detected, and their objective was not to attract the attention to alert the former vigilantes of the place.

 Even after landing, for a few seconds, no one dared to move or say anything at all, even though some of them seemed to be about to get off the plane and begin the search immediately. They all stood still as if they could break a fragile peace that had never existed. The tension seemed to reach its peak just as Bruce got up and began to give directions of the procedure to be followed. Without having Oracle’s help this time to track them down immediately, they had to break up into groups to explore the area and check out the places they already knew Tim and Jason had been seen, hoping to meet them.

 Dick and Cass would go to the local electronics store and its surroundings, where Tim might appear. It was obvious why Grayson chose to search for Drake first, and why Cass was with him, since there was no doubt that Timothy could attack him as soon as he sees him. He didn’t blame him; he would do it too.

Brown would take care of the library, where they saw Jason. She was not in much danger with him if she found him, at least not entirely. Stephanie was not so involved in the conflict and her relationship with Jason had always been neutral, they had a mutual respect that they could use to their advantage this time.

 Damian was evidently forced to go with his father, who was clearly not going to leave him alone on the plane and was watching and controlling him like he was still ten years old and was planning to do something stupid. Much to his regret, he planned to check out the downtown area and where the other two had been seen crossing a pedestrian crossing that morning, having to cover a less specific and greater terrain.

 Great.

 Damian had assumed his complaints would not be heard at all, no matter what he felt, how angry he was or how bad what they were doing was. So, he decided to apply the total ice tactic and be silent all the way to the small town, analyzing the route, the place, thinking how easy it would be to run and alert his brothers before disaster struck. He didn’t, and he didn’t say a word as they all parted, and the search began. Just kept going next to his father, rigid, tense. He felt as if he were outside his own body, in another place, everything seemed out of focus and his nerves were on the surface. It was difficult to breathe, his chest contracted more and more, and he didn’t want to look at the streets, at the people. He feared so much meeting Drake and Todd. Standing next to Bruce looking for them, he felt like the most twisted of the traitors, again.

 The traitor betraying again, what a surprise.

 At least the place wasn’t too bad, for what little he deigned to see. As reported, the town was small and cozy, smelled of the sea and clean air. It was close to the beach and it was a sunny and lively place, very neat and beautiful with a close community made up of families and locals from there along with some tourists. They all seemed quite close and upper-middle class, from what could be seen.

 It was very different from Gotham.

 Laughter, lively conversations and happy sounds of children and adults, accompanied by the sound of the waves in the distance and life in general in the city were heard. It was refreshing, something new, different. There was no fog, no dark alleys, trash, rats, or the constant threat that a madman dressed as a clown would brutally murder you and your children for fun.

 Damian had stopped for a second to look at a lady who was walking his dog -a white chihuahua very ugly, but funny and whose face of sorrow in this life alleviated his anguish a little- when his father’s voice made him turn to him in annoyance.

 “I have brought your phone and comms.” He said to him as he continued walking, urging him to follow him and quite attentive to the area in case he saw any sign of those he had come looking for.

 Damian didn’t answer, he just kept walking beside him.

He knew he wasn’t going to return any of this or stop watching him until he was sure he couldn’t interfere with his plans, but he was informing him of it to gain ground with him. It was always his way of trying to score points, it was a kind of punishment veiled with concern and the usual parental explanation for not looking so bad. The typical “I have punished you with this, but I’m being good, I hope you understand and forgive me because this is your fault for misbehaving, not mine.”

 It won’t work.

 “I’ll give them back to you as soon all of this ends.” He continued saying when seeing that he didn’t obtain an answer.

 Damian rolled his eyes and continued in silence, walking briskly. It hadn’t worked, mostly because he wasn’t thirteen anymore and knew the trick, so he was still angry, a lot.

Bruce had to realize that hadn’t gone as expected, because he heard him sigh and call him again, in a slight tone of reproach.

 “Damian.”

 No answer.

 “Damian Wayne.” He called him again in a severe tone. “Can you speak to me, please?”

 He didn’t speak. What’s more, he looked at a couple that passed right by them as they walked to a black Lab, who seemed very happy to be there. Reminded him a bit of Titus, he missed him, his friend had a good life.

 “You are no longer a child, and I hope you understand that in these situations you are required not to behave as such.”

 He frowned. Really? The trick of maturity wasn’t going to work either right now, much less when the first to treat him like a child it was precisely him, invalidating his opinions and keeping an eye on him. He couldn’t be serious.

 He snorted and kept walking, not wanting his temper to get the better of him again and crossing the crosswalk that he recognized as the one from the photo he had seen on the batcomputer. His heart clenched for a second, he lowered his head holding his breath, because he was stepping on the same ground that his brothers had passed, they had been here and now he was crossing it with his father while they were looking for them.

The chances that they were getting closer to them were more and more real, the option of being found head-on were many and his hands had started to sweat. He didn’t know what he would do if that happened, he didn’t know how he would react if it was Bruce and he who ended up finding them before anyone else.

 “Giving me the silent treatment will not solve anything of this, son.” Bruce ended up saying again, crossing the street in  a tired tone and ignoring the internal struggle that Damian had at that moment.

 At that, the last Robin looked at him angrily, because of what had said in itself, and because he had called him “son”. He had no right to play that trick at the moment, at all. He refused, and he was too upset right now to that.

 “What we’re doing either, but we’re doing it anyway, right?” He finally reproached him with coldness and aversion.

 He listened to Bruce sigh again and kept walking, stepping forward to leave him a little behind and still without looking closely around. He continued going down the street after crossing the pedestrian crossing, staring at the ground and with his heart beating faster and faster. He didn’t want to walk, he didn’t want to do this, he didn’t want to continue arguing, he wanted to go home and hold Jonathan until they couldn’t make out where one began and the other ended.

 “You have to understand that this is necessary.” Bruce justified himself behind him, still in that serious and exhausted tone.

 Damian felt anger wash over him once more, almost rising up his throat and burning it to start screaming and throw words sharp like knives. But they were in public, the goal was not to attract attention and nothing good would come of losing control now.

 They came to an intersection with an avenue, but Damian continued without looking back, hoping to lose sight of his father for as long as possible.

 “For whom?” He asked with annoyance. “Tt.”

 Clearly solely for them. He, Grayson, or whoever couldn’t live with what they had done. But that wasn’t his problem, nor was it anyone’s. They didn’t have to do this, it was unnecessary, but after all Damian was the selfish one for not having said a word about what he did for years.

 Of course.

 He hoped to hear an answer behind him, knowing that his father would try to lecture him, scold him, or make him understand his point of view, but curiously he got nothing. When Damian took a couple of steps across the intersection, he realized that he didn’t listen either the unmistakable Bruce’s steps behind or beside him, they had disappeared.

 He frowned and snorted exasperated.

 “What? Now is it you who’s going to give me the silence treatment?” He complained in annoyance and stopped on his own steps to turn around and look at him, the disgust inside him urged him to start another discussion.

 However, when he caught a glimpse of his father and realized that he was completely still, rigid, standing and watching in awe to his right, fixing his gaze in something, in someone, which was far down the avenue, that disgust quickly transformed into a mixture of anxiety and emotion so strong that Damian could have passed out if he hadn’t been so on guard.

 Slowly, fearfully but curious, he turned his head and followed his father’s stunned gaze to where it had been frozen.

 And he wanted to scream.

 He wanted to scream, cry, laugh, he wanted to run there, wanted to flee, wanted to do many things but felt completely incapable of doing none because like Bruce he froze, was petrified and was unable to react, unable to decide.

 Because they were right there.

 Timothy Drake and Jason Todd were right there. A few meters from them.

 His hands started to tremble, to sweat, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t, his throat was closed, his lungs could barely function well, his heart was beating so hard he couldn’t hear anything else, his head was in chaos, everything turned and stirred.

 But it didn’t matter, it didn’t matter at all, because they were there, they were just there.

 Damian couldn’t look away, couldn’t do anything but stare intensely, trying to assimilate that it was true, that it was them, in front of him. They were alive, they were fine, they were there, and they still hadn’t realized that they were near, observing them and about to run towards them.

 They were on the sidewalk, talking lively with two women, who seemed to really enjoy their company. Their postures and smiles were relaxed, open. They were side by side and chatting with each other as if there was no other problem in the world, and if he paid enough attention, if he tuned his ears enough, he could hear Jason’s deep voice and Drake’s light laugh in the distance. And they had definitely changed, they had grown. They were more mature, more adults plus attractive if that was possible. Jason still kept his white lock in his hair and his leather jacket, but his posture was less threatening, calmer, it seemed more centered and stable than ever. Tim had cut his hair, and looked shorter if possible, but he kept that soft and genuine smile he never wore while he was in one of the expensive suits he wore at WE.

In the eyes of both there was light, there was life, a shine that he had never seen in them. They carried an aura that he never thought he would witness in them.

 His eyes itched, he could cry, he didn’t know if he had already started to cry. His instincts screamed at him, screamed so much, so many different things and with such force that he didn’t know which ones to follow. One part told him to pick up his father, get away from that street, not alert others and leave in order to keep that light in them forever. But the another yelled at him to run towards them, to approach them suddenly, hug them hard and never let go, because he had missed them so much, and was glad that they were still together and so calm.

 The instincts to go to them seemed to win definitively when Jason’s bigger figure leaned closer to Timothy’s to put his arm around his shoulders, causing the smaller to smile at him and intertwine their hands together without hesitation, where -for a second- an unusual shine on the fingers of both hands caught his eye.

 Rings. That were rings. They wore rings. Wedding rings. Alliances.

 His resolve broke, his mind went blank. Without realizing it, Damian took a step, then another, another. Tentative, automatic, unconscious steps. He still couldn’t barely breathe and now his gaze was focused on their clasped hands, on their posture, in that hug, at their smiles while they were still talking without realizing they were there.

 Just as he was about to start running, a firm and powerful hand grabbed his forearm hard and pulled him back, making him complain and stumble in surprise on his steps. He hadn’t seen that coming, and he turned astonished to see how his father, surprised too, had clung to his arm, and held him in place, shaking his head.

 He looked at him in startled, almost panicked, breathing hard and with a million questions going through his mind, but discarding them all quickly at the fact that he was stopping him from going to his brothers.

 A shrill chime that was too familiar rang out somewhere, but that wasn’t important to him right now.

 Damian shook his arm hard, flustered, grabbed Bruce’s hand, and tried to pull it away from him, shaking his head. But he couldn’t push him away, his father didn’t let him go, he tried to take a step towards his brothers and was pushed back again. He was breathing faster his heart was going to explode.

 “No.” His father said, his voice also broken with nervousness. “Wait. No.”

 He didn’t want to wait. He couldn’t. But the fact that it was precisely Bruce who wanted to wait now, who was stopping him right now, turned his alarms back on and in his agitation, Damian realized that something was wrong, that he was missing something.

 Shaking his head hard and trying to regulate his breathing, he turned his gaze back to the ex-robins to realize that the scene in front of him had changed, that indeed, in his surprise for having them close again and his focus to watching them, he had been missing an important detail.

 A very important detail.

 The women his brothers were talking to were not the only ones on this street, there were more people there, it was full of adults, more groups talking to each other, men and women waiting for something in front of a building. A big one, well-kept, with traffic signs specific that he knew and with a gate of colors, childish. It was now open and from which children were coming out, who were screaming, shouting, laughing, and running to the adults who welcomed them with open arms.

 Wait.

 The adults were parents. This was a fucking school.

 “Dad!”

 “Daddy!”

 Two voices, shrill and childish, repeated those words with genuine joy as they quickly approached Tim and Jason, whose smiles grew up, and they looked fondly at each other.

 A boy and a girl, small, smiling, and excited, entered the scene. Holding hands and running as fast as their short legs allowed them, they finished throwing themselves towards Jason and Tim, laughing happily, with squeals of excitement and a warm welcome.

Jason caught the girl in mid-jump, hugging her tightly and not taking long to cover her face with kisses as she squirmed and laughed out loud, happy in his grip. Tim bent down to extend his arms and receive an effusive hug from the boy, separating shortly to leave the most tender and gentle kiss that Damian had never seen on his cheek while the child allowed himself to be picked up carefully to be hold. After that, they both ended up with smiling children in their arms as they talked, greeted the other and laughed with them.

 “I haven’t said everything.” Barbara said. “You have to see it, Damian.” Barbara said.

 Well.

 Shit.