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phantom-z0ne · 1 month

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Kingdom Come - Part 2

Part 1

WC: 3545

CW: Minor Character Deaths, Corpses, Disfigured bodies, Cults, Blood

Damian was missing and Dick was going crazy.

Damian hasn't responded to any inquiries of his location since he missed his scheduled check in time. It had already been two hours past that and they still didn't have any clue where he was. Last they knew, he was heading towards Chinatown. Damian knew a couple of the locals and regularly visited some animals, mostly cats and dogs but occasionally a bird or two.

They would have been able to track him with his comm, but Damian had modified it so that it was untrackable unless it was being used. Unfortunately, they hadn't learned of it before today. If they were to track him through his comm, they would only have a short time to triangulate his position. Damian stated that he wanted his privacy, likely so he could disobey orders without them realizing. They had allowed it because they trusted his judgment, not to mention they all had their rebellious phase, but now it was coming back to bite them in the ass.

It was unfortunate they didn’t have Barbara helping, she was off on her own mission with the Birds of Prey and not in Gotham. Finding Damian would have been way easier with her help, she was an expert in navigating the surveillance systems around Gotham.

Dick could tell he wasn't the only one concerned about their youngest, the others were worried in their own ways. Jason fidgeted with his gun, which Bruce was just barely tolerating, as he paced the rooftop while Tim ran the diagnostics multiple times, his fingers flying on his wrist hologram.

Cass and Bruce’s unease was less noticeable, the only reason he caught it was that he knew them for such a long time. Bruce double checked his trackers and flew across the roofs in search of Damian. Cass was tense and alternated standing near each of them, subtly clenching her hands into fists as she did.

“Robin, come in.” Bruce demanded, Dick felt the desperation in his voice although it was hidden well. He didn't want to lose another son while Dick didn't want to lose another brother.

There wasn’t a reply, only the sound of static filled their ears.

Dick sighed, running his hands through his hair. They needed to find Damian quickly. The longer they didn't locate him, the longer his captures had to smuggle him out of the city. If Damian was taken out of the city, it would be infinitely harder to find him.

He couldn’t let that happen, especially to Damian. He’s already had a tough life, what with how he grew up. His integration into the family was difficult on everyone, B was gone and Tim had chosen to pursue a theory he had thought of at the time insane. Jason wasn’t on talking terms with them at that time and Cass had her own responsibilities across the world. Steph was also busy with juggling her hero and civilian lives, though her attitude towards Damian did turn around in the end.

The comm crackled, faint sounds coming through. Dick jolted, jarred out of his thoughts from the abrupt opening of the comm. Both Cass and Tim’s hands went to their comms as Jason stilled. The shuffling of cloth was most prominent, though he could hear a quiet voice.

“Robin, report. What is your location?” Bruce asked, hope underlying his words.

There was the sound of shuffling before a young, unfamiliar voice sounded, “Is this comm trackable?”

That was not Damian. Did he kidnap Damian and was going to ask for a ransom or gloat? Another also kidnapped alongside Damian? Or perhaps a concerned civilian who had nothing to do with Damian’s disappearance?

“Who are you?” Bruce demanded, treating the unknown as a hostile. It was understandable, this was a stranger who possibly abducted his son.

“You can call me Polka. I'm not sure of the location but Robin is unconscious. We are in a warehouse.” The voice responded. ‘You can call me Polka?’ Was he implying that Polka wasn’t his name or the only one he goes by? Dick’s siblings crowded closer to Bruce as if they couldn’t hear out of their own comms.

The good news was that they now knew where to search. Most warehouses were either near the docks or the Warehouse District. That meant they had two areas to search if Tim didn't triangulate where Damian’s comm was during the short conversation. He could see Tim hunched over, one hand typing swiftly in his wrist hologram.

“Stay where you are, I’ll be there shortly.” Bruce said curtly, his cape snapping as he turned to Tim and asked if he captured the location of the comm. Tim gave him a thumbs up and sent the coordinates.

They piled into their own vehicles and sped their way across the city, heading towards the warehouse Damian was held in.

They surrounded the warehouse once they arrived, Bruce entering first before they snuck in from different entrance points. Dick shivered slightly as he situated himself behind the boy who Damian was laid out on. His siblings spread out and surrounded the boy from all sides.

The warehouse was a mess, blood pooling from the disfigured bodies laying every which way. Dick could faintly spot a chalk circle underneath a pool of blood. Another cult, he surmised grimly. There have been too many cults running around lately for his liking, though it looked like this one had fallen victim to their own summoning.

There wasn't much he could tell about the boy from behind, his baggy clothes hiding his frame. His hair was what stood out the most, cropped silver hair. It seemed to almost glow in the dark warehouse. Dick’s attention went back to Bruce who stepped out from the shadows and addressed the boy after taking Damian back into his custody, though he kept an eye out on the boy.

“None, I just happened to find him. Who are you?” The boy asked, standing. That was interesting. Everyone from Gotham knew who Batman was, and even if you weren't, Batman was still a famous figure.

Bruce answered in his signature low voice, obviously gearing up to interrogate the boy. That was his cue to step in. They’ve done this routine before, good cop and bad cop. It was surprisingly successful.

“Happened to find him?” Dick questioned, rolling down from the support beam he was perched on and revealed himself. The boy turned to him, his hair fanning across his face. A black stripe cut into his silvery hair. It was the inverse of Jason’s hair, Dick thought absently.

The boy’s face was blank, unsurprised to see another vigilante popping up behind him. Dick’s eyes were drawn to the scar on his neck. It spanned most of the neck and would be most definitely fatal if it was deep enough. The boy was 15, 16 years max. Where would he have gotten a scar like that? Not to mention, he was too calm in this situation. Blood and viscera surrounded him and all he seemed was bored.

Slight motion to the right made Dick’s eyes snap to the plush on the boy’s shoulder, almost certain that it moved on its own. “How exactly did you find him? We can't be sure you weren’t the one who abducted him, after all.”

The boy took his time to answer, his face slightly scrunched in thought. Faint sound of movement emerged from his comm but he showed no signs of hearing it.

He pointed to the body of the cultest then to the mound that Dick hadn’t paid much attention to as he answered, “They kidnapped Robin, me, and a couple other kids. They killed the others. Who are you?

Dick heard a sharp inhale, likely in reaction to the dead children. It looked like they were thrown there uncaringly, Dick thought angrily. They were piled on top of each other, some of their limbs bent unnaturally. Most of the injuries were from a slit neck, but there were signs of other injuries. These poor kids were likely tortured first then slaughtered.

He could see Bruce soften after the boy answered, likely thinking the same things as Dick.

Dick sighed silently, sheathing his escrima sticks as he walked to stand closer to Bruce and Damian. “I’m called Nightwing. Can you tell us why you and Robin are unharmed?”

“They already summoned the God of the Dead, or Corpse God, by then. It wasn't needed.” Jason cursed. They were too late, for both the kids and the summoning. Not to mention the ominous name of the being that was summoned. Just what were these cultists planning for summoning such a being? Probably to ‘rid the world of impurities’ like every other cult he came across.

Bruce asked for confirmation of the being, pulling out his ‘victim voice’. It was significantly softer than what he usually spoke as Batman. The boy nodded, affirming their suspicions on the being. Though, where was it? Usually, summoned being raged and caused destruction in their wake, especially ones with such ominous names. There was no sign of this one.

Dick pasted on a smile and bent closer to the boy, “Did you see where the God of the Dead went?”

The boy nodded as he bit his lips, visibly nervous. It was a bit strange to see such an expression on the child when he was blase for most of the conversation. He leaned forward as the boy cupped his hand over his mouth and whispered, “He’s still here.”

Dick felt a shiver race down his spine, one of his siblings sucked in a breath. That was… not good. Was this a trap? Had the God of the Dead been lying in wait and observing them since they had arrived?

The atmosphere was thick enough to cut with a knife. Everyone was tense and ready for battle. Of course, that was when Damian began to stir, calling out to Bruce once he opened his eyes. Bruce adjusted his hold on Damian, beginning to answer Damian before he was cut off by the boy.

“Can I go now? I was with my friends before this. They’re probably worried.” Dick most certainly couldn't let a key witness, and a most definitely traumatized child, wander off without supervision.

“Sorry, you’re coming with us.” Dick said apologetically.

The boy did not like that. He crossed his arms and gave them an annoyed look. “Why?”

Jason, Tim, and Cass took this as the perfect time to reveal themselves. They hopped down from their respective posts and gathered near Bruce. Tim, however, aimed for the cultists as he responded, “We need more information and to verify your story. And for your protection.”

The boy's eyes lingered over Cass and Jason before focusing on the latter, his expression curious. Jason obviously noticed but didn't pay it any mind, more interested in fussing over Damian who wasn’t having it, swatting Jason’s hovering hands away.

“Won't that be kidnapping? Since I don't want to go to a secondary location with strangers? Kidnapping is illegal, you know.”

Jason answered as he finally relented from teasing Damian, “Well, it's a good thing the law is more like suggestions to us.” This did nothing to stop the boy from looking apprehensive. Good job, Jason, Dick thought tiredly.

Tim interrupted the boy when he stated that the cultists were, in fact, not dead. It blindsided Dick. Many of the cultists were in pieces as others had bled enough to be six feet under.

Damian looked mildly curious as Bruce and Tim questioned the survival of the cultists, likely thinking over the logistics of how they still lived. Eventually, Bruce asked Tim to alert the hospital and GCPD. They wouldn't be arriving in a long while, it was still Gotham after all.

Dick walked over to them as they discussed the boy and the cultist, hearing the tail end of Tim’s suspicions.

“—clearly up with him. Despite the situation he’s in, he is unusually calm.”

That was true, not many kids were so nonchalant about almost being ritually sacrificed. Or seeing mangled bodies and pools of blood laying around.

Dick glanced at the boy—he really should be calling him Polka by now, since it was the only name he was given—seeing him grow red-faced as he spoke with Jason.

The almost silent crackle of a radio signaled their time was up, they needed to leave before the police arrived.

Herding Polka out of the building and out of sight was easy, all they needed to do was avoid cameras and stick to the shadowed side of the alley. Those who saw the group were quick to run away.

Losing Polka, however, was not something Dick expected to happen. They all were hyper aware of their surroundings, and in turn, the kid. How he managed to disappear under the scrutiny of six highly trained vigilantes, Dick didn't know.

They had to admit defeat after searching the area and beyond for an hour and a half, Damian being sent back for an examination despite his objections early into their search, and trudge back to the cave unsuccessful.

Dick watched Jason walk into the infirmary—jokingly nicknamed the “batfirmary” by Steph— and remove his helmet from his seat next to Damian’s cot. Steph walked in after him, plopping down on the end of the mattress next to Jason and ignored Damian’s hissed demands for them to get off.

Cass slunk in a moment later, Tim behind her. He was still typing on his wrist computer as he sat on the opposite side of Damian. Cass leaned on the arm of his chair, gazing curiously at the screen.

Off to the right, through a sliver of the thick cloth that blocked the med bay, sat Bruce. The light from the Batcomputer illuminated his bent figure.

Dick pursed his lips, not liking the expression that crossed his father’s face. Whenever there were children involved, Bruce always got into a mood. It wasn’t that the rest of them didn’t, but Bruce’s mood was always the worst. He wouldn't accept any food or comfort until he solved the case and got justice for the innocent children.

As his child and fellow vigilante, Dick couldn't let Bruce neglect himself like that, least of all when it wasn’t his fault the children died. He stood, walking over to Bruce and laid a hand on his shoulder. He gently squeezed, offering all the comfort that was allowed. Bruce gave him a weary smile.

“You should join us.” Dick said, retracting his hand to cross his arms. “It does you no good just sitting here. Damian needs you right now.”

“I know.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I just… I need to give those children justice.”

“Bruce, they aren’t going anywhere. You need to focus on the child in front of you.” Dick winced at how that came out. “I mean, Damian should be your priority right now. He’s recovering from being kidnapped!”

“You're right.” Bruce sighed, straightening his back slightly. “They aren’t going anywhere.”

Dick walked back to his seat, pleased with the sound of Bruce’s footsteps behind him. He watched as Damian’s face brightened when he spotted his father, and the subsequent haughty look he made to cover it up.

“How are you doing, Damian?” Bruce asked, sitting on the cot.

“I am fine, Father. It was just a scratch.” Damian answered, lifting his chin then frowning. “I didn't need to be hauled to the infirmary. I could have helped track down the boy.”

“We had to check if the cultist had done anything else to you. Would you rather not know if they had? And how did they manage to even snatch you anyways?” Tim intervened, crossing his legs as he looked up from his wrist computer.

“They used defenseless animals against me.” Dick almost cooed at Damian’s pout. He was always glad to see Damian act his age.

“What kinds of animals?” Steph leaned forward, her eyes gleaming.

“… Kittens.” Damian admitted quietly.

“They lured you in with kittens?!” Jason said hysterically. Muffled snorts came from all around, Dick himself wasn't exempt from laughing either. Everyone but Jason quickly pasted on an innocent face when Damian furiously glared at them, he didn't bother covering up his laughter. Even Bruce seemed amused, his eyes darting between them with a fond look on his face.

“Do you remember what happened?” Cass signed. Dick could tell she was still worried about Damian, the sides of her eyes were creased and her lips held together tightly.

“I passed out after I was hit over the head.” Damian began, the bedding clenched in his fists. “I remember waking up a couple of times but it wasn't for long. The last time I awoke, the boy was there.”

Bruce put his hand over Damian, his lips pursed. He clearly didn't like how his son was treated, and looking around, none of them were. “Did he do anything?”

“He told me to rest.” Damian said simply, brows furrowed.

“And you did?” Tim asked, dumbfounded. Dick was just as confused, Damian barely took orders from them that he deemed unnecessary, so him listening to a random civilian? It was unheard of.

“That was the strange thing. The moment he told me to, I was overwhelmed with drowsiness. I couldn't help falling asleep.”

A magic user? Dick thought speculatively. Or perhaps a meta? There were many abilities that could cause someone to fall unconscious with just a word, and just as many with aftereffects. Dick prayed that there weren’t any lasting effects on Damian, he wasn't sure what he would do if there were.

“I knew there was something up with him!” Tim announced, jumping up from his seat. “The fact that he was so calm in such a bloody environment was the first clue. Why would he be calm, let alone stay in that warehouse, when he was abducted and watched others be sacrificed? Plus, despite telling us the Corpse God—or God of the Dead, whatever— there was no sign of the being other than the cultist’s dismangled bodies. Why did he lie?” He paced back and forth, letting his theories flow like water.

Cass knocked on the wall, gathering their attention. She signed, “He didn’t lie.”

“He didn’t?” Dick questioned, understandably confused.

She shook her head, “He was truthful the whole time, but was he hiding something.”

“He could have been misleading you.” Steph crossed her arms. “He was being pretty vague in the recordings I watched. Plus, some of his words could have been taken in a different way.”

“That's true. The way he slipped away from us wasn’t something a civilian could do. Even a meta would be hard pressed to disappear from right under our noses.” Jason spoke up, a thoughtful look on his face.

“I’ll call Zatanna.” Bruce sighed, getting up from his seat. “Get some rest, we’ll have a long day tomorrow.”

“He’s right. We need to conserve our energy for interrogating Polka tomorrow.” Dick ushered his disgruntled sibling towards the staircase leading to the manor.

Once he was sure they were in their rooms, Jason deciding it was too late to go to his own safehouse, he returned to the cave. Damian was unsurprisingly still awake, his stubbornness fighting against his weariness.

Dick dimmed the lights of the cave and headed towards the infirmary. Giving his brother a quick peck on the forehead and tucking him in, much to Damian’s displeasure, he grabbed a tablet and wrote up a report next to the cot. He made sure to include his sibling’s theories in the notes margin.

Soft muttering sounded off to the side, behind the infirmary’s curtain. After making sure Damian was asleep, Dick crept towards the sound. Around the corner, Bruce’s frustrated voice spoke. He ended the call a minute after he spotted Dick leaning on the wall with his arms crossed.

“Constantine?”

“Zatanna was busy.” Bruce ran his hands through his hair. He was clearly tired after the eventful day, but Bruce would continue working despite his complaints, Dick bitterly thought. He shook his head, now was not the time for those kinds of thoughts.

Dick hummed and walked towards the Batcomputer. He sat down, Bruce a couple feet away typing away on another monitor. He transferred his half finished report to the computer in front of him, finding a keyboard easier to write with than a tablet.

He let out a yawn. He had been up for more than twenty four hours, most of that time spent patrolling and studying cases in the Batcave. He laid his head on his arms, a quick nap wouldn't hurt, would it?

Distantly, he felt a heavy weight cover him. He let out a murmur of thanks for the blanket and fell asleep, not hearing the whispered response.

The insistent buzzing of the tablet woke him. He stretched, his back popping, before unlocking the tablet. A gasp escaped him once he laid eyes on the screen.

“Uh, B? You’ll need to see this.” Bruce looked at him in question before rolling closer, eyes widening slightly once he read the article.

In strikingly bold letters, the headline was “JOKER MAULED BY THE UNDEAD”.

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Wrote a large chunk of this months ago and just sat on it since I didn't know how to write batfam interactions. I'm pretty satisfied with how it came out :)

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Masterpost | Part 3

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arguablysomaya · 2 years

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more batfam fic recs!!

oh my god i haven't done one of these in so long lets get straight into it

During Wayne galas, the children find themselves bored out of their minds. Their solution? They play a game of tag throughout the night. Bruce finds it endearing, even when they start to run around and cause a ruckus.

this is so siblings im gonna cryyyyy i can remember doing this stuff with my little brothers

“For the last time, I’m not getting sick!” Jason and Tim exchanged skeptical looks behind Dick’s back. “You’re pale, shivering, and wince every time your bare skin touches the cold metal desk.” Jason ticked off on grease smeared fingers, “Sounds sick to me.” “Wonderful observations, Holmes.” Dick muttered, still looking through the microscope. “What does Watson have to add?” “That first of all, I’m Sherlock.” said Tim, “And my associate is correct. You should go get some rest.”

dick grayson should never be trusted with his own physiological health

by @sohotthateveryonedied

Tim drops the knife like it’s white-hot. Oh, god. Oh, god.

Tim did this. He was…he didn’t mean it. He didn’t. He would never. But the man was on top of him and Tim couldn’t breathe, and…he didn’t mean it.

This trope always fucking gets me bruh. big brother jason ftw

by @ivy-and-ivory

[“I did not do anything,” Damian says. The words come out smaller than he would like. “No one did anything.” In his peripheral vision, he sees Todd tilt his head back, searching Gotham’s sky for nonexistent stars. “Okay. Then what happened?” Damian breathes deeply, the way his mother taught him as a child. “I – nothing happened,” he says, because it didn’t. “But – I cannot stop thinking that it will.”]

Or: Jason and Damian have a conversation about the meaning of family.

even more big brother jason!!

by @eliemo

Dick wants to send his brothers one last goodbye.

god. pain. dick is such a self-sacrificing idiot

Tim gets hit with Fear while on a league mission, and it's Damian's job to get him home in one piece.

fear toxin is literally the gift that keeps on giving i also love this authors voice

by @corvidspectre

“Would you like to- Hmm.” Bruce couldn't seem to find the right words. “There's a… Well, there's a small tradition that I have with all of the boys, from when they were smaller.”

“Oh, yeah?” Duke feigned disinterest. “Well I'm not exactly small these days, but I'm open to anything.”

“We could go get some ice cream?” He offered, and this has to be one of the most awkward conversations Duke has ever had the pleasure of being a part of, but he can't help but be touched by the gesture. He must have done this with all of the Robins, and well, for want of a better word it's nearly sweet that he wants to do it with Duke too.

i really like the way the author takes the time to actually write a bruce + duke relationship and not just make them immediate father son tropes

by @thatwisegirl08-6

"There's easier ways to run away, y'know, kid."

"I don't know what you’re talking about."

"Really?" The boy raised an eyebrow, giving Damian a meaningful appraisal. "Rucksack, clothes that don't fit, no parents or anyone around, lying your way places?"

"Why do you care? Why 'help' me? And damn it anyway, stop following me!"

damian runs away from the league onto to bump straight into one timothy drake. this goes about as well as you'd expect

ALSO by destiny aka @sohotthateveryonedied who is an absolute rockstar!! <3

“Yeesh. You’re grouchy when you’re handicapped.”

“Not handicapped.”

Cass hates that word. Handicapped is when you have a condition that keeps you from doing something you used to be able to do. It’s when a part of you is taken away, making you incomplete. Cass is still whole. A broken ankle won’t keep her from doing everything that makes her herself.

cass always has such an interesting train of thought

by @cerusee

“Babs and I are throwing you and Steph a joint birthday party,” Dick said. “It’s on Sunday the 13th, because that’s the only day everybody can make it. It's in the park. Bruce is grilling steaks, and I know you know how good he is at that. You’re coming.”

“Like hell I am,” Jason said.

i was reading this in class and i had to struggle not to laugh out loud. someone asked if i was constipated :/ check it out doe

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wondertwinsenthusiast · 10 months

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"Growing up and seeing your parents' flaws is like losing your religion. I don't believe in God anymore. I don't believe in my father either." Nicola Yoon, The Sun is Also a Star

Think about this going through Jason's mind moments before the bomb goes off. All hope is lost, his dad is not there. No one is going to save him or at least hold him while the clock is ticking. Robin's no longer magic. Robin is just him carrying on a legacy, beaten and hurting, with a mother that betrayed him by his side and a monster's laugh echoing in his head. Jasom is back now, green rage flooding his mind. He can't stop blaming Bruce. He can't stop yearning for his father's comfort and his "childhood" room.

Think about this going through Damian's mind as Bruce asks him to give up Robin and return to his mother, who Damian loves dearly but fought so hard for a chance to stay in Gotham. He grew up admiring Bruce, thought of him as the greatest man alive, only to keep missing the opportunity to be father and son and see that greatness and so much more. All that, just to die. Damian is back now. He still admires Bruce, even though he's not as tall as he thought at first and even though he was willing to give him up. He understands.

Think about this going through Dick's mind after being killed then revived by Lex Luthor, only to be sent away and eventually "abandoned". Seeing the anger and hurt Bruce caused made him cause his family. Well, Dick doesn't like thinking Bruce "made" him anything. He's all grown up now, he pulls himself up from the floor with no help, spits the blood out, wipes his chin and makes his own choices. Every fight is the same, ever since the first time he wore his family's colors and went out to the streets, with all of his mother's love and dreams as his name. Punches and harsh words, the feeling of despair after failing to comunicate. The love and hurt shared by a young parent and their eldest. So many times throughout his life Dick wished that Bruce would call and beg him or make him come home. Dick is back now. He feels as if he never died, he feels ancient. He can't bring himself to fully blame Bruce.

Steph knows she's not his child, she already has a fuck-up for a dad, thank you very much. But she is a Robin. Well, was. It's truely something, to feel your last breath leaving you and still search for approval that you did your best, even though you're the one who was wronged by another. Stephanie is back now. Sometimes it seems to her that she'll forever live with the pain of giving it all only to feel like an unwanted failure. Even though she wears her purple with pride now and it's been a long time since her days in red green and yellow. She doesn't truely blame Bruce. At least, that's what she thinks most of the time.

Bruce is just a man, not a legend larger than life. His heart bleeds for his children. He'd die for all of them, legally his or not. Dick, Jason, Cass, Tim, Steph, Damian, Duke. He makes too many mistakes to count. He tears himself apart for them each night and rebuilds himself by morning. The city needs him, her favorite child. He fears that they, the kids, won't. He fears they'll stop believing in him, in the mission, in life.

He's been blaming himself ever since that night.

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fishfrommars · 2 years

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MY IDEA OF HOW THE BATFAM TIMELINE GOES DOWN

(Based on what I have read. SPOILERS AHEAD FOR: REBIRTH, New 52, pride issue 2022, Robin 2021)

So does it go:

Batman becomes batman around age 25(?)

Flying Graysons die

Dick becomes Robin

Barbara becomes Batgirl

Dick stops being Robin

Dick becomes NightWing - has his Titans run, Chicago run, Blüdhaven run, etc. Boy is everywhere tbh.

Batgirl gets shot in the spine - becomes Oracle sometime

Jason becomes Robin

Jason dies

Batwoman in here somewhere(?) sorry Kate I have no idea when you start but it is in the beginning I know for sure :(

Dick and Bruce have a big fat fight *insert Batman slaps Robin meme* (i always thought it was about Jason when Bman slaps the bird but I think it's actually about Superman)

Tim and Bernard meet, their families are rich, etc they always end up at galas together, possibly the Waynes are there too...

Tim confronts Bruce and Dick about Batman and Robin

Tim becomes Robin

Tim's dad dies

Jason comes back, tho no one knows yet I think(?)

Timmy and Batman split up - cuz Bruce is a dick holy shit

Timmy is working with the Teen Titans

Jason tries to kill Timmy

Jason becomes mean Red Hood

Damian comes into town - which everyone (the three previous Robins) is mad about.

IDK when Stephanie becomes Robin but she is supposedly the fourth Robin - but becomes Batgirl and then Spoiler

There are two working Robins - Tim and Damian

Bruce goes missing - something about a time stream(???)

Dick chooses Damian to be his Robin - Timmy and Dick have a bigass fight

Everyone thinks Bruce is dead except Timmy

Connor dies

Steph dies(?)

Wally dies

(Holy shit Timmy's edgy time begins as he searches for Bruce) as Red Robin YUMMMM

Batman (Dick) catches Red Robin YUMMM (Tim) as Ra's al Ghul kicks him out a skyscraper window (holy fuck i loved that issue)

Bruce comes back - holy shit why does no one listen to Timmy

Jason forms the Outlaws(????)

Jason and Bruce reconcile (somewhere in here I am not sure where tho, suddenly Red Hood has a red bat on his chest and is occasionally out with the Robins and either only used rubber bullets or shoots people in the legs)

A little very short time passes where the batfam gets to hang out and do missions, which leads to the next event.

Damian dies

Wayne family fortune goes away(????) idk when it happens but here somewhere

Dick "dies" but the batfam doesn't know that he is an agent of Spiral

Batgirl comes back, Babs has her spine fixed with technology, so it works kinda like a conputer(????)

Damian comes back(?????)

Bruce loses his memory???

Dick comes back for a second - gets his stupid face punched by Jason, (timber and jaybird have been through a lot losing Damian, Bruce, and Dick in such a short time span holy shit) and he deserves it

Robin school(?????) (i did not finish the "Grayson" series so IDK what the frick that is about)

The world somehow forgets who Dick Grayson is through comic book magic????

Tim is back to being regular Robin(????) so there are two Robins?(???)

Alfred loses his hand (idk when this happens I just know it is in here somewhere)

Bruce's memory comes back

Dick gets shot in the head - honestly just... there are so many questions I had about this, the main one is why the fuck the Joker(s) are not dead yet, after everything they have done to the bats and the birds

Dick becomes Ric after losing his memory - we don't talk about it because - well - DC fucked up :/ (i have a lot of rants planned out for this tbh. Starting with how the bat fam treated Ric, and how after Nightwing went missing none of the bats decided Blüdhaven was worth defending, and how they did Bea dirty even tho she was an ideal partner to someone like Ric / Dick....)

Alfred dies

Robin - Timmy and Damian both in Gotham as Robins - i think Timmy is pretty independent at this point, also he is legally emancipated at this point so he doesn't answer to Bruce anymore...

Dick's memory comes back

Damian and Batman have a falling out(????) and Robin goes off on his own - the newest Robin (2021) series (which I totes recommend if you need to understand Damian a little more - also bonus all five Robins have a scene in it (issue 5 i think) and it is fantastic)

Fun fact all of the Robins have died by this point (though idk if Dick's counts cuz his heart did technically stop but there was no lazarus pit to bring him back just pure adrenaline shot to the heart...)

Tim and Bruce get along again?

Tim and Bernard go out after reconnecting (?????) new thing, waiting for the issue in August 2022 I think?

Tim gets shot in the neck(?????) new issue july 2022

Duke and Cass come into the picture as (?) Outsiders(????) i forget their group name I am sorry) So Spoiler, Signal, orphan now a team since Bruce adopted them I guess. Also Batwing is there (is that his name?) - it's Luke Fox, the guys who had a rescue mission and stole some cool Bat tech to get Bruce back after Talia kidnapped him (also a cool guy to check out. He is a good one to keep up with too. Butts heads with Bruce a lot when it comes to raising the bat babies - which GOOD).

Idk about you, but there is defs over 80 years worth of history here that is supposed to happen over the span of like 20 years (holy cow) and Bruce is supposedly supposed to pick up the mantle of Batman at around 25 or so, and a year and a half in he adopts 9 year old Dick Grayson. Holy shit these kids....

@ me if you think I forgot something or if I need to fix it :)

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awhitehead17 · 10 months

Text

Lost and Found

Tim & Kon & Bart, Friendship, Angst, Injury, Hurt and Comfort, Recovery.

Summary: Tim just about loses his mind when Kon goes missing and no one knows where he is for over a month. When his best friend is eventually found, it’s not the happy reunion Tim would’ve liked it to have been.

Enjoy! :D

When the familiar sight of large red letters pop on his screen, Tim resists the urge to scream. It’s the same sight he’s been seeing for almost four weeks now and he’s sick of it, the same message appears on his computer screen telling him his latest search, his latest trial, has yet again failed. He resists the urge to put his fist through the screen.

Taking a deep breath and letting it out Tim attempts to control his raging emotions. He buries his face into his hands so he wouldn’t have to view the screen in front of him. He’s tired. He’s stressed. He’s at his wits end.

It’s been four weeks since Kon disappeared and no one has seen him since. His best friend just vanished without a trace and Tim couldn’t find anything about what happened to Kon. One day he was there and then the next he wasn't.

By now Tim’s exhausted all of his resources. Trying anything and everything he could to try and find out what’s happened to Kon. The best theory he’s come up with is that Kon’s been taken, but by who and why remains the mystery. Tim’s one of the world’s greatest detectives and yet he can’t find his own missing best friend. What does that say about him?

He’s currently in Ireland of all places, after his most recent lead having lead him across the Atlantic Ocean to the European country. The lead had turned out to be a dead end so the trip had been a waste of time but it doesn't mean Tim has stopped searching. Granted he hasn’t got most of his equipment with him as it’s all back at the cave in Gotham, but he has enough to continue with the hunt for his best friend.

Bart was the last one to have spoken to Kon. Apparently his team’s resident speedster was on the phone to the Kryptonian the night prior to Kon going missing, according to Bart they had been discussing where the best place to get burgers in America was. A topic of conversation that really didn’t hold much reason to be suspicious about.

Nevertheless they most definitely searched all the burger joints the two of them had mentioned just in case. They didn’t find him but one could never know.

In the search for Kon, Bart had exhausted himself to the point of collapse – certainly an impressive feat for his kind. The speedster continuously was circumnavigating the earth looking for any signs of Kon at all. By week three Wally had pretty much put a leash on Bart, not to stop him from looking, but to stop him from almost killing himself. If it’s not a leash it’s high supervision at most.

Cassie hadn’t been much better. After feinting during a mission due to exhaustion, Diana had all but banished Cassie to Themyscira for recovery and also to keep tabs on her.

Tim himself hadn’t escaped the close monitoring from his own mentor. When Tim got injured during a routine patrol, along with his body giving out due to the lack of nutritious and sleep he wasn’t getting, Bruce banned him from any case work and mandated bed rest until he had fully recovered. Even after he got put back on the roster for patrol, Bruce had either Jason or Cass shadowing him the entire time if he was solo patrolling.

Now Tim struggles in front of his screen once again upset and frustrated because he can’t find his best friend.

Everyone’s been looking for Kon, not just Tim’s team. Bruce is keeping an eye out and hasn’t reported anything, Diana is also keeping a lookout but remains silent, and even Clark has had absolutely no luck in finding Kon. To begin with they turned their eyes to Luthor being the culprit but for once the man is innocent and seemed just as upset about Kon’s disappearance as they are, he's got his feelers out looking for the missing Kryptonian too.

Being without Kon reminds Tim of the wretched time when Kon had died and Tim had to deal with life without him. Morbidly he wonders if that time had been better than now, at least back then he knew, at present he had no idea what’s happened to Kon.

“Timmy?”

At the sound of his nickname Tim sits up right and looks over his shoulder to find Dick standing across from him. It didn’t take much to guess what his brother is here for. Over the last four weeks Dick’s been in Bludhaven dealing with his own cases out but he’s been a constant presence on the other side of the phoneline which Tim appreciates.

When Tim announced he’s going to Ireland to continue his search Dick surprisingly hadn’t hesitated in offering his support to come so Tim wouldn’t be alone. Tim’s not stupid, he knew Dick offered so he would be able to watch over him so he doesn’t overwork himself as he has done in recent times. Tim doesn't protest against it though because he enjoys Dick’s company and wants his brother nearby.

Tim sighs. “Hey Dick.” That’s when he suddenly yawns, his tiredness catching up on him and pulling at his consciousness.

Dick approaches where Tim’s set up shop at the kitchen table of the Airbnb they’ve rented for their time in Ireland. His brother looks over his shoulder at Tim’s laptop screen, a frown forming on his face. “How long have you been sat here?”

“Dunno, lost track of time,” Tim shrugs nonchalantly. At this point he doesn’t even know what day it is, he only knows how long Kon’s been missing for now.

Reaching out slowly, Dick closes the screen of his laptop, shutting it so Tim could no longer see the damn red letters. His brother crouches down by his chair and meets his gaze, his hand coming up to cup the side of his face.

“You need to sleep kiddo. You've been sat here for a solid twelve hours, you’re not even out of your suit from last night.”

Confused Tim looks down at himself and sure enough he’s still in his tunic and leggings, although the armour is off. He hadn’t even realised. In his mind he figures twelve hours isn’t too bad, it was during week two of Kon been missing when he spent a hard core 50 hours in the cave, barely leaving the screen other than to go to the toilet. Last night Tim met up with some contacts in hopes of gaining information about Kon. Unfortunately he came back empty handed.

As Dick stands up he grabs hold of Tim’s arms and pulls him up as well. It’s a good thing Dick had hold on him because the moment he’s standing Tim sways and almost loses his balance, Dick keeps him up right and steady.

Deciding to not fight against his brother, a battle he’s lost many times in the past, Tim allows Dick to guide him away from the computer and towards his temporary bedroom. Despite not being on his laptop Tim’s mind is still reeling, trying to come up with ways he hasn’t tried yet in which may be successful in finding out where Kon is.

Just as the two of them reach the bedroom a gust of wind blows through the house followed by a few doors slamming. The noise has them pausing and turning around and Tim could only blink in surprise when he sees Bart standing there in the middle of the hallway looking frantic and even out of breath.

“Dude,” Bart gasps as his chest heaves up and down, he pauses for a moment to breathe properly.

At his pause Tim has no clue what to think. Had Bart just ran across the Atlantic Ocean? What for? What’s happened? Before he could ask any of his questions Bart continues talking.

“I know where he is.”

Tim’s moving before he even knows it. Pushing away from Dick he moves towards the ginger speedster, the two of them in sync without even having to talk, and Bart turns his back so Tim could climb on. Ignoring Dick’s protests Bart grabs hold of him tightly, hands Tim the goggles he uses any time they do this, and without wasting another second Bart sprints away.

Within minutes Bart slows down to a stop and places Tim back on the floor. Ripping the goggles off his face Tim frantically starts looking around, looking for any signs of Kon while also glancing at the speedster.

“Where is he?”

Tim doesn't even care where they are, all he wants to know is where Kon is. If this is the area where Bart’s claiming Kon is then he should be visible somewhere right?

As he looks around he notices how the surroundings feel somewhat familiar but he's not in his right mind to give this location a name. Familiar rocks are scattered in front of him, the ocean spreading out wide beyond the rocks and a massive cliff hanging over them from behind. Only if Tim wasn't in such a frantic mindset he might have actually appreciated the scenery.

How Bart knows Kon is in this location is a question Tim will ask later on, it’s not important right now as the only thing that matters is getting to Kon. Where is he? What condition is he in? Is he…

Tim’s shaken out of his thoughts by Bart tugging on his arm and begins pulling him in a direction. The two of them climb over particular shaped rocks, Tim following Bart step for step impatiently wanting to know where his best friend is.

“C’mon, he’s by the water. I don’t know what state he’s in because I immediately ran to get you to bring you here. But he's here.” Bart informs Tim over his shoulder as they clamber over the rocks.

A minute or two later Tim finally sees Kon for the first time in over a month. It’s not how he wanted to reunite with his best friend but he’s finally found him after all this time.

As Tim reaches Kon’s side, he finds his best friend’s body slumped against the rocks in an uncomfortable position, his head bent one way, an arm twisted behind his back, one leg stretched out with the other curled up close to his body. Further observation shows Kon's clothes being wet and ripped in places, he’s by the ocean so it’s easy to assume he’s been in the water, he’s shoeless but not sockless and his skin appears to be unharmed although that doesn't mean there isn’t any internal damage.

Taking great care, Tim kneels down beside Kon and gently places his fingers against his neck to check for a pulse. With great relief Tim feels it immediately, it’s not as strong as it should be but it’s there. After confirming he's alive Tim reaches out to carefully move Kon’s head, straightening his neck out so it doesn’t hurt him, and with Bart they rearrange Kon's body so he’s lying in a more comfortable position instead of in contorted position as he had been. After they’re done it simply looks like Kon’s decided to take a nap on top of some rocks.

Cupping Kon's cheek, Tim gently shakes him, trying to rouse him from unconsciousness. “Kon? Hey Kon, can you hear me? Conner, c’mon wake up for me.”

When a few minutes go by with no success Tim shares a concerned look with Bart. While it’s great Kon’s breathing it means nothing if they can’t get him to wake up even if it’s only for a few minutes.

“What's going on?”

The new voice makes them both jump, neither of them having expected anyone else to be nearby. When they look over their shoulders they find Dick and Wally standing nearby looking at them with worry and trepidation.

“He's not waking up.” Tim tells them, his voice thick with emotion. “He’s not waking up! Why isn’t he waking up! Kon. Kon please…”He starts shaking Kon harder, desperately trying to get his best friend to open his eyes.

Hands appear on Tim's shoulders and starts pulling him away from Kon.

“Tim, Tim you need to calm down. Getting worked up isn’t helping the situation.”

Ignoring the familiar voice speaking gently into his ear Tim fights off the hold on him, he’s fighting to keep his place at Kon’s side as the hands force him to move away. “No! He’s here, why isn’t he awake?” His normal ability to think rationally currently doesn’t exist. Tim’s world has narrowed to only Kon and how he’s not waking up.

Tim’s jarred out of his spiralling thoughts when two arms wrap around his chest like steel bands and he’s physically picked up and forced away from Kon. The person who picked him up turns them around so Tim's no longer looking at Kon but rather at the rocks surrounding them, he tries to fight against it, trying his best to get back to his best friend’s side but the arms lock around him and keep in place.

“Timmy, I know bud, trust me, I know. We’re going to help him okay.”

“I don’t, I – what happened, wait no, why-” Tim struggles to make even one coherent sentence.

“Tim, I promise…”

The promise never gets finished because there’s suddenly a blast of air followed by a loud crashing sound. Tim startles at the sudden sounds and feels the person who’s restraining him also jump at the unexpected noises, the two of them turn around and stare as Clark makes an appearance. He must have come straight from Metropolis considering he's in his office suit paired with the glasses and everything.

Clark says nothing as he strides forward to where Kon is. Wally, who has Bart in his arms, makes space for the man to be able to bend down beside him. Everything falls silent and tension rises as they wait for Clark to react, the man most likely scanning Kon for his injuries and assessing him in ways they can’t.

After a few minutes Clark straightens up and glances around at them all. Tim feels the arms around him adjust their hold, no longer restraining him but hugging him close to the person behind him, it’s only now Tim realises it’s Dick.

“I’m taking him to the fortress.” Clark speaks up, his words resolute.

No one dares argue with him but Tim feels a burning desire to yell when Clark bends down and gently picks Kon up and carries him in his arms. That’s his best friend, the one who has been missing for four weeks, Tim’s only just got him back and now he's losing him again. Everyone stays silent as Clarks takes off into the air with Kon and they continue staring silently until the man of steel could no longer be seen.

The arms around Tim squeeze him gently and bring him back into the moment. “C’mon Tim let’s get back to the house, we can wait for further news there. Wally, you and Bart are more than welcome to join us.”

Tim misses the speedster’s response as everything turns into a haze. He knows Kon is safe, now, but it completely destroys him that he isn’t by his best friends side. If Bart’s spaced out expression is anything to go by he must be having the same feelings as Tim.

The two older Titans work together to get Tim and Bart back to the house, Tim can’t be certain as the journey is a blur but he’s pretty sure Wally made three round trips in order to get them all back at the house. Alongside Bart Tim sits on the couch feeling completely detached from anything, unable to get the images of Kon’s lifeless body out of his mind. He doesn't know how long he sits there for but eventually his mind loses the battle to stay conscious and before he knows it he falls asleep completely exhausted from everything that’s happened over the last month.

========

“What the fuck happened to you, man?”

It’s the question they’ve all been thinking and now hopefully they can get some answers.

“I’ve told you already. I don’t know! I don’t remember anything.”

Or perhaps not.

In frustration Tim groans, letting his annoyance be heard clearly by the two other occupants in the room with him. In the bed Tim is currently sat next to is Kon, propped up by pillows and covered with blankets, looking exhausted but awake. On the other side of the bed Bart is sat in a chair with his feet propped up on the mattress.

At his noise Kon rolls his eyes. “Well sorry Tim, I was pretty out of it and remember next to nothing about the last month and a half.”

Tim winces at Kon’s sharp tone. He looks up at his best friends apologetically. “I didn’t mean it like that Kon. Sorry. It’s just – god you have no idea how sick and worried we all were. If we could have anything that would help us understand what happened to you I’d feel better and then we’d be able to help you.”

Kon shakes his head dejectedly. “I don’t know what to tell you Tim, I wish I knew more but I don’t. Everything is just… blank.”

“It’s weird you ended up in Ireland of all places, well Northern Ireland, at Giants Causeway nonetheless. Did you wash up there by accident? Were you placed there on purpose?”

“I don’t know Tim.” Kon snaps at him. Tim admits he deserved it that time, he’s getting lost in his thoughts and throwing out burning questions he has.

After his sort of breakdown when they returned back to the house in Ireland, it finally clicked in Tim’s mind where they had found Kon. The UNESCO site of the country, Giants Causeway, is known for the natural phenomenon of hexagonal shaped rocks, that’s why they looked familiar as Tim had seen pictures of it before. How Bart had found him there was apparently pure luck according to the speedster. He hasn’t yet gone into detail of how he found Kon but Tim will work on getting the answer out of his friend soon enough, there may be clues in how Bart found him to what in fact had happened to Kon. It’s important enough to focus on, however for now that’s for a later date.

“Your memory will probably come back in time,” Bart pipes up blinking at the two of them, “didn’t they say temporary amnesia is most likely to happen? Your memories should return eventually. Or they won’t. But they might.”

“They did say that but its not definite so it’s not exactly helpful right now.” Kon comments with a frown.

Tim mimics the action, feeling his own frustration at the situation grow. It’s been two weeks since they found Kon, half of that Kon had been isolated by Clark at the fortress as he recovered and woke up from what had been a five day coma. Once Clark deemed Kon well enough he allowed the young Kryptonian to return to the farm where he’s on strict bedrest for a few weeks until results and answers came back to what had happened to him.

When he returned to the farm Tim and Bart were finally allowed to see Kon. Despite knowing Kon had been found and was recovering in the fortress, Tim didn’t truly relax until he saw Kon awake with his own eyes. The relief he felt was almost knee buckling when he entered Kon’s bedroom and found his best friend sitting up, weakly grinning at him like the last six weeks hadn’t been hell.

Unfortunately while they got Kon back, his best friend had returned not remembering anything from his time being missing. It was a major concern but not one they could do much about. The doctors who Clark trusted to care for Kon, didn’t have any answers they could provide, other than saying what Bart had pointed out: the memories may or may not return and if they do it will take time.

The lack of answers leaves Tim torn in between wanting to go out and search for said answers, because whoever the fuck kidnapped his best friend deserves an ass beating (they deserve something far worse than that Tim thinks to himself, at least the morally grey part of him anyway), and then not wanting to leave Kon’s side so he can keep him in his sights at all times.

It kinda says what way he’s leaning too considering he hasn’t left the farm in four days.

Kon yawning breaks Tim out of his thoughts and his eyes dart straight to his best friend, who despite has done nothing but sit in bed all day, looks exhausted. Stretching in his seat Tim meets his gaze.

“Is there anything you want or anything you need? Pain killers? Fresh water? Sun lamp?”

His concern has Kon scowling at him. “I don’t need to be coddled Tim, I appreciate the care but you’re over doing it.”

Not taking offense to the comment Tim narrows his eyes at Kon. “As if you haven’t coddled me before when I’ve been injured. I just want to make sure you’re alright Kon.”

“Yeah but that’s different, that’s-”

Tim cuts him off before he could finish that sentence. “I swear to god, if you say it’s because I’m human, imma beat your ass into next Tuesday.”

Bart snorts and Kon’s sheepish expressions tells Tim everything. He grits his teeth and counts to ten. He reminds himself this isn’t the time to have the whole meta/non-meta argument yet again, and because Kon is injured he’ll let it slide this time.

Standing up Tim glares at Kon and shakes his head huffing as he does. “Anyway, I’m going to grab some of Ma’s soup, Kon you’ll eat at least half alright. You need to start getting nutrients back into your body. Bart I’ll bring you up a bowl too.”

Bart beams at this. Sending Tim a sunny grin he asks, “can you also bring some of the fresh bread she made this morning. That stuff is amazing!”

Tim snorts. “Sure.” He was planning to anyway but he’ll be sure to bring extra.

As he moves towards the door a thought crosses his mind. Before he could think better of it, Tim turns around and darts over to the bed and wraps his arms – gently – around Kon and holds him tightly. Kon startles at the sudden contact but doesn’t push him away, his arms come up and weakly wrap around Tim in return.

Fighting the burning sensation in his eyes which threaten to turn into tears Tim presses closely to Kon, letting his head rest against his best friend’s.

“I’m glad you’re okay.” He whispers softly, his voice thick with emotion. “I missed you so much, I’m glad you’re back.”

Kon doesn’t say anything in return, not that Tim was expecting him too, but the squeeze he gets is an answer in itself.

Unable to resist Tim presses a kiss to Kon's temple before finally pulling away. He lets his best friend go and quickly heads for the door before anyone could say anything. Tim could feel the emotion building up inside of him and knows he needs to step out of the room to be able to get a hold of himself, being able to get the soup is a good diversion alongside it.

He means it, how he’s glad Kon is back. Once Kon is up on his feet they can work together in solving what had happened to him in the time he had been missing and fix together those missing pieces of his memory.

#Tim Drake #Kon-El #bart allen #friendship #angst #hurt and comfort #injury #hurt kon #young justice #recovery #fanfiction #this got away from me #Giants Causeway #I went Ireland (both parts) back along and got inspired #it's a cool place #dc comics #dick grayson #Wally West #hinted timkon

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jinx-jade · 3 years

Text

The forgotten BlackCat

When the Waynes arrived home to the manor after another tiring charity gala, Alfred, Bruce, and Dick went down to the cave for patrol while the other Wayne's got some sleep. They hadn't expected someone to be in the Batcave. Bruce and Dick tensed, naturally dropping into defensive stances, Alfred just walking over to the computer.

"Apologies Miss Marinette, but I will be needing the computer to monitor Master Bruce's and Master Dick's patrol," Alfred informed her.

"No need to apologize Alfi. I was just using it to pass the time till you guys got back." Marinette claimed, hugging the older gentleman.

"Mom?" Dick questioned, relaxing his body.

"Hey kid, long time no see," Marinette claimed, causing Dick to run over and hug her.

Marinette, Bruce, and Alfred chuckled at his childish antics. Bruce making his way over to greet her.

"I didn't expect you to be home for another year or two," Bruce stated, causing Marinette to roll her eyes at his stiff and awkward greeting before pulling her husband into a kiss.

Dick jokingly gagged, "Ewww! Get a room!" He whined, causing Marinette to raise a brow before he realized his mistake.

"First of all I don't need to know, second of all we have a patrol to get to," Dick claimed, causing Marinette to laugh.

"Will you be joining the Masters on patrol Miss Marinette?" Alfred asked, getting tonight's small vigilante group back on topic.

Marinette looked to Bruce, asking a silent question.

Letting out a sigh, Bruce claims, "It's your choice."

Sometimes Bruce forgets how chaotic his wife is, that tends to happen when your significant other goes away for a six-year mission.

However, it was something you remembered fairly quickly.

Especially when she somehow manages to meet up with her twin sister, Selina Kyle.

“Hey Cats, it looks like the Bat has a Copycat!” Harly said, a bit confused. Ivy raised a brow towards Selina in confusion as well.

“Sorry to burst your bubble, but Lina here is the copycat since I’m the older one and I did the whole Vigilante thing before she did her little villain/ anti-hero thing,” BlackCat claimed with a grin.

“Just because you’re older by a few minutes doesn’t mean you can hang it over my head.” Catwoman responded before hugging her sister.“Glad you made it home safely.”

“Glad to be home,” BlackCat informed her.

Patrol went smoothly besides BlackCat and Catwoman getting into a competition as to who could take down the most criminals.

Catwoman claimed that BlackCat only won due to having magic.

“Speaking of magic, is there any way your magic would prevent us from speaking about you?” Catwoman questioned while they were resting on the edge of a rooftop.

“It’s possible. Why?” BlackCat asked, looking at Catwoman in question before snapping her head to look at Batman and Nightwing.

“None of you have been able to talk about me have you?” BlackCat stated more than asked.

“Nope! Have fun introducing yourself to the other bats!” Nightwing said a mischievous grin on his features as he made his way home.

_________

In the morning Marinette woke up for the first time in a while, in her lover's arms. She turned her body toward him so she could see his face.

"Good morning," Bruce said once Marinette was facing him. The corners of his lips pulled into a small smile.

Marinette smiled lazily at him.

“Good morning,” Marinette agreed, nuzzling closer into his neck. She forgot how warm he was. Almost like her own personal heater.

Bruce chuckled.

“Are you sure you aren’t at least part cat?” He joked, causing Marinette to nip at his neck.

He had forgotten that her love language is biting. However, it reinforced his joke about her being a cat, so Bruce found it entertaining.

“We have to get up in a bit, so please don’t leave too many marks,” Bruce said, rolling them over so he was now on top instead of next to her.

Marinette pouted at him till he pulled her into a kiss, letting her nip at his lips.

They were eventually interrupted by two sharp knocks on the bedroom door.

“Miss Marinette, Master Bruce, breakfast is ready. I also believe the young masters and miss will come looking for Master Bruce if he takes any longer to come down. Something about there being two stray cats instead of one,” Alfred informed them. The couple could hear the amusement in his voice.

“We’ll be down in a minute Alfred,” Bruce claimed with an annoyed sigh.

The couple got dressed and ready for the day before heading downstairs. The bat kids ambushed them at the base.

“Father I demand to know…” Damian trailed off at the sight of an unfamiliar woman. He waited a moment expecting her to leave only for her to raise a brow in response.

The room was silent for a bit before the woman broke it.

“If you’re going to demand something then you should finish your demand so the person you’re demanding from knows you’re serious.” She informed him, causing Damian to scoff.

“Seeing as it’s a family matter I suggest you stay out of it harlot.” Damian sneered with a glare.

It was clear that Bruce was going to step in, but the woman cut him off.

“A family matter you say?” She asked, ignoring the rude comment she made eye contact with Bruce and Dick, amusement clear in her eyes.

“Sorry about Damian here, but he is right that it’s a family matter.” Tim interrupted before Damian could say anything else.

“Aah. My apologies.” The woman said. The bat kids finally thought she was about to leave so they could ask Bruce who the other cat from last night is.

“I don’t believe I introduced myself.” She said, causing them to get a bit annoyed that the woman couldn’t take a hint. “I’m Marinette Kyle-Wayne, Bruce’s wife of nineteen years.”

“What!” One of them said, no one was quite sure who.

Marinette started walking towards the kitchen, “I’m not sure about you but I would hate for Alfi’s food to get cold.”

“Hey, You can’t just say something like that then walk off!” Jason called out to her.

“And why not?” Marinette asked with a raised brow as she disappeared into the dining room.

Bruce let out a sigh before following his wife.

“If you wish to ask questions or eat I suggest we move this to the dining room,” Bruce said, the others following him.

Once everyone was seated the questions started.

“How the f...udge do you have a wife that no one knows about?” Jason asked, censoring himself when he caught Alfred’s eye.

“I knew,” Dick claimed, receiving a glare from everyone who hadn’t known.

“My magic decided to put protection enchantments around me. If you didn’t already know me then you wouldn’t know me. It also made it so you couldn’t talk about me.” Marinette informed them with a shrug before grinning.

“It’s the reason most people were under the impression that my sister Silena was the one in a relationship with Bruce, while no one being able to prove anything more than speculation. Since we look the same and have the same family name it was easy for their minds to fill in the blank with plausible information,” Marinette said, taking a sip of her coffee.

“Magic?” Cass questioned.

“I’m one of the Magic users and researchers for the Justice League,” Marinette answered. “I usually go by BlackCat if that helps your search,” Marinette said looking at Tim, who has the sense to look a little sheepish.

“And the reason we’ve never seen you in the manor?” Barbara asked.

“I was on a two-year research and retrieve mission that turned into a six-year undercover mission, so communicating with people not part of the case was difficult, visiting them was impossible and not allowed,” Marinette informed them.

The questions continued throughout breakfast.

Bruce couldn’t help the small smile he had at the sight of all his family members, home, and safe.

Writing prompt from @iamthemaribatanon : Brucinette, Fluff, Secret relationship, only Alfred and Dick know they are together

#maribat #marinette is black cat #bruce x marinette #Marinette Kyle-Wayne #Bruce is married

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artxyra · 4 years

Note

So, me and @ThatWeirdPepperMint were wondering if you could do this request. Jason one day sneaks out and goes to a nearby ally where he finds Marinette not knowing that the fam was following. He asks Mari about buying mini guns and she gets them out of her heels, he ends up with gun-heels and wears them as as Red Hood. In that week all the fam got something from her. Tim got usb-nails. Dick got jetpack heels and retractable zip line watch. Damian got infi-purse. And Bruce got a tiara-shield.

Note: I totally did not look up Totally Spies gadgets for inspiration for some of the weapons.

It was Dick who suspected that something was up with Jason. The second oldest Wayne had been disappearing more often than usual only to return with a weapon he has never seen it in the stores. He tried to get information out of his brother about where he was but was only meet with the usual stream of threats or a careless shrug before disappearing for days on end.

The next to figure something was off, was Damian. Though for the youngest Wayne he had little care for his second oldest brother. Damian had run into Jason holding his newest weapon that was completely out of character for him. It was some kind of belt that had an expandable cable bungee. The belt did not go with his Red Hood outfit at the time, but before Damian had the chance to interrogate the male about the item, Jason had disappeared.

Then there was Tim and he had actually found out by going to get a late-night coffee and somehow ended up bumping into his predecessor, who was coming out of an alleyway with a bracelet in hand. At first, the coffee addict didn’t think much of until the idea that Jason had a secret lover pop into his brain. Instead of letting that idea down, he ended up entering a constantly dead-end investigation.

It was no shock that everyone else involved with the Wayne family's nightly activities was also intrigued by Jason’s newest additions of weapons. However, what shocked them all was when Stephanie (Steph) returned with Jason with a pair of diamond earrings. Of course, speculations began to grow among everyone, but when Spoiler ended up using the same new pair of earrings as a cutting tool they knew that whoever was making these weapons just so happened to include Steph as a client.

For half a year, they have tried to find this unique weapon dealer that Jason (and sometimes Steph) happily order from, only to be met with more dead ends. Fortunately for them, their search will soon come to an end.

Jason had broken his latest gadget, a wristwatch, on his latest mission. Dick managed to gather the immediate family (i.e. Tim, Damian, and Bruce) to follow the person behind the Red Hood anti-hero. However, Jason was streets smart. He zigged through the city; they had nearly lost him until the anti-hero had reached an alleyway just blocks away from crime alley. The family watch over the scene on the rooftops staying in the shadows.

Jason had entered from the alley’s opening and is immediately greeted by a shield of fog. The anti-hero doesn’t seem deterred from the scene before him.

“Arme chanceuse.” He states in the direction of the fog. Jason was no idiot; he knew his family is watching him, but he just couldn’t find any fucks to give at the moment.

The Batfam is shocked by the appearance of a female, looking no older than Damian. This female has long dark hair curled at the end with a mix of pink and red highlights. She was wearing in a two-piece dress, the top being a long sleeve laced with an intricate design as her skirt had a waist-high slit showcasing a pair of dark leggings and black heeled combat boots with pink and red shoestrings.

“You’re not alone, Jay-Jay.” She says crossing her arms and taking a sit in a chair that was behind a red and black table.

“Don’t care enough, Pixie. They’ve been trying to find this out for six months and at this moment, I don’t have any fucks to give. So, can you help?” Jason states causing the infamous weapon dealer to smirk.

“What you need.” She sasses back to her client.

“Miniguns the best you got.” He says giving her a knowing look.

The dealer sighs and puckers her lips. “I was saving these for Steph, but you apparently need them more.” The fog grows around the dealer and it fades away, in her hands are a pair of black heels.

“Uh, what the fuck?”

“Do you want the guns or not? The heels are the barrels, there is a safety mechanism outside the heels that you can access to minimize unwanted triggers. The magazine is on the shank. Not my best work but these combat heel boots can get the job done.” She explains gesturing to every area she talked about.

Jason picks up the heels and examines them. “Now I understand why these were meant for Steph. Thanks, Pixie, I’ll take good care of them.”

“You better!” She cries out before continuing with, “The amount of material and thinking to make them work took ages, Jay, ages!”

Jason chuckles before wishing his dealer a goodbye.

Before the Batfam could incept the two, the fog blocks their vision and suddenly it was just Jason alone in an alleyway looking the same expect the newest addition of a pair of heeled boots on his feet.

They did not see Jason again until the patrol as Red Hood.

“So, Hood, where did you get the heels? They’re looking pretty nice.” It was Nightwing that would ask first.

“Like you don’t know.” The anti-hero grunts and struts away from his oldest brother. Nightwing stares aghast and somewhat offended.

At first, the boys thought the heels were nothing but a bad joke but to see Red Hood in action, taking down each of his opponents, they knew this for real. Maybe, just maybe, they should talk to whoever this Pixie is that Jason gets his weapons from.

It was only a few nights later when the bat family corner Jason, place him in a dark room (tied up of course) and stood over him. Jason glares at his family and mentally thinks of ways to get rid of them all. The option of murder was high on his list of suggestions.

“Who’s Pixie?” Dick’s voice pipes causing every muscle in Jason to just give up. Seriously all of this just to get information about his weapon dealer.

That night led to the family officially meeting the person Jason calls Pixie the next day.

Pixie stares at her favorite customer with an eyebrow raised and arms folded against her chest. The greetings were stale only met with grunts and an awkward smile from Dick.

“Hi, I’m Marinette, you don’t have to call me Pixie, but I have some rules when it comes to doing business with me. I don’t make standard weapons. I only deal with those who deserve it, and money is the least of my concerns though it is welcomed.” Immediately, they knew they had just entered a business. A business that Jason, and in extension Steph, has been familiar with for months.

She gives them the secret word that would “summon” her for business. She only deals at night and at various alleyways. They also found out that she has a life outside of all this and sometimes would have to cancel if that was the case Jason would tell them. Wrapping up this tremendous moment, she gives them a week to figure out what they would like before disappearing in the fog that brought her there.

Throughout the week, each of the bat members tried to convince Jason to give them Marinette’s current location, and then go to Steph when Jason wasn’t bothered to be around them.

Tim went to Steph for Marinette's latest location. He ends up placing an order for a USB drive; what he got was beyond his coffee-addicted brain.

“This USB nail is the perfect disguise for quick transfers, it works just like any USB out there and looks and feels like a fake nail. You can transfer up to 128 gigabits. Though be careful, the nail can break with an excessive amount of force.”

Since that day, Tim has been using the nails for hacking or work assignments. He begins to swear by them.

On multiple occasions, Tim swears he had seen Dick wearing Red Hood’s gun boots and a longer version of his nails on a couple of occasions. Dick denies it every time, but they all knew the truth.

It took a while before Dick had come up with his ideal first weapon from Marinette. He wanted something grand and out of this world.

“You want jet pack heels and a zip line wristwatch,” Marinette states slowly trying to wrap her head around her newest order. It’s not something she isn’t used to, but the way he had explained it to her with this silly look on his face just creeped her out. “Okay.”

That night when Nightwing was on patrol, he was having a ball showcasing his new weapons. Batman had yelled at the male upon realizing that he was wearing something that was impractical. Nightwing flies away with his jet pack heels activated. Batman could only sigh and wonder how this even happened.

The next person to receive their Marinette original was Damian. The youngest Wayne had met with the weapon dealer in secret hoping that his family didn’t catch sight of him. He could only imagine the horror that would come with them finding out.

If it wasn’t for that fact that Marinette looked around Damian’s age, it looked like a drug-dealing going on as Damian was dressed in all black and a hood covering his face. Upon seeing him, Marinette managed to hold in her laughter.

“You want an infinity purse, should I even ask why?”

“It’s better for you not to know.”

Marinette accepts that answer and disappears into the fog. She comes out with a tote with Robin’s emblem in addition to her own. She hands the bag over to the Wayne and explains the limitations the bag carries.

It is said that Damian has pulled various weapons on different people when they make fun of the bag. Some make it out without a scratch while others don’t even speak of the incident anymore.

The most shocking of appearances came from Bruce Wayne, himself. He had come alone to meet with Marinette. At first, she thought it was a gift for the girls or a really bad joke with some hidden scheme behind it. Once she thought of it, it wasn’t a bad idea.

“Are you sure? This could ruin your bad boy aesthetic.” Marinette says giving the tall man an out.

“Yes.” Short and simple. Marinette nods and disappears into the fog.

When she returns, in her hands is a solid black tiara along with it are diamonds in the shape of bats. Sliding it across the table Marinette begins to discuss the weapon. The tiara can turn into a shield with a twist of a diamond. Bruce graciously accepts the weapon before testing it out. Upon seeing it in its shield form, Bruce begins to wonder what age the dealer is and how can he get her to join the family officially.

After everyone in the bat family received weapons that aren’t usual apart of their list of gadgets the league members begin to question their sanity. They thought Bruce was joking when they saw him with the tiara, but once it dawned on them that he never jokes, it was Flash that went around screaming his head off.

“You can rule the world, Pixie,” Jason says joining the small female in the darkness as she watches the bad guys being taken down by her own weapons.

“Eh, we knew this day would come.” She says with a smile on her face.

“Damn, Pixie, you know B-man is already in the process of trying to adopt you. You fit all the Wayne requirements to being adopted.”

“I think he already has. He’s been visiting more and more often with Steph under the pretense of getting new weapons. Damian also comes and goes as he pleases, he’s like a cat.” Marinette says glancing at the second oldest Wayne.

“Welcome to the family, sis."

Tag List: *View my Tagging System guidelines for how to to be properly tagged or removed.

#maribat #ml x dc #mlb x dc #dc crossover #ml crossover #no ships

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sohotthateveryonedied · 4 years

Text

Softer Than Silence

Read here on AO3!

(Takes place right after this fic which I wrote like a year ago and only now got to making a sequel for whoops.)

Summary:

“Your larynx was severed. It was a pretty nasty injury and Leslie did everything she could, but your vocal cords...they weren’t salvageable. I’m...I’m so sorry, Tim.”

Tim lets that sink in. Severed larynx. Unsalvageable vocal cords.

Oh, god.

Tim doesn’t know how much time has passed when he wakes up. He’s not even sure how he’s waking up. A slit throat in any universe should be a certain one-way ticket to the afterlife—don’t pass go, don’t collect two hundred dollars. Dead. Maybe Tim is dreaming. Or maybe he’s dying right now and this is just his brain flashing forward to the future he could have had, “Owl Creek Bridge”-style. His ears feel like they’re packed with pillows, but voices make their way through his warped awareness like pencils poking through aluminum foil. “I say we should draw straws.” “Really, Jay? That’s your suggestion?” “You got a better idea, Dickface?” Someone clicks their tongue. “You’re both cowards. Let me be the one to tell him and I’ll have it done in less than a minute.” “I can’t even tell you all of the reasons I’m not letting you do that.” “Yeah, kid, your bedside manner fucking sucks.” “It’s better than yours!” “Will you both shut up?” Tim would feign sleep and listen longer, but the drug-induced haze is fading faster than he can keep up with. His throat burns with a fiery vengeance, flames creeping up his windpipe. He shifts, a hand instinctively grappling for his throat. Someone stops him. “Tim? You awake?” He opens his eyes. Dick is beside him, lowering Tim’s wrist back to the bed. They’re in the medical area of the Batcave; he can tell by the dank air and a sliver of rock peeking through the gap in the curtain surrounding them. Jason and Damian stand off to the side, their expressions unreadable. Tim opens his mouth to ask them what happened, but before he can utter a vowel, Dick is squeezing his hand. “Don’t try to talk,” he says. Tim obediently settles back, wariness rising in his gut. He reaches up with the hand not in Dick’s grasp and discovers a thick bandage plastered over his neck. That can’t be good. “Do you remember what happened?” The man flicks Tim’s blood off of his sword. “I would love to continue this riveting visit of ours, but it seems like my mission is complete. Have a pleasant night, Mr. Drake.” Tim nods with a wince. “You were lucky,” Dick says. “Conner found you and brought you here just in time. You lost a lot of blood and Leslie had you in surgery for a while, but she was able to fix most of the damage.” Tim doesn’t miss the most, and Dick grimaces when he catches it as well. Tim arches one eyebrow—a clear, What aren’t you telling me? “Looks like that’s our cue to duck out,” Jason says. He grabs Damian by the shoulder and ignores the raccoon-like hands smacking him away. “Glad you didn’t die, Tim.” He ushers Damian out and they disappear, leaving Tim’s stomach curdling. He looks to Dick for an explanation. “There...there was a lot of damage, Tim. You’re lucky to be breathing right now.” That should be good, right? Tim is alive. There’s no tube in his neck so he can breathe on his own, and aside from some residual soreness under the buzz of the drugs, he feels fine. This is a monumental victory. So why does Dick look like he’s delivering a death sentence? Tim wants to ask, but he physically can’t do that. Dick doesn’t seem to be able to either. “Your larynx was severed. It was a pretty nasty injury and Leslie did everything she could, but your vocal cords...they weren’t salvageable. I’m...I’m so sorry, Tim.” Tim lets that sink in. Severed larynx. Unsalvageable vocal cords. Oh, god. The utter horror on Tim’s face must be unmistakable because Dick is rushing to comfort him. “It’s okay, Tim. You’re going to get through this.” But Dick’s voice is muffled by the ringing in Tim’s ears. He can’t lose his voice. He can’t. This isn’t happening. Tim scrambles to sit up, his breathing becoming ragged. He sucks in a deep breath, opens his mouth, and tries, tries to make a noise. Tries to make a single sound, but all that comes out is a rush of air. He’s shaking. He tries to speak, to yell, to scream, and there are tears running down his cheeks and his gasps are empty and his throat hurts but he doesn’t stop. Dick’s hand is on his back. “Hey, hey, it’s going to be okay. We’ll figure this out.” Tim hates that he doesn’t even have the ability to argue, to tell Dick that there’s nothing to figure out. Tim can’t speak and meaningless encouragement isn’t going to change that. Nothing will change it. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It’s an adjustment, to say the least. The first day, Tim holds out a flicker of hope that this is all some dream and any minute he’ll wake up again in the med bay, throat repaired and vocal cords intact. He can’t believe this is happening to him. In his entire life Tim never once considered what it would be like to lose his voice, never prepared himself for the possibility. He’s watched Cass trudge through reading assignments from Barbara and struggle to find the right words in a conversation, but it never occurred to him just how much Tim relied on his ability to speak. He took it for granted. His first day out of the med bay he finds himself slipping up again and again, opening his mouth in response to a question only to remember that that’s no longer an option. He doesn’t know enough sign language to partake in a conversation, so he avoids them altogether. He hears Alfred humming along to an opera album down the hall and is filled with a vicious, panging envy. Never again will Tim hum, sing, laugh. It’s all gone. Everyone keeps giving him the same droll sermons. He’ll get through this. It could have been worse; he could be dead. Cass manages just fine with sign language, and Tim can too. He should count himself lucky that the damage wasn’t more severe. But is he lucky? Is he really? Tim has already lost so much: his parents, his friends, his Robin career, Bruce. And now his voice. Life just doesn’t know when to stop taking from him. Maybe it will never stop taking, not until he’s an empty husk. Conner left for Smallville just a few days after Tim awoke. He never said why, but Tim knows it’s because he feels guilty. Tim wants to reassure him that this isn’t his fault, that Tim would be dead if Conner hadn’t saved him, but it would take too long to write down. Bruce taught Tim basic ASL shortly after he began his Robin training, sticking to the most rudimentary of phrases that one would need for crime-fighting. Yes. No. Please. Thank you. Help. Safe. Danger. Steph offered to learn sign language with him and Alfred left a sneaky pile of ASL books on Tim’s desk, but he hasn’t touched them. He instead relies on a whiteboard and marker to communicate, rarely as he does. His search for Bruce has been put on hold, not of his own volition. He supposes it’s fair. After all, Tim can’t even order a hamburger anymore without the help of his whiteboard. Not that he leaves the manor much, anyway. The bandage on his neck draws too much unwanted attention. He’d hate to see what Gotham’s press would conspirize about a Wayne son with a mysteriously slit throat. Tim’s days are spent in his room, working on cases out of the action. That’s what he does now, sitting on his bed with his laptop, music blasting through his headphones. Dick pokes his head in without knocking. They still haven’t devised a system for that yet. “Hey, you got a second?” Tim flicks his fingers in Dick’s direction: his way of acknowledging people these days. He pauses his music. “Damian and I are heading out on patrol now.” Tim says nothing. Obviously. “Alfred told me you didn’t eat dinner. Or lunch. Or breakfast.” Tim rifles through the papers sprawled around his knees and holds up a crumpled pink post-it. Throat hurts. “That excuse again?” Tim shrugs. “Look, I know you’re frustrated, but what you’re doing isn’t healthy. You know that, right?” Tim twirls a finger in the air. Whoop-dee-doo. “That’s real mature.” Of all the things I have to worry about right now, I’d say maturity is pretty low on the list. Not that Tim says any of that. He doesn’t know the signs and he let his whiteboard fall off the bed somewhere to his left hours ago. He doesn’t bother reaching for it. Dick comes closer to the bed and stops. “Can I sit?” Tim shrugs and goes back to his laptop. Dick sits on the edge by Tim’s knee and reaches over to close the computer. Tim flips him one of the few ASL signs he does know. “You have a right to be angry about this, but you can’t project that anger onto us. Me, Damian, Alfred—we’re not the ones you’re mad at. And we all want to help you, but we can’t do that if you don’t let us. So start letting us.” Easy for him to say. But Tim knows he’s right, as infuriating as it is, which is the only reason he doesn’t turn his music back on and shut down for another week. Sighing, Tim opens the laptop. He pulls up a blank word document and types for a moment. He turns the computer around to show Dick. Speech for Neon Knights foundation in a couple days. Already written. Just need someone to deliver it. Dick nods, smiling. “Sure. I can take care of that. And it’s okay if you need more time to work through this, but I want you to remember that I’m here if you ever want to talk. Or, well—you know what I mean. Just remember you’re not alone in this.” Tim wishes he could tell Dick the truth. That Tim does appreciate everything he’s trying to do—really, he does. Tim doesn’t know where he’d even be if he didn’t have Dick by his side, making the world a brighter place just by existing in it with his endless patience and unfaltering optimism. If only he had the voice to tell him. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jason wouldn’t call himself a particularly caring individual. That sort of legacy is better left to the real heroes, like Bruce and Roy and Dick-fucking-Grayson. It’s for this reason that Jason didn’t stick around for a hot second when Tim got hurt, nor did he return for the aftermath. Tim is dealing with enough shit right now. He doesn’t need his asshole older brother getting involved and making him feel worse. Jason can’t imagine what it would be like to be in Tim’s situation. For starters, it would utterly butcher his knack for smartass remarks. Plus, there’s no finer euphoria than screaming obscenities at a blubbering criminal right before he puts a bullet through their skull. Losing his voice would be losing half of what makes him the Red Hood. Red Robin, on the other hand...he’s always been quiet. Not like Cass, but getting there. He relies on shadows and ninja-like swiftness to get the point across that this is goddamn Red Robin and you should be wetting your pants in his wake. But Jason’s smart enough to know that the silent schtick is done by choice. It’s a maneuver and a learned behavior rolled into one. He can only imagine how torturous it must be to be silenced by force—to be muzzled by something completely out of his control. (Fine, so Jason cares about the kid a little. Sue him.) He goes into the Batburger restaurant (Jesus shit, whoever came up with the idea of a Batman-themed restaurant should be shot in the head. Or maybe thrown a parade. He can’t decide) and scouts for black hair and pale skin. He spots Tim in a booth all the way at the back and heads over, sliding into the seat across from him. “Hey, kid.” Tim picks his head up from where he was engrossed in a game of Solitaire on his phone and gives a two-fingered salute. A notepad and Superman pen sit on the table in front of him. “Did you order yet?” Tim points to the scar on his neck and Jason mentally slaps himself in the forehead. “Right.” Tim picks up the pen and scribbles for a minute. “What,” Jason says, “no whiteboard today?” Tim turns the pad around to show Jason. Too bulky. People notice. Below that: Nuggets, fries & grape zesti. “Magic words?” Tim rolls his eyes. He tears out the page and bounces it off Jason’s forehead. However, he does lift his right hand and rotate it in front of his chest, palm flat: the ASL sign for “please.” Jason recognizes it from his minimal knowledge accumulated from Robin training and conversations with Cass. “Attaboy. For a minute there I was worried Alf failed in making a decent person out of you.” Tim sticks his tongue out, which makes Jason chuckle. He goes to the counter and relays Tim’s order, along with his own. While he waits he dares a look back and finds Tim back to staring down at his phone, shirt collar pulled as high as it’ll go. What must it be like, going from Gotham’s favorite billionaire playboy-in-training to a silent teenager who can’t go to a restaurant without people staring at the killer scar across his throat? Jason’s seen the gossip magazines. Some speculate a failed assassination, while others are sure it was a suicide attempt gone wrong. At least Jason’s scars can be covered by a t-shirt. Tim can’t hide his without a turtleneck, but it’s summer now. He’s forced to endure the speculated theories and pitiful glances, meanwhile Jason has the benefit of being legally dead on his side. He doesn’t have to worry about people remembering him. Losing one’s voice only months after losing his second father figure is tough shit for a seventeen-year-old. For anyone. He doesn’t know how Tim does it. Jason goes back to the table and finds Tim doodling a stick figure on the notepad. It’s got thick, narrowed eyebrows and pointed teeth. “That supposed to be me?” Tim’s mouth quirks. He fingerspells, Damian. His sleeve falls down an inch, exposing a med-alert bracelet. Alfred must have made him start wearing it. What with his asplenia and nasty habit of fainting in places when he forgets to eat, it makes sense that Tim would need it. If something were to happen, it’s not like he can inform paramedics of the deal. “You really captured the evil in his eyes.” Jason takes a bite of his cheeseburger while Tim busies himself with arranging his fries in size order, the little weirdo. “So how are things at home?” Good, Tim signs, his movements clunky and unpracticed. Dick… He frowns and scribbles on the pad. Helicopter parenting. “Same old, same old, right?” Tim levels an unimpressed look. “What? It can’t be that bad.” Benched indefinitely. It sucks. “Can you blame him? I wouldn’t want you in the field like this yet either.” Cass, Tim writes, and leaves it at that. “But she’s been functioning without speech for her whole life. She doesn’t need it to be understood. You’ve only been doing it for two weeks.” And a half, Tim writes. “You know what I mean. ‘s not like you can call for help if you get gutted in an alley.” Never thought I’d see the day when you’d take Dick’s side. “Yeah, well, sometimes the fucker has a point.” He takes a sip of his soda. “You know, I talked to Babs yesterday. Said she’s working on tech that’ll let you use morse code over the comms. If she finishes it on schedule, you can be back out there in less than a month.” Tim just nods, eyes dimmed. It’s weird seeing the kid so quiet. The real trick used to be getting Tim to shut up. He used to spend hours rambling on and on about whatever science kick he was on at the moment. For as quiet as Red Robin could be, Tim Drake never ran out of things to say. Jason misses it. He throws a sesame seed at Tim. “Hey. I’m trying to have a conversation here.” Tim makes a gesture that Jason doesn’t recognize. At Jay’s confused look, Tim writes on the notepad, Fuck off. “Cassie teach you that one?” Steph. Wanted to learn curse words first. “Of course you did. You know, you should hit up Jericho. He knows exactly what you’re going through, and I’m pretty sure he was able to teach Dick sign language in less than a year.” You’re the fifth person to say that. “I’m a fucking genius, we know this. But seriously. It might be useful to have someone in your corner who knows how to cope with this kind of thing.” I’m coping fine. “By listening to shitty emo music all day in your room? Yeah, because that’s super healthy.” Tim twiddles the pen between his fingers, glaring at Jason. Finally, he puts it to paper. I keep calling my cell phone to listen to the voicemail. Jason blinks. “Why?” Don’t want to forget what my voice sounds like. “You won’t.” Forgot my mom’s after a year. Starting to forget my dad’s. Tim pauses before adding, He yelled a lot though, so I think he’s got a lead. Jason has no fucking idea what to say to that, thanks for asking. He gives it a shot anyway. “Then...then I’ll remember it enough for the both of us. It's kind of hard to forget that annoying-ass nasally voice babbling about Star Wars for hours anyway.” Wow, thanks, Tim signs with an eye roll. No problem, Jason signs back. That makes Tim smile for the first time since Jason sat down. Maybe this kid will be all right, after all.

#i had no fucking idea how to end this okay #tim drake #red robin #robin #idiot duckboy #jason todd #red hood #dick grayson #nightwing #batman #damian wayne #batfamily #batfam #dc comics #fanfiction #fanfic

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octalove · 4 years

Text

VIII: Struck by Lightning

(Batgirl/Red Hood)

Description: Reader makes a confession, and goes on a date. Previous.

TW: Brief mention of gore (just blood)

In the weeks succeeding the Little Italy mission, I found a rhythm in the two conflicting heartbeats of my life. Occasionally, I met with Jason to file down the multitude of criminals who opposed him (it wasn’t all rescuing orphans and kittens, but his justice was fair and swift), and other than that, I carried on with life as normal; both as myself, and Batgirl. It was an inconsistent, exciting balancing act.

I tried to humor Bruce’s transparent attempts to placate me with cold cases, deeming it study. My school work had unsurprisingly lost its appeal, and I found myself rocking in the river banks of what was sure to be a failing grade in most of my classes- though I had yet to run ashore. Yet.

I danced along, despite my reprisal (a lack of sleep, and white lies on either side), and overall there was a certain stalemate. With that, peace. Or at least, the closest I could get.

On a Saturday I happened to have free (to my great relief), I woke up at one in the afternoon, to a blessedly dim day that kept the light in my room dark enough to cradle my lie-in.

I washed the sleep from my face, and stumbled downstairs, muscles sore from a Thursday night mission with Jason at the Port (of which I told my family I was going to a party). Tim was the only one in the kitchen- looking like he, too, had just crawled out of bed. He was eating cereal in silence.

We hadn’t been avoiding each other, per say- just got wrapped up in our own routines. Routines that kept me out of the house, and him trapped within it.

“Morning.” I said.

“Mm.” He replied.

I poured out my own bowl of cereal and settled on top of the glossy white granite. It was kind of a running joke at the Wayne household that you could sit anywhere but the chairs. Even Damian picked up on it- and, naturally, he was the best at it- perching his lithe little form atop the fridge at one point.

Now, Tim and I sat side by side on the countertop, shoulders brushing and spoons clanging against our glass bowls. Nothing more was said, but it was a comfortable silence.

I thought, for a second, about the world he’d been living in for the past few months as November bled into December. About his work and his many, many jobs he had to do. The way he shouldered them all week-to-week. He didn’t have to, but he did.

Tim made me a better person. I thought so, anyway.

But then, before I met him, I was the kind of person who let Carolyn Crawford slap me across the face to cover for someone else’s secret. Now, I was the kind who let other people take the blame for mine. Maybe Tim didn’t make me a better person. Only I could do that.

“I need to talk to you.” I said it firmly, and with authority. Mostly to convince myself that I was certain in my intention to go through with it. Bruce eyed me, looking up from his book.

“Alright.”

“...”

“In private.”

Alfred and Damian’s voices carried through to the living room as they had tea (an evening tradition). Bruce nodded, closed his book, and led me upstairs.

His office was a quiet, peaceful place. Finished dark wood, glass tables, and black leather accents. It was the room in the house that was most furnished to his own private taste, and thus, a glimpse inside was into him. It was mostly predictable; W.E. briefcases, notebooks and pens, case files open, and a map of the city that was displayed behind his desk. But there were other things too; a rubik’s cube half solved on the settee, a magazine featuring Vicki Vale with a pen in her hand and a defiant, head-strong look on her face. A gorgeous trailing point knife that belonged to Damian (probably confiscated).

I sat down in the chair that faced his own; his giant, glossy desk between us. I wanted to be swallowed into the dark leather. I felt like I was back at the shrink.

“Tim didn’t sneak off on the 21st.” I said quickly, cutting off the silence as quickly as I could. “He’s not the one who saw Red Hood kill that guy. It was me. I made Tim promise not to tell. He lied to cover for me.”

Bruce was quiet. He did that a lot; made you wait for him to speak. Seconds, minutes, hours. It all felt the same when he let you simmer in your own mistakes. I didn’t look up.

“I see.”

Silence. A long, testing silence. His irritating little desk clock ticked away.

“Is that all you wanted to tell me?” He asked.

I nodded.

“Very well. You’re dismissed.”

“Really?” I asked. “That’s it? You’re not mad?”

He paused. “Should I be?”

I blinked, gaze falling on the floor. “I put Tim in a really shitty position. He didn’t have to lie, but he did because I asked him to. I’m mad at me.” I admitted quietly.

Bruce nodded pedantically, resting his head on his hand. “Then that’s good enough for me.”

I furrowed my brow. It wasn’t good enough for me. “It was wrong.” I clarified, trying to press for some manner of reprimand that I didn’t truly want, but felt deserving of anyway. Bruce considered this, in his quiet, inscrutable way. After a moment, he spoke.

“Your mothers trusted me.” He said. I knew that. My parents were business-oriented like that. They were pulled together by happenstance, each without family and carving their own way in the world by studying international law, and applying it to companies who could afford private foreign trade, such as Wayne Enterprises. I attended the parties, the galas, standing around in my designer gowns while my moms handed out their business cards and talked about imports. They weren’t neglectful, just distracted.

“I don’t know if you remember-“

“I do.”

And if I had a dollar for every time the cops or the shrink asked me if I remembered that night, I’d buy my own manor.

Bruce Wayne was at my birth. He and my mothers had been business partners for a while by that time. He watched me, dutifully, when my parents went on date nights, and played catch with me when I accompanied him and Dick to the park. He cooked me breakfast the morning after my mothers died.

I knew it wasn’t a random killing, but he didn’t talk about why they were murdered in their own bed until I was fifteen. By then, I was knowledgeable enough to go searching through the police reports on my own. So instead, one night he’d sat me down at the kitchen table, looking at me earnestly.

“You have to understand, Y/N. Your mothers were...” He’d taken a deep breath. Tried again. “They were involved in things. Things I didn’t know about. It made them a lot of enemies.” Then, something harder passed his features. A frustration.

“They were completely blind to the fact that it meant you would never have a normal life. Not as long as they kept it up- that... double life.” I let the statement hang in the air for a time. “That was stolen from you, from the moment they got involved with the Baciu. And I’m sorry.”

It was easy to be sorry. I was sorry, too. My mothers got themselves tangled in Gotham’s heroin trade, and they weren’t careful enough, so they died for it. It was fairly cut and dry. Open file, close case. But the part that was so bitter to swallow was that it happened to me. A fourteen-year-old child creeping into my mothers’ bed because I’d heard a noise, and the re-runs of Ghost Hunter I’d religiously consumed were conjuring movement in the shadows. But there were no ghosts. Just sheets stained with blood that looked black in the darkness. Just the wet, clogged sort of sound when I peeled back the covers, unable to register they way my mothers were bent, and stilled in a way that only death can induce, where just earlier that night they’d been walking and talking. Bringing me Chinese take-out for dinner.

Their death, and everything that followed was emptying. Cracking open a great chasm and bringing death home, into the halls, and into my room. No longer a rumor. It was an empty chair, and a storied space made cold and worthless. It would’ve been easier if they had simply died as a random killing. Tragic, standard, random Gotham City killing. If I had just been that unlucky. If they’d only been struck by lightning. Instead, I grieved twice; once for who they were, and another time, for who I thought they were.

When Bruce adopted me, I became Batgirl. I made it my own vendetta to stop criminals without killing them, because I knew that some- most of them had children at home who would be the real victims if I did.

But then, I thought deeper. More considerately, about who my mothers were. Moreover, who they weren’t. Pearl and gold, white teeth and hairspray. Singing to me, and playing Monopoly, at which they were both so competitive that they had to kiss and make up after every game. Bringing me a strawberry cupcake in bed every year on my birthday. Kissing me on the head. Telling me to be good. Leaving me in that big house. Going off to Port Adams, or Crime Alley. Signing orders. Putting bodies in Finger River.

Nobody’s innocent here, dollface.

“They trusted me.” Bruce’s voice interrupted my reminiscing with the ghosts of my past. “I know their death was hard, and you may still be recovering. I’m trying to do the best I can for you.” He finished. For all the gnashing teeth and avaricious expanses of Gotham City secrets, he looked tired.

“I know, Bruce.” I said quietly. “Me too.”

The following Tuesday, I got home from school and started on a mountain of homework I needed to do- some make up work as well. Christmas break was around the corner, and I was slowly losing motivation as the semester drew to a close. I had too many distractions; and tonight was no exception.

Ding.

My phone buzzed, and I looked down, eyebrows raising to find that it was a text from Jason- one that wasn’t just a pin dropped to a location.

Meet me at Twin Sharks. I’ll buy you a coffee.

- What’s the occasion?

No reply. I sighed. I should’ve called him and made him tell me, but I knew that I would go no matter what, so I decided to play the apathy card. Despite my cool response, my heart (the traitor) was fluttering like a bird. Was this about the kiss? Our partnership? Was it an actual, regular date? Or was he breaking it off? My mind raced, and as I pulled together a tasteful outfit and sprayed myself with perfume, I promised myself that it wasn’t for him.

The Twin Sharks was a diner in Upper West Side, near China town. It was nicer than the likes of Sherman’s, or anything else East End had to offer. The late afternoon was unexpectedly bright, clouds parted for a sweet reprieve of gold and blush in the sky. The sun was a striking blood-orange, hung low over the city. It struck a match in my chest- some childish, poetic hopefulness.

The diner’s door jingled, and I scanned the booths and tables. It was a little crowded, but I spotted Jason alone in a booth, his eyes cast down, involved with his phone. I made my way over to him, slipping off my coat and plopping down his opposite.

“Hey.” I said. His eyes fell upon me, and I saw something on his face- maybe surprise, or something to that effect- before he composed his expression into something unreadable.

“Hey.”

The diner had a big, hot pink neon sign that depicted a matching pair of sharks above the counter. Its buzzing glow mixed with the orange gleam of the lowering sun through the windows- it was all very rose-colored.

The waitress put a coffee in front of me, and I got to work on adorning it with the little cream and sugar packets on the table. He watched me do it for while.

“What?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.

“Nothin’.” He said. Then, he reached across the table, and took my hand, pulling it back to him, and pressed a soft kiss to my knuckles. I was so startled by it that I dropped the sugar packet I was holding. Neither of us seemed to notice. He turned my hand over and placed another kiss in the inside of my wrist before returning it safely to my side of the table. I was certain my face burned like the neon sharks.

“I’m- um- is this a date?” I asked, trying to get him to say something- anything- to get my mind off the way he’d just reduced me to a puddle.

He looked amused by that. “You want it to be?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged, stirring my coffee. “You invited me.”

He nodded, eyes falling away. “Yeah. I’ve got an update for you. D’amici business.”

“Oh.” By the look on his face, it wasn’t good news.

“You’re not gonna like it.”

“Perfect. My day’s been a little too good so far.” I said. He slid me his phone- on the screen was an article from the Gotham Quarterly.

Young Bride Found Murdered in Diamond District Estate

I read over it a couple times, brow furrowing. “You mean...“

“Penelope. It happened last night.”

“Shit.” I muttered, scrolling down and scanning through the article. My throat caught as I read over it. She was shot in her bed. “It says there’s no suspects.”

“Course it does. It’s the mafia. They handle things nice and quiet.”

“And I’m guessing you have a few a suspects.” He nodded grimly as I slid his phone back to him.

“One better. I know exactly who did it. I think you do, too.”

I put my head in my hands, mulling over my options. Really there was only one. Penelope’s beautiful, flustered face and apologetic eyes flashed through my mind. Her wind-chime laugh as we ate scones under the watchful eye of her adoring, peculiar grandmother.

“Okay.” I resolved. “Let’s get that girl justice.”

104 notes · View notes

cetaceans-pls · 4 years

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Chapters: 1/2 Fandom: Batman - All Media Types Relationships: Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne

On a quick mission with Jason to deal with pirates in the Caribbean, Bruce finds himself ejected overboard and accidentally lost at sea. Being a castaway gives Bruce ample time to indulge in self-discovery and survivorman-ing, as Jason boats across Pit-green waters in search of this dumb, fine man.

Or, things go incredibly wrong for Bruce and Jason while out at sea, but with help from a dedicated boat captain, The Fellowship Of The Rings, and banana-leaf-pants, they're actually unstoppable.

Written for the @batfam-big-bang, beta’d by @kuraness, @sultcnah, and hassan, with art by @pikachica, @succulents-and-fairy-lights, and @mandolinplayer (thanks everyone)! Special shout-out to @setsailslash for being the wind beneath my wings.

And! Thanks to the mods for organising this massive, chaotic event c:

Please enjoy the first part of a story about a damp and determined Bat and the struggles a a dapper young man’s gotta face to save his dank ass dad 🙏

On tumblr below the cut c:

Pulling a disappearing act is something Bruce should be good at; he’s had years and years of practice by now sinking into the night. Keeping secrets is pretty important in being invisible too, which is why the files outlining the increasingly severe piracy problems in the Caribbean are so heavily encrypted they may as well not exist. After all, at any moment any of his children could be using the Batcomputer to do anything from figuring out how to topple a corrupt government remotely to buying an unreasonable number of chew toys for Ace, and given that they’re all so ridiculously nosy, a security breach is more a question of when rather than if .

Nosiness is a good trait for vigilante detectives, but it makes it hard to work covertly without tipping anyone off. International travel isn’t a good idea for anyone this deep into a pandemic, and while Bruce Wayne being an ass and swanning around the Bahamas in a yacht is pretty believable as far as cover stories go, he’s not keen to subject anyone else to the sort of vitriol that behaviour will garner.

So the plan is simple, with as few moving parts as possible. Three, maybe four days tops being loud and visible on his biggest, ugliest yacht in the hopes that pirates will decide to come after him, and then maybe a couple of days after that to dismantle the bulk of the operation after he’s tracked them back to their base. There’s less of a chance of failure than his usual work, but it still leaves him feeling uneasy.

It’s a long way away from Gotham, and he’s not exactly excited to leave, but his comfort’s not more important than a greater good. The League really does need to sort out a presence for Central America though, and that goes on his notes for the mission too.

So he had planned in secrecy so complete not even Alfred was informed, because Alfred can be notoriously casual in his flagrant betrayal if he disagrees with Bruce’s plans. He’s skulking around the cave at 11 AM on a Tuesday when most of the family is either at work or asleep, and half an hour later he’s climbing into a Beemer, ready to roll out. He has a moment of smug certainty that he’s gotten away with this before the door to the passenger’s side is ripped open, and Jason climbs in with a little battered suitcase, a pair of aviators that reflect metallic blue, a genuinely heinous red wig, and what can only be described as a noxious Hawaiian shirt.

Bruce doesn’t think he’s ever seen a shade of yellow so bright, but it’s now imprinted on the back of his eyeballs, so that’s that.

“Jason, what are you doing?”

Bruce doesn’t even know if he’s referring to Jason’s presence, his outfit, or his hair (oh god, his hair ).

“Tim was supposed to be the one to tail your ass on this mission, but he’s still way too concussed after last week’s fight with Clayface so he got pulled out.” Jason chucks his suitcase to the backseat and pulls his seatbelt on, still fastidious about traffic safety despite it all. “Then Dick wanted to sub in but Blüdhaven needs him more than you do right now. So they called in the big guns to look out for you, and when I get back everyone’s gonna owe me favours. Sounds like a damn good deal for a week of work.”

Favours are a currency way more important than cash within this family, but Bruce struggles to see how a few favours is worth a few days in the company of a man you loathe.

(All right, loathe may be a bit dramatic, but it’s how Bruce feels about himself in reference to Jason, and it’s mind-boggling that a boy can wake up in a coffin and be driven to lunacy by the Pit and still, somehow, end up in this car with him in an ugly shirt and an offer of support).

He decides against asking if Jason’s really going to be all right floating in a sea of green in bad company, and doesn’t make Jason leave. It’s the rule of things; if he fails to out-sneak his children, he must deal with their demands, because it’s the only way he could get them to agree to his more paranoid measures in return.

So Bruce makes an effort not to think about it, in spite of himself, and gets the car in gear.

It really is looking like a damn good deal for a week of work; with good company, how badly can things go wrong?

Karma really wants to make him eat his words.

Years and years on the job, near-death experiences well past a hundred by now, active involvement in everything from petty theft to intergalactic peace missions, and it’s a little incredible that this is somehow the first time he’s been held at gunpoint while wearing the skimpiest pair of Speedos he could force up his thighs.

A billion dollars for a dressing gown, Bruce thinks but very carefully doesn’t say to the pirates who have commandeered the yacht. It’s all part of the plan, minus his questionable outfit.

Whoever’s manning the screens at the Cave is likely having a grand old laugh right now, but if it’s Stephanie he hopes she realises that he is using her trick with waterproof concealer and translucent powder to hide his scars, and it’s working like a charm. The Speedo was meant to feed the paparazzis that are currently stalking him in their little fishing boats that are weighed down with telephoto lenses, and L’Oreal 24 Hour Max Hold Extra Dewy Outlast! Long-Wearing Concealer makes him look happily whole from 40 yards.

He hadn’t expected the pirates to come on the one day he had planned to parade in front of the paps, but luck is a lady and it looks like Bruce just will not be getting lucky tonight.

The leader of the gang is yelling at the captain, clearly assuming Bruce cannot speak Spanish and isn’t worth speaking to regardless, which is fair. The leader is also standing far, far too close for a man without a facemask in these sickly times, and Bruce makes a show of tripping over nothing and landing in between Pirate Captain and Captain Luis, building space in between them. Half a dozen vaccine trials down, he’s as close to confidently immune as he can be, so he just strikes an entirely embarrassing pose and grins up at Mr. Pirate. “Sorry, sorry, not every day you get hijacked. Listen, you,” he waves at the assembled gang of ne’er-do-wells, “take my stuff,” he waves to indicate every gaudy expensive thing not nailed down in this frankly ghastly ship, “and leave us alone, okay?”

It’s tempting fate to be extra loud and extra slow like he’s talking to somebody extra dumb, but eyes on him are eyes off civilians, so that’s what he does.

It’s the point of information-gathering with the entire force of his Bruce Wayne Billionaire Playboy personality after all, even if Jason hasn’t stopped mocking him relentlessly for his outfits and table manners and affect (and so on and so forth) every time he breaks into the Master Cabin to help cover up Bruce’s many, many back scars.

The Pirate Captain appears to not appreciate being spoken to like a concussed toddler, and backhands Bruce right across the cheek. Bruce dutifully sets his tooth in so that he gets a dramatically split lip, and tries to look suitably cowed as he wonders about the man’s hand hygiene. Where is Jason, anyways? The standard response in this situation would be to evacuate civilians to safety, and even if the captain is currently stuck with Bruce, hopefully the stewards and the cooks are being shown to the panic room. It’s only in doubt because it’s a Thursday, and Thursdays are Jimmy-the-steward-boy’s day off. What that means is that Jason is likely in his bunk listening to audiobooks while half-asleep, and if it’s the Lord of the Rings and Jason’s hit a particularly engaging part, they could be firing cannons on deck and he wouldn’t hear.

It’s still fine, probably. Jason’s good at showing up when you least expect him.

There’s enough pride and bull-headedness in Bruce’s veins that he still officially objects to having back-up whenever he follows a case abroad, but times like these it’s really hard to feel anything but grateful that his children don’t trust him not to get himself killed in suitably dramatic ways as soon as he leaves Gotham. It’s even easier to feel glad that he and Jason have gotten good enough with each other that laid up on the ground of his yacht with blood in his mouth, Bruce knows that everything’s going to be alright.

“Please,” he says, and his voice trills like a well-trained bird, “please don’t hurt me. I have so much money, if that’s what you want. Somebody just needs to call my PA, we can do a transfer right now.” Oh, good, the captain is slowly backing away while all eyes are on Bruce and his tiny swimwear.

Thank you, Stephanie, for recommending a concealer that doesn’t even smudge as he dramatically cowers on the ground. The captain’s taken shelter behind the big outdoor dining table, a sturdy, immovable beast made of aluminium, and Bruce has a semi-circle of reasonably menacing men he could potentially incapacitate without definitely dying. Things are looking up already.

Pirate Captain (Pirate King? Pirate Lord? Pirate Admiral? Who knows how a hierarchy works for the lawless, after all) is barking orders for one of his men to handcuff Bruce and move him over to their boat, because this is now a kidnapping-for-ransom situation. In casual dress, Bruce wouldn’t have minded it much; there’s enough untraceable kit in his average pair of slacks to get him out of most situations.

Again, the cursed Speedos are hugely, disproportionately problematic despite their actual size. At least there’s the tracker and the lockpicks in his watch, because thankfully no one questions why a rich man who is mostly nude would be decked out in a fantastically expensive watch.

A gangly boy who can’t possibly be much older than 20 hauls him to his feet and starts to tie his hands behind his back, which is fine. The boy also deftly unbuckles Bruce’s watch and sleight-of-hands it away, presumably into the pocket of his beaten up jeans, and that is decidedly less fine. Still, as long as the tracker remains in his vicinity, it won’t take much effort for him to be found.

Things are still on track, even if they’ve gone off the rails an alarming number of times since he woke up this morning and nicked his face while shaving for the first time in, oh, a decade? More? Hopefully there’ll be a sack or something he can fashion into a tunic on the pirate boat; he doesn’t imagine this entire ordeal will outlast his long-lasting concealer, and given that the yacht’s currently bobbing in the ocean somewhere between Nassau and Port-au-Prince, help’s not far away (so long as Jason has also called the Coast Guard and is not still in his bunk, listening to Gandalf telling an overlong story).

It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine, until it’s not.

Honestly, Bruce takes worker well-being very seriously, whether it’s the COO of the Hong Kong branch of WE or the tired cab driver who inadvertently helped the Bat on an undercover case at 3:30 AM one morning. Fair pay, fair working conditions, every benefit that’s the industry standard and a few that he secretly encouraged the unions to demand. It’s a point of pride that people who work for him enjoy it, and it’s a way Bruce Wayne can help people in a way that Batman can’t even dream of.

It’s important that people who work for him are treated well; them becoming a little protective over him when some journo gets particularly nasty on Twitter is frankly rather sweet.

It’s significantly Less Okay that when they meet him in real life, ‘a little protective’ becomes ‘Captain Luis, seeing his bumbling dim-witted but ultimately not a bad guy boss getting carted away by pirates, finds strength from deep within himself to pick up a chair, start screaming, and try to bumrush half a dozen heavily armed men’.

Time slows down in times of crisis, thank god. Jason’s still nowhere to be seen, and reality narrows to Bruce running through every possible thing he could conceivably do to keep Luis safe. In the first fraction of a second, a trademark Bruce Wayne clumsy stumble is discarded as an option; two of the pirates already have their guns up. He doesn’t have smoke bombs or stun grenades or any of his million gadgets, and his hands are tied (literally and metaphorically), but playing dumb and letting Luis get shot to preserve his identity doesn’t even feature as an option.

And so, half a second after Luis starts his war cry, cracked voice and all, Bruce is actively working to dislocate his thumb to get out of his bindings, weight tipped forward in the hope that he can body slam half the men to the ground before they can get to their guns.

It doesn’t work; he gets shot in place of Luis, what feels like a clean through-and-through by the hip that hopefully missed anything particularly important. He does manage to bring a couple of the men nearest to him down with a heavy whumph , and little victories are still worth savouring even while lightly bleeding out on the ground.

He hears a lot of shouting, both from the direction of the pirate boat (reinforcements?) and from the grand double doors that lead to the inside dining room (reinforcements!) but he just keeps moving. Best case scenario, Luis knocked somebody out with one of the absolutely hideous chrome-and-leather chairs before beating a hasty retreat, and now Jason’s tag-teaming in for clean up.

Worst case scenario, he and Luis are about to be killed, and the news might be broken to his family by unflattering pap shots gone viral on Facebook. It’s an unbearable thought, so he doesn’t think, and just keeps moving around like an angry bull intent on sharing his displeasure.

There are a lot of gunshots, and something clips his ear as he knocks another man to the floor. While the pirate groans, Bruce headbutts him unconscious with a helping hand from the metal plates that help hold his skull in one piece. He thinks he hears Jason’s voice, but he knows Jay’s there for sure because no other weapon on Earth seems to crack the air quite like his Jerichos, and it’s like light at the end of a tunnel.

He hopes that Jason’s wearing some manner of face-covering; Bruce Wayne smashing a bunch of skinny pirates to the ground in a feat of great clumsiness and luck is entertaining enough to be acceptable, but a master marksman taking out a horde of sea-faring villains isn’t as likely to come off as normal.

Bruce doesn’t have the breathing room to turn around and check because more pirates are scrambling aboard with their own weight in weaponry, even if in his mind’s eye he imagines that Jason is wearing a pillowcase on his head with holes shot out for the eyes.

What an absurd quantity of guns. The number of ways Bruce hates the damned things is uncountable, and if Jason is actually on deck yelling blue murder in pyjamas, things can tip over from ‘scuffle’ into ‘bloodbath’ real damn quick.

Only one thing for it, then. He rolls away from a well-aimed kick and staggers to his feet, keeping his hands behind his back even though he’s worked his way free already. Pirate Captain man is angrily waving his rifle like he’s never known a day of joy in his life, but shooting Bruce might break the streak.

“Stop, stop!” Bruce shouts, aiming to look as non-threatening as a man who has mowed down a series of pirates can. “You can take me, just don’t hurt my staff.” Stand down, Jason , is implicit, while stand down, Luis , is implored.

It’s enough to get the man to bark for his men to stop shooting, as he tries to grab Bruce by the throat in a presumably threatening manner. This is what you get for modern-day piracy where there’s a lot less rigging and ropes and a lot more outboard engines; his grip strength is laughable, but Bruce gamely pretends to struggle to breathe anyway.

Pirate Captain hauls Bruce towards the cluster of his men, looking smug before he turns Bruce to let him see the wreckage of the outdoor lounge of the yacht. It’s bullet-riddled and messed up, but this far from the engine and the bridge, the damage is almost exclusively cosmetic. Thankfully Luis seems relatively whole even if he’s got the remains of a chair leg in his hands and a snarl twisting his face, and so does Jason. No pillowcase head-covering, unfortunately, but his steward-boy curly ginger wig is on and his oversized sleeping t-shirt is bulked out in a suspiciously bulletproof-vest shaped mass (thank God).

There are headphones hanging around Jay’s neck, so Bruce assumes he’d gotten it right about the morning lie-in and audiobook listening. Even mid-emergency, it’s still a rare, nice feeling to see that he knows Jason well enough to guess at least this correctly. Bruce tries to communicate with his eyes that everyone just needs to calm down and let him be taken. Pirates don’t tend to shoot billionaires dead, what with the invisible hand of the free market ensuring trigger discipline and all that, so it’s fine. They can rescue him afterwards, and there’s always help to be had. Superman might be off-world at present and Aquaman might take his own sweet time because he’s a sea king moonlighting as a massive asshole, but as long as no one gets hurt badly, a delay doesn’t matter to Bruce.

Jason’s scowling, but he does point his guns down. There’s hope yet that this is going to end relatively bloodlessly, but then the Pirate Captain lets his little victory get to his head. He’s got Bruce in an ineffective chokehold, and now he’s chuckling and waving his gun around and telling Jason that you’re not so confident now that we’ve got your boss, huh?

Even at a distance, Bruce can see that Jason is just barely holding on to his temper, jaw tight and teeth clenched. Having close to a foot over his captor and a hell of a lot of muscle mass on top, the ‘chokehold’ registers more like a messy cuddle, so it’s fine.

It’s all fine.

Until, of course, it isn’t.

Because Pirate Captain isn’t completely done flexing, because he takes it into his head to further press his advantage and slam the point home, he holds the muzzle of his rifle to Bruce’s temple, and shouts bang!

And of course Bruce has been held hostage before, of course he’s had weapons brandished in front of his face, of course there’s nothing exceptionally terrible about this situation when compared to the dozens of exceptionally terrible situations he’s been stuck in.

It’s just that he’s always, always hated guns, and he particularly hates guns held to people’s heads (a goddamn mystery why), and it’s just a little beyond what he considers tolerable, to find himself on the other side of a situation where a parent is about to be shot in the head in front of their child.

It’s something he’ll be ashamed about for the rest of forever, but hindsight’s 20/20 and not even an iron will could stop the tiniest of flinches when the thought of Jason’s going to have to see me die and he isn’t even the one pulling the trigger goes through his head at great speed.

It’s a blink-and-you’d-miss-it moment, but Jason hadn’t blinked, and it’s just that inch too far.

Lord, if Luis had been fearsome before, then Jason picking up a steak knife from the dining table and throwing it so viciously, so hatefully that it goes right through the back of a pirate man’s hand is an absolute vision of terror. While Bruce gets the side of his face coated in blood (he’s pessimistically hoping it isn’t from an arterial flow), Jason is scooping up Luis and chucking him overboard. It feels like barely a second has passed from when the first splatter of blood had hit his cheek before Jason appears right in front of him, one hand holding both guns (cool-looking but hilariously ill-advised) while the other is wrapped around the bulky plastic case of the emergency life raft.

Someone tries to drag Bruce back, and the man is met with two gun butts to the nose with a resounding crack! . A moment after that and Jason has Bruce pulled behind him, wig askew and kicking a different man right in the family jewels. The Pirate Captain is screaming and waving at them even as Jason hustles Bruce towards one side of the ship, shoving a life jacket down over his head and tightening the straps before Bruce can get his hands through the armholes.

It is, clearly, on purpose. “Jason,” Bruce warns him, growling even as he keeps the name as quiet as he can. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Jason kicks a stack of sun loungers over to act as a barricade against the approaching pirates, but he’s completely unharried as he turns to look at Bruce. “B, you’re banged up to fuck and back, and these guys are just massive assholes who’ve been pillaging ships carrying aid during a goddamn pandemic. Your plan’s not working out, so I’m going to handle it my way. Just go hang out in the water for a while, okay,” Jason pauses and shoots over the top of the mass of wood, before ducking down to reload. “On God, I’ll swab the decks clean-ish before I pull you back up. That’s my plan.”

An errant chair arm by Jason’s side explodes into splinters from the return fire, and it’s getting really hard to avoid kill shots in order to have a civil conversation. They’re running out of time, and Bruce knows , knows without a shadow of a single doubt that this is restraint and thoughtfulness and care from Jason, to hold back on what he thinks is right just because he knows Bruce doesn’t like to see a case devolve into death. There’s also a chance that the gun to his head shook both of them up more than they want to admit. This could well be a really touching moment for everyone involved.

But a dozen pirates are advancing, and more than wanting to stop Jason from murdering a bunch of people, Bruce simply refuses to let him face this alone, so he just shakes his head and starts trying to work his way out of the vest.

Unfortunately, it’s at about the same time the pirates decide to go on an all-out siege, running towards them and knocking the stack of chairs over in their haste. Bruce doesn’t have time to think, just steps forward so that he can body block Jason and hope that polyethylene foam can take a shot or 12.

Jason disagrees with this course of action, and he makes it exceedingly clear. One moment Bruce is standing firm between his son and almost-certain death, and the next he finds himself being flung over the side of the yacht, Jason executing a frankly gorgeous Judo throw. A blob of bright orange follows him down, the instant raft deploying in midair.

“Fly, you fucking fool!” Jason screams at him, and Bruce’s last thought before he hits the water and the hard outer shell of the raft hits him in the head, is that he was right.

Jason had been listening to the Lord of the Rings.

(And Bruce is really regretting leaving the Shire).

It’s going to be a hell of a story to tell the gang; hijinx on the high seas, and if Jason can convince Bruce to take a picture of him looking suitably pensive while the sea breeze flutters his hair and open shirt, they’ll have a cover for the book deal that inevitably follows Jimmy the Red-Haired Steward’s dramatic rescue of literal billionaire Bruce Wayne.

It’s almost anti-climactic in the end; he sends Bruce overboard and is polite enough to chuck a raft down with him so that the man won’t have to find out that not even Steph’s go-to brand of makeup can stand up to the open ocean, and minus an overbearing parent idiotically trying to take bullets for him, Jason’s free to just go right the hell off.

By his count, there must be close to 20 pirates now, and just one of him.

Damn, what fun odds. He knocks out 4 guys the moment they pass his barricade, and they definitely won’t be dying from those wounds. There’s a slightly messier kerfuffle when he kicks a tabletop off its legs and flings it at the guy who thought setting off a rocket-launcher in a luxury yacht is a good idea, and casualties from that are self-inflicted, so there’s no sweating it.

A half hour of screaming and shooting later, and at this point he’s just showing off when he leaps off the upper deck and gets a trick shot out into the knee of the man with the biggest rifle. At the end of it there’s a lot of moaning and groaning on the ground, there’s blood everywhere, and barring rocket-man, the Pirate Captain’s still the worst off because a serrated steak knife thrown at high speed will do a number on anyone. It’s exactly what he deserves.

Jason putters about securing the pirates with fishing line, and shoves handkerchiefs into the deeper wounds as he does a headcount and takes deep pride in having not killed anyone even though his temper’s the most frayed it’s been in a while (his history with bodies of water is bad and his track record with parental figures is even worse).

He leaves the captain tied up on the sun deck, because a sunburn’s the least the man deserves after holding a gun to Bruce’s head and being so proud of it. If Jason had trod on his hand a little heavily on his way off the deck, well. Some lessons just need to be worked in with some elbow grease.

Cleaning takes a while because B can be so damn picky about appearances , and it’s easier to do without the man himself anyways, so he doesn’t think twice about leaving Bruce to sulk in his floating inflatable tent while Jason works. When he hears noises from the pirate ship while he’s going around disarming all the weapons, he ends up finding a gaggle of kidnapped fishermen stuffed in the hold, and he wants to go step on the Pirate Captain’s hand all over again.

He frees the fishermen and moves them onto the yacht, where the staff who have crept out of the panic room with knives in their hands and murder in their hearts welcome the poor fucks and make them something hot to eat. Really, being a crusader’s a lot easier without Bruce’s presence, and it’s like a victory lap at this point. No one’s dead, even more people have been rescued than when they started, and the Coast Guard should be rolling in any minute.

Jason cannot wait to show off to B just how damn good he is at his job.

Everything wrapped up and a dozen shoulder-slaps from the crewmembers later, Jason makes his way down to the back of the yacht, where a platform can be lowered and the canoes and jet skis can be set out in the water. He’s fully expecting to see Luis hanging on to the ladder near there, with Bruce tethered like an errant puppy. Jason’s already grinning as the platform swings open with a quiet splash, but the sight that greets him isn’t one for smug eyes.

Luis is there, looking a little cold but ultimately quite calm and relaxed, and smiles when he sees him. “Jimmy!” Luis calls out, hauling himself up onto the platform and taking his shirt off to wring it dry. “You crazy bastard. I’m glad you’re okay! Is Mister Bruce also all right? The pirates are gone?” He eyes the bobbing pirate ship with great distrust, and overall gives the impression of a man ready to pick up a kayak oar and go to war.

Jason’s leaning as far off the platform as he can, craning his neck to try and see the bright orange floating raft. “Pirates are taken care of,” he tells Luis, and doesn’t let his unease show. “Everyone’s fine, but I threw Mister Bruce off the boat too, with the little tent raft. Did you not see him, captain?”

Luis shakes his head. “You must have thrown him overboard on the other side, Jimmy.” He turns a frightful shade of pale, and leans back out the yacht to help look. “Can Mister Bruce swim?”

Everyone in the family is an accomplished swimmer; for reasons that probably only make sense when you’re a paranoid patriarch, all of them had to prove that they could swim a mile in full gear before they were okayed to patrol close to the waterfront. It’s also common knowledge in a family with a collective competitive streak a mile wide that Bruce once rescued 3 full-grown adults in the open ocean while fully kitted out, so yeah.

“Yeah, he can swim.”

So why in the hell is he not right here?

Jason takes a deep breath, and reminds himself Bruce always has a tracker on him somewhere, so even if he was carried away by the waves, actually locating him shouldn’t be an issue. What’s more likely to be a pain in the ass is the Coast Guard boats plowing through the sea towards them. Jason’s cover as a steward is enough to fool local police, but if he’s pulled in for questioning re: owning and using his guns, it’s going to become A Problem.

A problem that would take a lot of time to handle, and that’s not something Jason’s got in spades if Bruce is missing.

Ah, shit. He’s going to have to call this in, and that’s not going to be possible in an itchy wig on a ship crawling with officers. It’s time for Jimmy to disappear, looks like.

He considers his options, and decides to just go with his gut. Luis seems like a good guy; civilians who step up in a life-or-death situation despite common sense telling them not to usually are. And compared to B, Jason’s always been quicker to trust, anyways.

“Listen, Luis,” he tells the man, face serious. “I’m actually Mister Bruce’s bodyguard. If he’s missing or drowning, I have to go find him. He’s…. like family.” Thank God that no one else is here to hear this. “But if the Coast Guard comes and takes us all in for questioning, I can’t start looking for him. Can you tell them I jumped in the sea after Mister Bruce, and to send people out to find us? I need to grab the tender and sneak off first; he’s been in the water for a while already now, so I just don’t have time to wait.”

Everything is probably completely fine, but you don’t live and then die and then be reborn and then continue to live as a successful vigilante by hanging your hat on ‘probably’. Jason’s itching to get on the little tender and check in with Alfred, but Luis covering for him would be really fucking helpful.

It feels real good when his instincts pay off. Luis doesn’t even bother saying ‘Yes’ and ‘Of course’; he’s already striding to the little box by the light switch that has the keys for all the gear, and after a quick rummage around he throws the boat’s keys to Jason.

“I’m going to believe you, Jimmy. Go find Mister Bruce, and I will tell the police how you saved us and why you left. Do you need anything more?”

Luis is just hitting homerun after homerun today, wow. Jason grins, and shakes his head. “I’m going to get my stuff from my bunk and climb out the porthole in the kitchen right onto the boat. See you when I see you, captain.”

And Jason’s gone.

Bruce comes to a couple of hours after his inauspicious disembarkation, if he’s judging the sun right. His face is an achy sunburned mess, but he supposes it’s preferable to being unconscious while facedown in water. He regains consciousness quietly and calmly, an extremely important skill when you are regularly abducted and knocked out, but when he cracks his eye open all he sees is the sea, all all of it.

He takes stock of the situation, and notes with some resignation that his yacht (the Pretty Penny, and worth every cent for the look on Alfred’s face) is nowhere in goddamn sight. He’s still cocooned in a life jacket, but luckily a loose buckle had wrapped around the ropes lining the life raft. It takes a bit of finessing, to work his way free and then haul himself up into the raft when he’s disorientated from being sunburned and injured and groggy, but he manages eventually.

The raft had managed to inflate all the way up, and the little tent provided blessed, blessed shade. If he was marooned on a liferaft with his children, or with a civilian, Bruce would be all action by now, cataloguing injuries and rummaging around to find what equipment they have. That’s just the exact right thing to do, in a survival situation.

But he isn’t marooned on a liferaft with anybody else. He’s by himself, his face feels like it’s on fire, he’s a little concussed, and he doesn’t know if everyone’s safe on the yacht. Instead of doing something meaningful, Bruce just groans and lays out as flat as he can get on the small raft, with his legs hanging off over the side.

Might as well get sunburnt knees, make a set of it.

It’s starting to feel like he’s just not meant to have a casual fun time out here in the Caribbean, and this far away from shore, nobody can hear him swear.

His legs are starting to sizzle a little by the time Bruce re-finds his will to survive, and he eventually drags himself upright, looks down to once again despair that he’s literally in swimwear and nothing else, and tugs out the dry bag filled with survival equipment tucked into a pocket near the back of the tent. He’s sure it’ll have much more kit than the average equipment bag, but because he can’t remember the last time he took it into his head to pack survival kits for non-Bat vehicles, everything is likely several years out of date.

As he digs around, any hope of finding a tracker that can ping! loud enough to alert the Batcave disappears. There’s a brick of a satellite phone, but failure to keep it well-maintained means the battery is completely flat, and trying to fix it in a bobbing liferaft that’s constantly letting water in…. ill-advised.

At least being in the Caribbean in the summer means that the current is more likely to have him drifting across the archipelago instead of sweeping him out to the Atlantic. Deserted islands are a dime a dozen here, and Bruce shudders at the thought that he might meet his end here, where it’s warm and sunny and beautiful, instead of bleeding out into a puddle of what might be rainwater or piss or both in a dark alley in Gotham, which is what he thematically deserves.

If only Alfred were here to hear him loudly think about his death after maybe 3 hours of being at sea with his own grim thoughts.

At least the kit bag reflects his personal preferences. Enough energy bars to keep a man physically functioning for at least 2 weeks, and half of them are white-chocolate-and-cranberry flavoured. There’s a rain poncho made of the same material his cape was about 5 years ago, which means it’s light and breathable and incredibly strong. He puts it on, because where Jason presumably gets power from wearing either leather or garish beachwear, Bruce unfortunately counts himself closer to goth than not, and a black raincoat is enough to make him feel at least marginally better.

He digs around some more and finds the usual suspects: a multi-tool with a blade sharp enough to gut a camel (tried! And tested!), 3 flare guns, a little floating solar still, a first aid kit that could keep you alive through increasingly alarming injuries, wax matches and some solid fuel, and a little tin mug that had some fishing line and a bunch of hooks. God, there’s even sun cream in here, and that’s as Classic Alfred as the tiny glass bottle of exquisite whiskey. The reach of one elderly butler’s tender loving care extends really alarmingly far, and Bruce salutes the sky in his honour before taking a carefully-rationed glug of Stranahan for moral support.

It burns smoothly down his throat, and it’s as close to a second wind as Bruce is likely to get out here. Bruce sets up the solar still and has it floating on a tether right by the raft, even if he’s got at best a couple of hours of daylight left. Dinner for the night is either a protein bar or fresh-caught fish if he can swing it, and the bottle of good whiskey needs to stretch for 2 weeks for the worst case survival scenario, because that’s around when Superman comes back from his off-world mission and can come play fetch.

Best case scenario, Jason’s going to pull up in the BatWing any moment now, and Bruce will gaze upon a hideous ginger wig and once again get to marvel at the miracle of Jason alive and coming at him.

The Batman hasn’t survived so long off the backs of best case scenarios though. Fantasy revelled in, Bruce starts divvying up his resources and makes his peace with potentially having his body be found in a poncho 3 months from now by deeply unlucky fishermen.

Hell of a legacy to leave for his children, but it’s better than pearls and a dark alleyway (he sure would have appreciated a larger bottle of whiskey).

Escape was the name of the game, so Jason doesn’t burn time on thinking, just grabs his supplies and steals the tender, gunning the engine and gone out of sight before the Coast Guard could board the Penny. It’s pretty hair-raising, literally; throttle opened to full he almost loses his wig to the whipping winds.

Fifteen minutes after separating from Captain Luis, Jason’s dropping anchor in a tiny lagoon and pulling out his Bat-issued laptop. First things first, he runs through all the trackers Bruce is most likely to have on him. No point in alerting HQ if Bruce just got washed ashore on a little beach a couple of miles away. He could do without the rest of the family calling him out for simultaneously being both Bruce’s back-up as well as the main reason Bruce is currently missing, thanks. There’s already plenty of self-recrimination going ‘round.

The internet’s pretty slow considering the private BatSatellite beaming it right down at him, but it only takes a few minutes before he’s run through the checklist of the dozen or so standard trackers Bruce could have chosen from. Almost everything is deactivated, probably because a mother-of-pearl button and a tie clip aren’t options that mesh with swimwear too often, but one of his watches is active and blinking a cheerful green from the other side of the island, moving swiftly towards land.

Jason thinks hell yeah! at the start but then logic comes a-calling; neither the current nor a very determined man could move that quickly, and the blip is moving in a straight line away from the yacht. He takes another look at the list, and groans when he realises that what likely happened was that Bruce’s shiny golden Rolex was liberated from him pre-getting-thrown-overboard, and is now likely enjoying a pleasant ride to Nassau in the pocket of some pirate on the Coast Guard’s ship.

“This is why I told him to get a goddamn belly button ring,” Jason shouts down at an errant starfish, who fundamentally does not care. Garish intimate jewelry work because they can stay on regardless of the state of undress, and because not even the most determined thugs tend to be super interested about groping around a man’s navel to get half an ounce of cheap tin and silver. An ugly piercing is by far the best option for discreet trackers.

Just classic goddamn Bruce; too good for gun violence, too good for tacky piercings, too good to just stay the hell still. Jason half-heartedly goes through the rest of the list, on the extremely off chance that Bruce slapped on the temporary tramp stamp with its special magnetic ink, or decided to opt for the cute anklet with dangling shells that’s a Cass design, but no go.

There’s not a blip anywhere, and if Bruce is really really lost at sea, time’s not something either of them have a whole lot of. Jason starts up the boat and decides to head right to the outermost chain of tiny islands, because the vital thing here is making sure that Bruce doesn’t get swept right out into the open ocean. One hand on the wheel, with the other he pops an earphone back in and presses a complicated code using the volume up/down buttons. It’s another few seconds of the Fellowship coming through before the comm connects, and it’s Alfred.

“How can I help, Master Jason?”

“How much of what went down did you catch, Agent A?”

“I must confess to a little chuckle when I saw Master Bruce being thrown overboard. The onboard cameras caught the rest of your fight, and may I just say, splendid aim with the steak knife. I doubt I could have done better myself.”

That’s a blatant lie if Jason’s ever heard one, but he’ll take it. “Thanks, Alfie. Thing is, uh. Thing is, I might have misplaced B.”

There’s a short pause, and Alfred’s voice comes back on with polite inquiry. “What do you mean by ‘misplaced’, Master Jason?”

“You saw me chuck B over and leave him a life raft, right? Yeah, well, when I went ‘round to do a pick-up, he was gone. And he doesn’t have any kit on him, so.” Urgh, this is going to live on in infamy. “So I might have lost Batman somewhere in the sea.”

There’s another pause, a little longer this time, filled with enough character that Jason can just imagine Alfred with his head tipped back, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose to chase off a headache that has given him no peace presumably since B was born. “I see. Do you know if he is injured? Or if Master Bruce is missing as per some sort of plan?”

“Think he might have been grazed by a couple of bullets, but nothing life-threatening. And this could be a dick move that’s part of a bigger plan, Alfred, but he knows you’d be real passive-aggressive if he runs off without telling anyone. He pulls that kind of bullshit when things are apocalyptic, but it’s just a bunch of pirates not social-distancing.” Jason worries at his lower lip, and tries to feel more confident about the absence of serious injuries. “I don’t know, maybe he hit the water wrong and passed out and got swept out, or something. I just know I’m not leaving this as is.”

God literally save B if this does turn out to be some dumbfuck ploy to go off and Rambo a mission solo, that’s a Jason Todd guarantee right there.

“I believe not trusting Master Bruce to be all right is generally the right way of thinking, unfortunately.” Alfred sighs, and it comes off as static in the earpiece. “I will make some inquiries, and see what resources we have for a search and rescue mission. In the meantime, Master Jason, do what you think is best. Master Bruce may not have any of his usual equipment, but so long as he has the raft, he should survive for a good long while.”

Knowing how extremely over-prepared Bruce is in almost every aspect of his life, Jason wouldn’t be too surprised to know that all WE rafts came prepared with spear guns and a bar of solid gold. Best case scenario, he’ll find Bruce in time for dinner, and they can have an(other) awkward meal where Bruce does his damnedest to be inoffensive and haltingly the best father he can be, while Jason tries not to get ticked off by every third word out of the man’s mouth.

Jason tells Alfred that he’s going to whip out some maps and do a lap around all the tiny little cays that dot the sea to try and find Bruce, and half his head’s thinking about a memorial service where Clark will presumably burst into tears while stood in front of a casket that’s got a symbolic Speedo in it, and that’s how Bruce is going to go down in history, which is what he deserves.

The other half decides that now is a good time to remember how Bruce had once gone all-out on a search-and-rescue mission for Jason too, many many years ago, and oh, look how that turned out.

What a fucking feast or famine man.

Fishing is an accursed activity for accursed men. Bruce is somebody whose hobby slash raison d’etre involves getting dressed up in armour and perching on a gargoyle somewhere high up in an unmoving manner for hours at a time, and he still finds himself bored almost to tears by the lows and lowers of idly holding a fishing line in his hand, being convinced something has gotten hooked, and pulling up absolutely nothing (again and again and again).

It’s blissfully sundown by now and there’s no fresh fish on the menu, but he has a mouthful of fresh water thanks to the solar still, and he’s got half a protein bar in him for dinner. The moon’s nowhere near full and the stars are obscured; he’s completely enveloped in the kind of darkness that’s so, so foreign to a city like Gotham.

It’s all blackness as far as the eye can see, which is not very far, and all he has for company are his thoughts and the quiet splish splish splish of little waves pattering against the side of his raft.

It’s deeply unnerving even for Bruce, a man who has on occasion described himself as The Night. He has a fire starter and nothing to start a fire; he has a phone and no way to connect to anyone. He has a lot and very little all at once, and despite his best efforts, no amount of focus can get anything done .

So Bruce sits with his back to the opening of the little tent, and over the next couple of hours finds himself slumping and sliding lower, til his head is thrown back across the edge and all he sees is nothing.

Stoicism in the face of terrible odds is an important part of being the Batman, but Bruce has no cowl and no cape; he’s just him right now. As he stares at what may or may not be the North Star, he finds himself thinking about how dinner was supposed to be scallops and baked fish with a side of exquisite wine, and gently mourns just a little. If his luck held, Jason would have swung by later to help himself to the dessert tray that Bruce has delivered straight to his room, and he could have sat there and basked in the unending pleasure of Jay's healthy and hearty and whole company.

Instead, he’s stuck out at sea trying to guess how close or far away he is from 10:47 PM, which is the default time to throw up a signal in cases where a team’s been broken up. In Gotham, even if he didn’t have a watch or a phone or a comm unit or a car, he could usually guess the time down to 15 minutes, just based on which shops were open and which shops were closed, what buses were running and what colour the WE building was lit up to, by the presence or absence of the tinkly elevator music that accompanies the fountain light show in the main plaza.

Here, there’s nothing. The position of the planets would be a bit of a hint on a good day, but on a bad day with heavy clouds and a concussion he’s not confident Venus is real. The outdoors are a mistake, and laid out in a raft miles and miles away from the nearest cityscape Bruce feels homesickness so keenly he has to turn over and throw up a little bit.

At least the concussion is keeping him company.

The first hour after nightfall he had taken the initiative to just sit there and count time out, but there’s something spectacularly soul-sucking about counting down seconds. Bruce was somewhere in the 3000s when he came to the conclusion that he would rather not reinforce his concept of mortality by literally calling out each moment he comes closer to death, thanks. It’s been a while since he stopped counting, but time’s a mess in the absence of manmade context.

He’s also, shamefully, a mess in the absence of manmade context.

Bruce has 3 flares and a son out there somewhere looking for him. Having a predetermined time to launch a signal is not a fundamentally bad idea, but it’s not practical when out in the field, and right now he’s even willing to go so far so as to admit that using the time of his parents’ passing is both extremely grim and extremely unkind to all parties involved.

All factors considered, it’s as good a time as any to get the flare gun. If he’s lucky, Jason will be ‘round to pick him up in under an hour. If he’s less lucky, it might be a different band of roving pirates that come for him, though by this point the company of sun-dried criminals is greatly preferable to just his own.

If he’s really, really unlucky, the flare’ll explode big and bright up in the sky to the attention of absolutely no one, and when that happens Bruce can begin to doubt his reality as much as he doubts Venus’.

“Please let it not be 10:47,” he says in the vain hope that karma’s looking out for him as he sticks his upper body out the tent flaps and shoots at the sky.

The flare goes up straight and true and explodes into bright bright light, and all of this would be a thing to be happy about if the presence of light didn’t highlight the clear, helpless absence of everything else.

For the first time in a very long time, the fearsome big bad Bat of Gotham turns in early for the night, but nobody is even around to appreciate it.

(He will find out that it was, in fact, just around 9 when he shot off the flare, or just about 3000 seconds after the 3000 seconds he’d already counted.)

(The invention of time was a Mistake.)

[1/2]

#batfam big bang 2020 #batman #bruce wayne #jason todd #whale writing #the vibe is v much that specific kind of humid depressed u get in summer #when ur not feeling great but #the overwhelming presence of the sun tells your body to #keep on keeping on #anyways i love the sea thanks for coming to my community tedtalk

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miss-choco-chips · 5 years

Text

Twisted soulmates

BIG Thank you to @iphoenixrising who let me babble on chat about this idea, and to @the-sky-is-a-lie who is an awesome sweetheart and read and edited this for me (THANK YOU!)

---------------------------

Tim has three names on one wrist. His soulmates. Tim has one name on the other wrist. His nemesis.

...or are they?

Tim gets his first mark the night the Graysons fell, ‘Richard John Grayson’ forever tattooed on him, the otherwise unblemished white skin of his left wrist almost shining in contrast to the new addition.

Young, he might be, but not stupid; never stupid. Neither of his parents would approve of a circus artist, perfect as he may be in Tim’s wide opened eyes, so he had to be smart about this. His mind hasn’t stopped whirling since the little touch that burned Dick’s name on him and vice versa, all kind of plans on how to broach the subject with the adults, how to make Dick like him beyond the promised love of a soulmate, every possibility dancing through his eyes, while his parents look for their seats at the stands none the wiser.

He's planning on asking his mom to stay after the show, so he might properly introduce himself to this marvelous trapezist, maybe proclaim an interest in the training - anything that could improve his overall abilities was a good thing in Janet’s eyes, and having her on board would be enough to force his father to accept. He’s excited at the prospect, and a part of him thinks Dick, up the trapeze getting ready for his act, feels the same. That he could feel, through the bond that snapped in place when the other kid first touched him, an echo of his own happiness, a joy at finding, so soon in life, something as beautiful as this.

He’s going to stay after the show. He’ll talk to Dick, introduce himself properly, be as mature as possible- Dick wouldn’t want a dumb kid as his soulmate. Maybe even make friends with this wonderful boy that can fly and is destined to love him.

(Love him, him, him. He can’t wrap his head around this strange concept of being on the receiving end of something strong and wonderful. He might cry.)

Then the tragedy occurs, and Tim's too traumatized to think about doing anything about it. He can't pester a grieving boy with this. They are kids after all, and it’s not like their bond is going anywhere.

(I don’t want to wait, please don’t forget about me, please love me.)

---.---

Dick has just been adopted, his entire worldview had changed, adding a soulmate to care about would be just too mean of him. Tim can take care of himself, even when sometimes, after his parents left for yet another trip, he yearns for someone to hold his hand after a nightmare. To brush his hair back and hug him.

But that’s just the child in him. He doesn’t need it to live, it’s just a silly comfort thing to wish for, like the baby blanket his mother had made the servants take away once Tim turned four. So he keeps quiet. He waits.

Dick’s name is on his left wrist, after all. He is his soulmate.

----.----

He gets his second mark years later, when the Batcave’s security is breached and some strange men attack Bruce. The giant penny is too tall, but he still get a good look at the man below it, and something in his gut twists. It all makes sense a few minutes later, when Bruce is fighting someone else and the man in green robes pushes Tim aside, holding him hostage to get the Batman’s cooperation.

The skin on his wrist, the one that doesn't have Dick's promised love tattooed on it, burns. He doesn’t dare look down, aware of how taking your eyes from the predator in the room could mean instant death. He doesn’t need to, anyway; he already knows.

Tim’s pretty sure this is his nemesis, because no way he'd be destined to hate Dick and love this criminal, and they are on opposite wrists. So… getting away is the first step on his ‘do not interact with this terrorist until I’m significantly better at defending myself’ plan. Easy peasy.

He catches the side glance the man shoots him, because of course he also felt the burn, and there’s curiosity there. Something akin to amusement, which, Tim can get behind, he’s also seeing the irony of this, the utterly ridiculousness of him being important enough in the grand scheme of things to warrant being tattooed on this man’s skin.

There’s also possessiveness there, which isn’t fun at all. Stranger danger, his mind screams at him.

His nemesis shouldn’t be possessive of him, unless he has a really fucked up view of his enemies, in a ‘their death is mine, and mine only’ way. Because this is his nemesis, there's no doubt in his mind of that.

Dick is on his other wrist, after all, and he is his soulmate.

----.----

Bruce goes mental when he finds out later, and almost blows a gasket. Ra’s, as Tim later finds out his nemesis is called, is suddenly one upping the Joker on Batman’s high priority enemies list, which means only a glimpse of him anywhere near the city borders would warrant a call to Superman, Bruce’s ultimate last resort. That’s how big this is.

Young Justice has split feelings on the matter. Cissie and Cassie, ever the bloodthirsty ones in Tim’s humble opinion, suggest tracking the man down before he can get to their leader, and taking him out of the game. Probably permanently. Kon seems torn, half with the girls, half with Bart, who finds the whole thing amusing and exciting. Ra’s Al Ghul, one of the most dangerous enemies the Justice League ever faced, and little old Robin is his fated enemy. Not Superman, not Wonder Woman, not Batman himself; just their Rob. That, according to the speedster, is so, so, so crash. The rest of the team, if they have opinions, keep them to themselves. It takes a while to calm the room down and focus on their mission of the day, but he eventually succeeds.

Dick, on his part, comes back from where he was brooding with the Titans after a fight with his mentor to fret over Tim, and everything is right in the world.

He isn't afraid of Ra's. He has his new family, new friends, and soulmate.

----.----

There’s something on his pillow when he gets back from the weekend with his friends.

A perfect rose, white as snow, thorns so sharp Tim knows they would pierce skin if touched. Not that he would be so stupid as to do it, not when foes like Ivy existed.

But… there’s a ribbon, and it sends ice through his veins. A red ribbon, tied at the stem’s exact center. A flower with a ribbon, the universal symbol of soulmates.

He’s pretty sure Dick’s back in San Francisco. Which leaves...

No.

He squares his shoulders and searches in his bag for his Robin gauntlets, protecting his hands with them as he disposes of the rose.

His right hand stings a little through the entire process.

----.----

When he gets his third mark, he's honestly surprised. As well as on the edge of unconsciousness from blood loss.

The blood flooding his airways is his, and the building that he believed was his safe place would never feel like that again. His knocked out friends litter the hallways, the bo staff he tried to use to defend himself long lost to the fight, as this man, his hero, his Robin, his apparent Soulmate, tries to kill him.

(Their eyes meet and they feel it at the same time, the twist in their stomachs, which is what stops Jason's blade. Tim’s hand raises up, weakly, and carefully brushes against the one holding the knife. It burns, and everything goes black for a minute.)

(Jason stops breathing. He has the Joker on one hand, and was markless on the other until now, so this runt has to be his soulmate. No way it's the deranged clown. Which means he almost....)

Jason runs away (this is Jason, his wrist claims, not the mysterious Red Hood any longer) and Tim patches himself up, does damage control with his friends, calls Batman. His heart is beating twice as fast as usual, but he tries to be logical; Jason is on the same wrist as Dick, who is his soulmate, and opposite to Ra's, who's most likely his nemesis. Ergo, Jason's gotta be his soulmate.

His confused, probably traumatized, totally not in his right mind soulmate.

He's gotta be patient and wait. Jason surely will get better, will come back to Tim, will fix this mistake he almost made, will... will love him.

Dick is his soulmate, and calls him ‘little brother’, which hurts, but he says it with such warmth that it soothes the ache. Dick loves him.

Jason will, too, someday.

----.----

A few weeks later, he wakes up in the middle of the night, conscious of the feeling of being watched from the shadows of his room.

There’s the teddy bear Steph won for him at the fair some months ago, sitting on the chair near his bed where he last put it, but… odd. There’s something about it that’s not quite normal, something that wasn’t there when he went to sleep half an hour ago.

It took him less than a minute to spot it, which would still be shameful if Bruce ever found out, but he sees the unusual shine in the bear’s eye and groans, more tired than rightfully angry, feeling like the moody teenager he never actually was.

A hidden camera. This was the fifth of the year, what the hell?

Pissed off, he gets up and takes the scissors he leaves by his bedside (can’t exactly go to sleep with a birdarang there, his dad might check on him at night and freak out, but sleeping without a weapon in easy reach just makes him uncomfortable) and makes quick work of the bear, getting the device out with as minimal damage to the plushie as possible. He’ll fix it later.

Beyond done, one hand opens the window with more strength than absolutely necessary, the other flying back to gather momentum and throw the thing right at the supposedly empty shadow on the roof of the building across the street. He’s not surprised when a dark gloved hand catches it, the rest of the body still perfectly concealed by the night. Fucking ninja.

No words needed, he slams the window shut again and grumbles his way to his desk, turning on his lamp. He’s not falling asleep again tonight, so might as well work on some cases.

----.----

His fourth mark is both exciting and like a bucket of cold water.

It's a fucking kid.

Is this how Dick felt when he first got Tim's mark? No wonder he avoided talking about the subject, this was uncomfortable as fuck. Granted, it didn't necessarily have to be a romantic soulmate, platonic soulmates were a thing too, but... still. Awkward.

Even worse because the kid didn't have another mark and, as Tim was his first, was convinced he had to be his fated nemesis. No matter how hard Tim tried to explain the opposite; after the heart stilling moment where he extended his hand for a shake and was slapped away, thus providing the skin to skin contact needed for the bond to form, the brat was sure it was nothing but a ruse to get him to lower his defenses or something. God this kid was fucked up.

So. In short. There were two of his soulmates trying to kill him. Great.

But... Dick was on the same wrist as them. Dick loved him. Dick was his soulmate. So Damian... Damian had to be, as well. Maybe he'd grow out if his hate, maybe it was just a phase.

Maybe.

----.----

His mother and father were dead. Steph was dead. His two best friends were dead.

Tim was numb, going through the motions but not really feeling anything. His only source of emotion, nowadays, was his constant rage at Damian, and the adrenaline while fighting a bad guy.

He barely slept. He couldn’t remember the last time he properly ate. The manor wasn’t comforting enough with the little assassin roaming around for him to get any shut eye, and how could Tim be sure he wasn’t going to poison his food?

Sleeping in safe houses seemed the smarter move, even when they weren’t really safe at all, judging by the ‘gifts’ that kept appearing every time he turned his back. Food - sealed and untempered with - files on whatever case he was working on, a brand of turkish coffee that he would gladly down even if it contained poison…

Flowers, hundreds of them, all white in color, tiny red ribbons tying their stems.

Tim shivered at the meaning, but no longer minded the feeling of eyes on him while he slept. Looking for hidden cameras was too much effort to be worth it, as long as there were none in the bathroom and his walk in closet. He couldn’t care less, these days.

----.----

Jason tried to kill him. Again. In the middle of a Pit Episode, even after all Tim had done to help him, to mend their relationship.

Damian was even worse, abusing Tim any way he could, any time he got the chance to get away with it. And it was a startlingly large amount of times, considering their family should be more attentive to attempted murder. None of Tim's effort to bond ever bore fruit.

But he's still convinced they are his soulmates, so he's gotta be patient. They have to be.

Because Dick is his soulmate, and they share a wrist.

Because Dick...

----.----

Dick betrayed him. In the worst possible way, in the most vulnerable moment of his life. When Tim needed him the most.

Jason tried to kill him.

Damian tried to kill him.

Dick betrayed him (which was, arguably, worse).

Dick was his soulmate. Jason was his soulmate. Damian was his soulmate.

They had to be.

----.----

His quest for Batman would’ve been a lonely affair, if not for the honeyed voice whispering in his ear. The silent eyes he felt on his skin wherever he went, more heavy than his three assassin escorts’ stares.

What a crazy world it was, where Tim’s nemesis believed in him, while his first soulmate, the one he loved almost his entire life, claimed delusion. Where his nemesis sent his people to keep him alive, to keep others out of his way, while his other two sought his death.

What a crazy world indeed.

----.----

-I think we need to talk, Timothy. About this bond we share.

-I’m listening.

Timothy, he said, but it didn’t sound like his name at all.

In his mind, it echoed something scary, something that made him shiver and tense.

It sounded like Mine.

----.----

Ra's al Ghul was probably his soulmate.

He's gotta be. Because there's no way Tim's fated to love three people that are just going to break his heart again and again and again.

When he goes to the League for help looking for Bruce, he steels himself in place when Ra's’ voice in his ear makes him want to flinch. He grits his teeth at the viper like words murmured in soft tones. Makes himself accept when Ra's offers to train him in the ninja arts after he successfully brought his mentor back. Clenches his fists when he's asked to dinner in a dimly lit French restaurant.

Ra's didn't retaliate when Tim blew up half his bases. He kept giving Tim pointers and praises. Seeking his company.

So he breathes in.

He forgave Damian for being a killer, Jason for being one, too. He surely can find it in himself to forgive his actual soulmate for being a criminal.

In time.

Right?

...Right?

----.----

Something dark and victorious twists in Ra’s chest when the Detective doesn’t flinch away from his touch, and silently accepts the white rose and red ribbon he presents before guiding him deep into the restaurant. There’s acceptance in Timothy’s eyes, reluctant but hopeful, even if he stirs away from any ‘dangerous’ topics of conversation and very firmly drops a drug test pill in his glass of water the second the waitress turns her back on them.

Ra’s doesn’t comment on it, merely mirrors the act on his own wine (one could never be too sure, not when an enemy as interesting as this is seated across from him) before raising it for a toast. Not that the Detective was aware of the reason.

He’s got a lot to celebrate.

Deceiving this one wasn’t easy, after all.

----.----

Later that night, alone in his room, Tim turns in the bed, his back to the cameras on the far end of the room. The movement is slow, lazy, following his usual sleeping patterns. A clumsy hand pats the mattress, blindly looking for a pillow and dragging it to his chest, face hidden by its softness. He goes lax again, peaceful and oblivious to the world around him to any lingering eye.

Once he’s sure there’s no way anyone could see him, Tim lets a slow, dangerous smile creep on his face, his heartbeat thundering in his chest, adrenaline pumping through his veins, feeling so alive it’s almost painful after all the numbness.

Ra’s was looking so smug, like the cat that got the canary. Oh, he tried to hide it, but Tim had made it his life's mission since he was twelve to understand the man to his truest essence, to be able to read him as one would a book, and practice had taught him how to play him like a cheap kazoo.

He probably shouldn’t smile, safe as he is in hiding his face in the pillow, but he can’t help it.

Deceiving Ra’s, soulmate or not, wasn’t easy.

#Tim Drake #dick grayson #Jason Todd #Damian Wayne #bruce wayne #ra's al ghul #Ra's is creepy #but he's smart about it #OR IS HE #Young Justice #Timdick #Jaytim #damitim #ra'stim #soulmates au #nemesis au #which one is each though #my writting

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bigfan-fanfic · 5 years

Text

Inspiration (Batdad!Reader Headcanons)

Requested by Anonymous for a Batdad with breathing issues like asthma or hyperventilation

I really wanted to do this justice, so forgive me if it doesn’t conform to anyone’s real experience of having breathing conditions.

In.

Out.

It’s supposed to be so simple, isn’t it?

You’ve tried everything. Therapy, alternative medicine, breathing exercises...

But no matter what you do, you have a consistent breathing issue.

If you’re too stressed out, or overexert yourself, your throat seems to close up, and air doesn’t want to come in or out.

You’ve fainted several times before.

Been hospitalized once when you were little.

But the condition is livable, as long as you are careful.

Great decision to live in Gotham, the most stressful city in the world!

Bruce has the nicest way of calming you down if you start to hyperventilate.

It involves carrying you and hugging you close until you get to the bedroom. Usually his grounding hold brings your breathing back under control, but you both pretend otherwise because Bruce gives you a back massage. You usually end up falling asleep, and Bruce pretends that you somehow slept-grabbed him and forced him to snuggle with you the whole time.

Of course, you can’t do this all the time...unfortunately.

But the boys have developed their own ways of helping you.

Dick makes it into a fun game. If you start to get short of breath, he challenges you to breath in and out, and he’ll hold a strenuous pose like a squat or lowered in a push up as you normalize.

Jason pats you on the back and makes sure you have good posture for the air to flow through your body.

Tim searches for breathing exercises you may have missed and forwards them to you. He’s also been working on coming up with medical equipment that could help you breathe better.

It used to be a problem back when Damian didn’t like you.

It was one of his main arguments in why you were a poor option compared to Talia.

But he’s even more impressed with you because you have a great level of control over yourself.

And the fact that even though you have a potentially life-threatening condition, you do not shy away from protecting your family.

And now Damian WILL fight anyone who suggests you are somehow weak or infirm.

“He is stronger on his worst day than you could ever hope to be.”

Bruce likes leaving one of the Batboys with you when he goes on long-term missions for the League. He makes sure you know that it’s not because he thinks you aren’t capable, but rather to make him feel better.

Surprisingly, it’s not that much of an issue. It can even be an advantage.

You get used to the high-stress Gotham life real quick. Studies show that citizens of Gotham for 5 or more years have a resting heart-rate 40% lower than the average American in a stressful situation.

So it might actually be better for your breathing.

Also, you are more resistant to many of the airborne gases released by many villains due to the effects depending on the respiratory system working at complete efficiency.

You’re one of the only people in Gotham to be resistant to Joker gas and Fear toxin (the airborne variety).

Still, it’s nice that your family is so supportive.

Damian, being the most protective and least scatterbrained (you love Dick, but he can’t remember where he put his mask during patrol) is in charge of bringing you your inhaler. None of the others are allowed to touch it.

Occasionally you’ll have an attack in public, mostly during the spring (if there’s one thing you hate more than the excessive heat of summer, it’s the pollen-filled air of spring).

The boys always act quickly and get you somewhere with fresh air instead of panicking.

Bruce is a little jealous at how quick they are.

Anyway, no matter how serious your condition, you never have to go it alone with your family around you.

#male reader #batdad reader #batparent reader #batman x male reader #batfamily x male reader #batman headcanons #dc headcanons #headcanons

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bigskydreaming · 4 years

Note

Ok, but how would you writte a court of owls and a dick grayson fanfic, focusing on the abduction too, after all the traumas that being destained to be a talon could carry with?, just imagine dick noticing his family could have known this, and then boom, someway the court makes his way to dick core, bat fam have to fighthim, but focusing in all those conflicts and not only the fights

LOL I have a few different Court of Owls’ ideas running through my head at any given time, but for various reasons, some of which I can’t even identify, they almost always tend to be AUs of some kind, where I also play around with different takes on the family dynamics or how the family comes together in the first place. I have no clue why that particular plot point, the Court, tends to pair itself with unorthodox Batfam takes in my head, tbh. It just does.

As an example, the one I’ve come back to the most often and most recently when fiddling around with various WIPs when the chaos of my life these days allows for it, lol.....its called “Where Last We Left Off” and it goes AU from general pre Flashpoint comic book continuity when Dick is still Robin, around fourteen or so. Long enough into his time living with Bruce that they’ve reached a point of considering each other father and son, even if neither is saying as such yet, and past the point where the Titans first formed and and even after Kory first came to Earth, so Dick has well established friendships with Garth, Roy, Wally, Donna, Lilith and Kory at least.

So in it, I set up an initial prelude and then there’s a time skip to five years later, where all the actual fic takes place. My premise is basically that Batman has been operating in Gotham for about seven years by the prelude, Batman and Robin about four or five, and its only in the last couple of years that Batman’s started coordinating more consistently and officially with other heroes as a member of the Justice League. And the point of departure happens when the Court uncovers Batman and Robin’s secret identities while trying to rid themselves of Batman’s interference in their operations even though he’s not aware of them just yet. When they realize that Robin is none other than their intended Gray Son, they decide to try and kill two birds with one stone.

Cue Dick’s abduction, but with a twist. Rather than make him a Talon and subject him to the Talonization process or whatever that’s called, and employ brainwashing or mind control techniques to control him, they make themselves known to Bruce as the ones who took Dick, give him a taste of what the Talons are capable of and make sure he gets a good look at the changes to their physiologies and mental states, and then they make their demands. They won’t subject Dick to any of that.....so long as Bruce agrees to hang up his cape and cowl, and cease all vigilantism and contact with other heroes. They give him forty eight hours to make his decision, and leave him with the body of one of their Talons to ‘study’...in essence, making both an example of how little they care for their tools and think nothing of disposing of one, and to give Bruce more information than he really wants at the moment of all the kinds of things that Talon was subjected to in the ‘making’ of him.

Unable to find a hint of where they took Dick before the deadline, even when Bruce calls in Clark, Barry and a few others for help searching, Bruce ultimately agrees to their demands and ceases all activity as Batman in exchange for the occasional proof of life demonstrating that the Court are holding up their end of the bargain. If they see even a hint of vigilantism or working with other heroes, they warn, they’ll have no further use for Dick except as just another of their Talons.

Heartsick and with no real idea how to spend his days at first, or inclination to put much thought into coming up with ideas for that, as well as refusing to even speak with Clark and the others, let alone Dick’s friends, at the risk of that being overseen or heard and deemed ‘working with other heroes,’ Bruce ultimately funnels most of his time and energy into charity works and projects mostly born of idle ideas he remembers Dick mentioning every now and then, when complaining about how stupid the way certain things worked or skewering various flaws in the typical upper class reasonings of people he was expected to converse with at various galas....and then venting to Bruce all the way home.

Eventually, Bruce meets Jason in a different way than in canon, but still takes him in. Not to replace Dick of course, or because he’s given up on him (if he ever did that, after all, there’d be no reason for him not to go back out as Batman). But rather just because he has to do something, and the thought of caring for Jason and trying to be for him what he was for Dick, or at least hoped he’d been, it sparks the first real motivation he’s had since the abduction. The one thing he can’t bring himself to regret is taking Dick in, even as he blames himself for thinking so selfishly, since if he hadn’t done that, this would never have happened to Dick (not knowing yet that the Court was always intent on getting their hooks into Dick whether he was in the equation or not). But the point is, he can’t honestly say he wishes he’d never taken Dick in, even as selfish as he feels for that, so he doesn’t let his misgivings keep him from following his instincts with Jason, telling himself it’ll be different since he’s not Batman anymore. (Bottom line being his choice with Jason is still about Jason, not just as a proxy for Dick or anything).

Not all that long after, different events than canon result in him taking Tim in as well (with Tim not aware of his past as Batman at this point in this AU, since I’m positing that Dick was abducted before Tim happened to see Robin doing the flip that let him connect the necessary dots there). And not long after that, Bruce takes in Duke as well, and then finally, about a year before the five year time skip to present day, he takes in Cassandra, due to Barbara’s influence.

Babs has one of the bigger divergences in this AU, as I’m switching things around a little specifically to set Dick’s abduction at just before Babs becomes Batgirl. So she’s not really one of his friends at this point in life, and she sets out to become Batgirl pretty much right after Bruce hangs up the cape. Unable to even confront Batgirl as himself, lest the Court see that as an attempted return to vigilantism, but paranoid that they might view Batgirl as his attempt to work via a proxy, Bruce does a most un-Brucely thing....he anonymously tips off the Commissioner about his daughter’s vigilantism, and Jim Gordon puts a stop to that by unapologetically even playing the guilt trip card to keep his daughter from risking her life night after night. So Batgirl retires almost as soon as she begins, but that doesn’t mean Babs is out of the game by a longshot.

A big part of the reason for that divergence is I’ve always felt that Babs was going to become Oracle one way or another, no matter what road she took there, and although I love her as Batgirl, I don’t view it as fundamentally essential to her overall character as other early personas of other superheroes are. And despite the Bat theme, Barbara has never been dependent on Bruce either for guidance or resources, let alone validation......so I wanted to play around with what happens if you cut the Batgirl portion of Barbara’s life out of the picture completely.

So basically, she just starts becoming Oracle even earlier. She promised her dad she wouldn’t risk her life on the streets in a cape and a mask. She made no such promises about putting her computer skills to use for the greater good, in whatever ways she deems most efficient. Which ultimately leads to her working as a superhero information broker for a growing number of vigilantes who have no idea their cyber eyes and ears isn’t even quite of legal drinking age just yet, and from there, forming the Birds of Prey as satellite agents for missions she directs them towards in a Charlie’s Angels kind of way, where she’s just the voice on the radio so to speak. One of those missions results in Dinah, Helena and a couple others crossing paths with Cassandra, who returns with them to the States. She’s still just a teenager though, younger than when she first crossed paths with the Batfam in canon, only about thirteen here. And the Birds don’t think any of them themselves have the kind of home and stability they all agree she deserves, so they ask the ever mysterious Oracle if she knows of anyone....not realizing just yet that said Oracle is barely a decade older than Cassandra herself at this point. But the Oracle knows all...so she has an idea.

Bruce, being the Walking Guilt Complex that he is, felt shitty about interfering in her attempts at vigilantism even as much as he believes he made the right choice there. So after he adopts Jason, he contrived an excuse to hire Barbara in specific to be Jason’s tutor and catch him up to speed before he went back to school, so he’d have reason to allow Babs to become a regular presence at the Manor, and an excuse for him to help her out any way she might need or want. Not that she ever took him up on this, which frustrates him to no end, cuz can’t a billionaire just assuage his guilt complex in peace already, damn. But regardless, between Jason, Tim and Duke, she’s become a regular fixture at Wayne Manor over the years, even though for the opposite reasons as Bruce initially ‘hired’ her. After all, all three boys are basically geniuses in their own respective fashions, so its not like they need tutoring in the conventional sense once they caught up to speed in whatever ways they needed.

Rather, Babs is their tutor specifically in the areas of ‘making sure they don’t get so bored with their schooling, they turn to blowing things up and/or world domination as a hobby’. Basically, an overachieving perfectionist know-it-all hired to help three overachieving perfectionist know-it-all kids reach their full academic potential unhindered by their conventional schooling, which at this point is basically just something that Bruce insists on so the boys get regular social interaction, while Babs concocts their actual curriculums that actually interest them and they do on their own time.

Anyway, so while seeking a placement for Cass that Babs thinks is deserving of her, she ultimately thinks of Bruce, and calls in that favor, albeit in a most unconventional sense. Babs doesn’t know Bruce was Batman at this point either, given how effectively he covered his tracks when he hung up the cape and how pointedly he’s kept away from all vigilantism since....but she knows each of his three boys have very different backgrounds and had trouble adjusting at first because of various issues...all of which Bruce spared no expense in addressing, more in terms of his own direct focus and parenting rather than fiscally. He’s a good dad, here, a great dad, since he’s basically poured all the energy and drive he once devoted to vigilantism to what he now feels he should have focused it on instead....being the father he wished he’d been to Dick and wasn’t going to make the mistake of not being now.

All of which makes Babs think that he might not only be willing to take in Cassandra, but that he might be the best one for her. And so after a lot of cloak and dagger obscurity that would be completely unnecessary if all the parties in question knew all the relevant information about each other, Cassandra ends up at Wayne Manor too.

All of this is essentially backstory for the in between time between the prelude and the actual fic, unveiled and doled out via information conveyed in the present day. But where the actual fic begins, Bruce is committed to being Superdad to Jason, Tim, Duke and Cass, none of whom know he was Batman or the true nature of what happened to their mysterious elder brother who according to the news and what little Bruce and Alfred are willing to say, was abducted years ago with no attempt made to seek a ransom and no idea who did it or why.

Meanwhile, the kids have their own secrets, as Cass has been sneaking out into the city at night and stopping petty crimes and running into some girl in a purple hoodie who calls herself Spoiler. Tim’s preoccupied with a longtime personal quest of his....figure out who the elusive Oracle, all-knowing master of the cyberways is, and in doing so perhaps win their approval and mentorship. And Duke’s metahuman abilities have recently begun manifesting, and Jason ends up helping him test them and figure out what all he can do (after Jason catches Duke in the act of practicing his ghost vision and Duke has to convince him he’s not crazy and nobody needs to tell Bruce).

And that in turn leads to Duke exploring the house with aid of his powers, trying to learn more about the mysterious missing eldest, and Jason distracting him every five seconds by whispering “what do you see now,” because Jason has also long been endlessly entranced by the mystery of Dick Grayson, and also, Jason has no chill.

With all of the above being the dynamic in existence in ‘present day’....when Dick escapes the Court and returns home.

So the story itself is all about Dick trying to deal with the aftermath of everything that happened to him while the Court’s hostage, and everything that didn’t happen to him and that he missed out on, coming in at the eleventh hour to a family that’s now almost fully formed all in his absence....with a seat at the table that’s been reserved for him the whole time, but with him uncertain as to where and how he fits in all of this.

All while being as cryptic about things as possible, because the one and only thing he and Bruce seem able to agree on, after their bittersweet reunion that doesn’t go how either of them ever imagined it....is to keep the other kids out of all this by any means necessary. Upon learning that Bruce hasn’t been Batman in years and the others know nothing about any of this, Dick’s firm on believing they should keep it that way as he doesn’t even know them yet, but he does know he isn’t willing to risk anything like what happened to him happening to any other child, related to him or not. And Bruce is perhaps too willing to accommodate Dick on this because he still feels this is all his fault, and telling the others everything would mean admitting to them what a terrible father he once was.

Which, he wasn’t, is the thing. One of the many things Dick’s struggling to reconcile now, because just like in the comics, Dick’s early years with Bruce were good more often than they were bad. He realizes upon seeing how easily the other kids interact with Bruce in a parent and child way that this is something he’s envious of, and in hindsight wanted even before he was kidnapped, but now he doesn’t know how to voice that or his fear that that Bruce would only be willing to offer that to him now out of guilt, that if he’d really wanted that kind of relationship with Dick, they would have had it before he disappeared.

Add to that the fact that Dick can’t make up his mind whether he’s grateful and touched that Bruce gave up being Batman just for the chance it might keep him safe from the fate of the Court’s Talons.....because sometimes, Dick resents it deeply...or not resents, per se, but more that he didn’t know the specifics of what was going on in the outside world beyond where the Court kept him, or that they’d made Bruce give up being Batman....so finding that out upon escaping is messing with his head more than he expected, and now he can’t help but feel aware of all the people over the years that could have been helped by Batman but weren’t, because of Dick. Basically, the Son of the Walking Guilt Complex, aka Walking Guilt Complex Jr., is blaming himself and his getting kidnapped, for being the reason Bruce isn’t a superhero anymore.

Meanwhile, it was not a good idea to keep all of this hush hush, if for no other reason than that its impossible to recover from a life-changing ordeal like this at home, when that home is filled with four other people you and two others are all committed to keeping the full details of what happened a secret from. Its not at all the homecoming Dick was picturing and had dreamed of, and he catches himself at times feeling resentful of the others for being there at all, before feeling guilty because the truth is he really is glad that Bruce took them all in and has been good for them, that he still found a way to help people and be true to himself even without being Batman.

There’s other stuff involved too, like the fact that Dick is still keeping things from even Bruce, like everything that happened to him in the Court, because a) he doesn’t want to talk about it, b) he’s afraid of the guilt spiral it’ll send Bruce into, to know that all this time he’d done everything he could to keep Dick safe by giving the Court no reason to break their word....when they never actually made any promise not to try and break Dick by methods not part of their usual Talon process, and c) he doesn’t want to talk about it.

And of course, all his old friends and teammates desperately want to see him and reconnect with him, which he fluctuates between wishing it was easier to explain who they were and have them around without risking their own identities with his new siblings.....and being grateful that keeping the Big Secret from said siblings meant they could only be around so much (like Clark and Diana, etc, who now simply would not be kept away period)....because like with Bruce, Dick is having trouble coming to terms with how much they’ve all changed while he was gone and how much he’s changed, and what this means for them all and how they even FIT now, if they even do at all.

All of which ultimately builds to Dick sneaking out at night to return to vigilantism himself, which makes Bruce throw an epic freakout when he finds out because he only just got Dick back and is not about to risk losing him again. And with Dick trying to convey that he NEEDS this, now perhaps even more than he ever did before, because its the only thing he knows, the only thing that feels familiar, feels right at this point, while everything else is confusing as hell. And even more than that, he needs it in order to feel like the last five years haven’t cost him everything, that they haven’t...’ruined’ him, because what’s the point of him even being home if he’s just as lost and confused as ever and he can’t even save people, do the one thing that’s always made all the shit he’s ever been through feel worthwhile, like it means something?

He needs it, he can’t give this up forever just because something terrible happened one time, that probably would have happened in some form even if he hadn’t been a hero, given what he found out from the Court about his family line. And he’s not wrong to feel that way, is the problem, much like its a problem that Bruce isn’t wrong to feel that if nothing else, its too soon for Dick to be doing this again, and he hasn’t remotely handled any of the many issues weighing on him and the trauma he’s still unwilling to address.

And it doesn’t help that all the while, Bruce has been wrestling with his own uncertainty as to whether to go back to being Batman now that Dick’s safe again and the combined might of the Justice League and Titans have followed his escape route back to the Court and come down on it with extreme zeal. Or whether he even wants to, anymore, if he can justify the risks it includes while now a father in truth not just to Dick but four other kids too (and yes, Damian exists in this AU, he’s just not here yet). He doesn’t want to leave any of his kids without a father, and even more than that, he doesn’t want any of the others following in his and Dick’s footsteps, which also plays a factor in freaking out at Dick’s quick return to a mask.

But he can’t deny that he does miss it too, and more importantly, he misses the way he and Dick used to understand each other without a word, in perfect sync as they swung over the city together. He can’t help but feel like it would be so much easier for him and Dick to understand each other, communicate with each other, if they were back on the same page even if just for one night for old time’s sake. And also he worries about Dick maybe growing to resent his siblings if he feels like they’re the only reason he won’t go back to being Batman, he won’t let there ever be a Batman and Robin again....which then startles him into worrying that on some level he’s afraid of growing to resent his other kids for being the reason not to do that. And around and around and around it goes.

And then the other kids figure it out in their own ways and everything really blows up.

And its hard and messy and painful and nothing short or easily fixed. And there are no good choices or easy choices or right choices. Just a lot of good people trying to make the most good come out of the most bad, and not a clue what that actually means or looks like, let alone how to go about it.

Ultimately, its Dick at age 19, coming of age in the most unconventional of ways, trying to figure out who he is and who he wants to be after everything that’s happened, and dragging his whole family along for the ride as they’re all forced to ask the same question and then compare notes and hope that even if they’re not all on the same page, they’re all at least somewhere to be found in the same book.

Its about how you can’t go home again....even when home is exactly where you left it, and everything looks exactly the same but everything is different and nothing and no one will ever be the same ever again.

But that doesn’t mean the trek isn’t worth making, because sometimes the only way to make it forward to who you want to be now....is to first go back to where you last were when last you trusted who you were and what you wanted. So you can make your peace with leaving that road untraveled before finding your new direction and setting forth on that road instead.

*Shrugs* So yeah, that’s my ideal Court of Owls related fic. “Where Last We Left Off.”

Not quite the kind of fic you were describing, lol, but I do seem to insist on being unconventional with my takes, lmao.

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