#like now I can see why Dick Grayson moved the fuck out to bludhaven and before that to the titans the moment he started college

[qcomicsy]

I must be so fucking annoying be Robin in Gotham because everyone fucked your dad and they cannot stop talking about the fact they fucked your dad and the ones do didn't (joker) can't stop talking about it how much they want to.

But your dad is Batman so you think, "well at least when I'm not in costume I can have peace right?" but your wrong because you dad when is out of costume is also fucking Bruce Wayne.

#like now I can see why Dick Grayson moved the fuck out to bludhaven and before that to the titans the moment he started college #can you fucking imagine the amount of drumk college kids who would step out of their line just to embarass you about how hot your father is #d how they want to Stacy's dad their way from your friendship??? #excet they're not even your friends to bein with?????? #sounds like a fuckig nightmare #me writin this post holding a megaphone 'BATMAN'S A HOE'

[ynbabe]

The dinosaur- Dick Grayson x Male! Reader- pt.1

Word count: 1,343

Genre: series

Warnings: lime, cursing

Pg rating: All 

Male implied

It had been a late night for you, your boss had made you stay back to help with the upcoming project, and since the holidays were around you had hoped that staying behind so late to help would fast-track your leave request.

You ran into your shared apartment and took a quick look at the clock,

3:00 AM

Man fuck Bludhaven and fuck your boss, you knew Dick would have been worried about you, that's what you liked about him, you weren't family but you  knew everything about each other, you had moved in about a year ago and had become inseparable since. But your weird hours and Dick's day job as a cop and his night outs as Nightwing, you never got to define your relationship.

Yeah, Bludhavens very own superhero was your ‘boyfriend’.

You turned on the tv so the house wouldn't feel empty, after all, you weren't trying to get robbed, even though your apartment was in a relatively safe neighborhood, you could never be sure... ‘Goddamit Grayson, your paranoia's rubbing off on me’, you thought cursing the vigilante. 

You made sure to shut the door behind you and turned on the shower, letting the hot water wash out the stress of the day, and letting you mind flow, finally being able to relax or so you thought.

The second you shut your eyes, you could hear the window shatter and multiple voices speaking up, fighting amongst themselves.

"Oh, this is so not happening right now." You muttered, wrapping a towel around your waist, trying to find something to defend yourself with, honestly the one time you forget your phone on the kitchen counter.

After frantically rummaging through the whole bathroom you could only find razors, Dick's emergency medical kit, and other toiletries, nothing that could help you.

So instead you decided to stay quiet and listen to their conversation, maybe they wouldn't notice you and you would be able to tell the cops as much as you could.

Quietly walking to the door you pressed your head against the moisture-laden door, trying your hardest to ignore the loud rush of blood through your ears and the heavy beating of your heart and focus on the intruders.

"-well we wouldn't fucking be here if you hadn't-" the deepest voice spoke up in a tone of annoyance, you assumed he was the oldest and by default the leader.

"Todd, I am not in the mood for your denial or your blaming and anyways we all know it's Timothy's fault." A far younger voice stated, why was a child breaking into your house? Was he being forced by the older one you had just heard? Did he know what he was doing? And Todd? Timothy? Why did those names feel so familiar?

Another voice scoffed in disbelief, "OH LIKE YOUR A SAINT DAMIAN-" he yelled in anger,

"tch"

"Don't 'tch' me, brat" he seemed angrier, you would be too, the way they fought they almost sounded like brothers.

Wait- brothers? BROTHERS! Dick had told you he had brothers, Jason Todd (you thought he was dead but it was just bat business), Tim Drake (the fucking billionaire, but I guess he did tell you they were all adopted by Bruce Wayne, which made it kind of awkward when you called him 'Daddy Wayne', IN YOUR DEFENCE- you didn't know yet) and Damian.

These were his brothers, you hoped, crossing your fingers, and not just a really unfortunate coincidence.

Finally gathering the courage to walk out of your hiding space, you took a deep breath and opened the door, making the arguing stop.

"Look at least Dick is out of the washroom now and he can help us- uhhhh your not-" Tim, you assumed, spoke up, looking at you shocked and making the others turn their heads to look at you. 

Suddenly feeling even more vulnerable under their stare, you couldn’t help but be terrified of these superhero-shaped intruders in your house.

"Well, at least he's moved on from redheads." Jason, snickered.

But before you could say anything, the tiny one pulled a knife from his hoodie and shoved it near your face, you hadn’t even see him move, making your brain blue screen in fear.

"Kids aren't supposed to play with knives-" You spoke before you could think, the inherent ‘Gotham sarcasm’ surfacing, but before you could finish the boy pushed the knife closer to your chin making you back up to the kitchen counter.

Jason was silently laughing and Tim look exhausted at the antics of the two, honestly, you wanted Dick to come home right now. Screw Bludhaven and its criminals.

"Damian put the knife down," the long haired teen instructed, receiving a dirty look instead of compliance, he turned to you instead, "Dick didn't tell us about a roommate. You are his roommate, right?" he asked trying to de-escalate the situation and since you didn't feel like being tortured by a ten-year-old, you skipped the sarcasm this time.

"Y-Yeah, look I'll call him right now." you reached behind yourself struggling to reach your phone on the counter with the knife still on your neck. 

"I swear to god, Grayson, if you don't pick up, I'm going to kill you," you mumbled to myself as the phone rang, switching it to speaker mode.

One ring, two rings, three- Jason raised his brow, oh come on Dick, I am not dying like this, four rings, five-

"Hey, Y/N/N, kinda busy right now", you could hear the wind rushing behind him and guessed he was probably on his way home, this wasn't the first time you both had spoken when he was 'working'.

"Your brothers pointing a knife at me," you squeaked out, making the man on the other side falter and curse. 

"God dammit, DAMIAN PLEASE PUT THE KNIFE DOWN." He yelled through the phone, making the tiny demon put back his weapon.

"Oh, so you'll listen to him," Tim grumbled.

"How many of them are there?" Dick asked through the phone but before you could answer, he jumped in from the broken window, winded, red-faced, pointing his phone at his brothers and hanging up.

"Nevermind- What the hell guys?" He complained as he passed you a shirt from the couch, you had almost forgotten that you were only wearing a towel due to the fear and confusion.

Jason finally spoke, "Well, Replacement here, had the marvelous idea of- well never mind, what matters is we need to hide from Bruce for a few days." Dick didn't look surprised but you were, you were very surprised and very much in need of sleep.

"Hey Y/N, I'm so sorry about this." He looked at you apologetically,

"Yeah man, no worries, I'm just gonna go sleep." yes worries, absolutely yes worries.

"Night"

"Night" you responded shutting the door to your room, finding your pants, and passing on the bed.

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

 "Seriously, did you have to threaten Y/n?" Dick whisper-yelled at his siblings outside the room.

"Ooooh, don't you mean Y/N/N," Jason mocked Dick, making kissy faces towards Y/N's room.

"Oh grow up, Jason-" He tried to stop his brother but Tim joined in, "Et Tu, Tim?" He spoke dramatically to his sibling.

"Hey, why's Bruce so mad anyway, I mean there's not much that you can do to make him this mad," he asked his brothers as he set up mattresses and blankets in the living room, he had made Jason clean up the glass and Damian volunteered to board the window temporarily.

"Well, you see Harley set of-" Tim started explaining as he helped Dick with the mattresses, "and then Ivy," he continued, "Basically, the dino's gone," he said nonchalantly.

Dick almost accepted it normally, letting it settle before he shouted in surprise, "THE DINOSAURS GONE?" 

"THE FUCKING WHAT?!" came from Y/N's room.

#dc x y/n #dc x reader #dc #dick grayson #dick grayson x reader #dick grayson x y/n #dick grayson x male reader #nightwing #nightwing x reader #nightwing x y/n #nightwing x male reader #Jason Todd #Tim Drake #Damian Wayne #bruce wayne #red hood #red robin #robin #batfam

[ravcns]

Cruel Summer

Dick Grayson x reader

summary: he doesn’t do commitment well neither of you did, however he takes it to a whole other level

Dating him was like a fever dream it didn’t feel real and it should have felt amazing being together, but there was this looming feeling that something was going to happen. You two have been in a relationship for almost four months now yet you never met his family. Part of you felt disappointed, what else could you feel? Sometimes Dick made you feel like he was ashamed of your relationship then he would turn around and all he would do is show you affection. The hot and cold attitude only worsened your fears overtime. Of course you were open about some of the concerns you had.

“Why haven’t I met your family yet?” You asked him one day when the two of you were laying on his bed at his apartment in Bludhaven. He paused from caressing your hair and looked down, you could have swore a look of annoyance crossed his features but as soon as it came it was gone. “I just don’t want to subject you to that, love. My family can be a bit much at times and it wouldn’t be fair to put you through that.” He explained with a concerned look. At the time his reasoning was good enough for you, thinking how amazing he was to not want you to go through that and protecting you as he would call it.

Going on dates had always been a thing for you both, trying new things together and you enjoyed it. As time went on those happened less and less, whenever you suggested something he was always busy or would be called in for work. He was one of Gotham’s most sought after men that also came with a reputation, one which you ignored for some reason. Maybe it was the way he looked at you that could make your heart stop and face get all hot. None of the past boyfriends you had could compare to Dick Grayson. He put all your concerns to ease with his words followed by soft kisses.

With the arrival of summer you were hoping to get more time with him maybe even a vacation together. Of course it didn’t happen and your schedules got in the way once again. Now you wouldn’t say you were addicted to your phone but you did keep up with what went on in the city. “Bruce Wayne’s Ward Lives Up To His Reputation” An article which included your boyfriend dancing with a stunning red head at his father’s charity gala, scrolling you also see him with a ravenette. All this time he never took you with him to these galas but he would dance with those girls and the only thing you could do is watch.

It was the end of August, your birthday to be exact. The two of you were supposed to be out for dinner, he never came. That didn’t stop you from ordering a few drinks before calling a taxi to get to his apartment, crying during the ride. Using your key you opened the door to his apartment quietly only to see the same ravenette from the article in his kitchen making coffee, in his shirt. Her hair was messy and she had visible hickeys, many of them. You looked at her then called out, “Dick Grayson!” The man himself came out of his bedroom in a pair of sweatpants and shirtless. You didn’t even let him speak before going off, “You are a fucking coward that’s what you are, a cheater, and a liar. I knew it was too good to be true you have so many people lining up to be with you. I’m guessing I wasn’t enough huh.” You spat sarcastically. “Don’t be like that.” He said, walking towards you but you moved away. “Be like what? You are the one who cheated on me, on my birthday mind you.” You told him. The girl in the kitchen looked at him, “You said you were single, that was dick move dude.” She told him, moving to get her stuff. “Listen I had no idea, I’m so sorry.” She continued whispering, “I hope you beat his ass.” Then she left the apartment.

The two do you stood in silence before you broke it. “So this is how it is?” You asked him. “I never wanted to hurt you, I love you so much. Babe we are going to go to Hawaii and everything will be fine.” He told you. “Everything will not be fine, no stupid vacation will fix the fact that you cheated.” You were yelling at this point. “I was so grateful that you loved me, that was my mistake.” You walked out of his apartment not stopping for any of his calls.

It was a cruel summer.

#dc comics #dc imagine #dick grayson imagine #dick grayson x reader #jason todd imagine #dc angst #cheating imagine

[silly-thinkings]

Hopeful Nightmare~

This is a continuation of the Filler chapters for “Vacation gone wrong” (Part 1 here!) Please note that the original fic is a stand alone one-shot and this is just something I wrote for fun, while I slowly work on my other chapter fics.  Thank you for reading! please remember: I do not own these Characters, they belong to DC Comics.  ~One Year Later~ Damian looked at his reflection amongst the glass case that held his fathers suit. Hours had gone by, and yet he still couldn’t leave from that spot. Damian heard sudden foot steps from behind him. He focused on the reflection to see non other then Dick Grayson approach him. “Hey, I know that suit is a heavy one. You don’t have to keep doing this. I can take over if you-” “This is my birthright Grayson.” Damian Turned around “Besides, you’ve made it pretty clear that you wanted nothing to do with Batman.” Dick crossed his arms as he let out a sigh “Damian, You’re only sixteen. And its clear that you’re still thinking about-” “Don’t you dare say their names.” Damian straightened his poster “It’s been a year since mother and father… Since they… Tsk You must be here to pester me. You’ve never visited when they were alive. You never called after you moved away. So why must you annoy us now?” Dick maintained the eye contact from his younger brother. “It wasn’t like that and you know it. I had to leave, to figure out who I was.” Dick pushed Damian back with his finger “You did the same thing ya hypocrite. At least I didn’t Disrespect Mom like you did when you got here.” Damian was about the swing before he felt a hand on his chest. The two brothers looked beside them to see Cassandra gently pushing them apart “Stop. please,” The cave went quiet. The only sound came from the bats on the roof. “Alfred Needs help in the kitchen. He asked for you specifically Damian.” Cassandra said softer as she gently pulled Damian away. The teen sucked his teeth before leaving. At the sound of the grandfather clock sliding closed, Cassandra turned to her older Brother. Dick brushed his fingers through his hair as he looked at the Suit. “Forgive him Dick. He’s still hurting. We all are.” Dick looked to Cassandra who was fiddling with a necklace. A necklace that was missing another half “No, he has a point. I wanted to get out of Bruce’s shadow so badly. I was also caught up with my police work in Bludhaven that I pushed mom away.” Before the trip, he and Bruce would get into nasty arguments in regards of how to save people. And yet, Y/N managed to plan and convince everyone to come together as a family. Cassandra took a deep breath as she noticed his posture. The slumped shoulders, bags under his eyes, messy hair. “Come, Alfred want you to join us.” ** Jason laid in his bed staring at the broken up popcorn ceiling. The sound of car horns and random city noise faintly heard in the distance as he pondered about the one thing he’d surly get in trouble for. Roy peaked into the room and noticed the fancy envelope on the coffee table “You’re not going again?” Jason closed his eyes as Roy stood by the entrance with his arms crossed. “No” Roy let out an annoyed sigh “Why are you running away?” “I’m not” Jason grumbled as he turned his body to face away from his friend. “You haven’t seen them since… the accident.” Roy noticed Jason flinch at the mention of that tragic day. “You know how much family meant to your parents, and you’re running away from the very people who have been trying to-.” “Shut up, don’t talk out of your ass. You’re asking to get shot.” Roy walked towards Jason and tossed sealed mails “Distancing yourself isn’t the answer. Talk to me” Jason let out a huff before attempting to leave the rickety apartment. “Jay!” “Fuck off” “Jason I will annoy you till I get an actual answer” Roy went up to his friend and grabbed his arm. He was met with a punch that sent him back a couple of steps. “I couldn’t do anything!” Jason shouted. He felt his head spinning. His fists tightened as he straightened up to face Roy “I, Jason Todd. Red Hood. The man back from the dead. The guy that runs these corrupts streets. I couldn’t Save my fucking Parents! You think I can face the rest of them? After I Failed all of them?!” Roy rubbed his cheek as he crisscrossed his feet “You blame yourself.” Jason turned to face the window. He looked down in his hands “Everyday I think about that night. The court of Owls, they are the ones responsible, and yet I cant avenge them properly.” “Because you want to kill them? Ya know, Avenge and Revenge are two very different things. You guys... The Waynes, have not only pressed charges but actually took them down through the justice system. You’ve already Avenged them Jason. Seems like what you’re craving is to blow some heads.” Jason went quiet yet again. Roy finally stood “Well, let me say this. you’re doing something far greater then Revenge.” “Oh yea? And what am I doing?” Roy tossed one of Jasons guns. The man caught it, confused “rubber bullets.” Roy smiled before he nudged his head towards the invitation pile “Jason, If your family truly blamed you for what happened. Would they really put in this much effort to see you? ” *** Tim typed on his laptop slowly as he took another sip of his coffee. Dinner was awkward to say the least. Having Dick back for some time surly eased his mind. However Damian’s hostility didn’t go unnoticed. If it wasn’t for Alfred surly another argument would Ensue. Honestly, Tim hasn’t gotten better all this time. Sure he’s functioning, leading Wayne enterprises and fighting the bad guys. Stephanie however was the most perceptive with his dramatic change since that night. Locking himself in his room practically glued on his laptop.  Stephanie slowly opened the door to his room. “Timmy… it’s time for sleep. Don’t worry about patrol tonight. Cas and I got it.” She looked around to see a messy room. Except for his trophy stand. That space hasn’t been touched, since it was the last thing Y/N and Bruce build and organized with him. Tim let out a slight chuckle. Sleep. Something the family hasn’t been doing so well on. The only person able to put Tim to bed passed away in her husbands arms. “Ill be done in a minute” Annoyed Stephanie looked at how he sat in front of the laptop screen. The clear bags under his eyes. The lack of self care or organization. She finally had enough of leaving him alone to grieve. she snatched the laptop. Removing the headphones in the process “Tim! You can’t run away. We are here. You’ve been avoiding us and getting lost in this damn computer!”  Tim watched with wide eyes as she carelessly moved the device. “Give it back.” “Hell no.” “Stop waving it around like that!” “Or what.” Cassandra and Damian entered the room. Cassandra immediately noticed Tim’s shaky hands and Stephanie’s stand-offish demeanor.  “P-please.” he pleaded. It was so soft, as if a mouse spoke to them. The headphones finally fell to the floor. Disconnecting it in the process.  “Todd! Unhand me you baboon.” “Ma! Watch me throw the blood son in the lake.” “Jay be careful!” Everyone froze. The sound of their mothers voice sent chills down their spine. Stephanie gently placed the laptop back onto the table and she became mesmerized with the Video.  ~~ “Tim? Why are you smiling like that?” A chuckling sound could be heard. Tim was the one holding the camera as Cassandra and Stephanie snuck up behind Bruce with an ice bucket.  “No reason mom. You’re looking great.” Just then Ice water was poured onto the sleeping billionaire who shot up from his slumber. Y/N wiped off some water that landed on her while laughing at her husband. Bruce’s eyes squinted making Y/N laugh harder. Tim’s hand slightly waved gaining Bruce’s attention. Tim pointed to Jason who was just about to throw Damian in the water. Bruce nodded and quickly stood up. “Wow. They got you good.” Y/N wiped her eyes. Then she squealed as Bruce picked her up bridal style and ran to the water. “Wait NO! I just bought this sundress. BRUCE!” Both Damian and Y/N hit the water at the same time. ~~ “Have you been watching these?” Stephanie couldn’t take her eyes off the footage. “Yea…”  Damian sucked his teeth “why?” Cassandra noticed Tim’s shoulders tense up. “You’ve found something.” “What?!”Stephanie turned to face her “what do you mean.”  Tim rewound the footage and paused just before Damian and Y/N got dunked. He zoomed into the one of the trees on the other side of the lake. Damian slightly pushed Cassandra to the side to get a better look at the screen. “We were stalked the whole trip…” Tim whispered in shame as he held his head low. The image of two beings with owl masked took over the screen. They all couldn’t believe their eyes. “so, you’ve been rewatching the footage all this time for this!” Damian snapped as he turned to Tim “and you didn’t bother Sharing this information!” Tim placed his hands on his head “it’s my fault. If only I payed more attention. They were always around us… it’s my fault. Before the car crashed I lost signal and- I should of-” Cassandra lightly pinched Damian. He looked her in eyes only to be met with a glare. Stephanie gently placed her hands on Tim’s “Timmy it’s not your fault. You didn’t kill them.” Tim’s lips wobbled as Stephanie slowly stood him up and lead him to the bed. Cassandra side eyed Damian with a clear message: if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all.  Cassandra sat on Tim’s other side. The two ladies provided him much comfort that he clearly needed. He cried for the first time in a long while. ** ~Later that night~ Alfred pressed buttons on the keyboard “Master Damian, Gorden would like to meet with you in 45 minutes.” He heard the bat mobile rev it’s engine “inform him I’ll be on the way. Please send him the evidence I’ve gathered.” “Yes sir.” Alfred kept a straight face as one of his many grandchildren left the cave. Once he was sure that he was by himself he reviewed the evidence Tim had found. He frowned upon seeing the screenshots of the various owled stalkers as tears slowly streamed down his eyes. When he heard the news of their death he couldn’t believe it. For the first time ever he lost his cool and in a blind rage sabotage the owls on all fronts. He remembered many police and GCPD raiding the houses of many elites. Even though he knew they could just pay off the crooked cops eventually, Alfred wanted to make them suffer for taking the lives of his family.  “Alfred. Come in.” Red Hoods voice came into the screen, bringing him back to reality. “Yes Redhood?” “Why is Damian on my turf?” “I’m sorry?” Redhood rolled his eyes “Batman is beating up Black Skulls goons. Why is he here?” Alfred's eyes widened. A serious case of Deja vu swarmed him. Especially coming from Jason of all people. He pulled up a map of the city, a red dot weaved its way through the traffic. “That’s not Batman.” Alfred said sending the information to Jason. Jason’s blood ran cold. He let out a small laugh as he looked up at the imposter Darknight.

 “Hey dickhead. I thought the blood son told you he’s got it.”

The Batman punched the last guard before slowly walking towards Redhood. Jason didn’t move, he was curious to see what would happen. The man stood in front of him, and that’s when Jason felt his blood run cold. 

Jason jumped back and pulled out his guns “who the hell are you?” The man’s head began to slightly twitch “D-Dick? Grayson” His body soon convulsed, his legs began to tremble “Richard, Jason, Tim, Damian, Cassandra, Stephanie… Y/N” He placed his hands on his head, as if he were going through a nasty headache  “I-Im sorry. Y/N, s-she’s out there” Jason holstered his weapons and ran to him. He looked around first to make sure the coast was clear before kneeling down “Bruce?” “F-Find her. She’s- Your mother is-” Suddenly Jason was flung back. Pain shot up his chest as he landed on the ground. He recovered quickly. Standing up only to be met with another punch. Before he knew it, the Dark Knight was gone. Jason felt the adrenaline pump through his veins. No way, no way Bruce returned. Someone used the pit. But that’s impossible. “Alfred. Get an excavator.” Jason shouted as he ran to his motorcycle  ~~~ Alfred frowned as Jason continued to dig. He know eventually the other children would return from patrol, and for once he truly wishes his little hunch was nothing more then a thought. Jason finally heard a clunk, he quickly swept the dirt along the casket of his supposed adoptive father. He opened it, seemingly on cue the moonlight shone upon an empty casket. “No. No no no!” Alfred fought tears himself, how could he let something like this happen again.  Jason’s rage was incomprehensible. Who dared do something like this. And for how long. The snap of a twig caused the butler to turn slightly. “You have some nerve Todd. I knew you’d do something like this.” Damian then looked to Alfred “and you’re helping him?”  “Master Damian. It’s not what it seems. I can assure you there is reason behind this.” Alfred stated as calmly as he could. Damian in a rage grabbed onto Alfred’s collar “have you been keeping information from me aswell?” “Damian!” Cassandra, And Stephanie pulled Damian from Alfred, whilst Dick stood infront of Alfred protectively.  “J-jason? W-what’s going on. Don’t tell me you.” Tim stuttered over his words as the first thing he noticed was the empty casket that once held the body of his father. “I didn’t do anything.” Jason barked “but it’s exactly what it is. Someone took ‘em. And I saw Bruce during patrol.” Jason attempted to jump out the hole but fell. He let out a huff before trying again only to grab onto something. He looked up to see Dick who gave him a soft smile before hoisting him up. “Thanks.” Jason whispered ”Of course” There was a moment of silence before Damian pushed Cassandra off him “Where are you going?” She asked. “I’m going to see my mother. She is the only woman that could be capable of something like this.” It was faint, but Cassandra heard his voice shake slightly. “I’ll go with” Stephanie walked towards Damian and pinched his cheek, causing the teen to grumble “You’ll need backup. And someone to keep your head steady.” Dick walked over to Tim, the teen looked up at his older brother with tear stained eyes. “Does that mean mom. Mom is back too?” Tim had mixed feelings. On the one hand this was wrong. This was so wrong in many ways, but on the other hand this is a second chance. A chance to safe Y/N and Bruce. Dick brought him into a hug before looking at his family “Alright listen up. Damian, Cassandra, Steph. You three investigate the Al Ghul’s while Tim, Jason and I will look into mom. Since the court of owls were behind this, we’ll see if there has been any activity.” Jason brushed his fingers through his hair as the sun began to rise “We sould inform the league, the more eyes the better.” He let out a long sigh “This family is too complicated.”

#batmom reader #batman angst #batman x reader #BatFam #dick grayson #Jason Todd #Tim Drake #Damian Wayne #stephanie brown #Cassandra Cain

[thetistaboveall]

Batman: The Psychology Of The Dark Knight

The moon lights up a other wise dim alley way in the systemic unraveling of what was Gotham city.

Some unknown lower level thugs race in to a alley way breathing heavy guns in hand and backs to the wall.

The Batman is hot on the trial of two thieves who are the keys to unlocking a mystery in Gotham.

“He is coming, he’s coming”

“Calm down, he can’t take us”

“Can’t I?”

“It’s the Bat shoot”

“What a rookie mistake Dark Knight walking in to a trap.”

“Who are you?”

Batman turns to face the hidden face in the dark as he steps back and his attention falls to the goons.

The race at him causing his distraction as he fought then only to feel a needle inject in to his skin.

The serum takes effect quickly sending him in to dizzy spinning fit and he falls in to his arms.

“Hurry bois! Pick him up”

“Bring him to the lab and set him up”

“Sure thing boss”

The body is off the ground in minutes he is loading on to a elevator going to the sub basement.

Bruce’s eyes groggy as ever still under the Serbian influence can only check out his surroundings.

His eyes pick up a young man on a throne with Superman at his feet kissing his hand.

Bruce is lock inside of glass pod strap to the seat under him that is until the programming began.

The white noise enters the pod along side a orderless gas permeating his mind Bruce makes his best.

Batman fails to escape the man with a tens of millions of back up plans finally fails.

I am the young man I proudly speak in to the microphone and the command the pod to begin.

The glass is covering up in a steel case, the gas overtakes the pod, and Batman falls.

The mind confirm binary sounds attach to the low pitch sounds melt his mind breaking him.

A screen rolls down to meet his face turning on I appear on the screen.

“You are probably wondering who I am and why I am doing this?”

That same night Dick Grayson Aka Hero of Bludhaven Nightwing arrived at his old stopping ground.

“Alright show yours, who dares to call me here.”

“I dared.”

“What why? Who are you?”

“No you can’t be “

“Dad? You are dead”

“You can have him if you join me”

“Who are you?”

“I have many names, I am the ring Master for now.”

Dick can’t move a muscle standing mindless at attention feeling feel fear and excitement

The man jumps off the truck he is on in the distance landing on the ground he walks to Dick.

“What do you want from me you fiend”

“Fiend? Watch your mouth”

“Here take this bar soap”

“What bar? Stop these games”

“This one here you go”

“Nnnmmmmmmppppfff”

“Mwahahahahaha “

“You should know it would be in you best interest to join us.”

“Who’s us? Fuck you!”

“Them barf bag”

Dick is stunned to see his father figure Bruce and his idol Clark kneeling in total submission.

The Ring Master meets Dicks eyes as they glow bright blue and change Dicks eye color as well.

Dicks head is out of sorts seeing flying objects in the air and he can’t get a sense of anything anymore.

“What’s going? Why do I feel so weak?”

“You are giving in, you are embracing and you are growing.“

“No! I can’t, I won’t “

“Uuuuuuugggggghhhh”

“Take him in with you guys and prep him”

So happy with my victory I did not expect any interruptions and yet the alarm goes off.

“God damn it! Who’s that?”

“For fucks safe”

“Oh it’s the new boy wonder”

“Yuck! Uuuuggggghhh”

“I suppose better late then never”

“Speaker on”

“Speaker on”

“Hello Boy Wonder”

“Jason Todd is it?”

“How do you know my name?”

“Bruce told me”

“He would never”

“Oh yeah! He is on my team now”

“So is Nightwing”

“Liar”

“Say that to my face”

“I’m coming for you freak”

Robin uses his grabble hook shooting up

to the roof and speeding up.

On the roof top a familiar face waits in red, yellow and blow costume.

“Superman huh?”

“I could use your help “

“Oh I will help you”

“Wait! Those eyes are like his”

“He assume control over you too”

“Smart ass I see, not as dumb as you look”

“No…..let me go”

“Mwahahahahaha “

“Let’s go flying”

“Master here is “

“Pop him in the pod”

“Sir Yes Sir”

“My collection in Gotham is complete”

The end

#Hypno Zeros

[butwhyduh]

Getting tall

Summary: Damian finally hits his growth spurts and the fam have opinions. Some damijon, timkon, jaytemis, and dickori mentioned.

Damian was an adorable tiny murder baby when he first showed up at the manor. Like a feral kitten. Short end of normal growth at 10 years old and thin too, Dr Leslie found. Make sure he eats 3 square meals and snacks when he wants and he’ll be just fine. Alfred had made it his mission, as he had done for both Jason and Tim, to put weight on Damian.

The first family member he outgrew was Cass. She reached over to ruffle his hair only to reach up above her head rather than below it. She didn’t mind. 5’4 isn’t very tall. She’d just have to remember that the next time they spar. Height wasn’t an important factor to her.

It was a few months later that Damian hit a massive growth spurt and grew 4 inches. He passed by 5’6 Stephanie.

“Hey little dude. What are they puttin in your food, miracle grow?” She asked when she noted how tall he was and how big his feet had gotten. Damian was a bit like the giant puppies all gangly. Alfred was adjusting the Robin costume monthly after Damian rushed to put it on for patrol one day and every time he raised his arms he felt his stomach show. Clothes were constantly being bought that met his newest height increase. The Kents were very appreciative of the barely worn clothing Jon got as Damian went through another pair.

“I’m perfectly normal in growth,” he said pulling on the hem of his shirt that was growing shorter by the day. Stephanie eyed him but left it. Tim hated the height jokes they would make when everyone started passing him in height. Nowadays Tim just rolled his eyes and deferred all short jokes to Bart who Damian was now taller than. Bart didn’t care at all because he was short but he was also at least top 3 faster people ever so who cares right?

For a very short time, Damian was taller than Jon. He liked that. Jon thought it was pretty funny.

“D, I’m going to be taller. My dad and mom are both taller than yours. I’ll be taller in the end,” Jon said with a grin before Damian pushed him off the roof. Jon giggled and stared at Damian with obvious heart eyes. The kid was definitely smitten.

Tim was half an inch taller. He didn’t acknowledge it in any way. But it wasn’t surprising. His mother was tiny, his father lower end of average, and Tim probably skipped too many meals with working during an important growth phase while he was becoming Robin. 5’8.5 is a perfectly normal height for a man. He had an easier time with stealth.

Bruce watched as his son grew more handsome and taller everyday. He recognized things he hadn’t taken the time to see with Dick or Jason and had missed completely with Tim. Aftershave, cologne, and deodorant budget went up exponentially and Damian was barred from bringing any of his shoes in the house and his Robin uniform had to double washed occasionally. He spent far longer in the bathroom doing his hair and agonizing over any spot on his face.

Bruce even once caught Damian do the lean on the doorframe while talking to someone they like when Jon visited once. He had to give the worst birds and bees talk of all time. Bruce also noted how Damian had Talia’s nose and his lip curled the same way hers did when he smiled. He stretched when walking to the breakfast table the same way Dick did.

Damian didn’t get another true growth spurt for 2 years. There was plenty of jokes that he jumped up to his height and didn’t move again. Jon was once again taller than Damian. Alfred was ready this time with the massive amount of food the 15 year old could put away and panels in his costume for easier adjustments.

Talia smiled proudly at her son as he grew taller than her. He was turning out handsome like his father but kept her feature and in her mind, that was the perfect combo. She never told Damian because she didn’t him to grow arrogant.

Dick didn’t notice it right away. He was so busy with Bludhaven and the Titans that he didn’t notice Damian had gotten a full inch taller than him. He only realized when him and Damian practiced a complex move that required a taller and shorter partner while training. They paired up as they always did and the maneuver completely fell apart. Dick was mentally putting together why it failed when Damian walked over and it clicked. Little D was not so little anymore.

“You’re taller than me,” he said brightly. Damian immediately grinned.

“So now you’re little D,” Damian said back. Dick laughed at that one.

“Don’t let it go to your head. I can throw you around like a tilt-a-whirl,” Dick warned. Of course, that’s exactly what happened the next time they sparred when Damian tried to use his height advantage.

“I can beat Jason so don’t think you can beat me just by being bigger,” Dick said standing over Damian who rolled his eyes.

Dick had no problem with Damian getting taller. It was his own height he had a complicated relationship with. See, Dick grew up as an acrobat. Being tall is a disadvantage. More weight to swing, more body to move. And his father had told him growing up that almost every Grayson man has been 5’8. It’s a legacy as strong as flying above the circus crowd.

And so when at 15, Dick was very distraught with the fact that he hadn’t stopped growing at 5’8. It felt like a part of his history and family legacy had died. He wasn’t one of the 5’8 Grayson men. He never told anyone beside Kori, late at night where she told him she loved him tall or small. She had already far outpaced Dick and was on her way to being 6’4.

Duke and Alfred and Damian were the same height for a short while. Duke would joke that he could just wear the Robin’s costume since they were the same size. Damian would threaten to disembowel him if he touched it and that made Duke laugh even more.

When he grew taller Duke once again joked with Damian calling him a not so jolly green giant and Alfred considered his nutrition attempt a complete success. Damian went from a tiny kid to a tall strong young man.

Damian and Jon were practically the same size for a while. Jon barely bent his neck to rest his chin on Damian’s shoulder as his partner worked on a complex mechanical part. Then Jon hit another growth spurt to end in his final height of 6’2, same as Bruce and his father. Damian enjoyed having a taller boyfriend for a while but would never say anything. High school dances were nice.

Bruce could see Damian getting taller and stronger and was practically grown. Dr Leslie warned Bruce that growth could continue until Damian was in his early 20s and he could end up a quite tall young man or stop tomorrow.

Jason liked being the tallest and biggest in the family. He had an entire inch in height on Bruce and was at least 20 lbs heavier. He was built like tank. When Jason had died at 15, he was terrifyingly thin. Alfred had tried his best but Jason had suffered malnutrition and hunger from practically birth. He was short and thin and Dr Leslie had told Bruce he probably always would be. And so when Jason came back to life a giant 6’3 and over 200 lbs, it was a shock. It took him forever to accept his size as anything more than an amour to create fear in his enemies. The first time he had accidentally scared a woman walking in the street at night, Jason had hated that he was so big. But within his family, it had become a source of pride. He was certainly taller than Dick and Alfred and even Bruce.

So when he visited Cass’s birthday party and Jason stood next to Damian and realized that the kid was taller than him, he was a little shocked. Damian had reached his final height of 6’4.

“When the hell did you get so big?” Jason asked while cake was being served. Dick nosed in the conversation.

“Little D is taller than you now,” he said with a teasing grin at Jason.

“And yet you insist on calling me Little D,” Damian said with an eye roll.

“I call him Big D,” Jon said with a smile. Dick blanched and Jason coughed out an awkward laugh.

“Good for you, bro,” he said patting Damian on the back. Jon blushed at the sudden understanding.

“No! I mean- he’s taller than me. I didn’t mean- uh,” Jon stuttered. Damian grabbed him by the shoulder and dragged him away from his brothers who were laughing.

“It’s weird you know,” Jason admitted, scratching the back of his neck.

“The fact that he is dating Jon?”

“No, they’ve been together forever. That he’s taller than me,” Jason said.

“Are you- does it bother you that you aren’t the tallest?” Dick asked with a gleeful smile.

“No,” Jason said abruptly.

“It could be like how I learned my little brother was bigger than me,” Dick teased. “All of a sudden you were just massive. My tiny little brother was this big dude. Good thing I’m comfortable with my masculinity.”

“Your girlfriend is like 6 inches taller than you. If that isn’t emasculating then there’s nothing I could do,” Jason answered.

“Yeah, she’s always been taller than me,” Dick said with a fond smile. “You can’t talk with the Amazon you’ve been hanging with.” He pushed Jason’s shoulder with a grin.

“We’re just friends-I guess,” Jason said uncomfortable. “That’s not the same-“

“Well at least Tim will always be our little brother,” Dick changed the subject but mentally noted Jason’s reaction to the mention of Artemis.

“Yeah, he’ll always be a shrimp,” Jason agreed.

“Honestly fuck you both,” Tim said from across the room. With Kon standing next to him he certainly looked tiny.

“Hey, it’s my birthday and I am the shortest and I can still kick all of your butts,” Cassandra reminded them both and they laughed but neither corrected her because they knew she was right.

#batfam #batfamily #dc fanfic #dc batfam #Damian Wayne #damijon #damian wayne x jon kent #Damian al ghul #Cassandra cain #tim drake #tim drake x Kon kent #timkon #Duke thomas #Alfred pennyworth #Talia al ghul #dick Grayson #dickori #dick grayson x koriand’r #Jason todd #Bruce Wayne #jaytemis #jason todd x artemis of bana mighdall

[more-cardigan-than-woman]

No More Secrets Part 3

Summary: You and ya Bestie move to Bludhaven looking for a fresh start. It is totally cool and you SO don't have a crush on him.

Charcaters: F!Reader x Dick Grayson

Words: 1.7k

An: What up Besties? This is later than I hoped, mostly because I got distracted by all the fuckin hot people on TikTok, like shit! Where all these fine folks been hiding my whole life? Also I'm writing this along side my Billy Russo story and Billy can be a bit of a distraction. Many loves, anyways... This is the where the fun begins.

Warnings: Swearing, alcohol, kissing, SMUT!!!!!

{Part 2}

THIS IS AN 18+ONLY STORY FROM HERE! MINORS DNI.

You shared deep longing kisses, your lips barely parting as he carried you to his room, your sweet wine breath, mixing with a taste that only belonged to him. Heaven. You could kiss him forever, opening the door with a hand still underneath you, he threw you directly on to the bed. Your body bouncing on the mattress, you leaned up onto your elbows, watching him watch you.

“Got a thing for Nightwing babe?” he winked, confidently at you.

“I'm starting to” you kick your heels off, surprised they hadn’t fallen on the way in. Your panties are soaked. Maybe he won't notice? His large hands collided with the bed, crawling up the bed towards you. He stopped his face hovering over you, your hands stretching to remove the mask. Gotta see the rest of that pretty face.

“Don't wanna keep it beautiful, what about the mysterious Nightwing?” he smirks down at you. Hell no! I wanna see all of you. You giggle at your thoughts.

“No, I wanna see your pretty face,” the words coming out before you even realise, were you still drunk? You certainly didn’t feel drunk, well maybe drunk on Dick’s lips, but that’s not the same.

“I am pretty,” his cocky smile spreading all over his face, taking it off he kissed every bit of your skin he could find. You moaned his name, aching for more of him.

“Dress off?” He asked, you nodded, a bit lost in a haze of anticipation to talk right now, your mind couldn’t stop spinning. Were you really doing this? When did this happen? Surely this was just a distraction, for him. Your mind resetting back to him when his lips met your pulse point. Fuck take it all off. Surprising you he grabbed it by the hem, his strong, muscled arms flexing as he ripped it in half.

“HOLY FUCK.” you don’t realise you said that outloud, if your panties weren't soaking before they fucking were now. Laying before him, dressed only in your panties, softly panting, eyes half open as you take him in.

“You're so beautiful” he kissed and praised up your stomach, arms, neck. Lips locking desperately with yours. Why did I wait so long for this?.

“Dick... please.. “ you pleaded between breaths. Touch me more. Everywhere. You needed to find your voice. Your core ached, feeling his own desire growing quickly as he ruts into your thigh. Did he feel Big? No. More like fucking massive! Sliding out off the top of his suit, glistening in sweat, his tight and defined abs were hard and slick under your hands. His fingers slowly ghosting over your clothed pussy, yours grasping at his back. His long fingers pressed in, rubbing your clit, calloused fingers dancing along your slit.

“Baby, you're so wet.” Yes, Yes, I am. “All this for Nightwing?” growling into your mouth. Mmm friction, touch me, need you.

“Please” Is what you managed to get out. He slid a finger in, curling and exploring inside you, his watchful eyes studying your face, memorizing your reactions to his ministrations, “More, Dick” Another finger entered you, finally finding that magic spot inside you, your back arched into his hand.

“Found it,” Dick smiled, capturing your lips in his, speeding up his movements, while his thumb flicked quickly over your clit. Your breaths grew heavier, your muscles tensed as pure waves of bliss washed over you, you came undone, chanting and panting his name over and over and over again. Your nails digging into his hard bicep before you take a deep breath, sighing heavily into the mattress. Peeping your eye open you see him watching you, your arm resting over your forehead.

“You're perfect like this” he said, removing his fingers from you and bringing them into his mouth, he groaned at the taste, “You want Nightwing to fuck you baby,” he leans down to whisper in your ear, “coz he sure wants to fuck you.”

“Mmmmm” . yes, yes. Where did my words go? Getting up to remove the rest of his armor, you were aching at the loss of touch. As soon as he was gone, he was back. Dragging your thighs up to meet him, the angry looking tip pressed lightly against your core.

“Is that a yes?" he leaned down to kiss into your pulse point, "Words gorgeous,” he growled in your ear as his kisses peppered up your neck. shit ok. Words. Focus. Shut your eyes. How can I talk while he's doing that? Find the words…...there.

“Please Dick,” you pleaded, “I need you to fuck me.” you moaned desperately, smiling at how you had found the words. That seemed to do the trick. He slid into you slowly, "Fuck, you feel perfect baby,” he groaned,

“Fuck, Dick,” you moaned in response, he filled you so deliciously, massaging you wonderfully as he eased into you. When he was fully seated within you he stopped, allowing you time to adjust to how perfectly he filled you. FUck, he feels amazing

“Move,'' you pleaded. Slowly, carefully he thrust into you, withdrawing almost all the way out. Before thrusting in again, it was agonising, delicately building your pleasure. You raised your hips to meet his pace, his strong hands bracketing your head.

“So beautiful, perfect,” he growled into mouth. God he was everything, Handsome, perfect. Like a roman hero piercing into you.

“You... feel ...amazing,” you panted, as your eyes began to glaze over. He did. The way he was looking at you like you were the centre of his universe. Gentle, but hungry kisses, matching his thrusts like he was savouring every moment. Your climax building fast under his hungry gaze, his slow movements hit all those right spots, inside you as your legs started to shake. Repeating his name like it was the only word you knew, nails stabbing into his back, keeping you tethered to the earth as you sailed slowly into your second high, your core clenching, fluttering around him. Your screams of his name echoing off the walls, the slow pace kept until you were completely undone.

Dick gave you a moment to rest, just a moment. Before seizing your knees, hoisting them over his elbows. Somehow he delved deeper, picking up the pace. His face buried into your neck, growling lewd things in your ear. "Fuck, been keeping this tight, perfect pussy away from me for far to long." You were building up again, Fuck your gunna faint. The sound of his hot breath and dirty words urging you on. This is killing you, you're gunna die.

“I'm going to ruin you” he growled, biting down hard on your shoulder. as if he already hadn't.

“I can't, Dick” you whined.

“You’ll never get this anywhere else baby.” dont.. No.. mouth shut..

“D..i...c...k”

“Come on my dick. Come on baby, Come for Dick again.” his voice low and rough when he groaned into you.

A silent scream filled the air as you reached your peak again, Dick followed you into ecstasy, moaning your name loudly. His hot seed coating your insides, his loud cries filling the hair, his hot breath fanning in your ear. He rests his head in your nape as you both attempt to catch your breath.

Until he collapsed on you. Heavy...heavy..need..air. You snaked your arms around him, sprinkling kisses across his sweaty face. You feel him smile into the nape of your neck.” Dick, I..can’t-'' your voice is breathless and hoarse. Seeming to catch your meaning, he rolled off you. You took in a large breath as he maneuvered you onto his chest.

“How long?” he glances down at you, encircling you and tugging you closer to him.

“Hmm” you replied sleepily, how long what? How long were you gonna sleep? Forever. Dicks fingers found their way under your chin, tilting your face up to look at him.

“How long babe?” He repeated as you blinked the sleep out of your eyes.

“How long have I had a thing for men in Kevlar?” you teased. He frowned down at you, knowing you were avoiding the question. what did he expect?

“Remember your sweet 16 and our parents made us dance?” he sighed, his fingers stroking softly on your face, you gave him a small nodd. “You looked so beautiful in that red dress, twirling you around in my arms,” Dick’s fingers tickle little circles into your back, “Then we snuck into the pool house and got wasted watching scary movies. You fell asleep on top of me, those soft little drunken snores replayed in my mind for months. Bruce was so mad at me. Worth it though,” He leaned down, kissing into your hair, “I knew then I was a goner”

“Wait what? 7 Years!” you exclaimed, smacking him playfully on the chest. Eh … people in glass houses. He leaned down to kiss you, his long fingers stroking your lips.

“I showed you mine. How long?” he smiled down at you. OK here goes, deep breath, the stones.

“Since the moment Robin stuck into my room to tell me all his secrets.” Blurting it out as fast as you could.

“Wait... I was only 13 then?”

“Hmm” you tried to bury your face in your hands on his chest.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” his face genuinely perplexed. haha and you thought you were crazy.

“You never had a need for company, always some pretty thing on your arm, didn't want to get in the way.” you tried to sound casual.

“Like you can talk, men were falling over each other just to get a glimpse of you. I got so jealous, I started trying to find the prettiest people, trying so hard to make you notice me, hoping you’d be jealous.” Idiots you’re a pair of class A idiots. You laughed full and hearty, your chest shaking against Dicks.

“That's ridiculous. You copied my plan!” you giggled, his hands clung tightly to your waist as you traced the scars covering his chest. You heard his voice, but couldn’t make out the words feeling yourself drifting off to sleep, in the one place you only dreamed possible.

Part 4

#No More Secrets #dick grayson x reader #dick grayson my beloved #female reader x dick grayson #dick grayson fanfic #dick grayson x reader insert #dick grayson smut #dick grayson

[thevindicativevordan]

Why isn't Nightwing a bigger deal? He has all of Batman's skills and Superman's faith in humanity and is arguably the most beloved hero in the DCU, but most people seem to know him either as the leader of the N̶o̶t̶ ̶J̶L̶ Teen Ttians or just Robin.

Thank you for asking me about Nightwing, I've been wanting to write a piece about him for a while now. The short version is that everyone who claims Dick becoming Nightwing was him "moving out of Batman's shadow and becoming his own man" is completely wrong.

Dick Grayson is a fantastic character, someone who saved Bruce Wayne in-universe both by forcing Batman to grow up a bit, and the countless times he saved Batman's life as his partner whether as Robin or Nightwing. Dick saved Batman in the real world as well, hard to believe but Batman was actually in danger of being cancelled due to poor sales early on. Enter Robin, a young daredevil audience stand in the creators hoped would get kids interested in reading Batman. And it worked! Sales on Batman doubled once Robin showed up which is crazy to think about, but Dick Grayson has always been a popular character. Cartoons like Teen Titans, Batman: The Animated Series, and The Batman only helped grow his audience.

Character-wise, Dick Grayson really does fill a number of crucial roles in the DCU. For Batman, Dick is proof that Batman is a positive force. Meeting Batman helped change Dick for the better, helped him heal after his parents died. With Dick, Batman can take comfort in knowing that yes, he has made a difference in the world for at least one orphan boy, which is all he wanted when he lost his parents himself. To the wider DCU, Dick is a friendly face who convinces others that Batman is competent and not a complete asshole. He took this kid in, trained him to be one of the best heroes the DCU has seen, and did it all out of the kindness of his heart. That someone like Dick can confront the evils of Gotham and not break means there's still hope for that city. As Robin, Dick has led the Titans and is an icon in his own right as The Sidekick, the original, the one every other Robin is built around copying or contrasting. The one all other superhero sidekicks are drawing on as a basis. As Robin Dick Grayson is very much on Batman's level.

Just not as Nightwing. As Nightwing, Dick has been a second rate Daredevil which means he's a third rate Batman (fully prepared to get hate for this but I've read and enjoyed the Miller and Bendis DD runs so I feel entitled to my opinion). A typical Nightwing run tends to go like this: Moving to Bludhaven (which is Gotham... but WORSE!), Dick Grayson usually enrolls in a pointless job we don't care about in order to provide some meaningless soap opera drama that doesn't go anywhere. Patrolling the city as Nightwing, he fights a variety of bad guys who are usually rather lame and unthreatening, with his big bad being a Kingpin knockoff called Blockbuster. Villains are fought, long running plotlines are set up, then everything is abandoned because it's Batfamily event time, and Dick has to run back to Gotham in order to play sidekick again. Usually his involvement is completely superfluous and it would've been better if the writer had gotten to opt out. By the time we finally get back to Nightwing's solo plotlines, the audience has usually ceased to care and the run gets cut short.

That's how Nightwing has been since the New 52 at least. Anyone who thinks that's "becoming their own man" is out of their mind. Dick is so thoroughly in Batman's shadow that he got shot in the head and spent a longer time as "Ric" which everyone fucking hated and sold like shit, than he did as Agent Grayson which was extremely well-received. Reiterating: Ric went on longer than Grayson because of a fucking Batman plotpoint Tom King wanted where Bruce was sad and cut off from the Batfamily because of Dick getting shot. Not just calling out King either, how many times was Kyle Higgins Nightwing run derailed because of Scott Snyder's crossovers? Or how about that entire run getting dumped to the side because Johns wanted to out Dick during Forever Evil, a Justice League/Lex Luthor story? DC has repeatedly made their contempt for Nightwing clear, he's Batman's sidekick still in their eyes, and he serves whatever story role the Batman writer wants.

Hell his best stories tend to have been the ones where he's not Nightwing. He was Robin in a good chunk of the Wolfman/Perez New Teen Titans run. Morrison really showcased his depth as a character when they wrote him as Batman, their time with Dick under the cowl was actually one of the first Batman runs I ever read, and no Nightwing run has ever matched it in terms of quality in my humble opinion. Scott Snyder's work with DickBats also was a high point for the character, showing Dick as competent and examining his relationship with Gotham and the Gordons. King and Seeley gave him one of the best comic runs with Grayson, a series where he wasn't even a "superhero" technically! When it comes to actual pre-New 52 Nightwing runs that are highly recommended where he *is* Nightwing, there's Chuck Dixon and uhhhhhhh... Tomasi's brief run before Dick became Batman? It's not exactly an overwhelming list.

Look there has been good work done with Nightwing, I'm not claiming there hasn't been. Tim Seeley wrote a great run with Nightwing Rebirth. Seeley fleshed out Dick's Rogues Gallery with cool new ones like Raptor, he brought back old foes like Dr. Hurt (why oh why couldn't you have brought back Flamingo too?), he gave Dick's world some character it solely needed. Bludhaven under Seeley is pretty much the only time I've really felt like it lived up to being Dick's city.

The problem with fictional cities is you have to put in the work to give them the character of real cities. You have to make the cities feel like characters in their own right. Gotham is the best example of this, it's a character all it's own, one that tells you a lot about Batman and his cast. In contrast Bludhaven is usually one of the worst. Any place that wants to claim to be worse than the city that is built over the gate to hell and gets wrecked every other month by the Arkham freaks has to really put in the work to compete. Simply put, Bludhaven typically fails utterly. There's nothing about it that makes you really buy it's worse than Gotham, I mean does anyone really think Nightwing's Rogues wouldn't get their lunches eaten by Batman's? No, no one genuinely buys that. When Bludhaven claims to be worse, it just comes across as tryhard, an attribute that does end up telling you about Nightwing in unintentional ways.

So Seeley didn't do that. Instead he created a city built for a hero like Dick Grayson. Someone who is bright and flashy, but does have an element of darkness to him. Someone who loves the spotlight, but often uses it to obscure. Seeley turned Bludhaven into Las Vegas, and that was the fucking best concept for Bludhaven I have ever seen, it makes so much sense. Las Vegas is the "Entertainment Capital of the World" and isn't that the perfect city for a hero who got their start working in the circus? Isn't the aesthetics of the gleaming casinos, the glamorous sex appeal of the performers, and the spectacle of the shows, all being used to cover up the seediness of mob bosses meeting backstage perfect for Nightwing? It's so utterly unlike New York City, yet Las Vegas is still dangerous, it's got a crime culture all it's own. Seeley used it to great effect, as did Humphries during his brief run, and I will always be pissed that DC didn't continue to use it. That should have stuck around and been the definitive look for Bludhaven.

How Seeley's take on Bludhaven was treated feels like a small scale version of how Nightwing in general gets treated. Whenever creators pitched ideas for him, if editorial thought there was potential to break big, they asked for those ideas to be repurposed for Batman instead. Anything big or good gets repurposed for Batman or tossed to the side so Nightwing can go back to his default: having irrelevant adventures in a city that is supposedly worse than Gotham but can't live up to it. Just like how Nightwing is supposedly better than Batman but never gets to show it. Goddamn it's so frustrating seeing his potential get wasted like that.

The Nightwing book should be one of DC's most ambitious books in terms of storytelling. You can go from traditional superhero stories, to romantic soap opera, to spy stories, to crime noir, to horror, to cosmic adventures, and ALL of them would fit because Nightwing is someone who has a foot in both Gotham and Metropolis. He's got friends everywhere on every team, and has been a hero longer than most Leaguers have at this point. No reason DC should still be afraid to let him loose and insisting on hewing close to what Dixon established almost over 30 years ago is only holding him back. At the very least get him some better Rogues, why the hell didn't he get to keep Professor Pyg? That's Dick's villain not Bruce's! Bullshit that they didn't let Dick keep him. Hopefully Flamingo comes back, with a slight revamp I think he'd make a great reoccurring Nightwing Rogue.

Luckily it does look somewhat like Nightwing fans have reason to be optimistic. While Taylor isn't to my taste, DC clearly views him as a "big" writer, and that they put him on Nightwing says a lot. Taylor has been selling well so far, so hopefully he gets to tell his story, hilarious that even he lampshaded having to write Dick running over to Gotham for another tie-in after Taylor's big opening arc was all about Dick committing himself and his money to Bludhaven. Scott Snyder is apparently working on a Black Label Nightwing book which will explore how he's a different detective than Bruce. The Gotham Knights video game has him as one of the main stars, and while Titans is... controversial, it's one of the most popular streaming shows and Dick is the main character. There's a lot of content coming that features him in the starring role, and that will only help his star rise further.

For the first time in, well, ever it feels like DC may be serious about elevating him. Time will tell if it pays off, but I for one choose to be optimistic that the 2020s will be a turning point for Dick Grayson where Nightwing becomes hugely popular in his own right. Not just as Batman's sidekick.

#nightwing #dick grayson #batman #gotham knights #titans #dc comics

[batarella]

3 birds 1 stone - chapter 1

‘Dick, Jason, and Tim. Supposed brothers 'till the end, until all three fall in love with you. Who wins your heart?

 The man who earned it, the man who stole it, or the man who always had it?’

A/N: Having a different approach to my formats. I’ve never been so nervous in creating something so difficult to do for you guys, especially since I’m here writing about the THREE HOTTEST MEN IN THE PLANET. Hoes and bros, I present to you a very indecisive reader and three assholes in a WWE ring.

WORDS: 6483 WARNINGS: NONE

 MASTERLIST | 3 BIRDS 1 STONE MASTERLIST

-----

You were there when it happened.

You didn’t want to be there.

But you were.

It would have been an eventful enough day, one of those you’d never live to forget, perhaps even in death. As dramatic as that would sound, it was true. The tears had already beaten you in awakening that dim morning and you knew it wasn’t in any way going to get any brighter, no matter how much of the sun was going to show up. You could, in detail, recall the sting in your muscles when you pulled on that bright orange dress, fixed your hair up in a bun and unenthusiastically put on your makeup. Bruce picked you up and you tried so hard to hide how you were practically dead on arrival to the Richard Grayson and Koriand’r Wedding.

Smiles. Even when they were uncalled for. It was so much more painful to do when it hurt every minute that ticked away, every second that carefully tore out every other smidge of hope you always thought there was. It was on you, then. For thinking there was any at all.

Kory looked stunning down that aisle, of course. Like all the other people in the room were rubbish. You couldn’t even watch her. Or him, standing at the end of that aisle with a smile so bright you wished was caused by anything else but her. But it was.

So you had your eyes closed. Or at least tried to.

Until it happened.

The sister. She looked exactly like Kori, except her flowing mane of hair was jet black and her skin burned red. Eyes were white, everything else she had on was dark. Blackfire.

Then the cheers turned into screams. Flower petals turned into broken glass. The fairy lights and décor turned into fire beams and lasers.

If it weren’t in a room full of superpowered heroes and vigilantes, they all would have died right then and there.

In the end, the wedding got called off. Everything was destroyed. Blackfire was sent to space prison and Dick and Kory had to reschedule the wedding.

Three months later, they still weren’t married.

After four months, Dick broke off their relationship entirely.

Five months passed, Kory went back to Tamaran.

At six months, Dick moved to Gotham from Bludhaven.

You never got to talk to Dick about it, or talk to him at all beyond the small exchanges and light conversations over the dinner table at the manor or the chatter by the fireplace. He never mentioned it. You didn’t want to pry. At times, you’d see how he’d stare at the carpet for a minute too long, how his knee suddenly stopped shaking or fidgeting all of a sudden when he got too deep into his thoughts like how he often did when he was bored, and how his laughs felt just a tad bit softer even when the jokes were hysterical.

Everyone told you to let him be for a while, since not even he could get too close to the subject. They told you what he was up to, how he was feeling that day. You tend to ask a lot. Because if there was anything worse than seeing him with someone else, it was seeing him almost destroy his own life part by part over the loss of his love.

No. You weren’t thrilled over what happened. It didn’t give you hope, or let your mind wander over the endless possibilities of what could happen to you, to him, to you both. And even if you had to try so hard, which you didn’t, you couldn’t possibly allow yourself to have some kind of satisfaction over the tragedy, not even when it supposedly served you, what you wanted.

This wasn’t what you wanted. You didn’t want him to lose himself. You didn’t want him to be sunken into an abyss he was trying so hard to come out of.

Eventually, you’ll learn to let go. Properly. On your own pace. Not on anyone else’s.

Almost a year since the incident happened. He was okay now. Made the same jokes he always used to. Brightened up every room he went to. Went out with a few women every now and then. Saying you were used to that last one to the point where it didn’t even bother you anymore was both unnerving and understandable.

Everything was lighter now. Better. Dick was okay.

So why were you so nervous today?

Two pm. He was going to arrive any minute.

Dammit. That canvas. Lying on the floor like you were some kind of slob in a swamp. You went over and placed it against the wall. Plop, it fell right off. Cursing and fixing it up against all the other canvases up in the corner, everything just started to topple down like fucking dominos. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”

You grabbed all the canvases with as much as your arms could carry, frantically looked around your little studio for some kind of rope you could tie these together just so they wouldn’t explode in anyone’s face.

Ding.

“Shiiiii-“

The fucking doorbell, and you didn’t even have any arms to open the door with. You looked to your bedroom, then to your kitchen. Fuck. There was a drawer-shit, it fell to the floor-a drawer right by your bed. You scrambled with your knees shaking harder than the San Andreas fault.

Ding.

“Just a minute!!!”

You stacked them on top of each other, shoved them under your bed, then fixed the mess of a cobweb that was your hair. The mirror must have been kind to you ‘cause you could have sworn you looked like a hobo by now. But there wasn’t any time for that.

Foggy throat cleared, face calm and cool (you hoped), you ran to the door and shook off the nerves.

“Hi, Di-” The door slammed open, only for it to almost pull off the hinges with the chain lock still on. Frantically, you closed it , took off the lock, then swung it again.

“Hi.”

Dick had his hands in his pockets, jacket as blue as his eyes and as bright as the glimmer in its irises. His smile brought both calm and chaos within your veins.

“Sorry. I, uh-“ your thumb pointed to your apartment. “I was cleaning.”

Cleaning?

“That’s okay. Can I come in?”

Poor thing was shivering. “Of course!”

Dick stepped into your apartment and dusted off his clothes. You took his jacket. “Thanks.” Then he ran his long fingers along his black strands.

Putting his coat over the rack, you pulled out the pillows from your lounge chair. “Sit here.”

“It’s fine.” His smile lightened up the room. “Thank you though.”

“Can I get you anything?”

“Just water. Thanks.”

While you went into the kitchen, fumbling with the glass and water pitcher from the fridge, you called out to him. “You can go ahead to my studio!”

“Thanks,” you heard him call you back, then you followed him into the room, handing him the glass.

You already had the paintings lined up for him. Three canvases. Sitting up against the wall in a laid back, almost effortless looking arrangement when in fact, it was a lot of effort. You didn’t want to look like you were trying too hard.

“Christ,” he walked over to the one in the middle. The most recent one you did, one of a birds eye view of the ocean right by the Gotham City docks. “How did you even get this shot?”

“I-uh,” you stood beside him. “It’s a shot from the Batwing. Bruce gave me the footage.”

“And that one?”

Times Square. The building was the only thing on the canvas, but there was so much detail on the windows, on the balconies, and even the neon lights right at the top.

“I took pictures from the street across. They wouldn’t let me stay there with an aisle and all my tools.”

His one knee laying on the ground, Dick took an even closer look at the tower. “Is that a person in the window?”

You looked down. “Yeah…”

“These are incredible.” Dick looked up at you. “I think I’d insult you if I tell you I’m surprised.”

“Well. It was your idea to focus on painting. The blames on you.”

“Nah,” he shook his head, marveling over the canvas. “This is natural talent right here.”

You wished you could bite back the smile as much as you would have liked, but at least his head was turned away.

“How much for these?”

“No. Actually,” you swallowed. “Those are just samples. I wanna make something for you from scratch. Really personalized, you know?”

“Seriously?”

You nodded. “Since you’re permanently moving back to the manor, I thought it would make a good welcome back present.”

His smile was the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen, looking over to you bashfully even when he’s most often the most confident person in the room. You smiled back, but you doubt it was as addicting to watch as his own.

“If it’s not too much trouble-“

“Not at all.”

“I’m really liking this one, though,” He pointed at the third one. One of Bludhaven. From a shot of the city he sent to you himself. Most of the time, you had to work with pictures, and the moment he sent that to you, you just knew you had to paint it. Not for him. For you.

“I’ll make you another one.”

“Y/N-“

“And you don’t have to pay-“

“That, I won't agree to.”

“Dick, it’s a present.”

“This is my way of supporting you. Artists should never do this for free.”

When he placed his hand on your shoulder, you knew there wasn’t any use arguing. He didn’t even know. He’s given you so much support no monetary value could compare to. You didn’t need money.

That, or he didn’t think this present was anything more than a favor or an item to purchase. It shouldn’t be. You knew that. And still you wanted it to be more than that.

Yeah. You were probably making a goof out of yourself if you wouldn’t submit.

This wasn’t a rejection. Telling yourself that should make you feel better.

“Thank you.”

You didn’t look into his eyes when he started walking around the room, at all the other paintings you had laid out. You had a few portraits. One of Bruce, from when he asked you to do one for him a month ago and you still hadn’t finished until now. Who knew his usual scowl was so hard to do? Then there were more landscapes of the city.

“Gotham’s your muse, huh?”

“She’s beautiful when she isn’t so full of shit,” you laughed.

One of more skyscrapers that you laid out to look like Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Another of your works in progress. “I like this one.”

You were right behind Dick as he walked around, taking closer looks at each of them. A few drawings were up on the walls.

“Is that us?”

You went over to his side. “Yeah… It’s a painting I want to do.”

A rough sketch of the whole family. Bruce standing at the top most of the manor’s grand staircase. Dick on the step below. Then Jason leaning against the railing, the only one who wasn’t smiling. Tim sitting with his knees up. Barbara looking beautiful in a bright smile on the same step as Tim. Then Steph sitting on the railway. You standing right beside Steph, arm wrapped around her. Cass with her arms crossed. Duke at the bottom . Then of course, the kid who practically owned the whole manor, little Damian on the ground, at the center with a smug grin and his arms up his chest.

Even if people were to take a second look, they’d think you were a normal, functional family.

“This,” Dick’s jaw was on the ground. “Deserves to be up in the fireplace.”

You snorted. “I haven’t even started on it yet.”

“Oh, I don’t mean the painting. This drawing alone is fantastic.”

You rolled your eyes. “Thank you.”

Biting his lips, he had that same simper of disbelief radiating through even more compliments you couldn’t answer to. You let it get to you. For a while.

It wasn’t exactly going to get any better.

Though your definition of better, shouldn’t be at there all.

“Y/N, I can’t thank you enough.”

You held up your hand. “You’ve been gone from home for too long. I’m just glad your back.”

He walked down to the three paintings you had out for him. “So these paintings are just samples?”

“Yeah. I wanna know which kind you prefer, since you only asked of one of the city. It can be neither of them. Just something that you actually want in your room.”

“Y/N, these are all so amazing as it is.”

“Still.”

Were you doing too much? Were you asking too much? Were you giving too much?

Most fucking probably.

But then he gave you that smile again, the one you dream about for years. One that’s driven you to do so many good things, for others and for yourself.

Your response was with a smile of your own, though it carried with it some remnant of pain from his wedding day.

“So… which one would you like?”

He looked at the paintings again.

“Bludhaven. I guess it would be nice to have some part of it in my room.”

You nodded. “Of course.”

“Trust me. Don’t feel any pressure. I can promise myself this will be the best thing ever.”

Your eyes were stuck to your feet, because if you looked up at his own, you weren’t sure what you might end up saying.

“Thank you. It means a lot. Coming from you.”

His eyebrows were up to his forehead. “Really? I don’t think there’s anyone who doesn’t like your work.”

Yeah. But it’s not the same when it’s coming from you, you asshat.

“I’ll uh-“ You rushed over to your sketchbooks, pulled out your pencil and went over beside Dick. He was smiling at you. “What do you think about the skyline looking like this? Like it was taken from eastern bay.”

You did a quick outline of skyscrapers and a bridge extending to one side, a lone island and clouds on top of it. He nodded. “That looks great.”

“Alright,” you looked up, saw the slight lines at the corners of his eyes and the even more miniscule details on his face that was staring back at you.

“Nice sketchbook.”

“Oh,” you grinned at it, looking over the knitted covers and the expensive looking paper that had hundreds of leaves within its spine. “Thank you. I get one of these every year.”

“You buy them yourself?”

“I don’t. They’re way too expensive.” You placed it on the table. “I get them as a gift.”

“From who?”

“I, uh...” you didn’t want to get into this. “Anyway, would you like to stay over?”

Dick shook his head. “I’d love to, but I have to get going. Some other errands to run. Sorry.”

You nodded. “Of course.”

Hands fidgeting, then stopping when you realized they were fidgeting, Dick stood in front of you and beamed with his million dollar smile. You tried not to look back up at him.

“How are you, Y/N?”

You chuckled. “I’m okay.”

“We’d all love for you to come back to the manor…” He rubbed the back of his neck.

Lips in your teeth, he didn’t look like he was expecting much of a response other than a bashful smile and a shake in your head.

“I mean… I’d love for you to come back to the manor.”

Eyebrows up, you stared back at him. “You would?”

“Of course. It’s been a long since we just hung out. Stop over every once in a while.”

“I, uh-“ you swallowed. “I actually do have to go there next week. Bruce is asking me to send over his pieces.”

“Cool. I’ll see you then.”

You went with him to the door, watched him put on his jacket. “I’ll call”

“Come on, don’t act like I’m some stranger, Y/N.”

It was sad, how casual it was when he pulled you with his arms. His embrace wasn’t so tight, but it was warm. Nose stuck to his shoulder and masking your other raging emotions with a light laugh, you closed your eyes and let the split second last longer than it actually did.

Yeah. You still had it bad. No matter what you seemed to do, it just wouldn’t go away.

He swayed about, patting your back. “Thank you, Y/N.”

“You’re welcome.”

“And,” he pointed his hand at you, then scrunched it up to a fist. “Send me a list of movies you wanna watch. We’ll go through a few of them at the manor. Like we used to.”

“With everyone else?”

“Nah,” he placed his hands in his pockets. “Just us.”

He walked out the door. You closed it behind him and placed the chain lock back.

That encounter lasted ten, fifteen minutes?

It felt both longer and shorter than that. Like a thousand years and a millisecond were the same length.

You were just thankful you didn’t mess up or do anything as embarrassing as you worried it might be.

But it wasn’t as if it was new, or that the nerves and the chills and the blood rushing about was anything you weren’t already used to. Careful around him, sure. You had been since you first met him. But terrified? Nah.

You can be so used to walking around coals and fire and not be afraid of getting burned, yet still have it in you to wear something to protect your skin. Just for the sake of surviving. To get through it smoothly. So it wouldn’t hurt as much.

You slumped onto the lounge chair he didn’t take and closed your eyes. You let the hours pass. You let the clock tick away.

Then you jumped at the buzzing in your pocket. Blinking away the beginnings of a nap, you took your phone.

“Tim?”

“Y/N. You free tonight?”

Two hours had passed since Dick left.

“Yeah. What are you up to?”

“Work. I need company.”

“You sure Bruce is okay with you not going to patrol?”

“He has everyone else. Come on. I’m spending the night at the office.”

“Why me?“

“You can bring your sketchbook. ‘Sides. You haven’t been out of the house for a while.”

“The pictures you send me are good enough source material.”

“You draw a lot better when you’re seeing it with your own eyes.”

Standing from your chair and moving over to get your sketchbook and pencils, you scoffed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know where to meet me.”

He hung up, then you scurried around to get your coat.

-----

“Ms. Y/LN.”

You nodded at the doorman, bag over your shoulder. A number of people were already rushing out of the elevators even when it had only been a minute after office hours, so you had to wait a while before an empty one came down for you.

50th floor. A few minutes of silence in the elevator, then you walked out into a dimmed-out hallway where the other employees had already deserted. The farthest end was a door, unlocked just as Tim said. You stepped inside his office and shrugged yourself off your jacket. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

Tim had his reddening eyes glued to his laptop screen, not even giving you a glance up. Tapping away at the keys, you stretched out and basked in the blowing warmth, at the heater that was running at the side. Holding your hands up at the whiff of air, Tim fell to the back of his seat.

“Christ, my back.”

You snickered. “We do tend to get arthritis even when we’re barely into our twenties.”

“No. We usually don’t.”

“Not if you’re Tim Drake.” You walked over to his desk. “What are you working on?”

“Stuff that Bruce shouldn’t be asking from me in two days. A report on why and how we’ll be able to extend to the west coast, if it’s even possible.”

“Wow. Are you endorsing it?”

“I invented it.”

You brushed back the hair he hadn’t even noticed had fallen into his eyes. One of the reasons why it was almost bulging red. Your exhausted best friend took your hand away and snarled, though it wasn’t without a smirk.

“Then quit complaining. If it’s your idea, it’s your job.”

“I complained about back pains, not the work.”

You leaned back against the table and watched him type.

“Are you really spending the night here?”

“As long as I have to. Then I head back to the manor.”

“And you want me to stay?”

He stopped typing and looked up at you, eyes wide. “Please.”

“Fine.”

You settled yourself on the couch near his desk. “What have you been working on lately?” he asked.

Shrugging, your eyes were on the ceiling. “The portraits for Bruce, mostly. And the portrait of Bruce.”

“I assume that must be dreadful.”

“It’s hard painting his jaw and not give away the fact that he has Batman’s jaw.” You held your hand out. “You just need to cover his eyes and squint. And boom, his identity’s given away. Can’t do that in person but you certainly can to a painting he wants on his foyer that everybody’s gonna see.”

“I never actually thought Bruce wants that.”

“Neither did I.”

“What are his other requests?”

“One of Thomas and Martha. One of the manor.”

“The man wants a painting of the manor in the manor?”

“Yup.”

“When you have the money, I guess.”

“I know. He’s paying me five months’ worth of rent.”

Tim rubbed on the corner of his eye, his hands hovering motionless over his keyboard for a second. You looked over to him.

“You don’t have to, you know. If you just move back with us.”

“I know.”

“You sure you don’t want to? With Dick around now?”

Mouth ever so slightly curving up the side, a long breath escaped your nostrils. “I’m over him.”

“You sure about that?”

When you turned back up to the ceiling, closed your eyes while you had your arms hugging your chest, you heard him tapping on his keyboard after a few seconds of you not answering his question.

“He came over to your house today?”

“Yeah. I’m doing a piece for him.”

“What of?”

“Bludhaven. For his room.”

“Welcome back gift, ey?”

“Yeah. I hope he likes it.”

It almost seemed like he snorted at that. “He’d be stupid not to. I was also gonna ask you to do a piece for me.”

Your eyebrow raised even with your eyes closed. “Really?”

“Yeah. For my office.”

“Tim, I’m doing just fine. I’m not exactly surrounded by butlers and limos but it doesn’t mean I’m struggling.”

“Hey, don’t take it that way,” he said. “We all just love your work.”

“A bit too much, if you ask me.”

“You get better everyday. We’re appreciating it just enough. Like how you deserve to be appreciated.”

You didn’t take that to heart.

This painting all started as a way to let out the trauma, to get out of a life that had taken its toll on you the worst way it possibly could.

This was them feeling bad for you. This was a charity.

It didn’t, however, mean you were going to say no.

You hated it, but you weren’t stupid enough to refuse the cash. You liked having nice things.

“What piece would you like me to do?”

“Your call. You know what I like.”

‘Almost everything then, that’s what you wanted to say back.

A while of lounging around on the couch. A few hours, perhaps. You might have taken a nap, because your head had gone foggy and your eyes were salty when you awoke and the sky had gone completely dark.

“Tim, you should take a break.”

Was that his third cup of coffee sitting on his desk?

Again, with his hair covering his eyes, he had his one hand over his lips, eyes narrowed onto the blue screen that looked painful staring back at him so brightly. He sighed, then rubbed his eyelids with his fingers.

“Come on.” You took his jacket and threw it at him. “Take me up the balcony. Get some air.”

He looked too exhausted to speak. But after you’d gone over to his side and pushed his shoulder, he hissed and closed his laptop. “Fine, jeez.”

Tim looked like a polar bear pulled out of his iceberg when you had him off his desk. He shuffled into his coat, then you both walked out of the room and into the elevators. You held onto your sketchbook and a few pencils.

The balcony at the 70th floor. You haven’t been there for a while. You actually haven’t been in Wayne Tower the past few months at all. So when you stepped out, walked down the hall until you reached the balcony, the heights, the winds, the lights, and the stuttering noises went straight through you, gave you that static-like image that usually resonated within your senses when you sketched out Gotham City.

You sat on the marble railing, swung your legs up on the ledge and placed your sketchbook against your knees.

“You sure you wanna do that?”

You rolled your eyes. “Stop acting like I didn’t use to jump across rooftops.”

Tim was stifling a laugh, not sure if he should. So you pulled out an empty page and started with LexCorp a few blocks away from you. Tim went to sit next to you, then pressed his back against yours while pulling his feet up the same position. He was warm, leverage enough so your back wouldn’t end up hurting after a few minutes. He let you have your silence.

A wide balcony. Half of the page should be of it alone. Though it was just the silhouette, you traced out how the railings looked like if you were standing a few feet back.

Your head tilted to the left the way it does when you went on with your work.

You felt Tim’s back rise, then slowly soften.

“You alright back there?”

“Yeah. I am.”

“You don’t feel like it.”

“I am.” You felt his shoulder slightly brush against yours. You just shook it off then let the edge of the pencil flow lightly over what should be the sky.

A few more minutes, then a helicopter flew over your heads. When it went away, Tim’s head suddenly fell back to your shoulder.

Warmth. Like what he’s always given you. You stayed as still as you could and let the smile that was eventual and gradual creep up your lips.

“You’ll fall off if you fall asleep on me.”

“I think all that coffee’s not going to make me fall asleep for the next few days.”

Laughing, you just let him lean against you. then his head shifted so he was looking over your shoulder.

“That’s looking good.”

“You think?” You held up the notebook. “That’s us.”

Two kids sitting on the railings, with the view of the city right at their feet. Backs up against each other, shaded with the darkest black. The girl was leaning against the boy’s shoulder, quite the opposite of what was actually going on.

You felt Tim smile his mouth off. “Can I have that?”

“Hold on. Lemme finish this.”

The bat signal. Shining right at the horizon. Then you went over more of the details. The tiny lights on the windows. The helicopter that just passed by. The ocean far off.

Tim was watching you.

Not your hand. Or the drawing.

You.

A few more minutes, then you carefully ripped the page off the book. “Here.”

“Thanks.”

He folded it up, then carefully put it into his pocket. Then he placed his head against your shoulder again.

You did the same.

“I missed you.”

You laughed. “It’s not like we don’t see each other often.”

“I know. I miss seeing you everyday.”

Your head up at the sky, heart in your throat.

“Me too…”

Then you found yourself closing your eyes.

Legs dangling off the ledge on opposite sides, you both spent the next hour in silence, leaning against each other.

You and Tim on the rooftops. Just the two of you. Laughing. Sharing a drink. Doing homework even.

They were always the best times.

“Shit,” he looked at the time on his phone. “Come on. If I can finish half of it in three hours, we might actually get to go back to the manor to get some sleep.”

“Tim-“

“Just a night,” he slipped off onto the ground, then everything felt so much colder around you. “Please. Everyone’s out anyway.”

You shut your eyes.

But even when you expected yourself to decline, you ended up nodding and sliding your torso to turn back towards the building, . “Fine. But only because you’re taking me- Fuck…”

You moved too fast. You fucking moved too fast. Shit.

“Y/N, don’t move-“

Tim rushed to your legs, held his hands over the back of yours that was touching the metal where flesh and skin was supposed to be.

You tried to flinch away how you always do when someone does so much as lay a finger on you or your fucking limb when it was uncalled for, but Tim’s hands were soft and gentle. And you were also 70 stories above ground so jumping away wouldn’t be the best idea.

“Tim, I’m fine-“

“Let me help.”

“I’m fine… shit…”

Stinging nerves, all the way up your thigh when you tried to move it yourself. That’s when Tim ignored you and went ahead to hold it himself.

It was too late into the night for you to argue. So you pulled your hands away and let him slide your leg over the railing, dangling it onto the edge towards him.

“May I?”

Now facing him, both legs hanging just inches away from the ground, you placed your weight on your hands and nodded.

Tim knelt in front of you, then pulled your loose jeans up to your knee.

You felt disgusted at yourself, and you hated how he wasn’t, hands over the silver steel that replaced your skin, at the rods and wires that replaced your bones, where tiny stubs of metal stuck out in place of actual toes. You held your breath, then Tim looked up at you, hands soothing just below your knee.

He didn’t look like he pitied you. There was that.

That, or he just mastered the art of hiding his pity and instead, look at you like he was just trying to take care of you.

Which he was. You weren’t about to rob him of that credit.

Tim unlatched the bionic limb, then pulled it off of what was left of your leg. A stub of skin, where it had healed about three inches down from your knee, was burning red.

“Must have caused a bit of stress.”

You shrugged. “I’ll be fine. It happens a lot.”

Tim’s fingers over the marks of pink, you felt how gentle he was, the callous that had formed over the years, at the warmth that came with his palms rubbing over your skin. Your eyes were all on him.

Then he looked up at you, without stopping his hands.

Another set of blue eyes, quite different from the last pair you saw earlier that day. Though it must have been because of the dark, his reflected the light from the city skyline just a bit better.

Tim looked at you the same way he always did for years. It didn’t make your skin fluster, or your stomach churn.

You felt at home.  

You smiled at him, then he smiled back before he looked back down at your leg.

Tim was the only one you’d ever let do this.

After a longer while of massaging your knee, he placed the bionic leg back into place and latched it up.

“Try moving it around.”

This limb costed millions of dollars and only you had a robot leg as good as fucking Cyborg’s, and still it pained when you moved two seconds too fast. You moved your toes about, swayed your ankle. Still with a slight sting, but you could brush it off. Tim pulled your jeans back down and helped you off the railing.

He didn’t speak much on the way down back to his office, and he let you have your nap on his couch for a few more hours while he worked away.

Though, you couldn’t exactly sleep.

You weren’t sure if you were bothered, anxious, or pleased, and you hated how you still considered that last one.

It was in the way he looked at you, touched you so gently. You could tell. You could definitely tell. You told Tim years ago to promise you that he’d stop. And he said he would. Turns out he couldn’t keep that promise.

Tim still loved you.

Carefully, without him noticing, you looked back over your shoulder and watched him crouch over his laptop the way that was going to strain his back for the next three months. And you weren’t sure if you liked that it made you smile, when you took too much time watching his eyes and his lips and even his nose scrunching up like a rabbit’s.

You’d think years after you decided to be just friends, and ended up being best friends would let you both move on completely. He dated Steph for a while, even. And still, he wasn’t friends with her now the way he was with you.

It wasn’t at all awkward. It didn’t have to be.

But maybe it wasn’t for the reason you thought.

The sketchbook. The really expensive one you always used up after a few months. It costed about a hundred dollars per piece, and you get one every single year along with other art materials like charcoal pencils and canvases and paint.

And they always arrived right at your door every Valentine’s morning.

No name. No tag.

You thought it was from Bruce at first, like how he continued to spoil you with just about everything else with commissions and pieces he didn’t even need but claimed to want for his new mantle at the office or a wall in one of his condos.

But it was all too intimate and personal.

After the third year, you found out it was from him.

You could tell with how it was all wrapped and carefully arranged. Only from his hands, and how gentle they can be when he held you…

You fell asleep on that couch, clutching the sketchbook to your chest.

----

It was past five in the morning when Tim finally stood up from his desk. You were well into your sleep, then you felt his hand on your shoulder, shrugging you awake.

“Huh?”

“Come on. Let’s get some sleep at the manor.”

Groaning into the couch’s fabric, Tim took fifteen minutes pulling you to stand until he finally got you on your feet. He helped you with your coat, then on the taxi home you fell asleep on his shoulder, and he fell asleep with his cheek on your head.

You got to the manor, stretched out, then just as the sun had fully greeted you, you both walked into the foyer. Alfred was still freshly awoken.

“Master Tim, where on earth have you been?”

“The office.”

“The off- never mind. Miss Y/N, I’m happy to see you.”

“Hey Alfred,” you yawned and gave the butler a hug.

“Will you be sleeping in your room?”

“Yes please.”

He nodded, then you and Tim walked over to the steps.

“Wait.” You backed away. “I want water. You go ahead.”

The zombie that was Tim Drake didn’t even turn his head to you as he lugged himself up the stairs. You dragged your feet to the kitchen, stretching out your arms. It was way too fucking early for this.

You reached into the fridge and grabbed the ice-cold pitcher of water, held up an empty glass, then poured it in.

You brought the glass up to your lips.

You closed the fridge door.

Then felt the freezing cold surge up your nose, your eyes pop open from the crust and saltiness that had formed over your eyelids, then your throat started to close up and you coughed the water out of your hacking mouth.

“J-Jason?”

A towel covered his face when he first walked in, which meant his arm was up and his muscles were flexing when his bulked up bare chest was practically screaming into your eyes. Eight pack abs. Pecs stronger than steel. Ripples on his sides. And his fucking arms that could tear apart a block of wood in one pull.

It was too much of a convenience that he was rubbing the sweat off his hair so much that he couldn’t see you with your jaw on the ground. Every muscle in your body tightened, screamed, then just as Jason looked up at you, drenched hair flopping onto his eyes, you immediately looked away and pretended your own throat wasn’t choking you right then.

He walked towards you. Fuck.

“Hey, pretty bird.”

That low, husky voice…

You nodded. “H-hey,” you choked. “What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?”

You drank the whole glass in one gulp, then you opened the fridge once again to pour in even more water.

“I came with Tim. I was with him in the office.”

“Oh,” he leaned against the counter right beside you, and all your eyes that were fucking defying you right then could look at were the veins popping out of his biceps.

“Why are you here?”

He pouted. “I always train this early.”

“You come here all the way from your apartment at five in the morning?”

“Since a few days ago, yeah.”

“Why?”

He scoffed. “No gym on earth has Bruce’s equipment.”

“Ah.” You went through the whole glass again. The sweat was starting to pour down his chest.

Placing it onto the kitchen counter just inches away from Jason’s body, you were practically floating out of the kitchen. As fast as you could. “I’m going back to sleep.”

“Bye, pretty bird.”

Up the stairs. Into your old room. Away from anyone else.

You fell to your bed, but you couldn’t sleep a single wink.

And you weren’t even sure why.

Or who.

-----

 MASTERLIST | 3 BIRDS 1 STONE MASTERLIST

-----

MAIN TAGLIST:

@everyartistwas-firstanamateur, @sarcasmismyfirstlove, @damned-queen-of-gotham, @idkmanicantenglish, @wunderstell, @birdy-bat-writes, @get-loki, @everyday-imfangirling, @comic-nerd-dc, @multifandomgirl-us, @multifandoms916, @icequeen208, @offendedfishnoises, @egdolan, @xemiefx, @arkhamtoddler, @elsenthal, @mythicbitchx, @lucy-roo, @roseangel013bf, @loxbbg​, @reclusive-chicken-nugget​, @l-inkage​, @http-cherries​, @shadowsndaisies​, @river9noble​, @zphilophobiaz​, @annoylinglyaries​, @knightfall05x​, @hyp-oh-critical​, @satan-s-ass​, @1-800-starmora​,  @flowersgirl02, @nahcho​

SERIES TAGLIST: 

@spaceservicestation​

#dick grayson #jason todd #tim drake #dick grayson x reader #jason todd x reader #tim drake x reader #batfam #batfamily #robins #dc comics #reader insert #batboys x reader #nightwing #red hood #red robin #3 birds 1 stone #3 birds 1 stone series #batarella #batarella series

[bigskydreaming]

ANYWAY.

Current mood is contemplating an AU wherein Boone (yes that Boone, its been too long since a Dick and Boone shitpost so off we goooooooo) anyway, so AU wherein he graduates from his League of Shadows training around the same time Dick becomes Nightwing, and since I headcanon Boone having known who Dick really is for years because he’s not a complete dumbass and Dick Grayson is a fairly high profile figure and it doesn’t take a genius to look at a picture of him and recognize him as “aka Freddy Lloyd,” I mean, they did live together for weeks or even months.....

POINT IS, so Boone is all done with his training and sees Nightwing bigwigging it up with the Titans and then sees there’s a new Robin in Gotham, and all these thoughts come together in a perfect storm for Boone to be like LETS PLAY “WHAT IF I GO FUCK WITH FREDDY!”

SO. In this AU Nightwing and Shrike’s confrontation slash reunion happens before he ever moves to Bludhaven to be a solo act and when he’s still based out of New York, and actually takes place in Gotham during a period when Bruce is out of town on an extended mission or something, as this Shrike figure starts stalking Robin and Jason is like UMM HELP GIRL, I mean not that I need it CUZ I DON’T, but like if you want to come help with this weirdo I guess that’d be alright, we could hang, its cool.

So Dick trainsurfs down to Gotham all quick like a bunny and is like waaaaaait a minute, this guy calls himself Shrike? That’s weirdly specific, I knew another Shrike once......and Jason’s like maybe this is the same guy? And Dick’s just all umm no, he’s dead. He like, died and stuff. He made like a corpsicle. Definitely not him, its gotta be someone else....oh fucking hell, its Boone. Of course its Boone. Why did it have to be Boone?

And Jason’s like who the fuck is Boone?

Dick shushes him distractedly. Nobody. There is no Boone, only Zuul. Eat your vegetables.

Jason: You are the weirdest person alive, and that’s saying a lot, I live with Bruce. What is going on right now?

Dick: Nothing? *examines himself in a mirror that is actually just a broken piece of window glass procured from yon surrounding rooftops* Hey how does my hair look? Is it wavy enough? I feel like it could be more wavy.

Jason: Is your hair - what? Dude, is this Boone guy like your ex-boyfriend or something?

Dick: Please. As if. He wishes. Also I knew him when we were like twelve. Or eleven. Maybe ten. I forget. It was definitely pre-pubescent though.

Jason: That’s not a denial.

Dick: Its also not an admission and also stop being smart and insightful, its rude and I did not ask. Besides, its not like I’m trying to look good for Boone, eww, he’s a loser, I would never. I’m just trying to look BETTER than him.

Jason: Ahh. Well. That’s different then.

Dick: See? You get it.

Jason: Not even a little bit. If this is what puberty does to you I want no part in it.

Dick: Too late. Its already begun. I spy hairs on your chinny-chin-chin.

Jason: What kind of bizarre Three Little Pigs segue is.....who ARE you right now?

Dick: Stop victim-blaming me for my discombobulation! I haven’t seen Boone in years and he could be here any second now and he already has the lead, I can not let him confront me in a state less than poised, suave and sophisticated, its just the RULES.

Jason: Well you’re off to a stellar start. Why is it so important you win this whatever this is with whomever Boone is and also are you still going to therapy? I feel like maybe not and maybe that was a mistake.

Dick: You’re a terrible little brother, just the worst. And okay, look. Its complicated, see. I met Boone at a very specific time in my life when both of us were kinda floundering in that verb kinda way, not like the Little Mermaid kinda way.

Jason: Stop using similes. I’m begging you. It hurts.

Dick: THE POINT IS......we were both.....kinda lost, at the time. Aimless. Looking for purpose. And one of the things we both ended up kinda turning to in search of that purpose was like.....our natural competitiveness.

Jason: Wait. You’re competitive? You? OMG THIS IS BRAND NEW INFORMATION.

Dick: I hate you. You are a blight upon the wheatfields of my soul. NOW IF YOU’LL EXCUSE ME, I WAS MONOLOGUING. Okay. So. Boone and I, we kinda fell into this cycle of eternal competition, that was intensified by us not really having anything else that was OURS at the time, so it became sorta like....the only thing that mattered? If that makes sense?

Jason: Weirdly, that’s the first thing you’ve said all night that DOES make any sense. Okay. I’m keeping up. Continue.

Dick: So it was like constant one-upmanship. If I snuck in somewhere without a trace, he had to sneak in better. If he was unmoved by being surrounded by dead bodies and gore, I had to be more unmoved. If I escaped from a deathtrap in half the time expected, he had to halve that when it was his turn, and if he made it through an obstacle course while bleeding from a leg I had to beat him while bleeding from both legs, look it was this whole thing.

Jason: Wait, and you knew this guy when you were ten? Where the fuck did you two even MEET? Jason Voorhees’ Little Daycamp of Horrors?

Dick: ANYWAY. The point is everything is about competition with us, it always has been, and like, he’s the only person who was ever able to keep up with me at least at the time and just like I was the same for him, and so we hated each other because we were both mad at the world back then and hated everybody and everything, especially the one and only other guy who kept showing us up, but at the same time, we were closer to each other than anyone else in the world at the time because we were the only ones on each other’s same page and able to stay on that same page so there was like.....weird solidarity in that? Idk. I TOLD YOU IT WAS COMPLICATED.

Jason: No, its okay, I get it. So what happened?

Dick: Oh, our mentor died and Boone thought it was all my fault. His name was Shrike too and given that Boone’s here now and calling himself Shrike, I’m guessing he still does.

Jason: .....uh huh. Was it your fault?

Dick: Only a little bit! It was mostly gravity. That bitch.

Jason: Ooookay, not touching that one. So. In conclusion: he’s.....here to kill you then? Or he’s not here to kill you then.....?

Dick: Oh he’s here to kill me, but ONLY if he can beat me first. If he can’t beat me, then no, he’s not here to kill me, just whine, wangst and moan at me.

Jason: And by beat you, you mean at.....having wavy hair?

Dick: At EVERYTHING. Ugh, were you even paying attention?

Jason: Oh yeah. I’m SO glad we cleared all this up. Next time, just simplify and explain he’s your childhood frenemy turned actual nemesis.

Dick: Huh. Yeah, y’know what, that does pretty much cover it....

Jason: Who you totally want to bone due to unresolved and conflicting feelings stemming from your brief but intense time together in your formative years as well as and compounded by your neurotic obsessive attraction to hyper-competent individuals who challenge you on physical, mental and emotional and even moral levels.

Dick: What the....a) you’re wrong, b) STOP STEALING MY PSYCH TEXTBOOKS and c) you could not BE more wrong.

Jason: Your hair looks flat and lackluster. He’s totally gonna beat you there.

Dick: You’re the actual worst. 

#boone aka shrike

[americancowgirl19]

Old Times

Summary: You find your purpose in hopes of easing your conscious. 

Warnings: angst, fluff, this is a part 2/sequel

Reader: Female Reader

Pairings: Dick Grayson x Reader

Word Count: 1,878

A/n: I thought I would tag you two since you mentioned you guys wanted a part two; @pleasestophoney​ @graysonswonder​

Masterlist - Part One (Eight Year)

Fuck whoever said knowing was the better choice. Knowing sucked and you wished that you were back to being in the dark about the things you’ve done. Sure, when you couldn’t remember your mind filled in the blanks for you. You would imagine what you had done. You’re imagination was far more merciful compared to the truth.

Your memories returned to you mainly at night, although you got flashes during the day if you were ‘lucky’. As time passed you became more and more aware of how dangerous and deadly you had become. In the last eight years, you were a merciless killing machine that made the Joker look like a fucking kitty cat.

The more you remembered the more you considered handing yourself over to the members of the League that wanted your head. You understood their need for revenge. Hell, if someone had done to you what you had done to them, you’d be demanding justice yourself.

You shared your father’s rule of no killing, at least you did before you were taken, but you knew you’d break that rule if someone killed anyone in your family. In fact, if you weren’t so scared of reverting into a mindless beast you would have torn the Joker apart for killing Jason. But you feared if you killed him, you wouldn’t be able to stop yourself.

“What’re you doing out here?” Dick questions groggily. You turn your head just enough to see him in your peripheral vision. You had been sitting on the balcony of your shared apartment in Bludhaven for a couple of hours now.

It was one of the rare nights Dick had come home early. Bludhaven was quiet thus prompting Dick to return home to you sooner than usual. Since your return a couple of months ago, Dick continued being Bludhaven’s Nightwing. 

You weren’t ready to join him as Nightshade. Although, that didn’t stop you from using your enhanced hearing to keep track of him. If he was in a trouble he couldn’t get out of, you could get to him within a minute. Luckily he hasn’t needed you yet. You doubted he would. He has survived eight years without you.

You felt guilty for not staying in bed with him. You only got him to yourself so often but you didn’t want to keep him up with your restlessness. He needed his sleep.

Dick joins you on the patio loveseat. He looks at you before sliding his arm around your waist. You shuffle as he pulls you onto his lap. His natural warmth engulfs you. You almost moan as you settle into his comforting embrace.

“I have the day off tomorrow,” Dick mutters, resting his head on yours. You hum snuggling closer to him.

“You have the day off or you’re taking the day off?” You wonder.

“Either way you’ve got me all day tomorrow... later today,” He corrects himself noticing that it’s technically early morning instead of late at night.

“You don’t have to take off work to babysit me,” You mumble.

“I don’t have to do anything but I want to spend the day with you tomorrow,” He tells you. Having grown up with his stubbornness, you let it go. “It’s gonna be a sunny day. I thought I’d take you to a market in the next town over,” A small smile comes to your lips. “Do you wanna try and get some more sleep?

“I was actually debating pouring a stiff drink,” You admit. “I’m gonna have to see if Wally will talk to me and give me some of that strong shit he drinks cause what you have tastes like water,” Dick scoffs.

“You used to get fucked off of three beers,” Dick mutters.

“Then I got super metabolism and cheap drinking went out the window,” You grumble. Dick kisses the crown of your head.

“I’ll give him a call,” He whisper. 

“Diana sent you an email while you were asleep,” You tell him. He hums questionably. “They’re making a memorial for the fallen... I wonder if they’ll ask me to be a guest speaker,” You snark sarcastically. Dicks grip around you tightens. “I guess they figured since I’m ‘back-to-normal’ there won’t be anymore mass superhero killings,” Your eyes become misty. “She was nice enough to put a list attachment,” You voice shakes. “Katherine, John, Oliver... Donna,” You clench your eyes as you slowly breakdown.

“Hey, hey, stop,” You shift to straddle his waste. You cling to him, your head falling into his neck. He pets the back of your head and rub circles into your back. “Shh, sweetheart, it’s alright,” You try to keep collected even though you’re falling apart. “Y/n, look at me.. Please, baby,” You reluctantly pull from his neck. He presses his head against yours. “Tell me what to do, how can I help?”

You didn’t know how to answer, so you just move your head back to the crook of his neck. His arms lock around you as tightly as he can hoping that he can hold you together.

How could you come to terms with what happened? It’s not like there’s a shrink that could be trusted with the information in your mind. It’s not like that many people knew what you were going through. You just wanted to be normal again.

When you calmed down, Dick continued to hold you tightly. You would sniffle here and there but other than that neither of you made any noise. When you slowly began to drift off, Dick stood from the loveseat. His hands held you securely to his chest as he carried you back to bed.

When you both laid down, you faced each other. There was hardly space between you but enough to look at each other. The light of the moon gave just enough light to be able to see prominent features of his face.

“It won’t be like this forever,” He promises, brushing his fingers across your cheek. Your eyes slowly begin to close.

“Do you think there’ll be an antique shop by the market tomorrow?” You wonder.

“I’m sure we can find one,” He whispers, tugging you to his chest. You snuggle close, lightly kissing his peck.

When the sun rose, neither of your were necessarily in a hurry to leave the comfort of the bed. It wasn’t until a little past noon did you two finally get up. You tried to be uplifting and happy as you went through the market but settled for content and not sobbingly falling apart.

You had nearly a half an hour of peaceful normalcy until you picked up on someone following you. You didn’t know if Dick noticed but you began directing him to a secluded alley. You were halfway down when you sensed something coming toward you.

Instinctively, you spun around and pushed Dick behind you. You hand flew up and caught the red arrow. Toward the end of the alley stood someone you used to get along with but now looked at you with murderous intent. You pushed Dick a good few feet away from you seconds before the arrow exploded. The explosion only singed parts of your outfit.

“Roy!” Dick snapped, glaring at the redhead. 

“Why do you get to walk away?” Roy snapped, gripping his bow. “You hunt us down and kill us for eight years.” He snarls.

“That wasn’t her, Roy” Dick tells him. “She didn’t have a choice,”

“How convenient for her,” Roy snaps. You cast your gaze to the ground in shame.

“What are you doing here Roy? What do you want?” Dick asks, standing with you shoulder-to-shoulder.

“I want justice,” Roy snaps. “You don’t get to slaughter people and just walk away,”

“It wasn’t her,” Dick growls, clenching his fists. “She wasn’t in control, she-”

“I’ll stand trial,” You cut Dick off. His head whips around to you. “The league will decide what happens,”

“They’ve already voted on what to do with you,” Dick reminds both you and Roy. “They know you weren’t in control. You’re just as much a victim as the others,” You look at Dick, your mind reeling.

“Then lets get the bastard that pulled my strings,” You say. You turn your head to Roy.

“They’ve already tried finding the ones that took you,” Roy says.

“Yeah, well they didn’t have me,” You tell him. “I have a better chance than anyone at finding them. You want justice? I want redemption. Let’s avenge those that died,” Roy stares at you, obviously intrigued with the idea. “I can’t do it alone, I’ll need help,”

“We’ll need a team,” Dick says. “Those we trust,” He emphasized. The last thing he wanted was someone convinced you were the problem and trying to kill you in your sleep. He would already have his hands full with the mission and keeping an eye on Roy.

“Have anyone in mind?” Roy tilts his head. 

“A few,” You mutter.

Within a couple of weeks, your team was put together. You convinced Conner to come so that you would have added muscle and someone strong enough to stand against you should the ones you’re going after rescramble your mind. Wally joined mainly to keep the mood lifted and tensions as low as possible. His naturally happy aurora would hopefully keep Roy from turning against you all and to keep him fighting with Dick. 

Plus him and Conner were your friends before all this happened and were the few that remained by your side after all these years.

The last to join was Jason. You added the Joker to the list of people you needed to take down. You wanted him because one, he’s your brother, and two, he’s willing to kill. He knew how to do what needed to be done and most of the people you were going after didn’t deserve a trial nor a second chance.

The six of you were a large and qualified team. You knew not to underestimate you opponent. You knew how to work together. And you all had a reason to fight.

For the first time you felt like you had a purpose, a true and righteous purpose.

“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Dick, dressed in his Nightwing, costume questions stepping up to you. You smile, readjusting your mask.

It didn’t feel right to become Nightshade again. You weren’t that person anymore. You were someone else now. Tim redesigned your costume as you donned a new name.

“This is something I need to do,” You tell him. “I don’t know if it’ll settle the nightmares or ease the guilt but hopefully it’ll give others a sense of closure if we get them and prevent this from happening again,”

“Ok,” Dick mutters, nodding. “If this gets too much, step back and let us handle it,”

“Please,” You smirk. “Without me, you idiots would be running around like chickens without a head,” Dick smirks widely. “Don’t worry so much, baby, it’ll be like old times,” You wink kissing his cheek. The simple kiss isn’t enough for him. His arm instantly slings around your waist and pulls you against him.

Dick presses his lips against yours. You breathe slowly through your nose and lean against him.

“Just like old times,” He murmurs against your lips.

#Dick Grayson #Dick Grayson x Reader #Dick Grayson x Female!reader #x reader #x fem!reader #x female reader #Nightwing #Roy Harper #Conner Kent #Jason Todd #DC Comics

[stxleslyds]

NIGHTWING #81

UMM... HOW ABOUT NO. 

Ever since Tom Taylor took over Nightwing I have only made a post about one issue of his (I will leave it here Nightwing #78), that issue was beautiful, it was a solid start and the little things that made me feel a bit icky were not mentioned in the post because the issue was good.

Then the issues felt like connectors or just very bland story wise. I had problems with the book also feeling like a Nightwing and (fake) Oracle book instead of just Nightwing. There were many instances where Dick alone could have gotten himself out of situations without Barbara, but because she was there the opportunity to show that he can do things was taken from him. I guess what I am trying to say is that the book has disappointed me but I didn’t feel like making a post because it was too early and this is an ongoing book that Taylor said he planned on continuing for a while, but now I can’t not make a post.

A few days ago, I finally read the Red Hood story in Urban Legends (I have a review for that one too I will link it here Red Hood part 4) and I couldn’t stand how OOC and disappointing the story/characterization has been. I am saying this because I am only reading these two books at the moment, ONLY these two, and all I have gotten from them is shit.

I know it’s still early to say that the Nightwing book is bad but…I hated this issue, I hated it with all of my heart. But now that I am a bit calmer, I have come up with some ideas of what is truly going on with the Melinda situation.

Anyway, let me give you my thoughts.

There are big Wilson Fisk vibes coming from both Blockbuster and Melinda Zucco. Those two will lie, manipulate and be evil every chance they get. They are working together to make Nightwing disappear. I know it. The whole “make us all much wealthier and to extend your power beyond the city” idea does not include Nightwing.

Melinda might not want to burn anything down but she sure isn’t a hero. This woman accepted the position of Mayor after watching Blockbuster kill the former mayor. I understand that talking with the BHPD isn’t the best idea but this woman feels way too comfortable in the presence of a killer.

She is cunning and she has plans, I strongly believe that she might be a villain and that she will betray Blockbuster and take all the power (if it reaches that point) to herself.

Heartless is just another weirdo, he tricks both Nightwing and the reader into thinking that he has a soft spot for kids but surprise! He doesn’t. There isn’t much to say about him, he just has very complex gadgets and doesn’t know how to fight. I don’t even have any ideas about who he might be.

What I know though is that there was absolutely no need for Dick to think that he had “underestimated” Heartless, my love you threw your stick at him while he was looking directly at you, there was a 50/50 chance of him catching it. I swear I don’t understand the need to write him thinking that mostly because Taylor then has Dick swiping the floor with the guy, not only is it a simple fight (for Dick) but it’s also boring for him. Taylor’s writing is so annoying sometimes, he just loves to write extra things that are out of place like the “Tim Drake. Thought of by many as the best Robin” why the fuck did he put that there? Honestly, what was the point of having Dick say that, I don’t read a Nightwing book to have Tim Drake praise. If it doesn’t offer anything to the story that is being told then keep the thought to yourself Tom...

Moving forward the scene in the pier was quite nice, mostly because it’s Dick’s quick thinking that gets everyone to safety, he knows exactly what to do and how to contact the Maritime distress channel.

He has hope for his city, he knows there is good in it and he believes help will show up when lives are about to be lost. I loved that, just like Heartless said, Nightwing IS Bludhaven’s Guardian Angel. Once again, I am having Daredevil vibes from Dick (like from the show)

After the fight we get to see consequences of Dick not healing properly from a shot to the head. He loses his consciousness which is extremely dangerous but luckily Tim is at arm’s reach to help him out of the pier.

There are many things I want to talk about from the scenes that happen after Dick wakes up in his apartment so here we go.

First of all, Bitewing is adorable, she loves Dick the most and was happy to see him awake once more, what a good girl!

Secondly, Barbara, honey, you do not have three names, you aren’t Batgirl anymore, you are a grown woman that needs to move on from a mantle that has other people that can do something else/better with it. And we all know that this Oracle is just the ableist version of Oracle. So yeah…all I ask is for Barbara to move on from Batgirl, Cass and Stephanie are right there, enough is enough.

In these panels we have Dick, Tim and Barbara being kinda dismissive about the homeless kids, and it has been happening for so many issues, what is the point, Taylor? You made Dick a millionaire and you just can’t have him say or think for a second that he will monetarily help those kids and make sure they are put somewhere safe? You are really going to wait up until you have Dick running for Mayor or something to help the kids? I just don’t get it. Kids living on the streets and each time they are mentioned the three heroes of the book act like it’s normal and doesn’t need fixing. What the fuck.

Then we have the gang finding out that Melinda Zucco is the new mayor, the woman has an FBI file and a redacted one! This makes me think two things, either things are like I thought in the beginning of the post (she is evil and very good at it) or this woman is actually FBI and she is undercover (this one is less likely because of what happens at the end of the issue).

What we can see from the file that Barbara found is very little, but in these two pictures we can see that maybe she was put in foster care and x age? Also, she was apparently investigated in April of 20xx, the investigation must have been recent, why would the FBI investigate a minor or college student? What if these files were implanted by Melinda for someone to find them, and for her to have some sort of proof of her lies? If the file is about her being left in foster care or something while would the file be redacted? I don’t know, everything about her is shady and I don’t trust anything from or about her.

This could be a complex and very interesting character but Tom Taylor and DC really love to do stupid shit for shock value (more of this later).

All the new information (the Maroni, Blockbuster and now this very shady Mayor) has Dick saying that it is a bit too much for him and yeah, it is too much, you know who could help? Red Hood. I am of course not talking about current DC comics Red Hood, I am talking about the Red Hood that I would love to see, just yesterday I had an ask about who would I like to see working with Jason and I said Nightwing because Dick puts a lot of responsibility on his shoulders so it would be nice if they negotiated and each could work on different crime areas in Bludhaven, if only DC would hear me…

Anyway, now that we come to the end of the scene let’s talk about Barbara’s shirt.

That was unnecessary and not funny. That’s all it was. Yeah, I know it’s a meme and I know it was included for funny ha-ha purposes but I am not laughing. Bruce has been written as abusive towards his kids for so long, Jason, Tim and Dick have been physically harmed by Bruce and writers use it as just something that happens, there are never repercussions for the Bat. And this shirt sucks because Dick was Robin there and he was a kid, so having Barbara or anyone wearing a shirt with Batman hitting Robin!Dick right in front of Dick is just disgusting. What if someone wore a shirt that had Joker beating Jason with a crowbar in front of Jason, would that be a funny ha-ha too? What about Dick wearing a shirt with the Joker shooting Barbara, is that a funny ha-ha? The answer to those questions is no, it’s not funny.

The idea of that shirt shouldn’t have been pitched, drawn or included after the editor took a look at it.

The picture is a meme in our world, not in theirs. And the readers aren’t laughing.

 Back to the issue, Dick is left alone in his apartment to rest (seriously? You think the man that showed up to help Bruce in Gotham with a knee brace is going to rest?) but he can’t, he just found out that Mayor Zucco might be trouble for Bludhaven and might be working with not only Blockbuster but the Maroni family. He is not waiting one more second to have a chat with her.

Dick is obviously still concussed so of course he grabs a mask that has a camera that Oracle can view, and of course he enters yet another window without being careful.

Melinda and Audre were obviously waiting for him.

But here is where the real bullshit begins. Dick is unmasked.

I am so mad; it’s been four issues and Dick gets his ass in a trap and is unmasked by a villain? Are you kidding me right now?

But that’s not all, after Dick breaks free and accuses Melinda of being the daughter of the man that killed his parents, she pulls out a uno reverse card and says that her actual father is John Grayson, and that she is his sister.

How about no. Absolutely not. Go away.

Let’s re-visit Melinda’s appearances in the book so far so we can start theorizing about her real intentions or if she could be saying the truth.

Back in issue #78 where she is first introduced to us, after Melinda watches Blockbuster kill the mayor, she goes home and tells her Audre that she is now mayor because Blockbuster did what he does, so she knows that this guy is trash and a killer. But that’s not all, Audre asks her if she came across Dick Grayson to which Melinda answers “I am not ready for him yet”. Audre suggests she talks to him sooner rather than later because she might not have “another chance”, and the issue ends with Melinda agreeing with her while she is looking at a Flying Graysons poster with a red circle framing Dick’s face.

That whole thing? Shady. Melinda, obviously, wanted to talk to Dick Grayson, probably to tell him that she is his sister, but why is there a time limit, why is Audre telling Melinda that she can’t wait too long? Is it because her undercover work is ending soon? Is it because it’s not real at all and she needs to tell that lie in order to move forward with some sort of plan? I don’t know…

In issue #79 Melinda (and Audre) are out in the open with Maroni and they are talking about her becoming the next Mayor, Nightwing was watching from afar so this is his first contact with her. And it might be the first time that Melinda and her friend see Nightwing in action too. I cannot tell if she is aware that Nightwing/Dick Grayson are the same person here.

In #80 she doesn’t make an appearance.

But now in #81 she is taking her place as Mayor of Bludhaven, there Commissioner McClean takes her somewhere she didn’t expect to go (she is shown not knowing that Maroni and Blockbuster were in the next room over). Once in the room she refuses to take the cash from McClean but she will take the money as a transaction (for a second I thought she wouldn’t take the money but she did because she is very corrupt) and talks to Maroni once more. Before I talk about what happens with Blockbuster let me say this, she acts so distant to Maroni, she calls him Mr. Maroni every single time and she comes off as cold and feeling no type of way while talking with someone that is part of the family that actually raised her, and this is not because she is in a room full of other people, she did it too in #79. It seems weird that she acts that way with someone that took her under his wing since she was eight years old.

When she sits with Blockbuster he says “tell us your plan for my city” to which she says all of this: “My plan, Blockbuster, is to make us all much wealthier and to extend your power beyond the city. But to do so in a way that builds on the good work you’ve already done I have no interest in burning anything down.”

At the start of the post I said she gave me big Wilson Fisk vibes and that right there is why. She is shady, she has plans on top of plans, she calls Roland Desmond Blockbuster to his face but says that he has done good work for Bludhaven, which is weird because Blockbuster destroys Bludhaven a couple of times a year…

As I said before whatever she has planned does not include Nightwing, and here is where I kinda start theorizing a bit more, what if Blockbuster told Melinda Nightwing’s real name, he used to know who he was once upon a time…

Later in this issue when Nightwing is going to Melinda’s place Audre is already waiting for him right next to the window (with a sword), so, was he making an insane amount of noise or were they told to be ready for him?

Melinda traps him and takes his mask off, she barely seems surprised about Nightwing being Dick, she barely reacts when he jumps at her. She is in complete control of the situation and proves that by disarming Dick, as fast as he accuses her of being Zucco’s daughter she tells him that her real father is John Grayson.

She is in complete control. She has to be lying, she put a stop to whatever Dick had to say and do in seconds. This woman is trained and she is manipulative as fuck!

And if she isn’t lying then fuck DC and fuck Tom Taylor, this woman is either younger or the same age as Dick, John Grayson was not a cheater, the man is dead, has been dead for so long, don’t throw dirt on his name at this point. I refuse to believe this is true.

I honestly think that she is evil, and knows more than we are aware of, her first appearance was shady as fuck, let's suppose that she didn’t truly know that Dick was Nightwing, why on earth did she have a Flying Graysons poster with a red circle on top of Dick’s face? That doesn’t seem like something a sister would do! And why would this be information that is so important that she NEEDS to tell him in a certain amount of time?

It’s fucking insane. Tom Taylor, if she is actually Dick's sister then shame on you. Disgusting, what is with writers and cheating, what the hell is going on? Dick doesn’t need to think back to his parents and see a cheater in one of them. This better be Melinda being a cruel and vile human being that is trying to emotionally hurt Dick/Nightwing so she and Blockbuster can do whatever its they want to do.

That’s all I have to say.

#dick grayson #nightwing #nightwing 81 #dc comics #dc infinite frontier #melinda zucco #nightwing and bitewing #bitewing #blockbuster

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

whumptober day 10: crying

slightly more straightforward h/c this time!

summary: set after the ric grayson/joker war arc in nightwing. 

dick’s been missing for two months. jason finds him first, but it’s just the first step in finding how very, very lost dick really is.

warnings: SPOILERS for the aforementioned nightwing arcs. plentiful cursing. moderately graphic descriptions of injuries.

crying

The last time Jason received a family-wide SOS to help them rescue Dick, the guy was a twice-brainwashed mess whose brain was being pulled in opposite directions by the Court of Owls and the fucking Joker, and that was after said brain had been shattered by a fucking sniper’s bullet. (And a period of being left to fend for himself with a broken brain in between, but Jason doesn’t really like to think about that.) This time, he doesn’t know quite what to expect. He can’t imagine things have gotten even worse than the last go-around, but then again, Jason knows from personal experience that there’s no end to the list of ‘things that are worse than dying’.

Besides, the alert came from Babs. And, in quick succession, Tim, Bruce, Duke, and Cass. If nothing else, Jason is curious.

Dick disappeared from Bludhaven about two months ago. The reason the oh-so-precise Bats have the word ‘about’ in that statement is because nobody can really pinpoint the exact date it happened. Donna can recall dropping by his place ten weeks ago. Tim maybe exchanged a few emails or text messages a few weeks ago but didn’t really get alarmed about Dick not responding to his messages until the radio silence stretched for over a month. Bruce had his trackers on (that bastard) but Dick hates them and is known to destroy the ones he finds. And they can’t even really depend on reports of Nightwing sightings in the city because having his brain knocked around and pulled apart like taffy means Dick takes regular holidays from patrols if he’s not feeling particularly steady that day. (Look what being sensible and having a smidgeon of a sense of self-preservation got him.) And the CCTV in his apartment complex was shit, so. 

It’s almost like it was a planned thing, like he was kidnapped, but honestly it’s how things go and how they’ve gone for a very long time: they drift in their own worlds for long periods until an event brings them together, and then it’s back to being scattered across the country again (or sometimes the world, or sometimes the galaxy). Dick is more prone to this than most; he’s probably gone undercover more than any of them, and he’s lived the longest on his own as well. 

Even after the clusterfuck that was the last year and change, it’s nothing new. And if that isn’t the most fucking depressing thing that Jason’s had to think about today, it turns out that not only have the Family figured out where Dick is, but that Jason is the one that’s closest to his location. 

So here he is, shivering, on a particularly icy night on the Gotham docks, scoping out the warehouse where Dick’s supposed to be. It’s not very well-guarded, which either means there’s nothing in there and this is a massive waste of his time, or that it’s a trap and what’s waiting on the other side is a fucking bomb or something even worse. It’s not a great situation to be in either way, and Jason’s got half a mind to have Tim or even Bruce take over--but it’d take too long for them to get there and Jason’s never been fond of the idea of handing over to someone else anything that he could potentially do by himself.

Besides, like he said, he’s curious.

He crouches down at his vantage point overlooking the warehouse and presses the communicator in his ear. “Two guards in front but nothing else; the place is practically abandoned. Infrared picking up three people inside.” He shifts his weight from one foot to another, bracing, ready to spring. “I’m about to go in.”

Tim grunts. “I’ll be there in fifteen, give or take a couple.”

“Twenty,” Bruce says. Then: “Hood, you--” An uncharacteristic pause, and Jason can feel the sudden, uneasy chill across the entire comm channel. Bruce clears his throat. “Be careful. Assess the situation first. Don’t engage alone unless it’s an emergency.”

There’s a thanks for stating the obvious on the tip of Jason’s tongue, but something about the gravity of the situation, the mildest quaver in Bruce’s voice (he’s been missing for two months, god, two months) has him say, instead: “Roger that.”

Jason makes quick work of the guards in the front, leaving them in unconscious heaps on the ground before he creeps in. They’d hardly put up a fight, which just makes Jason’s stomach twist in anxious knots. The anxiety is made worse by the complete lack of resistance when he’s actually inside: there are only two huge, cavernous rooms, and one of them has two of the three people that he’d detected. They scatter as soon as they see him and Jason considers chasing, but now his nerves are stretched so taut that he thinks he’s going to vomit if he doesn’t see Dick now--

The night-vision on Jason’s helmet catches a figure sitting, slumped, in the corner of the room. A chain connects a manacle around its ankle to the wall, and another between the same wall and… a collar around its neck. Jason’s blood is already boiling before he steps closer and recognises the figure as Dick. His hair is long and shabby, having grown past his chin, curtaining his face. He’s shirtless but wearing ripped, stained jeans. His hands are cuffed in front of him, the thin metal biting into his wrists enough to leave his hands puffy and slightly purple from the lack of effective circulation. He looks considerably thinner--Jason can just about count the ribs under his skin--and every visible part of his torso is painted in bruises in various stages of healing. And--

--and he’s breathing.

Well, thank fuck. That’s a start.

Jason crouches in front of Dick and presses his comm again. “Found N. Little worse for wear, but alive and safe.”

He ignores the immediate clamour of questions from the others to focus on trying to get Dick awake. He brushes Dick’s hair aside and gently lifts his chin to have a look at his eyes. 

Dick smiles at him. “Hey.”

Jason is beset by an onslaught of emotion that’s part relief, part incredulity and part anger, so much so that he thinks he’s going to fucking burst with the pressure of it. Of course that would be the first thing out of Dick’s mouth--hey--like he’s meeting Jason for cocktails after work instead of being rescued after two months of captivity and torture! Well he can take that hey and shove it right up his fucking--

“Is there anything else here we need to worry about,” Jason says, busying himself with picking the locks on Dick’s manacles so that he doesn’t snap and say something he’ll regret.

Dick shakes his head. He’s got a shaggy beard going and he stinks of sweat and urine and filth, but there’s a sense of… togetherness to him, like he’d always known that Jason was going to show up at this exact minute and that had always been part of his plan. “They scattered as soon as they got word that you guys were coming,” he says, voice thin and raspy. “I guess not enough of them were curious to stick around to find out why so many capes would be coming for me.”

Jason pops the manacles and collar loose and goes to work on the cuffs. “So you weren’t taken as Nightwing.”

Dick sighs, then winces as the motion pulls on the gigantic bruise around his neck. “I wasn’t taken as Dick Grayson, either.”

The cuffs come off with a click. Jason stares at him. “So… what, you were just some poor mug they picked up off the streets to… torture for shits and giggles?”

Dick is silent for a moment. His eyes flick to a point behind Jason and back again. “They knew me as Ric.”

It takes a moment for the name to click in Jason’s brain, but he finally remembers that it was what Dick called himself during his brain-injured year in Bludhaven. “Why would Ric have enemies?” he says, without thinking.

There’s that smile on Dick’s face again, but this time it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Ric did have a life, Jason. And friends. And… enemies.” He begins to move, bare feet shifting against the floor and shifting his weight onto his hands as if he’s trying to figure out a way to stand up, but barely manages an inch of elevation before he runs out of energy, breathing heavily. “Ric--I used to fight. Street fights. Involved a lot more money and people than I remembered, and… apparently a lot of people felt betrayed when I just up and left the city one day. I’ve been fighting matches here almost every day.” A sudden, sharp grin. “I haven’t lost yet.”

Jason--stops. Utterly freezes, hands midway to helping Dick sit upright, because there’s something terribly, terribly wrong here. “Why didn’t you ever try to escape? And how--I mean, in the first place--”

How did you even get caught?

To Jason’s horror, tears start rolling down Dick’s face. His expression doesn’t really change, so Jason’s not sure that Dick’s even aware that he’s crying, but right now Jason is already halfway to being mortified. “I was on my way back from the gym,” Dick says finally, “and I think I--I blacked out. It happens sometimes.” Dick gives a wet laugh. “Talk about bad timing.”

“And--and what, you blacked out for two months?”

At this Dick’s face crumples, and suddenly Jason gets it: this is a man pushed and pushed to the end of his rope and beyond, utterly exhausted, past the point of caring who knows about it or why. “I guess…” Dick swallows. “I didn’t really see the difference. Between--between here and out there.”

Jason wants to scream, shake his shoulders--a shameful part of him even wants to hit Dick--and tell him that of course it was different outside of this stupid, dank warehouse: he has friends and family and a lifetime of experience to support him while he flies free. It’s ridiculous to even compare the two, and Jason is ready to put these words down to the effects of too much pain and too little food.

Except--

(plucked you right out of one life and stuffed you into another, didn’t they? treated you like a puppet without a past and a future, didn’t they? didn’t let you entertain the idea of a different life even for a minute, did they? punished you for straying, reminded you there was just too much at stake, and that those stakes were always, always bigger than you or your health or your happiness or your future--)

“Dick, I--” Jason really doesn’t know what to say. Tim says, “ETA five” in his ear while Bruce says, “Right behind you, Robin” and Jason knows, just knows, that this isn’t how they would want to see Dick, and more importantly, this isn’t how Dick would want them to see him.

He gathers Dick in his arms and presses him to his chest. Dick freezes for a second, surprised, then melts into his embrace. His shoulders shake, hands coming up to weakly grasp at Jason’s jacket. The sobs reach a crescendo quickly, a pathetic keening muffled into Jason’s chest, before tapering away and Dick is still, just… breathing. 

Jason breathes with him.

That’s how Tim and Bruce find them a couple of minutes later. Dick peels away and somehow musters the energy to reassure them. Bruce helps him up and carries him to the car while Jason follows; just as Dick’s lowered into the backseat his hand shoots out, grasping Jason’s arm in a silent plea. 

Jason gets in with him. Neither he nor Bruce say anything through the whole drive at the tears that continue to pour down Dick’s face, but Jason doesn’t let go of his hand for the whole ride.

#nightwing #my fic #dick grayson #jason todd #red hood

[damianwaynerocks]

Zuko & The Waynes

tag list: @bi-fr0000g​

batfam x avatar crossover

PT 1

Description: Prince Zuko has just seen a light; the Avatar has returned. He was just about to go capture him, when he falls through a portal, and lands in Gotham City. He’s angry. He was just about to regain his honor, to regain his father’s love. After he is adopted by Bruce Wayne and becomes Zuko Wayne, the second youngest child, Zuko starts to have second thoughts about regaining his honor. Living as Zuko Wayne makes him think that maybe, just maybe, he’s deserving of love just the way he is. 

This started out as an incorrect quote, but then I loved the idea of Zuko having his Book 3 realization through becoming a member of the bat family, so I did. Also, there will 110% be a part 2.

this takes place in episode 1. like the beginning. he hasn’t even seen aang yet.

-

Fire Navy Ship, Near the South Pole, Earth 24

The story of Zuko Wayne begins with a bright light over an icy sea.

A bright light rocketed into the sky, parting the clouds. A boy with his left eye horribly scarred in a military uniform on a Fire Navy ship, his black ponytail fluttering in the wind, gripped the railing of the ship as he watched the light.

"Finally!" Prince Zuko yelled, whirling around to face a smaller man in a similar uniform who was playing some sort of board game at a small table, "Uncle, do you realize what this means!?"

Iroh, Zuko's uncle, looked up at his nephew with a calm expression, a game piece in his outstretched hand. "I won't get to finish my game?"

Zuko rolled his eyes and he turned back around, staring at the space where the light had been. "It means my search is about to come to an end." At his uncle's disinterested sigh, Zuko turned around again, gesturing behind him. "That light came from an incredibly powerful source! It has to be him!"

"Or it's just the celestial lights. We've been down this road before, Zuko," Iroh said, placing the game piece back on the board before looking back up at the prince. "Please, sit. Why don't you enjoy a cup of calming Jasmine tea?"

"I don't need any calming tea!" Zuko snarled, "I need to catch the Avatar-" he broke off to shield his face with his arms from the sudden wind.

A small purple tornado was in between Zuko and Iroh, pulsating with a strange light. It started to flatten into a portal, moving towards Zuko.

"Zuko, Move!" Iroh cried, lunging to grab his nephew out of the portal's way, but his cries never made it to Zuko's ears as the prince fell into the swirling vortex.

-

Crime Alley, Gotham City, Earth 2

"Oomph," Zuko grunted as he landed on a hard concrete surface. He sat up slowly, resting his hand on his forehead, dizzy. He blinked several times, trying to take in his bizarre surroundings.

A carriage-looking device was rolling through the street, no animals pulling it.

There were poles on either side of the street with lights shining out of them, lights that weren't coming from lanterns.

However, the most bizarre thing he could see was the man dressed similarly to a wolfbat in front of him.

Zuko scrambled to his feet, igniting a fire in front of his fist threateningly. "Stay back!" he snarled.

The man said nothing, looking at him closely. Zuko's skin was crawling; there was something unsettling about this man- or at least, he thought it was a man.

After thirty seconds of only the sound of Zuko's heavy breathing, the man spoke. "What's your name?" he said in a deep, gravely voice.

Zuko tightened his fists. "I am Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation," he said, "Now tell me; where am I!?"

"Gotham City," the hulking man replied.

Zuko swallowed. His father had made sure that Zuko knew the name of every city in the world.

He'd never heard of Gotham City.

"You've never heard of it." The man's words were more of a statement than a question. "Well, I've never heard of the Fire Nation. It doesn't exist."

"What are you talking about!?" Zuko was struggling to keep his voice even at this point. "The Fire Nation is the most dominating force in the world!"

"Not in this world, it isn't," the man growled.

"What do you mean 'this world!?'"

"You fell through a portal, you claim to be a prince although there is no record of a prince named Zuko ever existing, and there is no such thing as the Fire Nation," the man listed, "It's clear you aren't from this world."

Zuko's eyes flew open as his breathing became heavier. A different world? That wasn't possible. The fire in front of his hand fizzled out as he gripped the sides of his head.

The man was silent, before; "Come with me."

Zuko, too mind-boggled to argue, followed the man robotically to one of the carriages. The man opened the door for him, and Zuko stepped in. He didn't register anything else until he heard another man speak.

"Batman," an elderly man on a holographic screen was saying, "How was your night?"

"Alfred," Batman grumbled, "Prepare a room. I'm bringing someone."

"Would this 'someone' happen to be another child?"

"Yes," Batman replied. The man sighed.

"Of course I will prepare him a room, but Batman, you really need to get a hobby other than collecting children," the elderly man said before the screen disappeared.

"H-How did you do that!?" Zuko asked, dumbstruck, "How did you speak to that man!? He isn't in this carriage!"

"Car," Batman corrected him, "And it's video chat. I'm assuming technology was not as advanced in the Fire Nation?"

"We had war balloons," Zuko defended with a sniff. He looked out the window at the surroundings zooming behind them. "How are we moving so fast?"

"Five cylinder engine."

"That makes no sense."

"It will, once you've been here a while."

"What are you talking about!?" Zuko said with a start, "I need to go home!"

"That portal," Batman said, turning to look at him, "has been a problem for the past three years. It only opens annually. We'll try to get you back, but you'll probably have to wait until next summer."

"Next summer," Zuko repeated. His eyes narrowed. "That's unacceptable! I just found the Avatar, I need to capture him so I can regain my honor!"

Batman said nothing. Another screen appeared, the words 'call from Nightwing' displayed. At Batman's word of approval, a man with black hair and a domino mask appeared on the screen.

"Batman!" Nightwing yelled with a wide smile, "I hear I'm getting a little brother! Who is he?"

"Someone who came from Ziphran's Portal," Batman replied. Nightwing whistled lowly.

"Ooh, a dimension hopper! Like Jon! They can bond- no Damian this does not mean he won't be your friend anym- Damian put down your utility belt you are not hurting your new brother."

"I'd like to see him try," Zuko snorted.

From off-screen, Zuko heard someone screech, "Was that a fucking challenge?!" before Nightwing turned around, scolding whoever it was for using that kind of language. The video feed cut out as they pulled up to a waterfall.

Batman drove the car through it, entering a cave. Zuko's eyes widened. There were machines everywhere. More high-tech than Zuko could have ever imagined.

Batman stopped on a circular platform, and the doors opened. Zuko stepped out, looking around at the room. His gaze landed on three people.

One was Nightwing, the other a boy in a red and green outfit who looked to be about thirteen, and another boy around Zuko's age in a red outfit. All were wearing masks.

"This is Zuko," Batman introduced, putting a hand on Zuko's shoulder, who quickly ripped it off. "He's a prince from a place called the Fire Nation."

The boy in red laughed. "Prince? Aww, poor Robin isn't the only prince anymor-" he was cut off as the youngest punched him in the stomach.

"So, are we adopting him?" Nightwing asked excitedly, looking Zuko up and down. Zuko stepped back nervously, not used to someone being so happy at the thought of spending time with him.

Batman didn't answer, instead looking down at Zuko. "How did you get your scar?" he asked.

Zuko almost didn't respond, but the glare Batman was giving him was too much. "I spoke out of turn and told my father that we shouldn't purposely kill our troops," he spluttered, "And so he challenged me to an Agni Kai, and when I refused to fight him, he lit my face on fire."

"Ope, he's got trauma!" the boy in red yelled from where he was seated at a chair, "And black hair! He meets all the qualifications for adoption!"

"No!" Zuko snapped, glaring at the boy, "I can't stay here! I have to capture the Avatar so I can regain my honor!"

The boy laughed again. "Okay, Edgelord, chill. You'll be able to go back in a year."

"He will be staying here," Batman said before Zuko could verbally assault the boy, "Because he's from another world, we can't put him on the streets."

"So, we should introduce ourselves!" Nightwing suggested. He took off his mask. "I'm Dick Grayson," he pointed at the boy in red, "That's Tim Drake," he pointed at Robin, "And that's Damian Wayne. There's also Jason Todd, Cassandra Cain, Duke Thomas, Stephanie Brown and Barbara Gordon."

Damian rolled his eyes. "Father did not adopt Brown or Gordon."

"Maybe not legally, but emotionally? Waynes." Dick turned back to Zuko, "We usually aren't all here together, but my apartment in Bludhaven got bombed and Tim got sick of his neighbors, so we're here until we find a new place. Jason's coming in a couple days to see Alfred, and he's supposed to start coming to breakfast once a week."

At that moment, two girls walked down the stairs. One had blonde hair, the other black hair. The blonde one smiled. "Ooh! Bruce, you got a new one!" she did a flip off of the stairs, landing in front of Zuko. "My name's Stephanie! I'm excited to get to know you!"

Zuko glared at her. "You won't have the chance to get to know me. I'm leaving so I can capture the Avatar. I need to regain my honor!"

Stephanie scrunched her nose as she took in Zuko's hair. "The only thing you need is a hair cut."

"On it," the other girl- Cassandra -said, before taking out a throwing star from her pocket and hurling it at Zuko, slicing his ponytail clean off. Zuko's jaw dropped as he watched it fall to the ground.

"No!" he yelled, "My top knot was the only thing distinguishing me as a member of the royal family!"

"Oof," Stephanie winced, "Sorry, dude, but it's ugly."

"On that note," the elderly man from the call- Alfred -said from the top of the stairs, "I think it's time Master Zuko get some rest. He's had a long day."

As Alfred spoke, Zuko realized that he was, indeed, dead on his feet. Maybe it was lack of sleep, maybe it was the fact that he didn't have anywhere else to go, or maybe it was Dick's bright smile, but Zuko felt that he would be safe at this place. He nodded, trudging his way up the stairs.

Alfred led him to a room on the third floor, and turned on the light. Zuko scrunched his eyebrows in surprise.

"How did you do that!? You just flipped that switch and that lantern lit!"

"It's a lightbulb, Master Zuko," Alfred explained, "I take it your world didn't have electricity? Here, almost everything is automatic, made to make activities easier. I'm sure you'll grow to enjoy them. Take a shower while I get you some of Master Timothy's clothes to wear to sleep."

"Shower?" Zuko asked.

"Yes, it's like a bath but the water falls on you." Alfred led him to a smaller room in his bedroom. "Here, I'll show you."

As Zuko stepped into the shower, his mind was reeling. A shower was warm rain solely used for washing. Cars were carriages with no animals to pull them that traveled ten times as fast. He was in another world, away from everything he'd ever known.

Away from Uncle Iroh.

Zuko sighed, stepping out of the shower, grabbing a towel to dry off with. He opened the door of the bathroom, and saw clothes on the bed. Putting them on, he noticed how strange they were.

They weren't robes. It was a plain red shirt and the comfiest pair of pants he'd ever been in. It was the comfiest outfit he'd ever been in, really.

But it wasn't Fire Nation apparel. Alfred must have taken his military uniform to wash it. His ponytail gone, Zuko had nothing to remind him of home.

As he laid his head on the pillow, one last thought fluttered through his brain: I'm completely alone.

-

The next two days consisted of Zuko staying either in his room or wandering around the manor, trying to learn the layout. Alfred would bring him meals three times a day, but other than that, he left him alone. He was starting to relax. If these people were going to hurt him, they would have by now.

On his fourth day, Zuko was in the library, when he overheard Damian complain that he had nobody to practice broadsword with.

"I'm good with those," Zuko said. Dick and Damian looked up from the corner where'd they been.

"Finally, someone who is willing," Damian replied, "Come, Zuko, let's go."

_

Damian and Zuko were circling each other, each holding blunted broadswords. Dick was watching from the sidelines, smiling.

Zuko struck first, spinning around and using the momentum to drive his sword into Damian's side, who did a backflip to dodge.

Damian rushed forward, slashing downward at Zuko's head. The latter quickly brought up both swords, blocking Damian's attack.

They were evenly matched, the 'princes' were. The fight went on for an hour, neither landing a hit on the other.

A 21 year old man with black hair came in 30 minutes in, cheered Zuko on, yelled that his name was Jason, and at the 45 minute mark began texting on his phone.

Finally, the two called a truce, both drenched in sweat. Zuko turned to Jason and Dick.

Dick was smiling widely at him, and Zuko was shocked at the effect it had on him. The smile made him feel like he was the only person in the room.

Zuko nodded at Dick, before turning to Jason. "What's that?" he asked, gesturing to the phone.

"This, my dear boy, is a phone," Jason waved it in the air. "You can talk to anybody in the world with it, no matter how far away they are, and they get it instantly and respond instantly. And you can search through the internet, which is like a giant library with every single thing you could ever want to know about in a split second."

"Seriously?" said Zuko, "That's insane."

"Tim's already working on one for you," Dick said, "He's putting all of our phone numbers in it and stuff." he gasped, slapping Jason on the shoulder. "We gotta put him in the group chat."

Four hours later, Zuko had his phone, and was in the group chat called 'The Waynez'

dick: YO ZUKO'S HERE duke: whaddup dude i'm duke i'm in san fran rn

Zuko frowned. He went to safari, and googled "san fran."

zuko: what are you doing there? duke: mission with kon tim: how is my bff duke: if he doesn't take those stupid sunglasses off i will literally steal his kneecaps jason: lmao me

Zuko sucked his teeth as he read the conversation, hopping on to his bed. "Steal kneecaps?" he muttered, "Just what kind of family did I get myself into?"

zuko: what kind of family did i get myself into ? dick: the best! jason: just wait till b lets you join us in our nightly activities zuko: like that nightwing and batman thing? zuko: also does b stand for bruce or batman? jason: it stands for Bitch jason: & yes that thing. i'm red hood, tim's red robin, duke is signal, and damian's robin damian: if you call father a bitch one more time jason: iF yOu CaLl FaThEr A bItCh OnE mOrE tImE jason: what are you gonna do ur like four feet tall damian: say goodbye to your kneecaps motherfucker dick: DAMIAN NO tim: AHAHDJ DAMIAN duke: GUYS HE'S GONNA THINK YOU'RE SERIOUS jason: you literally started it??

Zuko let out a huff of laughter. Siblings who only fought in a joking manner?

He could get used to this.

-

Zuko was nine.

He laughed, looking up at a younger Uncle Iroh with shining, happy eyes, unscarred. "I love you, Uncle!" he chirped.

Iroh smiled warmly. "I love you too, Zuko."

"ZUKE!"

Zuko woke from his dream with a start to see a figure standing over him.

Dick grinned. "Hey, do you wanna go on a- put that fire out, it's me -do you wanna go on a drive?"

"But it's-" Zuko looked at the clock beside his bed "It's 2:00 AM! And I was sleeping!"

"Did you have any dreams?"

"No," Zuko lied, looking at Dick's shoes, "I don't have dreams,"

"Fine," Dick said, putting up his hands in surrender, "Don't tell me. But come on, get dressed!"

"But it's so early!"

"It's only 2:00 am, I'm usually out right now!" Dick huffed, before walking to Zuko's closet and grabbing jeans and a blue t-shirt- Alfred must have gone and got him clothes -and threw them at him. Zuko groaned as the clothes hit his face.

"Alright, alright!" Zuko gave in, getting out of bed with a stretch of his arms. "Give me five minutes."

"I'll make you some coffee, so you'll be awake!" Dick said as he left the roof, shutting the door behind him.

"Coffee?" Zuko said aloud as he put on the clothes, slipping blue Nike tennis shoes on. "What's that?" His phone chimed- the group chat -and Zuko grabbed it off of his nightstand to look at it.

dick: hey Tim I'm giving Zuko some of your coffee

tim: ??? why

dick: So he'll stay awake. we're going on a drive.

jason: take the bat mobile i dare you

dick: no we're taking my mustang

jason: coward

dick: ANYWAY

dick: i don't think he's ever had coffee before

tim: like ever? fine but only this once maybe then he'll go to Starbucks with me

tim: SINCE NOBODY ELSE IN THIS FAMILY WILL

damain: will you all be quiet, I'm busy.

jason: yeah he's at emiko's

duke: OH SHIT

damian: i haven't spoken to emiko in months, you imbecile.

jason: that's not what Roy said, brat

"Who's Emiko?" Zuko asked Dick as he opened the door to his room where he was waiting for him.

"She's this girl Damian tried to get to join his team," Dick explained, leading him to the kitchen as he put a pack of coffee into the keurig, "Jason gives him crap about her because they're so much alike."

Zuko nodded. "So, what exactly is coffee?"

"It's this drink that has caffeine in it, which is a drug that gives you energy, in simple terms," Dick explained, "Tim loves it. I don't think he's addicted, but he loves the taste." Dick poured the coffee into a different cup, took a gallon of almond milk out of the fridge, and poured some into it. "Starbucks is a huge coffee chain. They're all over the world. They have tons of different recipes, but almond milk lattes are how I like mine." He handed the cup to Zuko.

Zuko took a sip, and he hummed. "This is really good," he said, "Kind of bitter, but good."

"Right?" Dick led Zuko to another room and opened the door to a garage filled with cars. He pressed a button on his keys, and the car blinked, the doors opening. "Hop in, Zuke!"

"Don't call me that," Zuko grunted, getting in the car as he took another sip of the coffee. Dick, not fazed, told him to buckle up and took off.

"Did you have music in the Fire Nation?" Dick asked as they drove down the road, not yet in Gotham.

"Yeah," Zuko replied, looking out the window. "We had sungi horns and folk songs."

"So... no My Way by Queen Key, I'm guessing?"

"What?"

Dick smiled widely and turned on the radio. "Play My Way," he said to the car, and a song started playing.

Zuko's face scrunched up as it started. "This is music?" he raised an eyebrow.

"Meanwhile I'm turnt as fuck!" Dick sang off-key, "I left my pizza in the oven that bitch burnt as fuck!"

Zuko raised his eyebrows with a flat look on his face, but to his annoyance, he found himself not minding the song. And eventually, with Dick's calming presence and encouragement, Zuko began to sing with him."Bitch, my way! My way! My way!" the brothers sang, Zuko's voice quiet while Dick's was loud. As the song ended, Dick handed Zuko his phone.

"Here, pick one!" he said, before turning his eyes back to the road.

"I won't know any of them, though," Zuko reminded him, "What if I pick a bad one?"

"Then we'll sing it anyways!" Dick replied, "Because you picked it out!"

Zuko looked down, scrolling through the playlist. Go Hard, Watch Me, Love Story... he didn't know any of these songs, but tapped the song Starstrukk.

Dick gasped as the song started. He turned up the volume until the car was vibrating from the bass. Headbanging, Dick started screeching.

“Nice legs, daisy dukes, makes a man go WOO HOO!"

"Dick, wasn't that a whistle?"

"I can't whistle so I have to say woo-hoo."

Zuko found himself liking this song too, and once again, sang along with Dick at the second chorus.

"I think I should know!! How!! To make love to something innocent without leaving my fingerprints out!! Now!! L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce!"

"Here," Dick said, grabbing the phone and pulling up the lyrics, "Sing along!"

With the lyrics in front of him, Zuko sang the rest of the song with Dick, gradually getting louder until the both of them were screaming at the top of their lungs. At the end of the song, the two laughed.

"That was so good!" Dick praised. Zuko started to answer, before both of their phones chimed.

tim: zuko did you like the coffee

zuko: yes

tim: ok good we r going to Starbucks tomorrow

duke: ?? don't you have work??

tim: i'll tell them I'm spending time with the newest wayne so i'll be late tam will understand

duke: bro bruce hasn't had a press conference about him yet

tim: tam knows I'm red robin i think she can keep this secret

zuko: what time?

tim: 9 so u can sleep in

damian: you're being oddly nice, drake, you're never that nice to me

tim: i literally took a bullet for you like three months ago.

zuko: it's okay, you don't have to wait that long for me

tim: ?? what r u talking about ur my brother, ofc i do

Zuko blinked, not expecting that. They'd only known him for two days, and they considered him family? "Isn't it really soon to accept me?" Zuko said aloud to Dick, "I mean, I haven't helped or contributed or anything."

"So?" Dick gave Zuko a weird look. "You don't have to earn our acceptance. You had it from the moment Bruce decided to adopt you."

Zuko didn't answer. He must be lying, or just trying to make him feel better. You can't just accept someone into a family without cause.

"Now," Dick turned down the volume, "Look outside!" Zuko did as he was told, and his eyes flew open.

It was beautiful. Multicolored lights blurring as they sped past them, architecture that Zuko had never seen. "It's gorgeous," he whispered.

"I figured you'd like it," Dick chuckled. They drove around the city for a while longer, Zuko in awe. Finally, they pulled back into the garage at the Manor.

"So, you have fun?" Dick asked as they got out of the car. Zuko nodded.

"Yeah. I did."

_

"WAKE UP!"

Zuko lurched awake, glaring at Tim above him. "Do you guys always wake each other up like this?"

"Only when there's things to do!" Tim answered, "Now come on! We'll take my car. I'm so excited man."

Zuko, exhausted, yawned as he followed Tim down the stairs to the garage he'd been in seven hours earlier. Getting into a Ferrari, they took off.

"So, Zuko, what was life like in the Fire Nation?"

"Very different."

"How so?"

Zuko pursed his lips together, not answering. Tim shrugged.

"Alright. Keep your secrets." Tim pulled into a parking lot and shut the car off. "We're at the second most glorious place in the universe!"

"What's the first?"

"My therapist's office," Tim replied casually, "My friend Kon's making me go. I'm the only one in the family who goes, even though we all need it."

"What's therapy?" Zuko inquired as they got out of the car.

"It's, like, treatment for your mental health. Your issues. Dealing with your past. I needed it for sure," he pointed at his head, "Lots wrong up here." He laughed. "You probably need it too, Edgelord."

Zuko grunted in response as they stepped inside the building. Tim inhaled the air with a smile. "Doesn't that smell amazing?"

It did smell good. It smelled like coffee. He'd only smelled it once before, but Zuko had decided that it was one of his favorite scents.

"So, Dick gave you his almond lattes with no sweetener, right?" Tim looked at Zuko with a raised eyebrow. At his nod, Tim added, "Was it too bitter or was it good?"

Zuko looked around the coffee shop, surprised at the number of people in line. "Too bitter," he answered.

"Okay," You could tell that the gears in Tim's mind were turning, and he asked, "Are you hot right now?"

"I'm always hot, I'm a firebender-" he was cut off by  Tim slapping his hand over his mouth.

"Maybe in your world, people are open about powers," Tim said sternly, "But in our world, if anyone finds out who you are, bad things will happen. That's why Batman and everyone else wear masks."

Zuko nodded, and Tim took away his hand. The firebender cleared his throat. "Well, yeah, I'm always hot. Doesn't usually bother me though."

"So do you think you'd like a cold drink or a hot one?"

"Cold coffee?" Zuko echoed, crossing his arms over his chests, "I'll try it."

"Alrighty," Tim said with a grin, gesturing for Zuko to follow him to the line. Zuko flinched as he saw people staring at him, at his scar. Hearing mutters about it, he looked down, trying to hide it.

Noticing this, Tim scowled. He raised his head high. "My name is Tim Drake-Wayne, ward of Bruce Wayne," he said loudly, "And if any one of you continue whispering about him, or make him uncomfortable in any way, I will personally sue you for harassment!"

Apparently the name 'Wayne' carried some weight, as everybody looked away. Tim turned back to Zuko. "So, let's try a caramel macchiato."

Zuko took a drink after the barista handed it to him, and he nodded. "I love it, really good."

"Starbucks is always good," said Tim, "Now come on, let's get you back to the manor."

Another week passed, and Zuko started to grow comfortable. He wasn't happy there, sure, but the Waynes were welcoming, and he was actually starting to consider them friends.

In therapy, Tim had been talking about his trauma, and because it helped, he'd roped the family into doing the same.

Zuko was shocked. He couldn't believe how much they've went through. Damian's childhood. Jason's death and resurrection. Bruce and Dick watching their parents die, and their sexual assaults. Tim, who'd watching everyone he cared about die. Cass, who was treated as nothing more than a weapon for most of her life.

Finally, it was his turn. "Do I have to do this?"

"Zuko, if I have to, you have to," Damian snorted. Zuko sighed, biting his lip nervously.

"So, my mom was banished before me. Then when I was 13, I was sitting in during a military meeting, and I spoke up, telling my father that he shouldn't purposely kill our troops," he laughed bitterly, "So instead of grounding me like Bruce does, he challenged me to an Agni Kai, and when I wouldn't fight him, he lit my face on fire and banished me, saying I could only return if I captured the Avatar, who hadn't been seen in a hundred years."

Jason whistled lowly. "No offense but your dad fuckin sucks."

"He only did it to teach me respect!" Zuko snarled, clenching his fists.

"Jason," Tim scolded, "The rule is that after we share our story, nobody comments on it."

"Okay, but Zuko's acting like Damian did when he first came here," Jason argued, "Thinking that the people who are supposed to protect them are allowed to hurt them." He turned to Damian. "Is that something your grandfather would do?"

"Yes," Damian said without a beat, "Absolutely."

Zuko gritted his teeth. "You're wrong. All of you!" He rose to his feet and stormed up the stairs to his room.

My father loves me, that's why he gave me the chance of capturing the Avatar! Zuko thought as he slammed the door to his room. If he didn't care for me, he wouldn't have gave me a chance to earn back his love!

Then why do these people love you without conditions? a small voice in his head spoke.

Zuko clenched his fists, and started punching the wall. He continued punching until his knuckles were bloody. He continued punching until he fell asleep.

And yet, he woke up in his bed. He blearily opened his eyes, confused as he looked at the spot where he'd fallen asleep. The holes in the wall were there, but the blood was gone, and his knuckles were bandaged. Looking to his nightstand, Zuko saw a note.

I'm sorry for carrying you without asking, but I didn't want you to hurt your back from sleeping on the tile. Come down to the cave in the morning to change your bandages. - Bruce

Bruce had listed him off the floor solely so Zuko's back wouldn't hurt. He'd cleaned up the blood in the middle of the night so Zuko wouldn't have to see it. He'd even bandaged his hands.

This family didn't make any sense.

_

A week later, Tim and Zuko were at Starbucks. Zuko was sipping his caramel macchiato, repeatedly checking his phone while Tim worked on his laptop.

Tim raised an eyebrow. "Nervous?"

Today was the day that Bruce Wayne was announcing that he had adopted another kid. There would be pictures of him, Zuko would have to post on the Instagram that Tim had made for him, and he couldn't imagine all of the comments about his scar. "No, not at all."

"It'll be okay," Tim said, shutting his laptop so he could better face Zuko. "It can't be worse than whenever Damian was revealed. 'Bruce Wayne has love child?' "Young Wayne looks to have serious mental health issues'" he rolled his eyes, "Damian was so mad."

"When will I be interviewed?" Zuko asked, tapping his fingers against the table.

"We don't know yet," Tim replied, "We're hoping to get anybody but Vicky Vale. She's a vulture." he paused. "But don't worry. We'll all be there with you."

"I'm not worried," Zuko insisted, "I just... need to know so I can clear my schedule."

Tim raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "Oh? Brooding take up a lot of time?"

"Shut it, Tim-Wit." Zuko's phone chimed, and he jumped with a start before looking at it. Sure enough, the article titled 'Bruce Wayne Adopts Another' was up.

"It's out!" Tim said, "Great! Time to post on Instagram!"

"What?" Zuko panicked, "Already? But- but my scar!"

"It'll get shown eventually," Tim pointed out, "Plus, Dick and I already have our pictures picked out. Dick has the one of you smiling when he got you two matching shirts."

Zuko smiled softly, tugging on the hem of the before mentioned shirt, a dark blue Ralph Lauren.

"And they're up!" Tim said with a grin, shoving his phone in Zuko's face, "Take a look!"

"That's a good picture," he voiced. Tim nodded, muttering an agreement, before showing him Dick's post.

Zuko replied to Jason’s comment with an eye roll, before he froze, the caption sinking in. He blinked in shock. Dick would... die for him? He shook his head. "I still don't get why you guys care for me so much. Like I said, I haven't done anything to earn it."

Tim gave him a sad look. "Zuko, don't you get it? We don't love you because you did something to earn it or whatever. We love you simply because you exist."

#here we go man #atla #avatar: the last airbender #avatar the last airbender #a:tla #zuko #prince zuko #katara #sokka #zukka #zuko x reader #aang #avatar #atla fanfiction #avatar the last airbender fanfic #damian wayne #robin #jason todd #red hood #tim drake #red robin #nightwing #dick grayson #duke thomas #luv signal #bruce wayne #batfam #batman #batfamily #incorrect batfamily quote

[goulets]

Heartland

Chapter: 3/8 Pairing: Jason Todd/Dick Grayson Additional Characters: Bruce Wayne, Damian Wayne, Colin Wilkes, Stephanie Brown, Cassandra Cain, Barbara Gordon, Tim Drake, Duke Thomas Rating: T (for now) Case Fic / Kid Fic a03 link

The library has its benefits: no harassment from over-familiar family members, no Dick sexually frustrating him within an inch of his life, and, if he’s willing to be a little sentimental, he kind of does want to show it to the baby. She’s too young to appreciate it, probably, but it stirs something in him to share it with her all the same. He’s heard it’s never too early to get kids into reading - his parents sure as hell never tried, but Jason had read anything he could get his hands on, once he learned how. It had saved him, back then. Maybe it can do the same for her one day.

“Could’ve sworn Bruce had a Dr. Seuss anthology somewhere in here,” he says to her, combing over the shelves with his eyes. “Guess not. You up for something more sophisticated?”

She grunts, squeezing his shirt in her fist. “Alright,” he agrees, pulling Twelfth Night off the shelf. “Shakespeare it is. You’ve got taste, kid.”

***

(dick)

Venice is a nightclub that has gone by many names during its Gotham tenure, and just as many owners. Dick has been undercover here at least twice, back when the club was catering to the wealthier patrons of Little Italy. The current management clearly hasn’t bothered with maintaining that exclusivity - the building is now shabby and outdated, even for this neighborhood. One thing that hasn’t changed, though, is the real draw of Venice, which is the illegal casino in the back rooms beyond the VIP lounge. Through all the club’s owners, the casino has always been run by the Falcones, and always frequented by the city’s most morally flexible elected officials. In the past four nights that Dick’s been staking the place out, he’s seen five judges, two city council members, and even the new police commissioner slipping out the back door into the alley, stinking of gin and cigar smoke and patting their coat pockets with an air of satisfaction. It’s good intel to have, Barbara’s told him. Always helpful to keep the files updated on who’s being bought and by whom. None of that really makes him feel better about the fact that he’s been staking this place out for four nights and still hasn’t managed to pin down their actual target.

It’s embarrassing, is what it is. He’s Nightwing, for God’s sake. He’s taken down whole Russian mobs in Bludhaven, and now he’s being completely eluded by a third-string Falcone no one’s even heard of.

Oracle had ID’d the doer of the Torres/Howard murders in a matter of hours, true to her word, and the ballistics had predictably matched up with a few other murders that the police never bothered investigating. Susanna “Susie” Falcone, a second cousin once removed with a rap sheet that puts many of her relatives to shame. Her name must still have some pull in political circles, because she’s only done time once, in spite of being indicted almost a dozen times. Gotta love good old fashioned judicial corruption, Jason had said. No one had been able to argue, looking at the number of charges dismissed.

All in all, it was supposed to be a fairly simple tag-and-bag. Once they’d found her place of work - officially, the Venice nightclub, unofficially, the family casino - he’d been tasked to track her, question her, and then turn her in to the police. He’d chosen his stakeout perch well, on a hotel roof high above the alley, he’d followed her, unseen, and so far, she’s given him the slip every freaking time. The woman has vanished through every doorway from here to Robinson Park, as only the most enterprising criminal can. Were this a different kind of case, Dick might have been impressed.

Instead, he’s annoyed, and having to compromise - his vantage point is lower, closer but more exposed in the thin shadows of a third story construction platform right above the alley. He can see the door to the club without any difficulty, but the moment he moves, he’ll be open to attack.

He’ll just have to move fast. Fortunately, that’s what he’s best at.

There’s a soft motion behind him, almost quiet enough to escape his notice entirely. It’s Jason - Dick hadn’t expected him to actually turn up. No doubt he’s here to make sure they finally succeed in catching their mark tonight, but he’s been so adamant about not leaving Danielle with anyone except Dick that it’s still a surprise to see him. What’s equally surprising to Dick is that he was apparently hoping Jason would show, if the relief he feels at seeing him is anything to go by.

It’s a nice moment of solidarity, until Jason opens his mouth. “So, fourth night’s a charm, huh?”

Dick bristles. “What happened to not leaving the baby?” he retorts.

Jason bristles back, but doesn’t rise to the bait. It’s a little wrongfooting - a reminder that things are changing between them. Dick is used to the veneer of antagonism that hangs over his relationship with Jason, the unresolved tension they both pretend not to notice. They’d gotten into a pretty good groove when he was acting as Batman, staying out of each others’ way for the most part, and working together when necessary. Dick’s pretty sure Jason doesn’t actually harbor any murderous feelings towards him, just like he doesn’t actually hate Bruce, no matter what he says.

“The girls and Alfred ganged up on me,” Jason says, leaning back against the scaffolding. “Whatever. I needed to get the hell out of there anyways. I don’t know how you stand being around them all so much.”

Dick laughs. “They’re not as interested in me,” he admits. “I’m not the cool sibling.”

Jason doesn’t respond right away. It's hard for Dick to tell, when he’s wearing the helmet, but he thinks Jason is probably waiting to see if Dick is joking. It’s another way things have shifted between them - Jason’s holding back, not jumping straight to lashing out, like he used to. It should be a good thing - it is a good thing, but it’s throwing him off balance all the same. He feels like he's spent most of the past several days looking for Jason, even when Jason is right in front of him. He’s used to trying to find the Jason he knows - or knew - the Jason who was taken away from him. Now there’s a new Jason, a Jason he’s still getting to know. Dick can’t choose between them, can’t decide which one he wants to find every time he looks at him. Maybe that’s why he can’t seem to find his one lousy mafia shooter.

“Looks like the cops are covering up the ballistics report on Reynolds,” Jason says, after a moment. “Go figure.”

Dick frowns. “Just Reynolds?”

Jason grunts. “Hold on. What.”

Dick turns to look at him.

“Did you burp her?”

Oh, Dick realizes, he’s on the comm. Someone back at the Manor must have pinged him on a private line.

“Then get Alfred to do it.”

It’s curious that the ballistics on Cy Reynolds’ murder are the ones being suppressed, Dick thinks. He was the only one killed with a submachine gun - the bullets from most of the other crime scenes had come from a standard Beretta APX, and the object of his stakeout, Susie Falcone, had used a Glock on Danielle’s parents. The Glock matched a few other shootings, the Beretta matched none. None of that is particularly noteworthy - after all, Susie is a criminal, and Beretta shell casings are a dime a dozen at any mob shooting.

“Fine. I’ll check back in five. If you asswipes don’t pick up, I’m coming back there.” Jason makes an aggravated noise in the back of his throat, which Dick takes to mean he’s hung up.

“Everything OK?”

“Just peachy. By some cosmic fucking joke, I’m the only person in the family who can get the baby to take a damn bottle. I told her they just need to burp her, but I guess that’s too complicated a task for a family of genius detectives,” Jason grumbles. “I knew I shouldn’t have left her. Shit.”

“Jay, relax. She’s fine.” Dick can’t help but grin at him. It’s honestly sweet, the way Jason and the baby have gotten attached to each other. Dick likes to think he’s her second favorite, but it’s pretty hard to tell. No matter who’s holding her, she’s always looking at Jason, and Jason never stops looking at her.

“It’s fucking cold out here,” Jason says mulishly.

Dick raises an eyebrow. “I noticed. It’s April, not August. If you really want to go back, I’m not gonna stop you.”

“I don’t…” Jason sighs. “Look, I’m here, okay? You bungled this grade school op three nights in a row, so congrats, you triggered the bat buddy system. If I leave and you fuck it up again, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

Dick supposes it’s his turn not to rise to the bait. “Fair enough,” he says easily, turning around to face the alleyway again. “What were you saying about the ballistics on Reynolds?”

“Oh, Oracle ran the bullets through Interpol. Turns out our ill-fated gang boss was offed by one of Carmine Falcone’s personal weapons. The record’s been scrubbed from US databases, but Babs had a hunch.” Jason sounds impressed.

“Been scrubbed meaning...there was a record,” Dick follows, “and some people might still remember, if they saw the bullets. Hence the coverup.”

“Yup. Hence the coverup.”

“Could explain what the commissioner was doing here the other night,” Dick muses.

Jason snorts derisively. “See, this is what I hate about the mafia. They’re so goddamn predictable. Kill the competition, pay off the cops, around and around forever. It’s so pedestrian.”

Dick laughs. “You’d rather deal with Clayface?”

“Fuck yes I would. Clayface has flair, you know? Anybody can be a mobster, shit.”

Jason has started shifting with agitation, or maybe impatience. Either way, their vantage spot isn’t hidden enough for him to be moving around. “Get low if you’re gonna be twitchy,” Dick tells him. “Or if you’re gonna have a cigarette, but I’d really rather you didn’t.”

“Lucky for you I quit then,” Jason says, crouching down next to him. “I’m not jonesing, I’m just fucking cold.”

“We could huddle together for warmth,” Dick jokes, grinning unabashedly when Jason’s helmet fixes him with a death glare. “Wait, you quit smoking? When?”

“When I started taking care of a baby, obviously.” Jason goes still, suddenly. “Is that her?”

The door to the alleyway opens, and they both tense - but it’s just a man, a bodyguard, by the looks of him. Close-cropped blonde hair, early 40s, used to throwing his weight around. Feeling there’s something familiar about him, Dick nudges Jason and motions for him to take a photo. Jason starts almost imperceptibly at the contact, but follows suit. They both hold perfectly still in the shadows as the man looks around, glances in a cursory way along the rooftops, and then sets off down the alley towards the street.

“I know him,” Jason mutters. “From Tim’s case files - he was with Intergang.”

Dick doesn’t say anything about Jason calling Tim by name, but it’s a welcome development. “Looks like he switched sides, if he’s hanging out here.”

“Wonderful,” Jason says. “All right, I’m gonna check on the kid again.”

Dick represses the urge to give him a shoulder squeeze, or ruffle his hair. It’d probably result in him getting shoved off the platform, but Jason’s being so....not different, because Dick’s always known that this Jason was still in him, somewhere. Always hoped, anyways. When Jason had been younger and acted like this, surly with his words but tender with his actions, Dick had always thought of him as cute. It’s like that now, too, except it’s not just cute, because Jason has several inches and at least two weight classes on him. It’s cute in a different way, an adult way. It’s cute in a way that makes Dick want to push harder against Jason’s armor, to catch as many glimpses of that side of him as he can. If he thinks about it too long, it’s cute in a way that makes him want, recklessly.

“Red Hood to Batgirl,” Jason says. He’s calling on the family line this time. “Give me an update.”

“You’re seriously a helicopter parent, you know that, Hood?” Steph laughs in Dick’s ear. “We figured it out. Well...Black Bat figured it out.”

Jason’s shoulders sag a little in relief. Cute, Dick thinks, involuntarily. He needs to get a grip. “About fucking time.”

“She prefers being propped up,” Cass says. “It helps her swallow.”

“That’s what I was trying to tell you earlier. And she likes her back straight.”

“You said none of that, actually,” Steph says. “You just told us to support her head. Which we have been, thank you very much.”

“You have her now?”

“Robin has her.”

Dick and Jason look at each other. Jason says, “What the fuck?”

“Right?” Steph sounds amused. “I was surprised too....his friend is here, that ginger kid? He’s the one that took her from the orphanage, right?”

“Batgirl, I swear to god, if anything happens to her - ”

“Oh, calm down, jeez,” Steph groans. “They’re being supervised, okay? It’s honestly precious, you would agree with me if you could see it. I’ll text the pictures to N.”

“Please do,” Dick says. Speaking of cute, in a way that’s much safer to think about.

“Go do your job now,” Cass tells them. “We’re handling it.”

“Yeah, what she said. Batgirls out.”

“Feel better?” Dick asks, after a moment.

“Don’t ask me that,” Jason grouses. “And show me those pictures when you get them.”

Dick grins. “Sure, Jay.”

“Ugh.”

Dick decides to change the subject, before Jason gets too antsy and tries to bail. “So how do you want to play this, when Susie shows?”

Jason points to a dumpster halfway down the alley. “We wait until she’s there. I’ll get the club door, put a taser on it to stop her getting back in or anyone else from coming out. You cut her off before she gets to the street, and we question her on the backside of the dumpster. I’ll take line of sight, since I’m packing.”

Dick nods. “So is she.”

“So is every goon in those back rooms, sure. That’s why we lock their asses in.”

“And if they come out the front?”

Jason spins a gun in his hand. “Rubber bullets do the job just fine if you know how to aim. Let me worry about the backup.”

Another thing that’s changed about Jason - or that hasn’t changed, depending on how far back Dick looks. He uses rubber bullets now, whenever he’s working a case with one of them. Supposedly it’s a stipulation from Bruce, but Jason didn’t use lethal force on the couple cases he and Dick worked together, either, back when Dick was wearing the cowl. Dick thinks Bruce just gave him an excuse - whatever bloodlust Jason was fueled by when he first came back to Gotham has long since dried up. There are still things that set him off - Barbara had informed them about a dead rapist in the Narrows just last month - but Bruce hadn’t even commented on it, besides the barest acknowledgment. Dick thinks he might be the only one that actually cares when Jason kills someone, anymore. And what’s really disturbing is that he’s not actually sure how much he cares. For instance, he knows Jason has a third gun, holstered under his jacket, loaded with live ammo. He could call Jason out on it, insist he ditch it or at the very least unload it.

He says nothing. Let me worry about the backup. If this mission ends in a massacre, Dick will only have himself to blame.

The door opens again, and out steps Susie Falcone.

She immediately looks around, staying still in the doorway for a minute or more. Dick is pretty sure she hasn’t seen him following her, but he’s familiar with the sensation of being watched. He and Jason both shrink further into the shadows, waiting for her to make a move.

The whole process takes about six seconds. The moment she gets a few paces into the alley, they drop down. Jason electrifies the door handle, and Dick outmaneuvers her easily, slapping his police-issue cuffs on her and kicking her gun aside, then spinning her into the wall behind the dumpster. She hits it with a grunt. By the time she’s glaring at him, Jason is at his side again.

“Nightwing and Red Hood?” she says. “Damn. Didn’t expect to see you fellas out here.”

She doesn’t seem scared of them. Dick guesses they’ll have backup coming their way soon.

“Hey, what do you know,” Jason says conversationally, picking up the gun and emptying the clip in one swift motion. “Nightwing, I do believe this is our Glock.”

“Not mine,” Susie objects. “Picked it up off the club floor.”

“Come on, Susie, you’re smarter than that.” Jason crosses his arms. “Look, I can appreciate a sensible weapon. The Berettas the rest of your family favors? Too flashy for me. I loved Sopranos as much as the next guy, but come on.”

Dick suppresses a laugh. “Thought you were a Sig man,” he says in an undertone. He hadn’t expected Jason to take the lead, but it’s working. Susie looks agitated at the mention of her family.

“Wow, stalker. Remind me to move safe houses,” Jason quips back. “Aw, look, she slipped your cuffs.”

There’s a taser in Susie’s newly freed hand, and Dick quickly sidesteps it, twists it out of her wrist and sends it clattering down the cobblestones of the alley. Jason sweeps her legs out from under her and knocks her down flat, maybe a little harder than Dick would’ve. Thankfully, she goes down without a fight.

“Let’s try this again,” Dick says, kneeling next to her and zip-tying her wrists. If he wasn’t sure before, he is now - she was expecting them. They won’t be alone for long. He throws a couple smoke pellets down to the ends of the alley, and clips a nearly invisible wireless mic to the shoelaces of her boot under the guise of patting her down.

“You’re obviously not surprised to see us, so just tell us what we want to know,” Jason tells her, squatting down. “I’ll be honest, I don’t really give a shit that you shot Big Mouth, but what did Linda Torres ever do to you?”

“Let me up,” Susie snarls.

“No. Talk, or I’ll give you a taste of that taser you tried to pull on us.”

“Hood,” Dick hisses.

“See? He knows I’ll do it. Save yourself the grief, Susie.” Jason points the barrel of his gun lazily at her temple.

Susie narrows her eyes. “Fine. The two of them robbed me, last September. Dumb motherfuckers didn’t know who they were messing with. But I let them live because the bitch was pregnant.”

Jason makes a noise of disbelief. “Oh, sure. You’re a real bleeding heart, is that it?”

“Like you’re any better,” Susie fires back.

“You said you waited on Linda because she was pregnant,” Dick says. “Why’d you wait to kill Big Mouth?”

Susie’s mouth twists. “Guess I just felt like it.” Dick doesn’t need to see the tension in her shoulders to know she’s lying.

“Strike two.” Jason clicks the safety off. “Who put the hits out?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Susie answers. “I’m dead if I talk, so pistol whip me if you want to. Here’s the God’s honest truth: I really didn’t need a reason to kill those assholes. I was out for ‘em anyways. But I’m not crazy enough to kill a baby, all right? I don’t need shit like that on my conscience.”

“Keep talking,” Jason growls. Dick hears the whoop of a siren a few blocks off. “Where’s the baby now?”

“Somewhere safe, I swear. If anybody comes for her, it won’t be me.”

Susie still thinks Danielle’s at the orphanage, then. That’s good for them, but potentially bad for all the other kids, Colin included. These guys clearly have no problem killing children, even if Susie won’t do it.

The sirens are getting closer. Someone inside must’ve called the cops. Dick motions to Jason, indicating they need to wrap things up.

“Who is coming for her,” Jason barks, every line of his body a threat. “You’ve got five seconds.”

“You don’t.” Susie looks triumphant. They can hear the shouts of police from behind the smoke. “But don’t worry, boys. You’ll find out who really runs this town soon enough.”

“Hood,” Dick mutters. “We need to go, cops in this neighborhood aren’t cape-friendly.”

Jason stands, visibly enraged, and for a moment Dick thinks he’ll shoot Susie anyways. He’s prepared to move - but then Jason pulls out his grapple, fires, and flies up onto the roof.

“Talk about a bleeding heart,” Susie says to Dick. “He have kids or something?”

Dick doesn’t like her tone of voice at all. She’s too relaxed, too unconcerned about being under arrest. She won’t stay in long.

“It’s Nightwing! Get your hands up!”

Dick obliges, ready to pull his escrima sticks.

Three police officers come through the smoke, weapons drawn. “You better have a damn good reason for being this far out of Bludhaven,” one of them shouts at Dick.

“Sure do!” Dick calls back. “Arrested a murderer for you, no need to thank me!”

“Shut up,” a different officer retorts. “Keep your hands up, pretty boy.”

“Oh, fuck this,” Jason mutters over the comm. “I’m throwing you an escape, we’ll recon on the library roof. Stop being so goddamn chatty.”

One smoke pellet later, Dick is three rooftops away and flying. He gets to the library before Jason, exhilarated as ever from a good run.

Jason drops down next to him after a minute or so, laughing when he gets a look at Dick’s smile. “Running from the cops still does it for you, huh?”

Dick elbows him, momentarily forgetting to keep his distance. “Doesn’t it for you?”

Surprisingly, Jason doesn’t move away. “Usually they’re shooting at me, so.”

Dick leans closer, testing. “So…yes?”

“You’re so annoying,” Jason says, but he lets Dick nudge his shoulder, bump their arms together. He’s so solid, Dick thinks. So big. More like Bruce than any of them.

“So, how fast do you think she’ll get out?” he asks, when Jason stays quiet.

“Fucking tomorrow, probably,” Jason sighs. “Next week if we’re lucky.”

“Sounds like she didn’t know about Danielle, at least.”

“She’s not the problem,” Jason says, shrugging Dick off and standing back up. “Falcones will blow up the whole orphanage if they get wind of it. We need to put them down first.”

“We need to find out who’s in charge,” Dick agrees. “I planted a mic on her shoe. In the laces. Hopefully she won’t find it for a few days.”

“Good thinking,” Jason nods. “You gonna keep patrolling?”

“Might as well,” Dick says, standing up next to him and stretching his arms over his head. “I’m still stiff from that stakeout, I need to move.”

Jason’s gone quiet again. Dick thinks he hears his breath catch, but the helmet muffles it enough that it could be a yawn.

“You’re going back to the manor?”

Jason groans. “Fuck my life, yes.”

“You miss her, huh.” Cute, his brain chants.

Jason doesn’t answer, but Dick has a feeling he’s getting the stink-eye.

“I miss her too,” Dick offers. “It’s okay.”

Jason sighs. “Dick…”

“It’s a good thing, Jay. You care about her! We all do,” Dick adds, seeing the rigidity in Jason’s posture. “I mean, you’re practically her parent right now. Of course you miss her.”

“...Don’t say it like that.” Jason’s voice is low, almost pained, and Dick knows he pushed too far. “Like…like I have a right to, okay, just. Don’t.”

“Jason, wait,” Dick starts, but he doesn’t get to finish. Without a backward glance, Jason fires off a line to the neighboring building, and then he’s gone.

***

(tim)

The docks are quiet, unsettlingly so, as Tim prowls around the towers of shipping containers, keeping to the deep shadows they cast along the chipped pavement. It’s overcast, so there’s no moonlight to expose him, but it’s also too dark to see which of the trucks and campers parked all over are occupied, which ones might suddenly turn their headlights on him and catch him out.

One truck in particular - an innocuous looking Isuzu with a stunningly weaponized interior, is the object of his search. The driver, Felipe, is one of Tim’s best informants within Intergang - or had been, prior to the upheaval. Tim’s reasonably sure that Felipe is too lowly a grunt to make an example of, but still, he’s concerned that he hasn’t heard from him in a few days.

As it turns out, he needn’t have worried. He finds Felipe a hundred yard away from his truck, taking a piss off the wharf. He lets himself into the passenger side of the truck, and immediately notes that it is packed. There’s hardly a spare inch in the back, and Tim has a tough time even getting into the passenger seat with all the bags, clothes, and blankets stuffed into it. He pushes the majority of it to the floor, and waits.

Felipe comes back a few moments later. He opens the door and starts, eyes going wide when he sees Tim, but Tim puts his finger to his lips and motions for Felipe to get in so they can talk.

“Red Robin,” Felipe says, once the door is closed. He looks even more shaken than usual. “What the fuck, man?”

Tim crosses his arms. “You tell me, Felipe. You’ve been dodging my calls for days, and now I find out you’re skipping town?”

“I ditched that phone, man. Boss Reynolds had my number in there, you know? Ditched it as soon as I heard about him. I wasn’t trying to ghost you, honest.”

“Relax,” Tim tells him. “I’m not mad. I’d dodge me, too. Just tell me what happened, and I’ll shadow you out of town. Make sure you’re not followed.”

“Shit, man,” Felipe sighs. “Okay, look. There’s shit I can’t tell you, not if I ever want to hench again. You gotta figure that all out yourself, yeah?”

Tim shrugs. “Fine.”

Felipe swallows. “It started last week when Boss Reynolds met with somebody - I don’t know his name, God as my witness, but from what I heard, ‘cause I was unloading some of that funky alien tech, and you know Boss Reynolds wanted to supervise that personally - anyways, this guy in a suit took a meeting with him, and it sounded like he was offering Boss Reynolds a job. Said he had a new operation, bigger than Intergang, bigger than anything Gotham’s seen in a while.”

“Did Reynolds believe him?”

“Nah, he told him to get lost. They had some words, and then everybody started pulling guns, and I went back to the ship so I didn’t get fuckin’ shot, but I didn’t hear anything after that. Next thing I saw, Boss Reynolds was calling his son up and telling him to demo some building down by the old boardwalk - a hotel, maybe. Guess he wanted to expand that way, I don’t know.”

“That was the old Falcone hotel,” Tim says, mostly just to see Felipe’s reaction. He isn’t disappointed - Felipe goes pale, and his eyes flash to the rosary hanging off his rearview mirror. Tim likes Felipe as an informant because he’s nosy, shockingly competent for a henchman, and because he really likes to gossip. He’s never held back on Tim before this.

“Few days later, one of ours, this merc named Tiberius, comes down to the warehouse and says he’s got something to show us. Takes out a fat fuckin’ folder full of pictures…man, it was some sick shit. Boss Reynolds, his wife, Reynolds Jr, and every fuckin’ guy under him. Kids, man. He just passed it around, made everyone look at it. Then he says, we can either be in the folder, or we can come meet the new boss.”

Felipe takes a shaky breath. “Obviously I go with Tiberius, like everyone else. I heard a couple guys stayed on the ship that was docked, thinking they’d wait ‘em out, but the new boss blew it up. Says we’re not in the tech business anymore, and anyone caught trying to smuggle it is gonna get tied to it and tossed in the harbor. You can imagine my concerns,” he says, gesturing to his truck. Tim estimates half or more of the weapons in it are salvaged from alien junk. Roy Harper would have a field day with the setup this guy’s made for himself.

“So that’s why you’re bailing,” Tim says, understanding. He can hardly blame the guy. “Why not just hide the truck somewhere?”

“Well…I did think about that,” Felipe admits. “Tiberius made us a pretty sweet pitch, once we went along with him. Not gonna lie, I was tempted. Tech is my thing, you know, but I can make a gun out of pretty much anything. I could see the possibilities, is what I’m saying, but that was before we met the new boss.”

Tim nods encouragingly. This is what he’s been waiting to hear.

“Listen, Red Robin - I know we’ve had our differences, but I respect you, man, you know that. You’ve been good to me, so I’m gonna give you some advice here. Stay the hell away from the new boss. Like, don’t even get involved. I’ve been henching for a while, and I’ve seen some messed up shit, but they are crazy. Está loca, you feel me? I’ve seen the hit list, and you’re right at the top of it. You and all the other capes. Half of Arkham, too. And they’re connected, like you wouldn’t believe. Shit, I’m already saying too much, man. You see the position I’m in here?”

“I do, Felipe,” Tim tells him. He hands over a stack of hundred dollar bills, their agreed-upon rate for information. “Where are you going?”

“You’re crazy too, if you think I’m telling you that,” Felipe scoffs.

Tim wasn’t expecting a straight answer anyways. “Fair enough. You heading out now?”

“Soon as you get the hell outta my car, yeah. You said you’d shadow me out?”

“I will,” Tim says. “From a distance. If you don’t see me, it means you’re clear to cross the bridge.”

“All right,” Felipe nods. “In that case, I hope I never see your ass again.”

Tim laughs, and climbs out of the truck.

He finds his own way out of the shipyard, pulls a bike out of a safe house, and catches up with Felipe’s GPS signal halfway to the Fashion District. Once he’s sure there’s no immediate threat, he calls Barbara.

“Red Robin to Oracle. I’m uploading a recording to the server.”

Barbara is in his ear at once. “You met with your informant?”

“He wouldn’t give me a name, but he let a couple things slip.”

“Well, don’t keep me in suspense,” she says.

“First, he flinched hard when I brought up the Falcone name.”

“Confirms what we already know,” Barbara says. “Good. There’s more?”

“There’s more.” Tim tries not to gloat. This is, after all, a serious situation. “He was being cagey about mentioning the leader’s gender, so I was already suspicious, but then said ‘está loca’ when he was trying to warn me.”

Barbara whistles. “Well,” she says, sounding satisfied. “That’ll certainly narrow it down.”

“Yep,” Tim says grimly. “Looks like the new head of the Falcone family is a woman.”

***

(jason)

When Jason was Robin, the library had always been his favorite room in the Manor. It had spoken easily to his idea of what wealth was - rich people had fancy cars, sure, and maybe pools and expensive wardrobes, but wealthy people had art collections, and gardens, and libraries. Jason had spent hours upon hours browsing the shelves, reading anything he could wrap his brain around (and plenty of things he couldn’t), suggesting additions to Alfred, and avoiding his schoolwork in favor of learning about more interesting things, like string theory, or cryptology, or chemical warfare.

That was then.

Now, the library is the only place he can get a minute of peace from the constant barrage of his obnoxious, nosy, boundaryless family members. They’ve been characteristically persistent in their curiosity about him, and about Danielle, who is now Dani, courtesy of Stephanie. This is a nickname family, she’d said, and Jason hadn’t known how to disagree. So now she’s Dani, and Jason is family, and that apparently means he is no longer entitled to any privacy, or personal space for that matter. The only person who hasn’t barged in on him is Bruce, which is almost worse, in a way, because it’s one thing when nobody seeks him out, and it’s quite another when everyone does and then Bruce...doesn’t. Not that he wants Bruce to come up and bother him, God. But he’s in the man’s house, he’s hearing him on the comm constantly either on patrol or down in the cave, and all the other Bat brats and even Alfred are buzzing around him like flies. It’s too much - it feels like before, except for Bruce’s conspicuous absence reminding him that it’s not.

Sharing a bathroom with Dick is another before experience that Jason didn’t need a repeat of. In some ways, it was worse when he was Robin - stripping and showering after patrol in the cave with Dick a few feet away from him is a memory he really wouldn’t have minded leaving back in the Pit - and in other ways, it’s worse now, because Dick is always freaking around. There’s no reprieve, he’s not flitting off to the Titans every week like he used to be. Jason hasn’t gone half a day without Dick getting in his space, drawing up close to him and making that earnest eye contact he’s so annoyingly good at; sometimes wet, sometimes half-naked, sometimes both. And what can Jason do? He’s not going to leave Dani, and he needs Dick to be there so he can get some sleep every once in a while, or patrol, or shower. It’s actually been pretty helpful to have him around, in that regard, but if he has to see the guy walking around with bedhead and nothing but a pair of boxer briefs on one more time, he’s going to fucking explode.

So, the library has its benefits: no harassment from over-familiar family members, no Dick sexually frustrating him within an inch of his life, and, if he’s willing to be a little sentimental, he kind of does want to show it to Dani. She’s too young to appreciate it, probably, but it stirs something in him to share it with her all the same. He’s heard it’s never too early to get kids into reading - his parents sure as hell never tried, but Jason had read anything he could get his hands on, once he learned how. It had saved him, back then. Maybe it can do the same for Dani one day.

“Could’ve sworn Bruce had a Dr. Seuss anthology somewhere in here,” he says to her, combing over the shelves with his eyes. “Guess not. You up for something more sophisticated?”

She grunts, squeezing his shirt in her fist. “Alright,” he agrees, pulling Twelfth Night off the shelf. “Shakespeare it is. You’ve got taste, kid.”

He wonders, not for the first time, what exactly he thinks he’s doing, playing at this whole parenting thing. The rational part of his brain knows that this is a case, that Dani is a victim, that Jason is protecting her because it’s his job. The emotional part of his brain has gone completely off the goddamn rails. Case in point: he’s here with her in the library, prepping her for early literacy like some kind of Crest Hill soccer mom wannabe. Like he’ll even be in her life when she starts doing her ABCs - God willing, she’ll be as far away from him as possible by the time that happens.

It’s fucking hard to think about. He never thought he’d get this attached to a person who can’t even burp on their own. It’s been over a week, and he still struggles with putting her down, with stepping away from her, even when he knows he’s coming right back. Steph and Damian have been wanting to hold her all the time, and Jason knows that they’re capable, knows he has no claim over Dani, doesn’t even mind either of them all that much under normal circumstances, and still, he can’t help feeling like something has reached inside and gripped at his heart every time he passes her over. Which is ridiculous, because she’s not his, he has no more claim over her than any other schmuck off the street. She’s just a kid with unbelievably bad luck, and he’s the idiot who followed Dick up the stairs instead of booking it out the door like a sensible person.

He settles down with her on the couch, propping her up on a couple of pillows, giving her foot a little squeeze. She squeals, smiling at him, and stuffs her fingers in her mouth. God, Jason didn’t know he could feel the way he feels whenever she smiles at him. It’s gonna kill him when he has to give her up.

“If music be the food of love, play on,” he reads, walking his fingers up her leg. “Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, the appetite may sicken, and so die.”

Dani watches him, chewing happily on her fingers. “‘O, it came over my ear like the sweet sound that breathes upon a bank of violets.’ That’s you, you know.” He pokes her in the cheek, grinning. If music be the food of love…but hell, he doesn’t think he’ll ever get enough of this. Especially when she’s all calm and engaging, the precious few minutes that he’s learned to appreciate in between finishing eating and being tired and cranky, when all she wants to do is look around at things, and all Jason wants to do, ever, is look at her.

The door to the library opens, and Jason goes from content to murderous in a fraction of a second. “What the fuck is it now,” he hisses, expecting Damian or maybe Tim, coming to nag him some more, and instead sees Damian’s friend Colin, who looks horrified to have intruded on him. Jason immediately feels like the world’s biggest ass.

“Sorry,” Colin whispers, mortified, and Jason waves a hand apologetically.

“My bad, I didn’t know it was you. Come in, it’s fine. She’s awake, you don’t need to whisper.”

Colin looks unsure, but soon nods and steps into the library, shutting the door firmly behind him.

Once inside, he dawdles by the nearest bookshelf, clearly at a loss. Jason probably should’ve just let him back out, because this is awkward. Should he keep reading to Dani? Talk to Colin? Ask him why he looks like someone just kicked him and stole his dog?

“You good?” he ventures, figuring he ought to at least attempt to be the adult in the room.

Colin glances at him over his shoulder, smiling tentatively. “Yeah, just bored. Damian’s sleeping, we had a rough patrol last night.”

“We?” Jason repeats, stunned. Bruce isn’t an exemplar of child welfare practices, sure, but letting Damian take other kids on crime-busting playdates? What the hell?

“Oh, I guess you don’t know,” Colin frowns. “I’m….uh, it’s probably easier if I just show you.”

He slides his jacket off, threadbare t-shirt hanging off his skinny frame. Jason tenses, not sure what to expect. When Colin’s arm starts to expand, his eyes widen. By the time his fist is as big around as Jason’s thigh, he thinks his eyebrows have probably disappeared into his hairline.

“Oh.” Jason has no idea how he’s supposed to react to this. Is Colin a meta? He’s pretty sure he would know if Colin was a meta. “How…?”

“Scarecrow,” Colin explains. Jason’s heart sinks. “He experimented on me with synthetic Venom. Batman saved me.”

Dani fusses, twisting her body and scrunching her face up. Jason sympathizes - this conversation is giving him gas, too. “Shit,” he says. Not the most articulate way of expressing his condolences, but Colin’s friends with Damian, so tact can’t be of great importance to him. “I didn’t know.”

Dani starts to cry, and Colin takes a couple steps forward, putting Jason’s hackles up at once. Stop it, he tells himself sternly. He might have fallen down a few pegs, but he’s not pathetic enough to square up against an abused fifth grader. He picks her up, rubbing her back, and then glances over at Colin. The kid’s gone shy, looking down at a point somewhere between Jason’s legs and the floor. Jason feels all the hostility bleed out of him, and he sighs.

“You can sit down.” He gestures to the couch, trying to sound nonthreatening. Dani burps, mouths at his shirt, and then gurgles and kicks her legs again. She leans back against his hold to stare at Colin, and Colin’s face splits into a huge grin. He tucks himself down into the cushions, keeping plenty of space between them, but Jason can sense from the inclination of his body that he wants to be closer. Well, if anyone has a right to be close to Dani, it’s the kid who rescued her in the first place.

“Here,” he offers, turning Dani around in his arms. His heart clenches, and he clamps down on his desire to flee. “You can hold her for a minute, if you want to. She likes you.”

Colin looks at him, eyes shining. “Really?”

Jason nods. “Go ahead. Honestly, you probably know a lot more about this shit than I do.”

Colin takes Dani from him carefully, smiling at her and laughing when she reaches forward to grab at his jacket zipper. A few seconds later, it’s in her mouth, along with most of her fist.

“Should I…?” Colin looks at Jason hesitantly.

“I mean…she’s had worse things in her mouth,” Jason tells him. A ringing endorsement of his child-minding abilities right there. “It’s fine, right? That’s how they build an immune system, or whatever.”

“Well, Alfred washed this for me last night,” Colin admits, looking embarrassed. “So it shouldn’t be too gross.”

Jason leans back against the couch cushions, crossing his arms. “Getting all the perks, huh?”

Colin shrugs, casting his eyes down again. “I like it here.”

Considering where Colin grew up, Jason supposes he can’t blame the kid. Still, he’s not quite wrapping his head around this sweet, genuinely nice kid being buddies with Damian. The demon brat isn’t exactly known for his winning personality, and Jason only knows vaguely how the two of them met, but what he’s heard doesn’t strike him as being particularly conducive to forging the lasting bonds of friendship.

Curiosity gets the better of him, and he decides to just ask. “Why’d you call Damian, the night you found her?”

Colin looks surprised. “I...don’t know,” he says, slowly. “I didn’t know who else to call? Damian’s my best friend, and he always knows what to do.”

Jason can’t keep the skeptical look off his face.

“And if he doesn’t, Bat….Bruce, I mean, definitely always knows what to do.”

Jason scrubs a hand over his face. Time to change the fucking subject. “How’d you two get hooked up, anyways?”

Dani turns her head to look at him, still eating Colin’s zipper. Sometimes, Jason gets the bizarre feeling that she can somehow tell when he’s about to blow a gasket. It’s probably a coincidence - she moves around a lot, and Jason has anger issues that flare up every ten minutes, so there’s bound to be some crossover - but it works, because it takes the fight right out of him every time.

“We worked a case together,” Colin says, holding Dani a little more securely against him. “About a year ago, I guess. Kids were disappearing from my orphanage, and from the shelters. I don’t think you were around.”

“I wasn’t,” Jason shakes his head. He and Roy had been busting a trafficking ring in Ibiza, and it had taken Jason over a month to get all the major players. “I heard about it a little, from Dick.”

Dick hadn’t given him too many details at the time - Jason had chalked it up to him having a few other things on his mind, but as Colin fills in the gaps, he starts to suspect Dick just didn’t want him going on a rampage. Which he absolutely would have - he still wants to, God. God. All those poor kids, just a stone’s throw from his old neighborhood. And of course the police had done jack shit - Zsasz is practically Black Mask’s pet, he probably paid them off to look the other way, not that most of them need the excuse - and Bruce was gone, and Jason was gone, and Dick was in over his head, and - fuck, it should never have fallen to Damian and Colin.

He waits for the fury to subside a little, not trusting what will come out of his mouth. Dani hums around her fist, blinking at him, and it helps. “Jesus,” he says, finally. “This fucking town.”

Colin’s mouth twists a little. “Yeah. But you were Robin, right? You probably saw worse things.”

Did he? Jason doesn’t remember. He doubts it, though. He can’t imagine he would’ve been satisfied with Bruce’s way of dealing with it.

“I wouldn’t have pulled my stroke, when I was Robin,” he muses. “Probably why Bruce never gave me a sword.”

No, Jason would’ve bisected the fucker. It still has appeal, though he thinks he would lean towards his favorite Sig rifle if he was taking care of it today. Headshots for the henchmen - anyone who signs on to that kind of operation, even in the most menial capacity, doesn’t deserve to breathe. Kneecaps and crotch shots for the spectators, to make sure they couldn’t get away. Gut shots for the kid-wranglers. And Zsasz....it’s tempting to want to draw it out, but Jason can feel the desire leaving him the longer he thinks about it. His imaginative tortures fade into a simple headshot, and even that isn’t satisfying. Fuck. He just can’t seem to hold onto his rage lately, even when he wants to. It’s all being replaced by some kind of anxiety, some kind of tenderness that aches, burning deep into him every time Dani looks at him, or touches him. Every time he thinks of her. Every time he feels Dick watching him with her, all warmth and affection.

Colin bounces her a little, making her laugh. Jason feels his revenge fantasy slip away.

“What’re you reading her?” Colin nods to the book still laying open in Jason’s lap.

Jason looks at it. “Oh, Twelfth Night. Shakespeare,” he adds, recalling that Colin is eleven, and likely not perusing great literature in his free time. “Figure it’s never too early to start her on the classics.”

Colin grins. “That’s cool,” he says. “Does she like it?”

“Beats me,” Jason shrugs.

“Read some?”

Jason raises his eyebrows.

Colin flushes. “Um. I mean, if you want…”

He decides to humor him. What the hell. “Sure, why not. ‘O spirit of love! How quick and fresh art thou, that, notwithstanding in thy capacity, receiveth as the sea.’”

Dani yawns widely, relinquishing her fist in a long string of drool. Jason laughs, and so does Colin. “Maybe jumping the gun a little,” he admits. “I don’t really know what kids are into these days.”

“Me either,” Colin says. “I think she liked it, though. See, she’s just sleepy.”

Jason feels a lump forming in his throat, and swallows hard against it.

“What does it mean? The part you were reading,” Colin asks.

“Um.” Jason doesn’t really know, he’s not exactly a literary scholar, but he’s always liked to work Shakespeare out on his own, finding meaning in the wordplay and running the metaphors through his mind until they line up in a satisfactory way. He doesn’t know if his interpretation is correct, exactly, but: “So this Duke, a guy called Orsino, is saying that he doesn’t want to be in love anymore. He’s talking about love and how everyone thinks it’s this wonderful thing, but the truth is that it actually just makes people miserable.”

Jason pauses, feeling like he just showed way too much of his hand. “Basically, he’s just complaining,” he finishes, uneasy.

Glancing at Colin out of the corner of his eye, he’s relieved to see that he’s occupied with Dani, and not paying attention to Jason at all. Thank fuck. If it’d been anyone else in the house sitting there, he’d be in for some horrible armchair psychology session, and he’d have to book it out the window and not return for several months.

“I think she wants you,” Colin says, as Dani ramps up her fussing. Jason takes her gratefully, holds her to his chest as she rubs her eyes and grumbles her displeasure at being passed around.

“All right, I hear you,” Jason murmurs, gently tugging her fists away from her eyes. “Don’t be so dramatic, come on. It’s not so bad.” Like he’s one to talk.

And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds, ever since pursue me, he thinks, rocking her tiny body into a comfortable position. Colin was only holding her for ten, maybe fifteen minutes, and Jason was sitting less than five feet away, but he missed her. God, what is happening to him?

“Damian didn’t want to bring her here, at first,” Colin says quietly. “But I think he’s glad that we did. He really likes her, you know.”

Jason doesn’t quite know how to feel about that. It’s sweet, on some level. And he’s well aware that Damian likes her, going by the amount of time he spends hovering in the hallway outside Jason’s room, not to mention the increasingly expensive toys that keep showing up among her things.

He looks down at her, dozing off. “Well, she’s pretty easy to like.”

Colin nods, looking pleased.

“Damian, on the other hand....”

Colin grins. “He’s not so bad.”

He’s really not. Like hell Jason will ever tell him that, though. “You have bizarre taste, kid.”

Colin blushes, hard, and Jason blinks. Well. That’s interesting, isn’t it? Or it will be, in a few years. He makes a note to ask Dick about it, later.

“Are you gonna adopt her?” Colin asks, bringing Jason’s amused thoughts to a screeching halt.

Automatically, he says, “No way.”

Colin looks wounded. “Why not?”

“Because I can’t,” Jason replies. “I’m the last person who should be a parent, trust me.”

“Doesn’t look that way to me.”

Doesn’t feel that way either - the thought floats up, unbidden, uninvited. He can’t. “She deserves better,” Jason says, heavily. “Even if….even I could handle it. She deserves better than this family.”

“But your family is - ”

“A death sentence.” He’s being harsh, but if Colin’s gonna be hanging around, he’ll find out for himself soon enough. “It’s fucking cursed, look. I couldn’t do that to any kid, especially her. You should get out too, while you still can.”

Colin looks angry, which surprises him. His hands are balled into fists, and Jason sees a tremor in them, a bulging that immediately sets off alarm bells in his head.

“Kid,” he says sharply. “Colin. If you’re gonna hulk out, take it outside. Alfred will have an honest-to-God stroke if you do it in here.”

A few deep breaths later, Colin looks normal again. “Sorry.” His voice is hoarse. “You’re wrong, though.”

Jason’s temper flares. “No offense, but I think I would know better than you,” he snaps. Dani grumbles sleepily in his arms, and he sighs out in frustration. “Trust me, okay? She’s better off. It never ends well, not in this family. I’m proof of that.”

But Colin shakes his head. “You don’t know,” he says. “My mom said the same thing, when she dropped me off at the orphanage. She gave the nuns a letter - she said I’d be better off with them than with her.”

Jason stills.

“It didn’t matter,” Colin continues. “Scarecrow still got me. Victor Zsasz still got me. Maybe they would have gotten me with her, too. Maybe I wouldn’t have been that much better off with her, but at least I would’ve been with her.” He sniffles, and Jason holds Dani a little tighter.

“I know she loved me.” His voice cracks. “I just wish...I wish I could’ve stayed with her. I wish she would have known that I never would’ve been better off away from her.”

He looks absolutely miserable, pitched forward and rubbing hard at his eyes. Jason is reminded painfully of how young Colin is, closer to Dani’s age than his own. He remembers being Colin’s age and younger, thinking the same thoughts about his own mother. How fiercely he’d guarded her, chased away the cops and the social workers, doing everything in his power not to be separated from her. Not that it mattered, in the end.

“Fuck,” he mutters. “Colin, I’m sorry. For the record, I actually kind of get where you’re coming from.”

Colin looks up at him.

“Wish I didn’t, but. That’s life.”

“You should adopt her,” Colin says again, softly.

Jason shakes his head. “Colin…”

“You’ll think about it.”

He exhales. “Sure, I’ll think about it.” Like he’ll be able to think about anything else after this.

“She needs you,” Colin insists stubbornly.

Jason doesn’t reply. He knows on some level Colin is right - Dani does need him right now. She needs someone, at least, someone who can take care of her and protect her. Someone who isn’t afraid to shed blood to keep her safe. Jason doesn’t relish the thought, but he’s certain this won’t end tidily. Mob cases never do. It’ll be messy, and bloody, and Bruce will have a shit fit, and Dick probably will too, and Jason will go back to Crime Alley and Dani will get shipped off to Witness Protection or something, and damn, does that hurt to think about.

He looks over at Colin, still hunched over on himself, vulnerability written into every line of his posture. He’s desperately in need of a hug, or some kind of affection, validation, maybe. Or that’s just Jason projecting, who the fuck knows. If Dick was here, he would know exactly what to do for him. Jason’s at a loss, unable to separate his young self from the damaged kid sitting next to him.

He adjusts his hold on Dani carefully, laying her down flat along his arm, while he works out what to say. Finally, he settles on, “Damian’s lucky to have you.”

Colin sits up a little straighter. He looks like he’s waiting for more, but he’s shit out of luck, because Jason has no idea what else he needs to hear. No idea what he could say that wouldn’t be completely insincere, anyways. We can be your family, Colin. Like hell. Bruce has enough kids lined up waiting to die for him, he’s not about to encourage another one to be turned into cannon fodder for the man’s principles.

“Uh, yeah,” Jason says, after a moment. “That’s all I got.”

Colin smiles wanly. “Thanks, anyways.”

Jason snorts. “Sure.”

“Can I hug you?”

Jason stares. “Can you…what? Me?”

“I won’t if you don’t want me to,” Colin adds, averting his eyes.

Jason can’t even remember the last time someone hugged him. He thinks Roy might’ve, some eight or nine months ago, after they’d narrowly survived a warehouse explosion. Jason’s whole body had been ringing from the blast, so he doesn’t exactly remember the sensation of it. And before that…?

He imagines Dick’s reaction, if he was here. He’d be disappointed in Jason, that’s for sure. Really, Jay? You can’t hug a child? It’s a fair argument, he has to admit. Jason’s fucked up personal space issues don’t really apply to children, or babies, clearly. Colin’s obviously attention-starved, and Jason’s already holding one kid. What’s another, really.

“Okay,” he relents. “Hit me.”

There’s a shuffling motion next to him, and then Colin is hugging his free arm, leaning his head against Jason’s shoulder. Jason can’t quite contain his surprise - it’s weird, as expected, but it’s not dramatically increasing his desire to bolt through the nearest exit like he’d thought it would. It’s a little funny, actually. He’s pretty sure both Bruce and Damian would lose their shit if they could see him right now. Dick, too, most likely, but to his credit, it would be a happy kind of shit-losing. Damian would probably try to gut him.

Are there cameras in the library? Jason can’t remember. He kind of hopes there aren’t, because if anyone else sees this, he will absolutely never live it down.

***

(dick)

“Wait, I think that’s him.” Dick leans forward to peer at Tim’s screen. He points to the familiar looking figure. “That guy. Do you have a clearer shot?”

Tim skips a few photos ahead, and zooms in. “Him?”

“Yes. That’s the guy. Jason said he recognized him from your surveillance files. He was at the club the night we caught Susie Falcone.”

“The fourth night, was it?” Tim asks, innocently.

“Don’t be mean, Timmy.”

“Just clarifying,” Tim grins. Dick raises an eyebrow. “Okay, okay. I don’t have a ton of intel on this guy, he’s really slippery. According to my informant, he goes by Tiberius - some kind of mercenary, Greek or Albanian national. I doubt that’s his real name.”

Dick nods, studying the photographs. Tim continues, “He came over with Intergang as an enforcer, I think. Might’ve been Reynolds’ personal bodyguard.”

“Could explain how Reynolds got taken out,” Dick says thoughtfully. “He’s on the Falcones’ payroll now, but he’s not family. Might be an easy target.”

Tim opens his mouth, about to reply, when there’s a choked-off sound of fury from the Batcave below them.

“Was that Damian? He’s up already?” Dick asks, glancing down towards Bruce’s computer. He hops over the ramp to see what the fuss is about. Tim follows close behind.

“Everything okay?” Dick asks, approaching the wall of screens. There’s nothing that jumps out at him as being particularly alarming; Bruce is looking at DNA analyses, and Damian is looking at the Manor surveillance, tapping furiously at his ear.

“Todd!” he hisses. “What do you think you’re doing? Colin is my friend!”

“Robin,” Oracle’s voice comes through the speaker. “No names on the comms. And Hood isn’t wearing his earpiece, so you’ll have to tell him in person.” She sounds amused. “Oracle out.”

Damian swears.

“Holy shit,” Tim says faintly. “Look at them.”

The screen that all the Manor surveillance feeds run to is showing just one room - the library, of all places, but Dick vaguely recalls it being some kind of sanctuary to Jason, years and years ago. It makes sense that he’d end up back there, and it makes sense that he’d have Dani with him. What Dick doesn’t expect to see is little Colin Wilkes, all five feet and change of him, snuggled up to Jason’s side and hugging him, wrapped around his arm like a gangly koala. Dick can’t help but notice that Jason’s bicep is about as big around as Colin’s head, which is certainly...something. He’s not quite ready to classify how he feels about that, so he refocuses on the hug itself, which is nothing short of charming.

Damian grinds his teeth audibly. “It’s still going.”

“Oh, man.” Dick can’t help the grin he feels creeping up the sides of his face. “Bruce, are you seeing this?”

“I am,” Bruce says, stiffly. He looks like he’s in pain. Dick fights the urge to roll his eyes.

“What’s wrong with you? Look how sweet they are!” he exclaims, gesturing. It’s adorable.

“It is not sweet,” Damian snarls, whirling on him. “Todd is a corruptive influence, and Colin is young and impressionable! Where is your concern for him?”

Tim coughs, and it sounds a little bit like “jealous”. Surprisingly, this does not diffuse Damian’s indignation.

“I don’t get it,” Dick says, stepping between them quickly to block Damian’s spinning kick. “I thought you and Jason were fine, Damian. You’ve been spending enough time in our - in his room lately. Where’s this coming from?”

“Incredibly, I don’t feel as concerned about Todd recruiting an infant onto the path of lawlessness,” Damian retorts. “Colin lacks paternal guidance in his life, as you know. Todd clearly senses it.”

“Jason is very paternal these days,” Tim agrees.

“I’m pretty sure it’s just a hug,” Dick says in exasperation. “No one’s recruiting anyone, Damian. And look, it’s over. Your friend is just a hugger, that’s all.”

“I must agree with Master Richard,” Alfred says from behind them. “Having been the recipient of many such embraces from young Master Colin myself.”

“See? I’ve gotten hugs from him too,” Dick tells Damian. “And I know you have, so don’t bother denying it. He’s probably gearing up the courage to get one from Bruce one of these days.”

Bruce looks slightly alarmed by the prospect. “He is?”

Damian looks conflicted. “He is?”

Dick casts his eyes heavenward. “Colin, I’m so sorry.”

Before he can say anything else, the Cave door opens below them, and Duke’s bike comes shooting in, whipping around into its parking spot in a move that would send Dick flying over the handlebars. Bruce takes about half a second to look impressed, and then clears the main screen to pull up their intel on the Falcone case.

“What’s up, guys,” Duke calls, pulling off his helmet and jogging up the steps. “I’ve got news. Where’s Jason?”

“Being hugged, in the library,” Dick tells him. “You just missed it.”

Duke looks nonplussed. “Damn. Wait, that’s not some kind of weird euphemism, is it? If it is, I don’t want to know.”

“It most certainly is not,” Damian says venomously.

“Cool. I tried to get him on the comm, but he didn’t respond. Should I go get him? He’ll want to hear this.”

“Damian will get him,” Bruce says.

Damian is…already on the elevator. Dick spares a thought for Jason. At least he’s holding Dani, so Damian won’t attack him outright.

“Your news?” Bruce prompts.

“Right,” Duke nods. “I’ve been all over City Hall records, and spent yesterday afternoon getting intel in the East End. I’ve got names and faces of most of the major players in this. They’re trying hard to front some distant nephew of Carmine Falcone as the head of the whole operation, but it wasn’t quite adding up. You said the new Falcone boss is a woman, right?” he asks Tim.

Tim nods affirmatively.

Duke looks triumphant. “Then I know who she is.”

***

#jaydick #in which there is so much plot all to justify the existence of 1 baby #low key this fic is my maternal love letter to colin wilkes #i miss him dc bring him back #my fics #heartlandverse

[toosicktoocare]

prompt:  Oh my gosh i am so so so so happy that youre finally writing for the Batfam!!!! Ive been following you for awhile now and I'm glad that youve fell into the rabbit hole that is thos crazy family😂 For a prompt, how about Jason and Dick taking care of each other at home when theyre both in varying degrees of sick? Your last fic was amazing and I love your group writing. Have a great day

I’m glad you like my group writing because I STRUGGLE to write more than one person honestly, lol

Jason’s dragging his feet around the small convenience store, too tired to move, his muscles melting to hot, thick goo. He’s been fighting a cold for the better half of two days now, having picked one up from a sick kid taking residence in one of his shelters, and normally, he’d isolate himself in one of his safe houses for a few days to sleep off the cold, but with his shelters expanding outside of Gotham to Bludhaven, he’s too busy interviewing for team leaders and security to temporarily remove himself from the world.

Instead, he’s reduced to a sniffling, shivery mess of a man who’s wandering a convenience store in Bludhaven at 1 AM. His head is hot and feeling like it’s stuffed to the brim with cotton. His concentration is waning under the thick, pounding pressure in his head, slowing his thoughts down to basic, one-word sentences as he scans the shelf for medicine, hoping for a concoction that will kick this cold square in the ass.

“Jason?”

Jason was willingly taking his time, prolonging the inevitable bike ride back to Gotham; however, the sudden, incredibly unwanted, presence of one pesky bird tightens his muscles and clears his head enough to move faster.

“Dick,” Jason says, keeping his eyes glued to the shelf. “What a pleasant surprise,” he adds flatly, groaning when he spots Dick, with his badge on full display, walking toward him through his peripherals.

“What are you doing in Bludhaven?”

Jason sighs deep in his throat, the breathing coming off as a muted growl. He grabs a bottle of fever reducers and snags a few other bottles of varying medicines before he turns toward Dick. “Business.”

Dick cocks his head to the side, a small frown playing at his lips. “What business?”

“I’m sorry,” Jason bites out, “is this an interrogation, Officer Grayson?” His eyes find Dick’s badge, sharp, narrow, and incredibly annoyed.

Dick deflates before him, pocketing his badge with a few coughs. “No, sorry. Habit. Will you be here long?”

“I was just leaving,” Jason grumbles, though the second he turns on his heel, his body decides to remind him of the fucking fever he’s been running, and he stumbles, vision tunneling for a breath of a moment but just enough to have Dick wrapping quick hands around his arms to steady him.

“Woah, Jay, you okay?” Dick’s pulling Jason back to him, guiding him around until they are facing, and Jason can’t fight off the annoyingly strong grip, his body too weak under the weight of this persistent cold.

“Peachy,” he gripes out, jaw clenched tightly, and he holds Dick’s narrow, worried gaze with his own tight one, only moving to slap Dick’s hand away before Dick can press a palm to his forehead.

“Jason.”

“Dick Brain,” Jason sighs, shoulders slumping. “You can save the puppy dog look for one of the other bats. I’m fine.”

“You’re sick,” Dick presses, following Jason to the cash register.

“Yep,” Jason mutters, dropping the medicine bottles onto the counter. “It happens.” Dick muffles a few coughs behind him, and he peers over his shoulder, arching one brow.

“Bug going around the office,” Dick explains, clearing his throat. “Are you driving back to Gotham?” He follows Jason out of the store, and Jason sighs long and loud, free hand dropping to his bike seat.

“That’s the plan.”

“Why don’t you come back to mine? Just for the night. You look terrible.” Dick means every word, the instinctive pull of older brother is bleeding into his voice. Jason’s pale before him, but even with the dull, flickering street light serving as the only source of light before them, he can still see two splashes or unnatural red coloring Jason’s cheeks.

“And watch you stumble around trying to play nursemaid? Not exactly on my list of things to do.” Jason thumbs at his bike helmet, wishing he could will this conversation to end faster.

“Jay, I don’t think riding back to Gotham in your condition is a good idea.”

Rolling his eyes, Jason slips his helmet over his head and swings his leg over his bike, tucking the pill bottles into his jacket pockets. “Good thing bad ideas are kinda my forte.” He twists his key into the ignition, revving his bike loudly. “Later Golden Boy. Go get some rest. The sickly pale look doesn’t suit you.” He shoots forward, probably a little too fast, but the quicker he can forget about this small encounter, the better.

***

Jason makes it ten minutes outside of Bludhaven before he turns around, underestimating the ill affects his fever has on his vision. After almost flipping into a ditch three separate times when his vision frayed gray, he slows his bike into a U-Turn and starts toward the damn address etched in his brain, something he’s tried to forget but actively cannot.

It takes another fifteen minutes until he’s pulling up to Dick’s apartment and another ten to climb on jello legs up the two flights of stairs to Dick’s door. Forgetting it’s nearing 2 AM, he curls his hand into a fist and bangs against the door.

He hears coughing on the other end, growing louder, and then the door’s pulled open, and a gun’s pointed at his face.

Dick blinks slowly, eyes still riddled with sleep but hand frighteningly steady around the gun.

“Jason?”

“How come when I even look at a gun, I get lectured, but you have a guest stare down a barrel?”

Dick’s hand falls, clicking the safety of the gun on its way down. “Shit, sorry.” Frowning, he drags his gaze across Jason’s face. “You must really feel like crap if you’re actually taking my offer.”

Jason groans and shoves past Dick, legs wobbly but determined to get to the couch before he crumbles to the floor. “I figured your couch would be just a little better than a fucking ditch.” He sags against the couch, head rolling back and eyes fluttering closed, only opening when a palm brushes across his forehead.

“Shit, Jay, you’re really burning up.”

Jason feels the couch dip beside him, and he groans low in his throat, coughing weakly. “Just a cold.”

“You really believe that?” Dick sighs, nudging Jason with his elbow until Jason’s curling onto his side, fully reclined on the couch. He reaches for a blanket draped across the back of the couch and tucks it around Jason, worry spiking when Jason doesn’t try and stop him.

“No,” Jason says flatly, “but I do believe that you should shut the fuck up.”

“Well you’re still an ass, so I guess that means you aren’t dying.”

“Again,” Jason grumbles, succumbing, already, to the thick layer of fatigue coating him.

Wincing, Dick slips to his feet, arms wrapping around himself. “Sorry, I...”

“‘S fine,” Jason slurs, one eye slitting open. “Go sleep or some shit. You look like hell.” He nods off, face relaxing, and Dick lingers for a long minute, just watching, an older brother thing, he guesses. 

He only breaks his gaze when a dull cramp twists in his stomach, and he shuffles to his room, closing his door and flopping onto his bed.

***

Jason’s dreams are fitful, filled with hot, suffocating memories of the Joker, the Lazarus Pit, green hair turning toward green sparks of rage that dwell within him. He’s not sure what wakes him, but he’s thankful for it, his heart rapid fire in his chest, his clothes sticky and damp with sweat. He finds a now warm cloth on his forehead, and he pulls it off, frowning, mind thick and hazy.

He hears a loud gag and winces, pulling a slow gaze to the hallway and spotting the bathroom door closed. He’s even slower to his feet, his head feeling simultaneously too heavy and too light as he stumbles across the room and to the hall, stopping at the bathroom door. It’s gone quiet on the other side, too quiet. He knocks, swallowing back a spike of tension.

“Yo, Golden Boy. You still alive?”

He can hear ragged breathing, but then he hears a thump, and his heart threatens to climb up his throat. “Dick?” he tries, knocking again. Every inch of him feels wrong when he still doesn’t get an answer, and he takes a few steps back and slams his foot high into the door, wood cracking under the force as the door flies open.

Dick’s pulling himself up to his feet, bracing himself against the edge of the sink. He pulls a too pale face over his shoulder, frowning. “The door was unlocked.”

“You didn’t answer,” Jason growls, stepping into the room, grimacing at the toilet.

“Do you normally not try doorknobs first?”

“What kind of a brother would I be if I didn’t dramatically bust in to save you?”

Dick’s face falls to pure, vulnerable surprise, and Jason groans, rubbing at his temples as he shoves Dick to the edge of the tub to fill a glass of water for him.

“Fuck, I said the sacred word, and now you’re short circuiting.” His tone is flat as he offers the glass of water to Dick, who absently takes it, still slack jaw and wide eyed.

“You never say brother.”

“Easy slip up. Just means I’ve been hanging around you too long already.” He kicks Dick’s foot lightly. “Drink.”

Dick sips the water, the adrenaline subsiding until he’s only shivering slightly.

“Have you been throwing up? Before this?”

Dick shakes his head. “New development.” He eyes Jason’s damp face, cheeks still too red for his liking. “How’s the fever? I thought I was going to have to drag you to the hospital a couple of hours ago.”

Jason can still feel heat under his finger tips. He’s still exhausted, but his mind is a fraction clearer, so he takes that as a good sign he’s on the mend, if only slightly. “Still pretty high, but it’s going down.” 

“Good,” Dick breathes, relief smoothing across his worn features. “I was worried.”

“Ugh, stop before I throw up next.” Jason drags out each word, hunching over to smooth a palm across Dick’s forehead, finding it warm to the touch but not alarmingly so. “Finish the water then go back to bed.” He turns to leave, wincing at the damaged door.

“I’ll fix this,” he mutters, and Dick laughs lightly, falling into a few coughs.

“I’ll hold you to that.”

#batman #batfam #batbros #batfamily #sickfic #whump #whumpfic #jason todd #dick grayson #red hood #nightwing #dcu #my writing #my batfam writing #i'm rewatching yj and i'm on season 3 already #ready for s4 #ready for s4 to be about fucking Jason or so help me