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mysadcorner · 8 months

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Reader’s in her pre-period shit. She’s in a point of extreme horniness and anger at the same time.

It’s happen to me every pre-period days and it’s most difficult part of my life 😣

How would batboys react reader being both angry and horny at the same time?

Congratulations your 600 followers btw I hope it’ll be something like 600000 one day 🥳🥳

Batboys x Pre-Period!Reader Headcanons

-Credit to the gifs owner - Please be specific with characters in requests -

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Dick Grayson

• Dick probably hasn’t had a lot of experience with living with women after he was adopted by Bruce, and he certainly hasn’t held a lot of seriously long term partners despite his many relationships. He may not know how to handle your conflicting feelings at first, but he’s always willing to figure them out to keep peace and to help you feel better.

• He wouldn’t be a huge fan of the mood swings, but he’s still able to handle them pretty well. He’s good at calming people down when they’re feeling tense, and you can hardly stay angry at Dick for very long. Plus he’s more than willing to help you out when you’re craving intimacy from him.

• If you’re usually in the mood for intimacy with Dick in the days leading up to your period, he will be thrilled to help you out. He may not always have the time and he may be tired due to how much he has to do during the day and going on patrol at night, but he will always find a way to make more time for you.

• He would try his best to be sensitive towards you, and will always apologise if he accidently upset you or made you angry in any way. However, he may end up getting tired of having to be careful around you and watch what he may say or do at this time every month due to you potentially being overly sensitive.

• Going through this every month may be tiring for the both of you but Dick will be more than capable to handle and deal with it. He also loves you very much, so he isn't going to let your anger get in the way of anything in your relationship together and will make the most of you wanting to be intimate with him.

Jason Todd

• Jason is going to be very confused if you haven't opened up to him about what you're feeling or what the problem might be that you're facing. He'll try his best to understand, but until you open up to him about what you're actually going through he's going to be pretty clueless.

• He wouldn't be a big fan of the mood swings as he hates being snapped at, especially since he's allowed himself to be vulnerable in a relationship with you. You being mad at him is much different to the people he fights on the street or one of his family members being angry at him, so if you're not going to be direct and honest with him (and instead are just irritable and angry) then he isn't going to force himself to be around you.

• Jason would have no problems with you being in the mood for intimacy more often that you usually were, so you certainly won't have any complaints from him about this. He'll also feel a lot more comfortable initiating intimacy with you now that he knows that you're naturally more inclined to want the same thing as him.

• He always tries his best to be sensitive about the things he says or does around you because he naturally has a hard time doing so after all he's been through. He may mess up with this though as he's naturally very outspoken and rough, so if he does upset you he just wants you to know that he didn't do it on purpose.

• For Jason, this being an occurrence every month wouldn't bother him too much as long as the two of you aren't fighting because of it. He doesn't really care how much the two of you make back up and resolve arguments if there's just going to be another one around the corner - and he really doesn't have the patience to put up with it.

Damian Wayne

• Damian is usually very stoic while also being attentive. So when he first finds that you're having conflicting emotions around this time he wouldn't assume that is was because of the hormonal influence you may be under, and would immediately assume there was a problem that he needed to fix. He wouldn't catch on to what the problem actually is until you explain it to him, and even then he may act uninterested about it at first when he realises you're not facing any threats or trouble.

• Damian doesn't care if you're having mood swings, and he'll hold firmly the belief of treating someone how you always intend to treat them. The fact that you may be snapping at him without provocation or getting mad at him randomly shows that you're not in control of your emotions (or in his mind you're not trying to be). So no matter how much he loves you, mood swings are not something he'll simply put up with just for the sake of keeping you calm when he's not the one at fault for your behaviour.

• If you're in the mood then he will of course be more intimate with you, whenever the time is right. He isn't the type to be intimate with someone on a whim, so even if he is in a relationship with you, he'd prefer to wait until the two of you could have some proper alone time instead of just rushing around whenever one of you is in the mood.

• Damian has a hard time being sensitive towards anyone, but as you're someone he loves he will do his best to be a bit more gentle around you. He likes and needs someone strong willed, especially with the lifestyle he has (so despite being sensitive towards you, he does get tired of needing to very quickly).

• Having to deal with this every month would not be something he's willing to put up with, especially as your mood swings may cause some insecurities about the defence he's constantly trying to keep up for his own safety. He also isn't one to put up with arguments at all from someone he truly cares about, so if this does consistently happen every month and he suffers from it you can't expect him to put up with it for long.

Tim Drake

• Tim is always going to try and find the root of the problem, so when he finally realises what may be causing your temper or sudden bursts of wanting intimacy he's relieved to know that it's just something simple and not a problem in your relationship together going on.

• He doesn't like dealing with you mood swings, because this guy feels bad whenever you do already, so for this to happen pretty often he's going to be going through an emotional rollercoaster with you. He'll try to keep the peace between you and calm you down whenever he can, but he does hate the arguments no matter how much you blame mood swings (especially as it's not fair for him to have to deal with).

• Tim will always be excited when you're in the mood, so you don't have to worry about him turning you down too often; although, he does sometimes get too caught up in his work meaning he doesn't always have enough time to do whatever you want when you want. As long as there are boundaries about you not trying to distract or impose anything while he's doing something important then he'll have no problems with it.

• He always does his best to be as gentle and kind as he can be towards you, so you'll never have to worry about him being mean or having to be more sensitive around you. He's quick to notice slight changes in your behaviour so he's also pretty good to notice when he should or shouldn't say certain things to you.

• Tim is pretty good at dealing with this kind of situation, so he doesn't mind putting up with it every month. He will be tired sometimes, so it wouldn't really bother him unless it results in a serious argument or something bad happening because of either a mood swing or getting in the way of his work to get his attention.

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i-care-bout-things-too · 2 months

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Batfam Ages:

Okay, there is no such thing as an exact science when determining the ages of the Batfam, but the easiest thing you can do is work of the concrete ages that you /do/ know, and make them fit with canon events to the best of your ability. Now, canon changes all the time—which definitely makes this a challenge, but I’m going to just explain my process for determining their ages and you can disagree if you’d like, or you can use this to write fic like I do where ages are semi important,

Let’s begin. I’m going to give you the arbitrary number of 15, this will be important later.

Dick Grayson:

Depending on the canon, Dick is 8, 10, 12, or 15 when his parents die. All of these numbers will have problems depending on which you pick, but I go for the safe bet of 10 years old. Why? Well, a little known fact is that Dick ends up in juvie after his parents die, and he’s not immediately taken in by Batman. Thus, it takes a little while longer for him to become Robin, which doesn’t immediately happen after he becomes Bruce’s ward anyway, because Batman doesn’t immediately go and spill the beans. Thus, Dick ends up in Bruce’s car at around ten or eleven, but doesn’t become Robin until he’s 12.

Now Dick is Robin up until he’s about 18, when Bruce takes Robin from Dick because it’s too dangerous and Dick refuses to quit. Dick joins up with the teen titans full time, and he’s still Robin for a little while longer until we get Nightwing, aka Discowing, for the very first time at age 19. Simultaneously, while this is happening, a little kid is stealing the Batmobile’s tires.

Jason Todd:

Our beloved street rat Robin, Jason Todd, swings a tire iron at Batman and then gets taken out for fast food. It’s great, it’s cute, it doesn’t immediately lead to his adoption though, either. No, instead Jason ends up in an orphanage that is trafficking children. Bruce shows up one day to check up on Jason, and is made aware of this by his soon to be first adopted son (yeah, you heard me, Dick isn’t adopted yet). They take down the trafficking ring, and Bruce adopts Jason. Jason then becomes Robin at age 13.

Unfortunately for our boy, he was widely disliked by comic fans across North America, DC did a little telephone poll, and by a few hundred votes, DC changed comic history forever by killing off a high profile character what seems like /permanently/ for the first time ever. No resurrections this time. (Hah, right!). Which is to say, Jason Todd has the second shortest run as Robin at just two years, dying at age 15.

Tim Drake:

So then we get Robin numero 3. Tim Drake sees Batman getting darker and more violent and goes y’know, someone should do something about that. He tries talking to Nightwing, but he’s in a bad place with Bruce after learning Jason died via a Newspaper (yeah, Bruce sucks for that one), and tells Tim he won’t be going back to Robin. Thus, lil Timmy Drake gets an idea in his head. He looks himself in the mirror and goes, I can fix him, and then, Tim Drake becomes Robin at age 12.

Tim Drake has one of the longest runs as Robin, with only a mild interruption from a lil blond Bat.

Stephanie Brown:

Stephanie Brown starts off as the vigilante Spoiler, whose whole purpose in life is to spoil the plans of her C-list villain dad, Cluemaster. She meets Robin (Tim), hits him in the face with a brick, and then ends up dating him. Unlike most characters who appear a few times and never come back, Stephanie manages to stick around. She gets pregnant at age 15 (it’s not Tim’s, and no she did not cheat, this happened priorly), she gives birth, the baby is put up for adoption, and she becomes Robin after Tim’s dad, Jack Drake, finds out Tim is Robin and bans him from it. Tim is forced to quit and Stephanie picks up the mantle. She’s clocks in the shortest run as Robin, working with Batman for about two months before Bruce forces her to stop. Tim picks up the mantle again, and Steph goes back to being Spoiler—only to get killed by Black Mask, making her the second “Robin” to die. DC does retcon her death, and we later learn she was only badly beaten and sent off to live in a foreign country before she makes her return.

Jason Todd, Again:

While all this is going on, stuff is happening behind the scenes. Namely, Jason coming back to life. A common misconception here however is how long Jason was actually dead. While I wouldn’t be able to find the panels to confirm it, the true number is a “short” 6 months. Yep, while years passed in the real world, possibly decades, actually, Jason was dead all of 6 months. According to the books, he undigs himself from his grave six feet under (because Superboy punched through the multiverse or something?) and ends up wondering around Gotham as a mindless little zombie. Conveniently, Talia al Ghul stumbles upon her beloved’s lost little bird, and she decides to take him home and train him. He’s with them for a bit, gets dunked into a Lazarus pit, comes back very very angry, is shipped off to the all caste for a bit, and upon his return to the al Ghuls, is informed he’s been replaced by little Timmy Drake.

Jason makes his whole plan, and decides to make a splash by returning to Gotham wearing an old moniker of the Joker’s and taking over Gotham’s underworld. He beheads a few criminals, tries to kill Tim, tries to get Bruce to kill the Joker, and doesn’t really have success in those latter two objectives. That puts Jason at age 19, roughly. We don’t really know how to count the months he was dead.

Damian Wayne:

Shortly after Jason’s unmasking as the Red Hood, Damian Wayne turns 10 years old and beats his mother, Talia al Ghul, in combat. His prize is to be taken to his father and given to him for training. We know definitively that Damian is 10 thanks to this we can measure out the age gaps between the others and get their ages at this point in time. Dick at age 19 became Nightwing, while Jason is made Robin at age 13, so they have a six year age gap. Jason dying 2 years later at age 15 leads to Tim becoming Robin at age 12, they have a 3 year age gap. Tim is Robin for 3 years before Jason comes back and Damian trails after him a few months behind, putting Tim at around 16/17 while Damian is 10. I tend towards 16 instead of 17 because DC stopped aging Tim for a while, so it just makes more sense to pick the lower number. Thus, when Damian is 10, Tim is 16 as is Steph, Jason is 19, and Dick is 25.

Thanks to Damian being quite young, DC has kept an active track of how and when they age him. We know Damian is only with Bruce a few short months before he disappears into the time stream and Dick makes him Robin, and we also know that Damian’s 11th birthday is celebrated after Bruce is reinstated to the proper time. However, DC follows this up by killing Damian and making him the third Robin to die, the second to do so in the suit itself, and he’s dead for a significant number of months. In this time, Dick also dies—as in his heart is stopped by Lex Luthor for a few seconds, and then restarted, after his identity is revealed on live TV. Bruce decides to let the world believe Nightwing died and stayed dead, and Dick is sent off to Spyral to do secret spy stuff for Bruce. There is an issue around here in the “Grayson” run that claims Dick is twenty-one years old, which is ENTIRELY incompatible with the time line I just painstakingly established, and I go ahead and outright dismiss it because it clearly doesn’t work with a majority of canon. While Dick is with Spyral, Damian is brought back to life, and he goes on a year of redemption (which doesn’t actually last a whole year, but I digress). He and Dick meet again, and we move into Rebirth somewhere around here with the conclusion of Spyral and Batman and Robin Eternal.

General Events:

Damian turns 12 presumably sometime during rebirth, although not specified, I do believe Truth and Justice issue #6 to be his 12th or 13th birthday, but I lean towards 12 because of the costumes everyone wears in the issue. Steph is spoiler, Cass is Orphan, Tim is Red Robin, Red Hood has yet to don his solo Outlaw uniform, and Barbara is Batgirl.

I can’t name a specific issue for Damian’s 13th birthday, but it’s canonical that Damian turned 14 in his solo Robin series, Robin (2021) while he was off finding himself before the Lazarus Tournament, and since then, there’s been the Shadow War, Batman Vs Robin, Dark Crisis event somewhere around there, the Lazarus Planet event, Gotham War, DC Knight Terrors, and Beast World event, which catches us up to the modern day world.

Since Damian hasn’t yet turned 15 despite ALL of that going on, and is still for now at least, 14, that means Tim and Steph are 20, Jason is 23, and Dick is 29.

I know I mentioned Cass and Babs, and I would love to give you a proper age for them but I don’t know where to place them in DC canon like I do the others, however people do commonly place Cass roughly around the same age as Jason making her 22 or 23, and Babs tends towards being 6-8 years older than Dick, although that is an age gap DC has been slowly bridging over the years. Still, I put her at 35 years old. I don’t have a reference for Duke Thomas either, but he’s commonly placed as being two years younger than Tim making him 18 currently.

Lastly, I bring back the arbitrary number of 15, given that that is the number of years that separate Dick and Damian, I also use that age gap between Dick and Bruce—meaning that Bruce took Dick in when he was 25, and placing Bruce at 44 years old in main continuity.

Overall Ages Currently:

Bruce Wayne: 44

Barbara Gordon: 35

Dick Grayson: 29

Jason Todd: 23

Cassandra Cain: 22

Tim Drake: 20

Stephanie Brown: 20

Duke Thomas: 18

Damian Wayne: 14

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im-totally-not-an-alien-2 · 1 year

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Project R AU where Danny is a clone created from the DNA of all the Robins past and present by the drs Fenton when they were teenagers.

Upon realizing the child they had made was going to be used as a weapon for evil they quickly and quietly packed up thier family and belongings and jumped ship to a new dimention with the kid after putting him in stasis so he was essentially frozen in time.

Later on little Jazz finds the baby in the tank and assumes the stork had made a delivery and flips the switch to release him from stasis so he can finish growing. A week later the pod beeps and she brings him out of the storage room as a chubby healthy baby and her parents loose thier minds for a bit.

Danny grows up normally...well not really but you get what I mean. Maddie makes sure Danny knows how to fight and wouldn't take no for an answer. No matter how much Danny complained that he wanted to play video games, go to the park with his friends or that Jazz didn't have to fight, she would never relent. Maddie knows she's nowhere near the level of a fully trained assasin but she wanted to give Danny every leg up she could.

She knew he would need it. Call it a mothers intuition.

Well, crap happens. Vlad outs Danny as Phantom and it ends very poorly for the wannabe vampire. Danny escapes into the GZ but just barely and is forced to leave his old life behind but not before Jazz tells him about what she had recently learned about Project: R.

The portals are destroyed and Danny flees to his home dimension in search of his fathers. Unfortunately when he gets there he learns most of his fathers are dead, only Damian Al Ghul and Jason Todd remaining, both having very strained relationships with thier own father Bruce Wayne and everything has gone to crap.

Theres an evil dictator in red and blue ruling the world and they're the reason two of his dads are dead. So he decides to rip the symbol off his chest, put on a mask and make his big debut as Phantom.

How you may ask?

By killing the evil Superman and his cronies on live television and announcing that he's the child of Project: R and what that means.

Damian finds Phantom in Bludhaven looking for him and asking him to take him in only to get refused. Damian fears that Bruce might try to turn Danny against him so is hesitant to get close emotionally.

Jason has no such concerns and scoops him up before Bruce can dress him like a traffic light. They then have the superhero talk and Phantom says he wants to be a anti-hero not a superhero. He already tried that one and it sucked so much. Jason definitely didn't like the fact his kid had been a superhero at any point but finding out pretty much all the adults in Dannys life had failed him so hard made Jay fly into a rage.

Bruce tries to go for custody but fails. Dannys doesn't like how the Titans treat Damian so he steals all the ABBA cds from the tower and makes off like a thief in the night. When they discover this they flip out because those were Dicks and they became practically sacred after he died.

Danny decided to cause problems on purpose. Such acts include:

1. Turning all the furniture in the common rooms of the Titans Tower into hyper realistic cake so when they sat on it/tried to turn on the TV, ect they'd be in for a suprise.

2. Stealing all the tires off of every vehicle Bruce owned and giving them to Jason/whoever was down on thier luck and couldn't afford to change thier tires. Danny says he has "a legacy to uphold" while balancing on the top of on of the tires as he runs it across Gotham

3. Torments Black Mask and Slade. Somehow all thier homes and safe houses are filled with beans. Yes, beans. Whenever they are in Gotham they get beaned in the face with a pickle. (This is worse for BM cause ya'know)

They have no idea whos doing this or why.

Ras Al Ghul is not amused by the pickleing but does not get beanified cause Danny doesn't know where most of his places are so he gets A LOT of pickles thrown at him every chance Danny gets.

4. Danny decides Damian requires lots of snuggles and just turns intangible whenever Damian tries to pry him off. Multiple people keep comparing him to Dick and its starting to get on Dannys nerves. He has three other dads to compare him to and Dick isn't even the only dead one! What about Tim??? He wants to learn about Tim! He demands his fathers tell him about themselves and Tim

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wandixx · 2 months

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Ghost of fries and hero of cookies part 6

All work words count: 14 643

Words in this part: 2 686

Summary of whole work: Duke wasn't expecting to wake up from his quick rooftop nap to some meta kid with fries. He also wasn't expecting kid to stay

Danny asked Dani to stay safe while she was in Gotham. Where would she be safer than under the wing of local hero? And he looked like he needed bad day combo anyway

This part summary: Batman wants an explanation. His kids however, wouldn't be themselves if they did add some chaos

Beta read by @audhumla-sailor though English is second language for both of us, so proceed with this in mind. I also know all of the charaters through fics alone, so probably ooc. Stay catious if it's something you don't like

First part, Previous part

“Signal.”

Duke bit back a sigh as his last hope to leave Cave undiscovered disappeared. He shot Steph message of:

Having The Talk. Come as moral support

and turned around to face Bruce.

“Yes?”

B grunted in disapproving and ‘Signal report’ way but Duke decided to buy some time and answer only questions that were actually asked. He slowly sat at the briefing table and looked at the man expectantly.

Lift chimed and moments later Tim and Cass went to Batcomputer and training mats respectively. Duke was, like, 80% sure they were there to eavesdrop. He knew them well enough. He knew them well enough.

“The girl”

“Izzy?” Was Duke annoying on purpose? Yes. He really didn’t want to have this talk. Like, at all. Psychological warfare it was “I mean, I know she is civilian and you don’t approve but at least she isn’t doing anything illegal, right? Like, you know, robbing museums or killing people?”

Bruce looked repulsed and Tim snorted.

“Low blow Narrows, low blow” Jason announced through speakers. He was slightly winded as if he just finished a fight “Good job kid”

“So you’re listening too, great” Duke muttered under his breath before louder he added “Is everyone who wants in on a show, here already?”

“Give me a sec- here Dick you’re going live now”

“Thanks Babs, you’re the best”

“I know. Donuts, you know which one”

“Of course. Glad we’re finally going to talk about Duke’s kid”

“Shut up, she is not my kid!”

“Steph ETA 2 minutes” Cass interrupted.

At least Damian didn’t show up- as if summoned by this thought Damian stomped down the stares, Alfred the Cat curled in his arms. Maybe others had a point, calling him Demon kid and stuff.

“What is an emergency?” he demanded and Duke decided to take what little relief he could from the fact that Bruce seemed equally defeated by sheer number of people around for this talk.

“It seems like… oh, literally everyone lost an adoption bet” Babs explained. Huh, so Steph didn’t change her stance.

Damian looked genuinely terrified as he muttered “No” eyes darting between everyone present in silent calculation.

“Oh, shut up” Duke whined knowing all too well his stalling had to come to the end. Maybe it was wishful thinking but he almost heard roar of engine of Steph’s motorcycle. Her presence would be double edged sword but she would help him advocate for Dani and that was more important.

“Thomas, what have you done?!” if it was anyone other than Damian, Duke would call sound he made a whine. As it was, he preferred his entrails to stay inside and since the boy showed up, called by thought, the older boy preferred not to take risks.

“Nothing, Babs is overreacting”

“Don’t deny it. She went about it kinda Tim Lite style but it worked”

“I don’t even know her surname, where she stays or really, anything about her life outside of our patrols, how do you expect me to go about adoption?!”

“B knew even less about me when he decided, yes this tire thief is my new son!” Jason chimed in and Duke knew he was grinning despite voice modulator.

“What from my origin story was lost to make Lite version?”

“Identities weren't breached as far as we're aware. Just ‘came one day and refuses to leave’ part and some light stalking. She was smart about it, invisible, keeping out of sight and to the hot spots. Wouldn't find her if I didn't know she was there”

“She could still just not tell, I mean I knew for years before telling anyone…”

“There is no way. Believe me, she has no brain-mouth filter, I swear”

“But-”

“She introduced herself by her first name,” Duke deadpanned ”She told me civilian names of heroes from her hometown, in context that didn't require me to do any actual research to clue me. I did anyway. I don't think she even realized she did it. If she knew our identities we would know already”

There was a moment of silence as everyone digested the thought of just how gigantic breach Dani accidentally caused.

“Well, it's as good of a proof as we can get for now,” Babs bristled.

“Who let her in on such secrets then?!” Damian sounded genuinely appalled and Duke wasn't too surprised.

Like on a cue, Steph stormed inside on her Spoiler in civies. Bruce looked about ready to get aneurysm. Duke was a bit glad that everyone was doing such good job in distraction department.

“IT’S OKAY, WHY? BECAUSE I AM HERE!” Steph yelled, jumping from before her vehicle fully stopped. She threw something small in general direction of Batcomputer “Timmy plug it in, I made a PowerPoint!”

Duke felt blood leave his face. He wasn't sure if he wanted to know what Steph put together but he probably didn't. Tim opened it anyways.

WHY HOOPOE IS ADORABLE&CHAOTIC BEAN AND SHOULD BE PART OF THE TEAM

The title slide said, one of the clearest photos of Dani from before she started wearing mask in the background. It was close-up of girl smiling, bits of brownie on her cheeks.

“Was this photo taken with a goddamn calculator?” Tim asked with disgust so clear Duke could taste it. Metaphorically of course.

“Nah, just body-cam. Her powers mess with technology a bit”

Tim still looked displeased at the craftsmanship.

“Don't worry, it's not a bad photo. Baby Bird is just being perfectionist,” Dick placated.

Duke didn't realize that Damian froze until he unfroze and made his way to the screen, stopping less than one foot away from it. His movements were rigid, his face scrunched with distress. Alfred the Cat escaped its master probably due to hoe tense he was. Everyone in Cave quietened as soon as boy took first step and expecting mood had to run through microphones because nobody from the on-line crowd quipped in.

“This is the green of Lazarus” he whispered finally, sounding actually scared. Jason swore. Bruce and Cass visibly stiffened. Tim choked and he wasn't even drinking. Dick did his whinny breezy name saying thing when he wanted explanation and felt lightly betrayed.

It was Duke's turn to freeze because… it wasn't. Of course he wasn't all that well versed in the Pit, less alone its color but he did bust quite a few trafficking rings with Jason and he saw his eyes afterwards all raging, toxic, neon green glory and it wasn't the same as Dani’s. As much as he liked English and how good he was at it, it failed him at simple task of describing the obvious difference between each other. He'd have more luck describing tastes with set of color samples from IKEA or something. And really, even if he tried he would lose the fight of competence with Damian. Who wouldn't. But-

“There is no way she has any connection with LOA”

“Why is that?” Damian seemed to misinterpret it as challenge like he always did when emotions were running high. Duke took a deep breath. Well, it was a moment to use all of his diplomatic skills and speak in the language of the demons.

“I've seen her fight. She would be utter disgrace”

“It does not prove-”

“It does” Duke interrupted with the tone and mimic of person who saw too much because he did ”None of you have any say until you watch a tiny and I mean tiny ten year old tackle five Joker goons like it's a joke, by sheer virtue of super strength and intangibility-means-I-can-ignore-bullets-Signal-don’t-be-such-worrywart. She should get shot, like, three times at least. And she kept laughing!” he was low key wheezing at the end because even after all this time (a week) it was fucking horrifying. Bruce made a huff that meant he was laughing and put a hand on his shoulder as a sign of support. Dick's lighthearted laugh sang from the speakers.

“Don't worry Duke, it never gets better” B said with mirth.

He refused to elaborate whether he meant ‘kids keep jumping into danger like there is no tomorrow‘ or ‘it's equally terrifying every time’ and Duke decided to reflect on that sentiment later. It put some things into perspective. A lot of things if he was being honest.

Also, he was not ready for stuff like that to become even semi-normal occurrence. He was ready to give her all of his Alfred cookies if it could change anything. He knew it wouldn't.

“Do you have any other evidence that your new acquaintance does not just fake being less experienced to make you lower your guard?” Damian asked warily.

“I had to teach her out of putting her thumb in her fist,” he deadpanned. Several people hissed in empathetic pain. Steph coughed to bring attention to where she stood in front of Batcomputer, other slide of her Power Point open. Duke recognised video from his body-cam.

“Exhibit A” she announced. She played a video with Dani’s first mugging attempt he witnessed. Let it be said, it was a disaster.

“Exhibit B '' One of Dani’s most epic fails at side-kick that ended with her falling face first to the ground.

“Exhibit C” Dani fumbled with zip-ties, looking at him utterly at loss.

“Exhibit D” the talk about her prior training.

“What’s was that sound?” Dick obviously on the verge of cooing when girl on video growled. Steph stopped video.

“Very angry kitten” Tim stated with soft smile.

“Honestly, furious girl” Cass corrected “She was really mad at you”

“Yeah, I know but promise of Alfred’s cookies was enough to placate her”

“You gave her Alfred’s cookies?!”

“She started by giving me a lot of food on a really shitty patrol, had to repay somehow”

“Was it from your share or-” Dick asked like it was most important thing in the world.

“Miss Hoopoe was added to my plans after she picked her new name” Alfred explained and shit, Duke really should get used to how man just appeared sometimes. Jumpscare the original.

“Alfred, you knew?” Bruce sounded so utterly betrayed.

“I have yet to meet her but I was informed about her presence about two weeks ago”

“He caught me printing mask for her”

“About that” Steph clapped and skipped her slide show “Look at thi clueless child with such horrible disguises and codename ideas” There was whole list of every name Dani wanted to try out and photo of her bare face. Duke kinda repressed his memories of it. It was worse than he remembered.

“Did she really tried kenting that?”

“Got it after her cousin. He used his first name as part of his alias for almost half a year” Duke admitted in carefree tone, knowing it would cause a mess.

“Cousin?!” several people yelled in surprise.

“Caped cousin?!”

“Yup. Small time hero from Illinois. As far as I’m aware she’s alone in Gotham but they’re in regular contact and she has strong believe that he can and will help her if she used her panic button”

“Who in their right mind let’s kid alone in Gotham?!” Jason sounded about ready to strangle Phantom.

“He seems to be fifteen himself. And has anti-meta parents if I’m picking things up correctly. She didn’t mention them much. I highly doubt she has present parents at all, so…”

“What the hell Narrows.”

“I don’t know, it’s just a wild guess”

“Does it call for the rescue?” Steph asked eagerly.

“We’re not going to Illinois to rescue Phantom if he doesn’t ask for it. He has means to it” Bruce interrupted with bone deep sigh.

“How do you know I meant Phantom?” Duke perked up because he never mentioned this name.

“He is from Illinois, looks almost the same as far as I can tell from the photos and they share a lot of powers”

“I didn’t know you knew about random kid hero from other state?”

“He dropped by on few Justice League’s mission. There is still dispute whether we should approach him in his city or not. He was very clear on his opinion that we should stay away. I think we really shouldn’t”

“How you haven’t gone or sent anyone there yet?” Tim teased.

Bruce just stared at him then gestured at mountain of cases they were currently working on. Yes, they were printed. Apparently for man it made it easier to work on them like that.

“Can we focus back on untrained child you let join you on patrol, Duke?”

“You act like I could stop her from doing her own thing if I didn’t let her. Plus, even though she doesn’t have combat training, she can handle herself well enough. And has this damn intangibility that makes her really hard to punch”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t tell anyone other than Alfred and Steph and I wanted to wait a bit before leaving her to the wolfs”

“The bet”

“Shut up Steph”

“When did you plan on letting us know?” Bruce ignored what blonde insinuated. Duke was utterly grateful for that, he knew he would get lecture for that later but he was more than happy to leave it be for now.

“Somewhen next week. I hoped to introduce her gradually but apparently everyone knew already?”

“Kids tell me things. Hoopoe made a good impression on them” Jason explained.

“Hero sightings on Twitter” Dick admitted without a shadow of shame.

“What he said” Tim agreed “This person from crochet dolls made one for your kid too, so in public eyes she’s our already”

“For the last time, she isn’t my kid!” Duke groaned but as always went ignored.

“Nobody expected old man’s tendencies to rub on you so fast, Narrows”

“Shut up and this is half a reason I didn’t let you meet her. All of you”

“With all due respect Duke” Babs started teasingly “You gave us ammo yourself. You improved her diet, you brought her to The Food Track Of Mental Breakdowns, you teach her stuff, you check in on her almost as often as her cousin and their friends do…”

“How did you hack her pho- No, wrong question, why?!”

“We’re all paranoid bastards, I needed to check out the newest bird. She legally doesn’t exist btw so I suspect some shady stuff with her birth but otherwise nothing sus about her. Comms and trackers for her are waiting in drawer C19. You will give it to her tomorrow”

“Aye, aye captain Oracle ma’am” he joked.

“Wait, you showed her The Food Track?”

“She deserved it” he gritted out.

Before this could turn into a fight or something, Alfred demanded:

“Since we are all on the same page now, I would like to extend an invitation for family dinner to miss Hoopoe”

“We’ll eat it down here in full costumes”

“As you wish master Bruce. Master Duke make sure to let her know”

“Of course Alfred”

And he planned to do that but Dani didn’t show up. He hadn’t thought much of it because she was unpredictable like that. She tended to disappear from the face of the Earth for a day or two and return with tales of her “autograph hunting trips”

But then she didn’t show up on the next patrol too. It was unprecedented. And she hadn’t responded to the check in. Three times in the row. He was getting kinda sick from the stress.

He knew Dani well enough, she wouldn’t ghost him like that and in Gotham disappearing meant three things: getting kidnapped, trafficked or six feet under. To their knowledge, Dani didn’t have anyone who would pay ransom for her other than Signal and no demands were made so the first option was out.

Bats launched full fledged search.

Duke himself found and busted two trafficking rings in three weeks which was around how much he did in two months on a daily basis.

Thanks to Oracle, they found Dani’s utterly crashed phone in the dead end in the Narrows. It didn’t look any better.

Duke really hoped they wouldn’t be too late.

With each day it seemed more likely.

********

Bruce: *wants to have private conversation with his son about unknown child he's been working with*

All of the Batfam: Hello there

Duke: I managed to keep Dani secret my family of detectives!

Everyone other than Bruce: I knew for past two weeks, but goood job kid

Random o Twitter: I'm sooo disappointed with Signal for letting Hoopoe fight crime. She is just a little child, she shouldn't have to witness Gotham's worst

Other Random: Have you heard about Robin????? Have you seen teories that Signal is teenager???? With proofs????? Are you mad at child for not taking proper care of the other child????? That's messed up my dude/gal

Yell at Batman

Signal: You act like she isn't personification of feral cat I try to coax home so I can prevent her from getting in trouble. I dare you to try and stop her

Phantom: I do too, 100$ if you manage. It would save me from so much stress

Random: Now, who the f*ck are you?!

(Guess who never touched Twitter with 20 meters stick in her life)

Next part

Tag list: @pickleking8 @mynameisnotlaura

#dpxdc #dcxdp #dp x dc #dc x dp #dani hangs out with duke #signal got new sidekick and he cares about her deeply #it would fit more in part 2 probably but i forgot about it #Signal to Dani: Hydration check!#Dani: What? Why? Other wh words???#Signal: I care about you so I want to make sure you're taking care of yourself #Signal: Drink something #Dani: Okay cool here's a proof i'm drinking *photo of juice*#Dani to Danny: Hydration check! Drink something so I know you're okay #Danny: 👍 *sends photo of unholy mix of coffee red bull and ectoplasm with trice as much caffeine as it's legal in USA*#Dani: Glad you're being nice to your body #wandixx writes #ghost of fries and hero of cookies #have a nice day dear stranger who got to this part

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telffiin · 3 months

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okok it's that time of the week time to air my grievances about fandom!!

the obsession with making the al ghuls comically abusive towards damian so bruce or dick can feel angsty and sad about it and then give a tonguelashing to talia is so prevalent and annoying and racist.

it also always involves bruce/dick being like 'you will never see damian again graah!!!' like ok white savior. alright.

bruce gets written as a super good dad and has all his canon fuck-ups ignored, but talia doesn't get the same treatment, even though she deserves it far more than him. instead she's just an evil brown woman whose sole purpose in life is to abuse her kid and be a predator. yay. you are So Progressive.

'dick grayson is damian wayne's parent' so where's that kid's mom? best case scenario she just doesn't seem to exist. worst case makes me go on rants like this one lmao.

talia also gets constantly used as everyone's whipping girl for the most absurd shit it's ridiculous.

regarding ra's: who the fuck is that guy you write. because he sure as hell isn't ra's al ghul. ra's Loves his family. he is not non-stop killing talia or damian for whatever reason. are you stupid. i literally just read a comic where he killed a guy because he shot and killed talia.

there are literally so many more things i've got a bone to pick with but others have made much more eloquent and put together posts than this one. also i'm tired👍👍👍

#rant #dc #batman #fandom #fandom critical #fandom racism #bruce wayne #dick grayson #talia al ghul #damian wayne #ra's al ghul #batman fandom #damian al ghul

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the-batcomputer-project · 8 months

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Batfamily (and other) Headcanons that will be canon in my DC timeline:

-Dick is Pansexual. Show me this man in romantic relationships with more than just woman. I also feel like he has potential to be a sex positive icon which I feel is important. Sex portrayed as something that can be fun and casual, not explicitly reserved for romantic partners and situations.

(edited to rephrase and remove offensive language towards the pan community)

-Jason is Asexual. Get some ace representation but also give him some healthy romantic relationships where sex is not the center or a necessity. (I’m partial to Jason/Roy but to each their own)

-Jon Kent is dyslexic. Insert Percy Jackson reference about his brain being wired for kryptonian, but no, the dyslexia comes from Lois.

-Jason was absolutely theater kid before his death who managed to get the lead role almost every time, and somehow maintained a healthy schedule of theater rehearsals, good grades, and patrols.

-building off of the last one, Jason is Bruce’s favorite allowing him to get away with pretty much anything, but no one notices this because Jason is convinced Bruce hates him, and everyone else (understandably) believes Cass is the favorite.

-Cass took up gardening after watching Alfred tend to the rose bushes out front, and is now responsible for the very impressive garden on the Wayne Estate. She loves being to create and nurture life instead of kill, like the was born and raised to. Jason also taught her the language of flowers and she has little flowerbeds for each member of the family. Only Jason knows what they mean (also Alfred but he knows everything)

-Tim isn’t a caffeine addict, but he does have severe insomnia and ADHD. Because of that, caffeine typically has the opposite effect on him, hence why he always seems to be drinking a cup. Either for the placebo effect to stay up and finish a case, or to make him tired enough to fall asleep.

-Damian struggles to connect with people and express gratitude, appreciation, and love. He asked Cass about her garden one day and very intently sat and listened while she taught him about the language of flowers. Each family member woke up the next morning to a drawing of a bouquet of flowers pinned to the door with a knife (Jason has his framed in a safehouse he is fairly sure none of his family knows about)

-The batcave has a secret vault of “bad ideas” which was started by Dick as a child with the original Robin suit Bruce designed (it had pants) along with videos of Dick wearing said costume and falling off of gymnastics bars. (Think of the video explaining why strippers don’t wear clothes with the person falling off the pole over and over)

-Bruce is autistic. He gives off tism vibes (you’re trying to tell me that a man who dresses up as a bat and fights crime as a trauma response to watching his parents be murdered in front of him is neurotypical?) and I also want to see more a positive autism representation in main characters in media.

-Dick’s use of made up words such as “aster” and “whelmed” come from the fact that he spoke very little English when he was first adopted by Bruce, and decided that using obviously made up words made his slip ups less noticeable, or people would assume he did it on purpose. Even after he mastered English, he continued using his made up words because they just made sense (the batcomputer and jl database have a hidden file called the “DICKtionary” unlinking all his words and their meanings)

-Jason can’t drive. He died when he was 15 (you have to be 16 in Jersey to get your permit), was revived in Nanda Parbat so there was no need to drive, and was too embarrassed to mention it by the time he returned to Gotham and the Batfamily. This is his deepest, darkest, secret.

-As a child, Dick was convinced Batman was a vampire (and still isn’t entirely convinced otherwise)

-Tim collects little trinkets. Dick noticed this early on, and made sure to get a little souvenir trinket for Tim every time he went on a trip. Bruce noticed and started doing the same thing, and so did his friends after a while. Tim proudly displays his collection, because to him, each trinket is a reminder that people are thinking about him and care about him. (Most of his possessions in Drake Manor were necessities like clothes, or things he had bought for himself. Barely anything was a gift)

-Jason has OCPD, and needs things to be an exact certain way, and struggles when they aren’t. It’s one of the biggest reasons why he is often so frustrated with Bruce, who tends to do things in a different, certain way.

-Cass is actually the most neurotypical in the family, though because she has learned how to be a person through observing, she has picked up on many neurodivergent traits, specifically stimming.

-Steph’s aesthetic is retro pastel pop, mixed with maximalism. She loves bright colors and loud designs (though purple is still her favorite by far)

-Alfred keeps guns stashed all over the house in case of emergencies. Bruce hates this and has tried to remove them, but has given up as he can never seem to find them all. Alfred also brought up the good point of “I am not a vigilante like you, Master Bruce, and I am not quite as young as I used to be. If there is ever an invasion of the manor, I would quite enjoy the security of being able to protect myself.”

-There is a list of who is banned from the kitchen. Bruce is at the top of the list, Tim isn’t allowed to make anything more complex than instant food, Cass and Damian aren’t very good, but at least make an effort to learn so are therefore allowed with supervision. Dick has a partial ban. He is an absolute disaster in the kitchen, except for soups, and sarma (his mother’s recipe was one of the few things he brought with him from the circus and was obsessed with perfecting it as a kid, leading it to be one of the only things he can actually make) Steph isn’t allowed to cook, but she is a proficient baker. Duke isn’t a horrible cook, but mainly avoids the kitchen, preferring to stay out of Alfred’s way. Jason is the only batfamily member who is not banned from the kitchen under any circumstances. He has a tendency to stress cook, and likes trying new fancy recipes, because on the streets he only ate what he could find. This gives him a sense of control.

-Superman wasn’t a great dad to Connor at first, opting to send him to the farm to stay with Ma and Pa, but after a stern talking to from Bruce, came around started making an effort. Connor is an excellent big brother to Jon.

#dc comics #dc universe #batman #batfamily #headcanon #batfam #batfam headcanons #dick grayson #jason todd #tim drake #damian wayne #duke thomas #stephanie brown #cassandra cain

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ametrictonofaudacity · 10 months

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Gaps Interlude 2

Warnings: delusion, obsession, stalking, SO MUCH projection and manipulation, anxiety (?), stalking, kidnapping, Bruce is a deeply unhealthy man, snippet told from a yandere pov.

Bruce knows you before he’s met you and loves you before he knows you.

How could he not, after all? You brought so much life back into Dick. Suddenly his oldest was so full of joy and laughter, something he hadn’t seen in so long it aches. Anyone who could make any of his children that happy, that pleased, is worth all the love he could give and more. Anyone who can make his son smile like it’s the best day of his life just by being around you was worth so much.

He investigates you. Of course he does. He wouldn’t be Bruce if he didn’t, he knows. And besides, there’s the threat of you being an enemy, of being a threat to his son and his family and everything he holds dear.

You aren’t. You’re an average Gotham citizen, really. Tired, angry, fiercely independent, and weighed down by the generations of struggle that the city loved to give to its inhabitants. But there a gleam in your eye as you look around you sometimes, bright and interested, and Bruce finds himself wanting to see more of it.

So he does. He searched everything he can, looking through footage around the city with a fervor that only he can manage.

(He doesn’t bother justifying it, really. Bruce knew he was in the wrong, here, but he had never claimed that he was always the most moral, despite what others thought.)

He finds it. Caches of videos, some of you, some of Dick, some of you and Dick laughing together, appear in the Batcomputer. He watches them over and over again, and knows he isn’t the only one because there are time stamps from when he was asleep or out on patrol.

(He suspects it was Tim. He had made the password simple, a 16 digit alphanumeric password, and leaving that with an unmarked file was practically begging for his son to start snooping. He would never admit that he wanted his son to find it, to see how the young man felt about a new sibling.)

When Dick tells him about you, finally, he is outwardly supportive, clapping a hand on your brother's shoulder with a grin while Alfred watches with worried eyes.

(Alfred, out of everyone, knew him the best. Knew the way his heart was too big for his chest, the way it pounded against his ribs, begging to be released. Knew that he had given that trait to his children,with heart too big and emotions that ran too hot, overwhelming.)

He can admit that he takes Dick breaking the news to him as permission, of a sorts.

He times a patrol so that they pass by your window. Not his patrols, at first. Robin’s, Red Robin’s, Nightwing’s. Anyone he can there with some excuse, he does, and they go with little protest. Dick is ecstatic to be near you while out as Nightwing. He’s so eager to protect you, something that makes pride and concern bubble up in equal amounts.

And Bruce can admit he feeds the obsession, just a bit. Hours upon hours of mask footage, compiled and saved, to a new folder. He stares at the videos, watching them eagerly, watching as you go about your nightly routines. He tries not to feel too proud when he sees how you routinely check and test your locks. He hadn’t taught you the skill, even if it was a good skill to have. He starts to plan, wondering just how to get you to come into the arms of his family willingly.

(And when Bruce plans, he knows that he becomes almost inhuman in the way he considers every option. The way he is willing to take apart and analyze every aspect of his enemy, the way he was willing to put aside his own emotions for the purpose of a greater goal.)

(His goal, now, was to get you home and safe.)

It shouldn’t be too hard, he knew. Despite your fierce independence, and the way you grated against too much hovering, it would only take a bit of persuasion. He considers finding someway to get you evicted, before he decides the emotional fallout of losing your apartment wasn’t worth the gain. You would be too hard on yourself, he figured, viewing it as a personal failure rather than a failure of a system designed to kill you.

He takes patrols near your home, now.

When he can, when the duty to his city doesn’t pull him away from the things he loves most, he stays outside your window.

(He loves you like he loves his children, like he loves his city. It’s a burning need to protect, to spirit you away and keep you safe, a burning need to ensure that nothing happened. He couldn’t do it for his children or his city, but you, he knew, he could easily achieve that goal.)

He sends Damian to steal your ID, and his son does, having met you, equally eager to bring you home. He doubted his son thought you were competent enough to be living alone, anyways.

You call Dick, panicked, and even though he hates causing you so much distress, he’s pleased how quickly you cave to Dick’s offer of help. He had realized you were trying to distance yourself from them, grating against how often they were around you, and it makes his shoulder relax just slightly when Dick and Damian manage to cajole you into coming to the Manor.

(They wouldn’t be quite so involved, he knew, if you were alright. But there was a constant look of loneliness in your eyes, the constant need to be surrounded by people, but one you couldn’t fill because of just how fiercely you wished to avoid being hurt.)

(Bruce understood that. He had been that, after Talia. Had been sharp and independent and fierce, unwavering in his convictions. So very far from okay, and it had taken a little boy with a traffic colored suit and the brightest smile possible to force him to begin to allow people to care about him, again.)

(He wouldn’t let you make his mistakes.)

When you come to the Manor, your shoulders unwind and relax, and you are so very clearly at ease around them that Bruce almost doesn’t let you leave. That when he slips the sedative into your drink, he almost considers making you stay forever, and not simply for the night. It takes a quick look from Alfred to remind him that he was trying to avoid traumatizing you, trying to prevent having to spend years undoing the trauma of a single moment.

(Watching you rest peacefully in the guest room as you sleep off the sedative is the only thing that eases the ripping in his chest. The knowledge that this would soon be your room, filled with knickknacks and gifts and love, is the only thing that stops him from just keeping you at the Manor.)

And then, he manages to ruin his plans and bring you home all in one night.

You fight, like all his children would if they were suddenly attacked by two unknowns, and you aren’t deterred by the fact they were Gotham’s vigilantes, her protectors. It would be impressive if it wasn’t so heartbreaking.

(How many of his children have had to fight the people they thought they could trust?)

(It makes him ache.)

And when you’re curled in his arms, breathing softly against Kevlar and leather, he can’t help the way his grip tightens on you, can’t help the way he wraps you in his cape like a blanket. You were his child, after all, even if you didn’t know it and had yet to accept it.

(And he knows you will. Even if it takes years, even if it takes you decades to accept that your family was going to be there for you no matter what, they would be there for you every step of the way.)

He presses a gentle kiss to your forehead while Jason calls him a sentimental old man, puts you in the backseat, and drive you home.

#yandere platonic dc #Yandere platonic Batfam #yandere platonic Batman #yandere platonic Bruce Wayne

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maccreadysbaby · 6 months

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A Hundred Days to Become a Wayne

batfamily + oc insert

tw: sickness, vague emeto, delirium, all that fun stuff

wanna start from chapter one or read more? here’s the table of contents!

OH MY GOD WERE GETTING SO CLOSE YOU GUYS, THREE MORE CHAPTERS AHAJEMDN

part twenty-three

❝ BAD TIMING ❞

FRIDAY — 12:02AM — DAY 97

AFTER HIS MELTDOWN AT THE STORE, BENTLEY DECIDED HE NEEDED TO DO SOMETHING, AND FAST. Days had been passing like lightning, and he was growing anxious. The type of anxious that made his stomach hurt. He skipped dinner on day ninety-six by saying he was tired, and went off to his room to make a plan. Patrol had gone back to normal, which meant he had from about midnight to three to properly brood about it.

But the plan never came. He stared at his ceiling for hours and he kept landing on nothing. If he told them, the Waynes might hate him. If he did it, the Waynes would definitely hate him. If he failed, they’d still find out he was a double agent and probably hate him. And as much as he didn’t want to admit it, thinking about that hurt.

Jason came to the Manor on purpose during bad weather so he could be there for him. Dick had been the one to pull him off the street and take him home. Damian trusted him enough to sleep beside him when he was sick, and take him to an art show. Heck, Tim stayed by his side through an entire anxiety attack. Bruce stayed with him through the night after a bad dream. Was he really willing to leave all of that behind? All of the care the Waynes showed him, the lengths they’d gone for him? He’d been given a room, a wardrobe, a stocking, food, and a semblance of family life. All because they cared enough to do it. All for a kid they hardly knew.

Bentley ended up just going to bed, because all the thinking was giving him a headache. He’d make a plan tomorrow, he told himself, a real one.

And then, four hours later, only two hours into day ninety-seven, he woke up. The dim bathroom light and clock that read 2:11am were his only sources of vision.

And he was so hot.

He kicked his blankets off in a feeble attempt at warding off the heat, but it seemed to be coming from inside of him. His stomach was doing flips and he suddenly regretted not eating dinner, even though he’d gone much longer than this without food and it never got all flippy like that. Although he supposed it was probably his intense anxiety making it angry. He also assumed anxiety was the reason his head was throbbing.

He wished he could just make up his mind. No way seemed right, and any direction he chose, he lost. He never got the happy ending.

And he wouldn’t even be having a happy sleep, because apparently Bruce had turned the thermostat from sixty-nine up to the sun. He was too tired to get out of bed, but he spread out on his sheets like a starfish and took off his socks to try and cool down. It didn’t work.

That’s about when he realized he’d been pouring sweat. His pajamas and hair were soaked, and if he cared, he might’ve even changed into different pjs. Some shorts, maybe.

But it didn’t matter. Not much mattered anymore, did it? Not when he was just going to end up losing.

He laid all starfish-ed on his bed for a while until his stomach changed from uncomfortable territory to swallowed an electric eel territory.

He wondered how hard karma was laughing as he curled in a ball on his mattress with a small grumble of discomfort. His skin was burning. His eyes were burning. His brain was burning. His insides felt like they were full of churning lava and when he sat up, the walls swirled and teetered around him, so he laid back down.

Was this really what was going to happen on one of his last days in the manor? Really? Just when he was about to make some kind of decision?

He faded in and out of sleep for a while, and each time he re-emerged, his brain felt more and more foggy. Like it was stuffed with cotton. Each time he was ripped from the depths of slumber, his muscles were more achy, the eel in his stomach was practicing more vigorously for a circus, and any type of movement got difficult and slow like he was underwater. And he kept getting hotter.

He only found the willpower to get up and move when the eel promptly decided it wanted out.

Bentley’s bare feet padded across the hardwood and into the tiled bathroom, his eyes bleary from attempted sleep, and he didn’t even have time to as much as glance at his own reflection before he threw up in the sink. Once, twice, three times.

By the time his body decided it was done revolting against him (for now), he had hot reflex tears streaming down his face and a terrible smelling bathroom. He couldn’t think much between the cotton in his brain and the eel in his stomach, but with the one little coherent part of his brain he managed to grab ahold of, he determined that he wanted Dick. He wanted Dick so bad.

But Nightwing was on patrol, that stupid part of his brain said, and Duke was home but he had SATs this week. Bentley couldn’t get him sick and make him miss them. He’d been studying forever.

You’re more important than all of that stuff, Bentley, Tim’s voice echoed in his head.

But would he be more important than all of that when they realized he was a traitor?

So the ten-year-old sat down against the bathroom sink, tear-streaks and all, and wrapped his arms around his screaming body. Maybe he deserved this for thinking about betraying the Waynes. Or maybe he deserved it for disobeying his father. Or both.

The hours drug on like they were crawling through molasses, and Bentley threw up until there was nothing left. By the time his stomach was void, the sun was peeking into his bedroom, and he was reduced to nothing more than a pitiful little heap on the bath-mat.

Now he was cold. Really cold, but too tired to get up. He felt like his arms and legs were tied to cinder blocks. His throat was completely raw and all he could really do was shiver there, and curl up tighter.

He heard Damian’s door close.

Then heard his door open a little, and a cat meowed.

And after a couple seconds, his door opened further.

“Bentley?”

It was Damian.

He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out but a weird rasp. Thankfully, Damian was observant enough to glance in the bathroom.

He was in his school uniform, but he looked more like Robin somehow. Or maybe it was just Bentley’s fever talking. He heard Damian mutter something not in English — what did he speak, Aramaic? No, wait… it was Arabic. Right? It started with an A, Bentley knew that. Why couldn’t he think straight?

He felt little hands scouring him, checking his back, his torso. He didn’t even find it in himself to do anything but curl up more when Damian pressed lightly on his stomach. He did manage to whine lowly when his ice cold hand (seriously, did he put it in a blast chillier?) landed on his forehead. There was a tt.

“I’m afraid this is my fault, although I assumed enough time had passed that you would not fall ill,” Damian stated, and Bentley vaguely saw him pull out his phone. He was crouching now, in front of him. He really looked like Robin. “I will message my father. I apologize that you contracted my illness, but… I did appreciate the company.”

If Bentley had it in him to respond, he didn’t know it.

“He will come upstairs post-haste,” Damian stated. His hand hadn’t left Bentley’s head, but it was okay, he liked it there. “I am sorry.”

Bentley hummed in response, and the comfort of having at least one Wayne within touching distance was enough to lull him into a deeper sleep than he’d gotten all night.

—

When he woke up enough to look around, it was dark outside again, and the lights were dim but harsh enough to make him close his eyes.

He was laying on his bed in what felt like different pajamas. The sterile smell of cleaner wafted from his bathroom, and something cold and terrible was resting on his forehead.

He felt like he’d been run over by a train and scraped off the ground. His stomach still hurt despite being so utterly empty it was probably disintegrating, and his head only felt weirder, floaty. His arms and legs felt like they were tied down. He turned his head to the side just enough to make the cold thing flop off onto the sheets.

“Hey, kiddo. You awake?”

Bentley squirmed in protest, and a small whine fell past his lips when the cold and terrible thing was returned to his head.

“I know, I’m sorry. You have a fever. One-oh-three point two.”

He couldn’t even comprehend the words he was hearing, but he did manage to peel his eyes open. A pair of familiar, ocean-ey blue eyes were staring back at him. He knew whose eyes those were, but he couldn’t think of their name. He whispered the first one that came to mind.

“Nightwing?”

The blue-eyed man frowned. “No, kiddo, it’s Dick.”

Bentley nearly said ‘same thing,’ but apparently he still had some kind of filter online that kept it from slipping out.

“Don’t feel good,” Is what he mumbled instead. Nightwing ran his hand through the kid’s hair, and he leaned into it like some kind of feverish cat.

“I know you don’t. You’re going to be all better soon, I promise,”

About half of him believed that.

His brain kicked on just enough for him to realize it was dark, which meant another day had been wasted, and he only felt worse, which meant he’d probably waste another day, too. What was he supposed to do?

For right now, he started crying.

It wasn’t very hard. Thanks to the fever, he’d have been crying at the drop of a hat anyhow. He always got emotional when he had a fever. He remembered countless hours spent crying in the downstairs bathroom of Whittaker Estate when he was sick.

“It’s okay, kiddo. I’m right here,” Nightwing’s voice came, and the hand kept moving through Bentley’s disgustingly sweaty hair.

He wanted so badly to tell him everything right then. To tell him about his father, about the plan, about how it was day ninety-something and his father would be coming to extract him or whatever soon, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t stop crying enough to talk about it. He couldn’t make his thoughts coherent enough, he knew he wouldn’t make any sense.

Instead of his entire life’s story tumbling from his lips, what really came out between gaspy, body-shaking sobs was a desperate: “Please don’t hate me.”

He thought he heard Nightwing take a deep breath — he didn’t know, between his foggy brain and crying he wasn’t hearing much of anything right.

He didn’t even open his eyes when the mattress dipped next to him and he was pulled into somebody’s arms. Somebody’s arms that were so warm, and he was so cold, somebody’s arms that were so comforting, and he felt so terrible-

There was still a hand moving through his hair, and he was against someone’s shirt. “I would never hate you. None of us would ever hate you.”

Maybe if they learned he was a traitor, they would.

He said nothing, but grabbed onto whatever was closest, and he wasn’t sure if it was a blanket or a shirt that was balled up in his fists. He didn’t open his eyes. He just laid there (sat there? He couldn’t tell if he was sitting up or not.) and cried about all the things he hadn’t cried about yet until his weak body had had enough, and he faded back into blackness.

—

He woke up in the closet.

Wait, no, someone was touching him. He opened his eyes and saw his nice bedroom at Wayne Manor but it suddenly looked a lot like his bedroom at home. He felt like he was on fire and someone kept touching him. He saw the white door at the end of the hall.

“Don’t take me in there,” He murmured to his father, who was touching him, who was right next to him. “Don’t… Don’t put me in there. It’s scary.”

“You’re not going anywhere. You’re staying right here,”

The voice was distant, like someone on a microphone a football field away. It sounded like it was floating. That was his father’s voice, wasn’t it? What was he saying? The white door was still there.

“Don’t… don’t… please, don’t. Please… please don’t put me in there. It’s dark. Please,”

“No one is putting you anywhere, Bentley. You’re in your bed, at the Manor,”

Was the closet door talking? Was Nightwing locked in the closet?

“I’ll be good. I’ll be good, I promise… I promise. Please don’t close the door,”

“God, Dick, he’s delirious,”

“He threw up the last two times Bruce and I tried to give him medicine,”

“What’s his fever?”

“Edging on one-oh-four,”

Bentley started squirming, trying to get away from his father, away from the door.

“N-no! Please don’t close the door, please don’t close the door!”

“Bentley. Bentley, hey, it’s okay. You’re not locked anywhere. Look at me,”

He didn’t look, he only looked at the white door.

“Don’t close the door… don’t close the door… don’t put me in there,”

“Go open the door, Jay,”

Some big black blob opened the closet door.

“The door is open,” The floating voice came. “The door is open. No one’s putting you anywhere.”

His father had opened the door for him? His father wasn’t going to lock him in there anymore? His father was stroking his hair?

He settled back down in the bed as he watched the black blob drift away.

“M’ love you,”

There was a pause, a quiet beat, the closet door stayed open.

“I love you, too, kiddo,”

Bentley floated away on a fluffy cloud of something happy, knowing that his father loved him.

—

dedicated to @sassenashsworld💛

—

tag list!

@fleur-alise @cademygod @sarcopterygiian

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not-so-mundane-after-all · 4 months

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Dick & Rachel and the Invisible String theory (part 3)

Let's continue with season 2! (You'll find part 1 and part 2 here) Good news is, I fixed the problem of the image limit (silly me didn't know I can put up to 30 images in a post on my laptop). Also good news — season 2 has so many clues that I had to give ONE ENTIRE EPISODE a separate post!

Season 2 is interesting when it comes to the Invisible String because it all seems to be very chaotic and all over the place, which is kind of reflecting the state of both of Dick and Rachel's minds this season. Dick, quite literally haunted by his past, is fighting hallucinations of Bruce Wayne, while Rachel is trying and failing to rein in her newly upgraded powers and struggling with her sense of identity. Their problems are pulling them in different directions, making them deal with stuff separately rather than together. The String becomes frayed and loses some of its integrity. Until, finally having enough of the bullshit, it takes the matters into its own hands (ropes?), so to speak.

And in episode 2x11 "E.L._.O.", sends Rachel a dream.

It's a blaring alarm. A wailing siren. Code Red, it screams, he's doing something really really stupid and it's going to get him killed. It urges her to go, now, before it's too late.

But first a little reminder how we got there.

Dick revealed the truth about what really happened to Jericho. Mad that he kept it a secret and blaming him, everyone (including Rachel) leaves him and goes their separate ways — except for Kory, who leaves to deal with her own stuff but promises to be back, and Gar who ends up the only one staying at the Tower. Dick leaves as well, packs a bag and goes to visit Jericho's mother. After a confrontation with her and Slade, he heads for the airport, a plan to go somewhere remote and away from everyone on his mind. But once he's there, he experiences something like a psychotic breakdown, gets himself detained and sent to prison, being convinced that this is what he deserves for all his fuck ups and mistakes.

Rachel originally goes with Donna but ends up ditching her as well and finds her way to a homeless shelter, where she meets a girl named Dani. Dani invites Rachel to an abandoned house where she and her friends have their place, and tells her she can stay with them. This is where Rachel has the nightmare.

It's all very symbolic this time. A cemetery, a funeral, a gravestone with Dick's name on it. Rachel's reaction to it is heartbreaking to watch. Then Dick appears behind her, dressed in a suit and tie as if attending his own funeral, and begs her not to give up. On him? On Titans? Rachel grabs his hand to look into his mind and find out what's going on but all she sees is some place called Elko diner in the middle of nowhere, which at the time doesn't make much sense. She wants to ask, but a sword is driven right through Dick's chest, Slade standing behind him, and she watches in horror as Dick chokes on his own blood and dies. She wakes up screaming, tires to call him, but his voicemail box is full.

When she doesn't leave immediately, the String tugs at her again. Dani gives her a reading from Tarot cards and the reading is terrifyingly accurate:

"Your past. The Tower. Upheaval. It leads to a period of darkness." — fighting amongst the team, Titans breaking apart.

"Your present. The Moon. The realm of dreams. Your unconscious knows the way back to the light. You have to trust your intuition. It will guide you to your purpose." — THE REALM OF DREAMS!!! GUIDE YOU!!!! TO YOUR PURPOSE!!!! Do I even have to explain?!

"Your future. The hanged man. Brutality is coming your way. You must prepare to make a great sacrifice or... suffer a great loss." — explains the meaning of the vision and predicts the future. The hanged man is Dick, his life is in danger. And as if that wasn't bad enough, Rachel gets another scary vision:

Something insane hit me while I was rewatching this scene and making these gifs. Something that made my jaw drop to the floor.

Dani could be the personification of the Invisible String.

She's only in this one episode, we never see her again. Rachel doesn't get the vision of Dick's death until she's at her place. Her only purpose seems to be to have this scene with Rachel, read her from the cards and help her understand this dream. She's literally guiding Rachel on the right path, a path that will take her back to Dick.

Rachel leaves right after that and heads for the bus station. This is another example of the String working in mysterious ways, because it's a direct callback to the moment from the pilot where Rachel decides to go to Detroit. This time it's a little more intentional — Rachel picks Elko because she recognized the name of the diner from her dream — but the two scenes are done nearly shot for shot to remind us that neither of the instances is coincidental. Just like the previous season, the String is leading her to Dick.

On the bus she has another dream. She's in the same cemetery, sees Dick standing over his own grave. Deathstroke emerges from behind the trees with his sword in hand and Rachel tries to warn Dick but she's unable to move and he can't hear her. Deathstroke kills him again and Rachel jerks awake just when she's about to miss her stop.

Meanwhile, weird things start happening with some of the others. Donna gets a strange call from Rachel, but the static cuts off her voice. Kory, who ended up in Vegas, sees a commercial of the Elko diner on TV. Dawn hears Rachel's voice on the radio as she's driving. All three get the same message: get to the Elko diner.

When they get there, though, Rachel is actually shocked to see them all there and claims she didn't do anything. Then none other than Bruce Wayne walks in and has a nice little chat with them. (Btw Bruce is preaching in this scene. Amen to these words!)

He gives a speech about putting the gang back together despite all the hurt that broke them apart, then simply leaves. Kory, Donna and Dawn aren't too convinced, the latter two deciding to leave. But before they do, a small TV in the back of the empty diner turns itself on and shows news footage informing that Dick is in a nearby prison and apparently helped two men escape. Convenient, right?

All of this is so weird, isn't it? So random. You watch it and immediately claim it "shitty writing" because the way these events happen is so goddamn ridiculous. It feels like it doesn't make much sense.

Or does it?

Because it's not really Bruce. Because in the season finale, when Kory thanks Bruce for coming and his advice, Bruce tells her he doesn't know what she's talking about because he was never there.

But if it wasn't Bruce, who or what was it?

At this point, Dick is having hallucinations all the time. While locked in solitary confinement, he has no one but his mind's projection of his adoptive father for company. They talk, they argue, even fight. Bruce has been appearing to him throughout the entire season, most of the time uninvited (as hallucinations do) and Dick couldn't get rid of him. But the one time when Dick actually does want Bruce to appear, he doesn't.

Bruce doesn't show up, but a large bird appears in a window of the cell and catches Dick's attention.

The only way I can describe Dick's face when he sees it is relief. Man nearly looks like he could cry. He immediately jumps to his feet, eyes never leaving the bird, and softly calls to it, but the bird flies away and doesn't come back even when Dick is shouting after it. Left alone again, Dick hangs his head and drops back to the floor, where he curls, crushed and defeated, as if the last glimmer of hope he had just died.

Bruce comes back shortly after that, and at the question "Where did you go?" he ominously replies that Dick needed to rest, and then changes the topic.

Okay but why pay attention to some bird? It's just a random bird, right? Wrong.

It's Rachel. Her "soul self" as she calls it in season 4. Still linked to Dick's subconscious even after leaving the dream, she "borrowed" Bruce's projection to bring him to the diner and sent the Raven as a replacement. Even Kory and Dawn came to a similar conclusion in the finale:

What's more, Dick must have recognized her in the bird. Otherwise, why would the bird catch his attention? Why would it cause such a range of emotions on his face? The bird doesn't stay for long, it flies away almost immediately, but I'd say this way Rachel now knows where to look. The bird comes back, the tv turns on and now they have the location.

One extra clue that proves it is that the scene in the cell happens right after the scene at the diner, which implies that the two moments might be happening at the same time.

How did Rachel do all of that? Found her way to some random diner in Nevada, brought the girls and Bruce together, sent out a projection of herself to Dick and did it all unconsciously ? Is it her powers or is it the String pulling her forward? Or both? It could be her instinct, her fear, her helplessness and desperation because she's just a kid and she's alone, and she just had a premonition of Dick's death. There's not a lot of time and she needs help. Outside of the diner, she's begging Donna and Dawn to stay, tears shine in her eyes and her breath hitches while she explains to them how she saw Dick die, but ultimately only Kory stays by her side. She gets some of the help but not all, and Dick eventually finds them before they get to find him, but all these weird things didn't stop happening until the threat of Dick dying went away.

As for Dick's end of the String, it kind of only makes a cameo. In his last hallucination, after Dick and Bruce exchange a few kicks and blows, Dick finds himself standing in front of several screens showing some important, pivotal moments from his life, moments that shaped him into who he is. There's many different things here: Robin's violence, his parents' killer's death, cutting Bruce's tracker from his arm, Jason falling from a building — and two memories of Rachel. The first meeting in Detroit and the moment she appeared in Trigon's dreamscape to save him (which also proves something I'll be talking about in season 3, so remember that detail).

And honestly, I can't think of an explanation to this other than the String's mere presence. It doesn't do anything — the scene's purpose is for Dick to figure out a clue left by Jericho. But I find the choice of picking not one but two important memories of her for this scene a really interesting and thought-provoking detail. Especially that the way this entire section is constructed draws your attention to it. We hear Rachel saying "It's you, you're the boy from the circus" in the background and her voice doesn't drown in the cacophony of others from different memories, but it's distinct, standing out from the rest — we as the audience are meant to hear it and recognize it. All the memories on the screens change, some appear on different screens at different times, but everything, from the camera angle and blocking, to editing and effects, made sure these two memories were seen at the same time. They're not the focus of the scene of course but you can tell there's been a lot of thought put into making sure they end up where they ended up.

You know, it's funny how I used to not take this episode too seriously — like most of the fandom — because of all the stuff at the diner and how there's seemingly no explanation to it and it feels so random. Because of how stupid some of the characters decisions seem. We always blame it on the writing, shit on the writers for leaving plotholes and making retcons, and 99% of the time we are right to do it. But maybe we just have to look deeper. Maybe we're supposed to look deeper. Because after looking at these events through the perspective of The Invisible String, this episode will never not make sense to me again. It's not dumb anymore, it's not random. It's actually fucking brilliant. I think it speaks of something that I had to give it a whole separate post to explain it — and that was something I did not plan when I sat down to write this theory.

Now we move to seasons 3 & 4. And check out Part 4!

#dc titans #titans #dcu titans #tv: titans #titans season 1 #titans season 2 #titans season 3 #titans season 4 #dick grayson #rachel roth #dick and rachel #nightwing #raven #kory anders #garfield logan #graysonfam #titans meta #fathers and daughters y'all

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elvesandlanterns · 1 year

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Ghost helpline part 13 Neutral Ground

Diana and Clark had fought for more information. Boston needed more time to convince Jason Blood to help and Dick was still talking Raven out of retirement.

They needed more information, it was late, everyone was tired, and frankly this had grown into a bigger problem than Batman’s paranoia over a child demon. If shit hit the fan, a war between the magic community and humans could start. They need to know if a human group had made disease and they needed proof. The league needed to know the political landscape before doing anything more than cure administration. Which would take days.

Diana and Clark are reasonable good friends. They would later force Bruce to leave with his children and lock the zeta tube to the tower behind them.

—- —- —-

Jack had been born on the fourth day of the fourth month at the tail end of the Qin Dynasty in a bustling prefecture of China.

Jack had been born already dead. Skin white as snow, ruby eyes wide open, sunlight causing him pain. His mother attempted to love him, she did. She would braid his faded ginger hair away from his face and buy him small sweets when he behaved correctly. She tried.

At the age of six he had been given to his grandmother. He was moved away from the city to a backwater town in the midst of nowhere.

At seven his grandmother spent money they didn’t have for a doctor. He called them an albino. The town called him demon.

At age eight war came and he never saw his mother again. He didn’t have the courage to ask grandmother if it was done on purpose or not.

At nine grandmother introduces him to a man that will change his fate.

The first time Jack meets Violet, he’s ten hiding from bullies in the forest. She stands heads taller than him, drenched in blood, dark claws growing from her finger tips holding someone’s entrails.

She’s the most beautiful thing the little Chinese boy has ever seen.

The second time they meet, Jack is eleven eating alone. She sits at his table without horns and nobody notices.

The third time they meet, Jack is twelve and lost. She explains to him that his self pity is unattractive and that he is wasting his life.

The fourth time they meet, Jack is fourteen and his grandmother has died. She tells him that his existence is natural. He notices that he is finally taller than her, she hasn’t aged a day.

At fifteen he can no longer bare the cruel words and actions of the village. He runs away and decides to give Violet his name the next time he sees her.

At sixteen he is freezing to death too tired to move, then the man corners him.

He never makes it to seventeen.

—- —- —-

Boston had a knack for information gathering but this job was going to be difficult. Rumors so many rumors. But Boston at least knew these main things about magic society that everyone knew:

1 - Vampires and Werewolves hate each other to the point of fighting on site

2- You never ask a ghost why they died

3- Any Atlantean on land is considered neutral ground NO fighting

4- Every species has their own royals

Boston finished writing it all down and left the watchtower last with John and Zatanna. He hoped it would help.

—- —- —-

Violet lands on her ass in alley way in Gotham. It’s cold, dark and she has no energy left to teleport again. Her skin stings as she shifts slow and stuttered. Her hair grows and flattens straight down like a pin. Her eyes water as they go from gold to purple. Her scars tuck themselves away from prying eyes. Her horns imply vanish she’s not sure at all about where they go when she does this.

She’s still in her dress from days ago. Her front is dripping in a wet viscous fluid. It’s a disgusting orange color chin is of something falling to the floor. She smells rancid.

This is fine. She’s fine. Now that she’s properly awake all she needs to do is find a phone. Hers having gotten smashed before the move, multiple times. She had already destroyed three this month.

Alright, she picked her self up. She has a plan. Find a phone.

Across the street lights blare.

The Ice Berg Lounge.

—- —- —-

Bruce stubbles out of the zeta tube dead on his feet. Maybe just maybe he had been too harsh on Konstelacio. She had helped them a lot, and while her ‘price’ was worrisome Bruce knew it could have been a lot worse. It left a bitter feeling in his mouth. An unknown having any control over a leaguer, even a non powered individual, didn’t sit right with him.

He needed contingencies against her.

He needed contingencies for her too. She had looked sick, he had noticed Barry running to get a trash can.

Bruce and his kids began to strip off their clothing changing into civilian clothes. Bruce got as far as his pants when his kids conversation caught up with him.

“I know Dami I’m just worried! How could our new neighbor just let his kids wander Gotham! And apparently now the man is alone at his house! He’s so going to get robbed.”

“Tt- the two that we meet shall still be there.”

“I dunno Dami if I was that age and all my siblings were out I’d leave too.”

Neighbors? No they couldn’t possibly have new neighbors the closet house to them was the Drake Manor…. Oh. He probably owed Tim an apology but how could his son decide something like that with out him!

And he apparently had sold it to someone who let their kids run around Gotham to boot! Was the Drake house cursed to have neglected kids within its walls. Neglected kids like Tim. Not again! Not On His Watch!

The car ride only served to make him more upset. Masters? Seriously? That pompous asshole. The man was aggravating, Bruce considered it a blessing they hadn’t crossed each other often in galas. It was a bit of a mystery where he had fucked off to all these years, tho Bruce took the new kids as a simple explanation. His new found lack of villainess behavior could also be attributed to his new found fatherhood. Which made him better than most sadly. Still tho! Batman didn’t trust him not at all.

The millionaire made his way to the front door, a pan lasagna in his hand, and survived the area…. Not a single camera. He knocked. Twice.

After a few minutes the door opened and the vigilante dredged up the most innocent Brucie smile he had. The door opened and he almost dropped the pasta.

The man who opened the door was bleary-eyed, yawning softly. He was wearing a “today is paw-fect” shirt. Baby pink, two sizes too short exposing his muffin top. His pants were fuzzy and matched his open robe.

Bruce gulped at the sight of him. His long platinum hair tangled and frizzed. Cornflower blue eyes looked up at him filled with mirth.

“Well then I’m going to assume your partying had you losing track of time neighbor mine. It’s a bit late but if you’d like to come inside, that pan looks heavy…. Hello?”

The way the man had said ‘mine’ had Bruce feeling warm and … oh oh no. He was in trouble.

#danny phantom #batman #justice league #dc x dp #dp x dc #redeemed vlad #ghost helpline #helpline part 13 #billy batson #@alikoyuii #@busterkeel #@mayoota blog1 #@roseisred #@starkcravingmad #@vixen uichah #@icedbluesoul #@mysticsoulgirl #@mimilikey #@dodekakophonie

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yvtro · 1 year

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Do you think that Jason should’ve stayed dead? I’ve never read Under the Red Hood, but I’ve read A Death in the Family, A Lonely Place of Dying, and a significant amount of New Earth arcs where Jason is presented as a martyr and his death is a point of character development for Bruce and Dick. Do you think this was more useful to the narrative than a resurrected Jason? Do you think that any aspect of his Red Hood identity has helped his character or added to his story?

i will need you to bear with me; i will bring lots of literary theory, tradition and philosophy into it. but i swear it’s actually relevant.

first of all, I think jason should have stayed alive. logically speaking, killing off the only at the time representation of that kind in the series, the only potential voice of the lower class (that wasn't a love interest) in bruce’s high soc world was already bad enough.

the thing about jason’s death is that it did play a role in the wider narrative, but not necessarily as a good point of character development for anyone at all. the way his image was completely distorted made his death look less dreadful than it was; there was barely ever any love in the way in which he was mentioned, which, imo, most of the time didn’t even make a martyr out of him; he was just a collateral victim that seemed to bring whatever he had upon himself. (and wouldn't it be much sadder if he was remembered for who he actually was?)

but you can’t argue with the fact that jason’s death set a completely new tone for most batman stories; nor ignore that it had a huge impact on the universe as a whole. you know how there was an unspoken rule that DC could bring anyone back, but jason? (look: peterson's "choices" in "a death in the family" reprint) that served a purpose; it was supposed to show that anytime your favourite character was killed off, maybe they weren’t actually coming back, because jay never did. and it also made batman into a real gothic story, with shadows of the past menacing in the background at all times.

now, at that time at least, you would have to be an idiot to bring back a character like that and make them proceed like any other comic book superhero who died 2748 times and came back. what I’m trying to say is that I do get why winick chose to make utrh a tragedy, because Jason (at that time) needed to haunt the narrative, dead or alive. the problem is, it doesn’t change that this decision was very insensitive. i think utrh could have came off as much less classist if winick tried to restore jason’s reputation as a kind, sensitive kid in the flashbacks, instead of going for the aggressive robin image. these flashbacks are mostly what makes the reader remember that even in the 80s original run bruce claimed he took jason in as a robin because otherwise jason would become a criminal. oh, that’s dramatic irony, isn’t it? but classism shouldn’t be a literary device. why not instead focus on another facet of tragedy, catharsis? why not show that there was love and care and that while fate/the system might have doomed jason, it wasn’t jason’s natural predisposition as a kid from the streets, but the opposite, really? that sort of self awareness surely would make the narrative less problematic.

another thing is that going back to jason’s original motivations without all the violent bullshit would make for a much better hauntology. see, western gothic’s hauntology is based on the horror of the Other. it disconnects the hero from the reality. and that's fun for a time, but gets tired when you read the same thing for decades. why not give it a romantic, eastern european in spirit twist? for context, eastern european romantic lit shares many themes with gothic lit, minus the inescapable horror of the other. because the spirits that come into the narrative are not there to remind people of their death; they are mostly there to remind them of what they died for or their life itself. they are there to link you with your ancestors, culture, etc., they are a way for you to connect with your roots. and i think such a twist would be perfect in jason’s story; instead of his death haunting him, it should be his life from before that taunts him at night. he should remember where he comes from, and the crime alley, for example, should be established not only as a place of trauma, but also source of his dedication to protecting his community. the ghosts of the past should bring you home.

i think this is a great thing about how convoluted and specific as a genre comics are, because you can rectify the previous narrative and commit to meta almost in-universe. if DC wanted to, they could address victim blaming, they could address classism, they could reconstruct the tragedy. and I think at this point it’s safe to say that jason’s death doesn't feel that significant in terms of the universe as a whole, so it’s a good moment to do that. it’s just that I doubt they will.

but this would be my preference, because ultimately, there are themes in the red hood that i find very interesting (if they were properly overwritten that is). i don’t think jason failing morally is classist per se; i think what is classist is that it is implied that it was ingrained in his personality. and you could go in a much more endearing and heart-breaking route: to show him failing morally explicitly because he just cares so much about protecting other people that he can’t help himself and crosses the line (this would correspond nicely with the garzonas incident btw). and then, it would be very interesting to see him realising that crossing that line really means something, just as bruce said; that he ended up distancing himself from those that he wishes to keep safe, that he further isolates them and himself both. there would be value in a deconstruction like that, but there’s not much merit in his characterisation and storyline as it is, giving that the reasons for which he kills are all over the place (but that’s a topic for another post. i think it was @roobylavender who wrote a post about how jason's motives would make more sense if they were motivated by self-defense).

tldr; i think it all could be made into a great story still, if it referred to its own previous issues.

If you read that far I’m impressed btw.

#wow that's a whole essay isn't it #sorry anon i love your questions!#it might take me a while to reply to asks though #answered #jason todd #jay meta #dc comics

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ao3feed-brucewayne · 2 days

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Hallelujah (In Your Arms)

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/zHWPcox by Sluggysluggishcrimes Wally is just tired of life and all it holds at the moment, life lost its shine after Linda left him. He overworks himself to not think about his pains, pushing it down like he always did. Back home after a book tour, Bart came to visit his cousin and while setting his room up, he opened a box that let out a powerful demon. A powerful demon that Wally is stuck with until a contract can be made. Will he make one? Will he not? Will I ever get any good at writing summaries? Words: 3244, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English Fandoms: DCU (Comics) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death Categories: M/M Characters: Wally West, Bart Allen, Iris West, Barry Allen, Slade Wilson, Dick Grayson, Damian Wayne, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Jaime Reyes, Cissie King-Jones, Cassie Sandsmark, Cassandra Cain, Duke Thomas, Stephanie Brown, Clark Kent, Jonathan Kent, Roy Harper, Diana (Wonder Woman), Lian Harper, Oliver Queen, Barbara Gordon, Bruce Wayne, Koriand'r (DCU), Linda Park, Hal Jordan (Green Lantern), Kyle Rayner, Jai West, Iris West II, Alfred Pennyworth, Rudy West Relationships: Bart Allen & Wally West, Bart Allen & Dick Grayson & Wally West, Dick Grayson/Wally West, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne & Damian Wayne, Barry Allen & Bart Allen & Wally West, Roy Harper & Wally West, Bart Allen & Tim Drake & Cissie King-Jones & Kon-El | Conner Kent & Cassie Sandsmark, Bart Allen & Jaime Reyes, Jonathan Samuel Kent & Damian Wayne, Dick Grayson & Damian Wayne, Wally West/Linda Park (past) Additional Tags: MEI AU, Marshmallow eating incubus au, Demon!Dick Grayson, Demon!Batfam, Wally West Needs a Hug, Dick Grayson Needs a Hug, Dick Grayson is Damian Wayne's Parent, Writer!Wally West, Wally is Tired, the bible was cherry picked to hell and back for the gays, religious trauma, no bibles was consulted in the making of this fic, Slow Burn, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, NO LINDA HATE WE LOVE LINDA, i am losing my mind, Inaccuracies on Incubus is on purpose, Sluggy's au, Angst with a Happy Ending, the warnings are not until later on, don't worry about them yet, Wally west's parents are shitty, Fuck Rudy West, Past Child Abuse, semler music fueling this, ex-Christian now pagan writing this, Inaccurate Christianity, Mei has it own bible read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/zHWPcox

#IFTTT #bruce wayne #batman #the caped crusader #the dark knight #dcu #ao3 #ao3feed

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ao3feed-birdflash · 2 days

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#IFTTT #fanfic #dick grayson #wally west #dickwally #birdflash

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batfam-imagines · 3 years

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Things Batmom has Definitely Said

Dick:

“Richard, if you break another chandelier I won’t save you from Alfred”

“Dick, baby, please stop asking Alexa to blast Britney Spears, I already have a headache ... I don’t care if your brother have pissed you off, you’re pissing me off“

“Why did you pull out the Discowing costume? ... Because your brothers said you wouldn’t fit in it? ... And now you’re stuck, of course. Don’t worry I’ll get you out“

Jason:

“Jay, sweetheart, we’ve talked about this. Just because he insulted you, doesn’t mean you can steal Damian’s pets”

“I need you to stop taking ALL the tires in the house, Jay. I can’t escape if none of the vehicles have wheels”

“What did Bruce say to you? ... Of course I’ll help you spray paint the Batmobile pink, he was being as asshole”

Tim:

“No, you can’t put redbull in the coffee maker. I’m pretty sure people have died that way”

“Did you really ask for 5 shots of espresso in your coffee? ... You know what, I’ll take the same”

“Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne, stop hacking into your brothers computers, you don’t need to know what they’re buying on Amazon”

Damian:

“It's okay that you only love your Father. I love you anyway.”

“For the last time, you can’t drive. I’ll get arrested.”

“That is a bat to play baseball with. It is not a weapon!"

“Damian, if your mother shows up one more time trying to kill you, she’s going to be the one dead. No one touches my babies”

Cass:

“I understand you need a place to practice your ballet, but the roof is not the place for that”

“Darling child, please make some noise! You’re going to give me a heartattack! Is that what you want?! To kill me?! Don’t laugh!”

“Just because you’re using sign-language doesn’t mean I can’t feel the attitude from here, everyone needs a break from Patrol, even you, Cassandra.”

Steph:

“No I don’t think you should dye your hair to match everyone else, blonde is beautiful.”

“Steph, please stop eating all of Dick’s cereal, we can get you your own ... I’m well aware you’re doing it on purpose, but if I have to listen to him complain one more time I’ll cry”

“Don’t worry, I won’t let Bruce kick you out, even though you have your own apartment”

Bonus - Bruce:

“Husband-of-Mine, if you drive Jason away again I hope you know I’ll make your life a living hell until you make-up”

“Your sons ... They’re always your sons when they’re in trouble”

“You can’t keep telling the boys that if they don’t behave they can’t have any of Alfred’s cookies ... I know it works, but you know Alfred would never deny his grandchildren cookies”

“No, I have no idea who painted the Batmobile pink ... Maybe if was a punishment, maybe you should think about that before being mean to our children, Bruce”

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lily-drake · 3 years

Text

Death

Death was nothing new in Marinette’s life. In fact it played a large role. Her friends and city had died a hundred times over. Her brother. Her funny, smart, loving, dramatic brother had died at the hands of a mad man. She didn’t think it was wrong for her to use the horse miraculous to visit her brother's grave. It was officially five years after all. He would be 20, he would have loved to plan out her 16th birthday this year. She sat down and read Pride and Prejudice out loud, only a few tears falling as she glanced at the grave every so often. She had also brought a bouquet of white lilies, statices, red carnations, and white daisies. Soft grass laid over the dirt, the sun gleamed above, and sometimes when she would lean against the grave it was almost like she could feel him.

Dark storm clouds began to cloud the sky, and she knew she would have to leave soon, though she didn’t want to. Dad would be upset if he caught her, though considering how many weeds she had to remove from the grave and how abandoned it looked, she doubted anyone had visited any time soon. Suddenly the rain began to pour down and it felt like the earth shook. She felt a great imbalance, but where, and how? She touched both of her ears and she could feel her miraculous still there, Tikki even poked her head out from her bag with a look of fear. A shiver ran down Marinette’s spine as rain came pouring down soaking everything in sight. She looked around, and she kept spinning searching for something, anything that could have caused or been affected by the imbalance. She waited there for many minutes just waiting, when she felt the dirt beneath her feet begin to shift a little. She quickly moved away and watched as the dirt slowly moved and shifted. She felt sick, because the dirt moving was directly where Jason was lying in eternal rest. This couldn’t be right, this must be some mistake! Her brother had died, she had seen the body, it haunted her nightmares for so many nights. He’s been gone for five years! This can’t be possible without some type of wish.

The grass began to move and shift away, and a fleshy mud covered hand raised from the ground causing a scream to rip from her lungs. Her body sprung into action before her mind caught up to her beginning to help dig up her brother's grave, and when she saw the jet black hair covered in dirt and mud she knew that it was him. She heaved him out from the hole and stared in shocked horror as he just sat there staring at her. His eyes were the same blue she remembered, but they were so clouded. Fear, confusion, and nothing shown in his eyes, like he wasn’t even truly there. This must be a dream, it has to be, no, a nightmare. Her brother shouldn’t be back, he died, she saw his limp body in dad’s hands, even if Alfred and bluebird tried to stop her. But the imbalance was real, she could tell, and he was affected by it.

Slowly she raised her hand and hesitantly placed a hand on his cheek. He leaned into her hand, though his eyes were still clouded and void. He may be alive, but he wasn’t fully…alive. She tackled her older brother into a hug and began sobbing onto him, but just sat there, head leaning against hers. Pressing her ear against his chest she could hear his gentle heartbeat, and just for a moment everything seemed like it would be ok. Then she felt a sharp prick in her neck and the world faded to black.

________

Marinette awoke to darkness. She tried to sit up and felt her hands held behind her back being held together by something cold and thick. Memories flooded back into her mind and she snapped into awareness and looked around. It was dark, though there was a small light coming from a window far above where she could not ever reach. The walls seemed to be made of thick stones and there was a heavy iron door a few feet in front of her. Jason wasn’t there though, he wasn’t in the room, she didn’t understand. Suddenly the door opened and she looked up and saw her mother’s green eyes. Her panic grew again, how did she get here, was she captured too? She had visited her often in Paris. She was very vague about her job, and she knew it was probably sketchy, but could it be bad enough to be captured?

“Marinette, My Darling. I apologize for your treatment, I did not realize that you were part of this.”

Talia rushed towards her daughter and unlocked the chains. She was pulled into a tight hug that Marinette quickly returned. After a few moments she pulled away but held her shoulders gently.

“I must show you something, come.”

Talia quickly stood and helped her daughter to her feet and walked swiftly through the calls of Nanda Parabat.

“What is mom?”

Talia smiled at that, she had always loved when her daughter called her that.

“It’s a surprise, My Flower.”

A few more twists though hallways and they stopped in front of a thick wooden door.

“I want you to meet someone.”

The door was pushed open and there sat a small baby in a crip with dark black hair, tanned skin, and dark green eyes. Marinette gasped and covered her mouth,

“Meet your brother, Damian.”

Marinette slowly walked over and stared at Damian through the top of the crib. He silently watched and studied her without making a sound.

“He’s about 3 months old.”

Talia said, smiling happily as she watched her daughter run her fingers through Damian’s small tresses of hair. With a snap of her finger one of her shadows stepped next to her.

“Bring Jason.”

And with that order they were gone returning a few minutes later with a boy who was alive physically, but was mentally gone. She could fix that though, it would be the last resort if all else failed, but she could fix it. Marinette looked up when she heard Jason’s footsteps and her bright smile fell slightly into a small sad one.

“Jay-Jay.”

She whispered softly as she took slow steps towards the boy. She quickly ran and hugged him again. He no longer smelled like mud and he wasn’t wearing his suit, and he was….he was alive again! Tears fell down her cheeks, because she missed him so much.

________

Marinette stayed with her mom in what she learned was Nanda Parabat. She trained with Jason, but he was catatonic, just going through the motions blankly. It worried her, especially as she watched her mother grow more anxious. She cared for her little brother, and wondered if her dad knew, or if he would even care. She often looked at Paris news for when she needed to go for Akuma attacks, but if her host parents even realized she was gone. They hadn’t, nor had any of her “friends” apparently as they hadn’t sent her a single thing from the weeks she’s been gone.

Marinette knew that Nada Parabat wasn’t a good place, knew that the people were bad, knew that her grandfather was the head of it. He didn’t seem to care who she was, he just thought she was some nurse for Damian, and she was thankful for that. She knew that the Lazarus Pits were here, what they did, how they were made, how her grandfather used them for selfish purposes. She didn’t do anything though, she was mad at her father for sending her away, mad that he adopted a bee kid only a year after he sent her away, mad that he never talked to her, mad that Dick never fought for her or looked for her, mad that Jason was forced to wake up and climb his way out of his grave only to be practically brain dead, mad that her classmates believed lies over her, mad that her host parents believed them and treated her like dirt or an invisible object meant to seen and not heard, mad that Chat Noir would leave her during battles because she didn’t return his affections, and mad that no one cared that she was gone! So she trained as hard as she could, made sure that she perfected everything her mother threw at her. Took care of her family and made sure they knew how thankful she was for them and loved them. Then when she finally got a text from someone it was insults for being a horrible person and hurting Lila when she hadn’t been there for weeks!

She threw her phone at the wall and the crack echoed around the room. Her breathing was harsh and ragged and then the tears she had been holding back finally fell. Sobs wracked her body as she bit her lip to keep silent. She tried to take in deep shuddering breaths, but it was no use and the sobs came out. Her knees felt weak and she crumpled to the ground. The door burst open and she saw her mom there knife in hand looking around the room with swift deadly eyes. When she didn’t see any visible threats she kneeled in front of her daughter and looked directly into her eyes. Eyes a storming blue that flooded with tears and made her heart ache and her want to murder whoever made her precious daughter look so broken.

“My Flower, what’s wrong?”

“N-nobody cares ab-about me! No one cares that I’m g-gone. Everyb-body hates me, and I’m so tired of it! I’ll n-never be enough for an-anybody and I’m t-trying so h-hard to do wh-what everyone needs or exp-ects me to be!”

Marinette stuttered out between sobs. Talia glared at that and felt anger at Bruce. She thought that he at least checked in with her every once in a while. She had guessed wrong then. She pulled her daughter into a hug and let her cry against her shoulder.

“Shh, shh. It’s okay. You are perfect the way you are Marinette. You don’t have to prove anything to me. You’re such a good sister, you train so hard, and you have so many amazing skills and talents. You are enough, don’t let anyone say anything different.”

Marinette gripped onto her mom and they both just sat there in silence as Marinette finally just cried. After who knows how long Marinette gently pushed away and looked her mom directly in the eyes with complete seriousness said,

“I want you to help me fake my death. If everyone wants to pretend I’m gone or wants me to disappear, then fine. I will. I don’t want to be seen anymore.”

Talia stared at her daughter in shock for a moment then gave her a small smile.

“It will be done my dear, you will be free.”

“Thank you mom.”

Taglist:

@queenz-z @aespades @fandomsaremylifeline @stainedglassm @toodaloo-kangaroo @prettylittlebutterflie @trippingovermyfeet @liquid-luck-00 @unoriginalmess @buginetye @miraculouslydumb @laurcad123

#maribat #BDBWM2021 #marinette dupain cheng #marinette al ghul wayne #talia sugar #class salt #tom and sabine salt #day 13 #death #sibling au #sibling jasonette #sibling daminette #damian is a baby #angst #fluff

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