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#Tim Drake confuses everyone
absolutely-esme · 6 months
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Monster!Tim Coraline AU Idea
This idea would not leave me alone.
It’s a cross between a meta!/magic!Tim au and a Coraline au.
Before I get into it, I feel like I should explain.  I was on a bit of an Eldritch!Batfamily and Cryptid!Batfamily kick.  Then I found a collection of supernatural Tim aus.  Then I stumbled across a Coraline au.  There’s probably also some inspiration in there from vampire au fics.
It didn’t really jell until the idea occurred to me of a scene where some frightened villain asks Tim “What kind of monster are you?” and Tim says “The hungry kind.”
...
The idea is that somewhere back along the way, Tim’s family tree includes some kind of supernatural creature which may or may not have been an eldritch entity.
The supernatural heritage allows Tim to acquire abilities from other entities he has defeated, and Gotham is absolutely full of the supernatural if you pay attention.
Of course, Tim’s power isn’t all sunshine and rainbows.  It actually comes packaged with some pretty nasty side effects.
One of those side effects is perpetual Hunger.  Tim is always Hungry.  There is no way to stop it.  He eats enough to stay healthy, but he still feels Hunger at all times.  Increasing his food intake will not help and will screw up his metabolism and cause him to need more for normal function.  If this was allowed to spiral out of control it could eventually reach a point where he was physically unable to eat the amount of food he needed to function and starved to death on a full stomach. 
Fixing it is stupid hard because this particular sort of magical inheritance is really fucking inconvenient.  And, of course, whatever is up with his biology also makes him insanely susceptible to addiction, so no coffee for him unless he wants caffeine withdrawal symptoms all the time for however long it takes to fix that.  The constant Hunger also makes it difficult to get enough sleep.  Have you ever tried to go to sleep on an empty stomach?  Not easy, was it?  Imagine that every night.
The Hunger is fairly central to the nature of the magic.  Whatever supernatural entity he’s descended from, it is the Hungry kind.  The ritual of defeating another supernatural entity, taking a bit of the defeated entity’s power, and incorporating it into himself serves as a sort of metaphorical devouring, (and metaphors matter more to magic than they do to normal biology).  That’s why he’s able to gain power and abilities from defeated foes. 
...
Tim’s relationship with his parents is complicated.  His supernatural heritage comes from his mother’s side of the family.  She did her best to teach him about it and how to cope with it, but a lot of knowledge was lost over the generations due to persecution forcing those like them into hiding more than once.  There may have been a few individuals who spiraled out of control and caused small-scale famines before losing their lives.  It only takes a few cases for people to decide that a specific category of people is simply not worth the risk of having around.  Janet always referred to herself and Tim (as well as anyone else sharing the condition) as “those afflicted with Gluttony.”  This is the closest they have to a name for the condition.
One of the important things Janet Drake teaches her son is to pursue his passions.  It is incredibly important for individuals like them to have things outside the self that they can draw satisfaction and fulfilment from, things that keep them going in the face of the relentless Hunger.  This is what leads Tim to his night-time photography of Gotham, and eventually to his fascination with the Bats. 
Janet’s passions are archeology and travel.  Unfortunately, traveling from dig site to dig site is not a particularly stable or safe environment to raise a child in.  She needs to do these things to remain in good health.  Without her external coping mechanisms, she could start spiraling.  If she starts spiraling, it might trigger her son to start spiraling too because children in their developmental years are delicate, and this type of hereditary magic is fucking inconvenient (there might be ways of managing things that make it easier to live with, but between the knowledge lost and the risks that come with experimentation, they don’t have much info on how anything works).  She comes home as much as she can without the risk of compromising both their health.
She also taught Tim how to calculate appropriate portion sizes based on nutritional data so as not to screw up his metabolism, and how to fix it if he does mess up.  She also stayed and managed the process the first time it happened because the process of returning the metabolism of one afflicted with Gluttony to normal after it’s gotten out of hand is difficult and unpleasant and Tim wasn’t old enough to handle it by himself.  The nanny that had overfed him hadn’t been malicious or unreasonable, she’d just been operating on the assumption that he had standard human biology.  It took months to get Tim healthy again.  It took several hefty bribes to keep things under wraps.  Janet doesn’t know if there are still people out there hunting their kind, but she’s not willing to risk it.
Janet may not know about the aspect of the family magic that lets them gain powers from defeating other entities.  It’s possible that she was holding off on explaining this until he was older and more ready for the responsibility of multiple superpowers.  It’s also possible that the knowledge got lost somewhere along the way and Janet didn’t discover it herself because she didn’t spend her childhood running around Gotham at night and was more the sort of person who would stay home and read when she had trouble sleeping.
...
Tim discovers his ability to gain abilities from defeating other supernatural things fairly early on.  The type of defeat can vary, but it has to be something of significance.  A fight will work for most, but there are other particular challenges that will work for specific cases.
The first things a young Tim is able to beat are these small things, invisible to most, that gain power from learning secrets.  What that power is used for, I couldn’t tell you.  They don’t seem to do much other than sneak around and learn secrets.  Tim doesn’t know if there’s a proper name for these things or not, but he calls them Secret Hunters.  They are absolutely everywhere in Gotham. 
Secret Hunters are invisible to most, but Tim is able to see them.  It might be because of his own supernatural nature, or it might be something else entirely.  If it’s hereditary it must have skipped his parents’ generation.  Neither of them seem to be able to see them.  Tim gains improved stealth and a sense for when something is hidden from catching Secret Hunters until they wise up and start avoiding him.  (Catching them works in place of a fight because secret hunters primarily operate on stealth and evasion.)
He can’t just magically know secrets, but he can tell when there is a secret.  (He still figured out Batman’s and Robin’s secret identities on his own merit.  The most this ability would have done is alert him to the fact that they had secret identities if that hadn’t already been obvious from the fact that they were wearing masks.)
He also gets various other abilities from other things he encounters while scrambling all over Gotham at night.  Nearly doesn’t get out of some of the scrapes he gets himself into.  He gains the ability to cut with his fingernails as if they were razors from something that nearly killed him.  He gains the ability to climb like a goat from a Jersey Devil.  Etc.
...
At some point, Tim is targeted by a beldam.  He doesn’t get the kind of warnings that Coraline does, but his ability to sense secrets lets him know that the Beldam is hiding something, and any child raised in any part of Gotham knows to be suspicious of things that seem too good to be true.  Tim doesn’t have a convenient seeing stone from the neighbor, but he does have the advantage of his own supernatural nature which the Beldam doesn’t know about.
Tim finds a button-eyed doll that looks like him after his parents leave on yet another trip, and thinks it’s a gift they meant to give him before leaving.  They do often bring interesting souvenirs.  It wouldn’t be at all unusual for them to find an artist who sews dolls to look like people and have one made based on pictures of him.  Later on, he discovers the key. 
This Beldam is older and more powerful than the one from Coraline.  She has more power and more past victims to work with, so she’s able to make a larger, more populated world. 
Oh by the way, I head-canon that the Other versions of people in the Other world are actually past victims of the Other Mother, remade and dressed up for whatever role she has them play.  The three ghosts were just the three most recent and not fully processed for use yet.  That’s why the Others are able to act against her sometimes (Other Wybie saving Coraline from the mirror, Other Father tossing the eye to Coraline) or say things she doesn’t want them too (Other Father says “so sharp you won’t feel a thing” and Other Mother kicks him under the table).
The Other Mother doesn’t know all that Tim knows, so the Other World has inconsistencies like Other Batman and Other Robin sitting across the table from Other Bruce and Other Jason.  She doesn’t know they’re the same people.  She just knows that they’re all important to Tim.  She also tries to tell him to “eat as much as he wants” when his real mother was the one to explain the dangers of attempting to eat to fullness for people with their condition.
There isn’t a cat to warn Tim but he doesn’t need it.  He can sense hidden intentions in everything, and he’s fully capable of uncovering the hidden secrets himself. 
Tim doesn’t have a cat, but he does have Other Robin, who might have been made from whatever remained of someone close to one of the people mirrored in the Other World made for Tim.  He doesn’t remember his life, but somehow he feels incredibly motivated to help a boy who cares dearly for whoever and is willing to let him know that they're living a good life out there in the real world.
Tim discovers the nature of the other world and sets out to free the souls trapped there.  He fights the Beldam will all the viciousness and desperation of someone who knows they’ve only got one shot.  He takes everything he can from this fight as he makes sure she won’t ever hurt anyone again.  He doesn’t stop until the beldam is well and truly dead.  Then he unravels Other Gotham and spills all of the souls out into the world where they can move on and rest.
This is how Tim learns to Sew.  He can’t make entire populated worlds like the beldam, but that’s mostly because he refuses to do what she did.  He can control things he’s made (though there’s limits on how much) and even see through buttons he’s sewn (onto cushions and such, he's not the Other Mother).  He also gets some minor illusory powers that let him make things look a bit brighter/nicer/cheerier than they are.  It takes quite some time before he’s comfortable with using these powers.  Trauma is a bitch like that.
Part of the reason this version of Tim was so desperate to do something about Batman losing it out of grief is because he already has Evil Batman trauma from Other Batman, and he doesn’t need that shit happening in real Gotham.
By this point Tim has a collection of powers that allow him to navigate the more dangerous parts of Gotham largely without fear.  Now he has to learn how to manage without using any that he isn’t one hundred percent certain he can sneak past Batman, which means he’ll have to divide his attention between learning from the training and not letting himself do things the supernatural way.  This is going to suck.
It does, in fact, suck.
Oh, it turns out some of the rogues are a bit supernatural.  He gains a bit of an intuitive understanding of the health of plants from Ivy.  He gains the ability to taste emotions from Scarecrow.  (Also, Johnathan Crane is a freaking weirdo, fear tastes like spoiled milk!)  The rogues with supernatural tendencies are freaking terrified of the new Robin because he always seems like he wants to freaking eat them.  The non-supernatural types don’t get it.
Eventually, Red hood breaks into Titan’s tower.  Tim, by this point, is very good at deciphering how supernatural entities work and is packing an extensive inventory of powers.  He realizes quickly that this is some kind of manipulative entity that feeds on rage and pain attached to an unwitting host.  When he realizes that the unknowing (and therefore unconsenting) host is Jason Todd, he tells the Lazarus Entity in no uncertain terms to give Jason back or perish.
Jason, who does not realize he has a malicious, mind-warping, supernatural parasite and believes there to be no one other than himself and Tim present, is understandably confused.
Tim decides that the Lazarus entity has had its chance and springs into action.
Jason is treated to the terrifying sight of just what Tim Drake is like when he’s not expending conscious effort on not being something out of a horror movie.  Suddenly he’s in the middle of a spider’s web and no matter how hard he tries to fight back everything around him is under the control of his opponent.  Furniture flies around on puppet strings.  Getting too close puts him in range of the freaking claws this kid apparently has!?  Trying to get away just leaves him caught in strings and the more he struggles the more entangled he becomes!  The new Robin is skittering and gliding around in a decidedly inhuman way. 
Jason honestly thinks he's going to die when he finds himself bound with Tim standing over him.  He passes out when Tim rips the Lazarus entity away from him and destroys it. 
Tim gains the ability to heal from defeating the Lazarus entity.
Jason is surprised and confused when he wakes up bundled in a handmade quilt with his head in Tim’s lap and a cool compress on his forehead, feeling sore but more well and whole than he has since before he died.
Jason later decides that his memories of the fight at Titans Tower must be some kind of weird fever dream caused by his body purging the last of the Lazarus Water from his system. It goes along with Tim's account of things.
According to Tim, Jason entered the tower, initiated a lock-down, and then collapsed on the floor. Then, Tim moved him closer to a wall where he was less likely to get stepped on than in the middle of the walkway and did his best to take care of him there because Jason was simply too large and heavy for him to carry all the way to the med bay by himself.
This is far more believable and less of a mind screw than what Jason remembers. Obviously this tiny, baby-faced kiddo who played nursemaid for a stranger who broke into the tower and now looks up at him with wide, starry eyes couldn't actually be the terrifying, predatory creature from the nightmare. It was all just a bad dream.
He's honestly glad he collapsed before he had time to do any harm. The poor kid will never have to know what Jason went there to do. Jason knows, though, and he'll do his damned best to make up for it. He may have flubbed first impressions, but he is going to be the best damn big brother that ever big brothered.
...
Tim might or might not go full on feral cryptid when Bruce is lost in the Timestream. I haven't decided. He will probably pick a fight with the Lazarus Pit much to the confusion and alarm of everyone around.
That’s all I’ve got so far.
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qcomicsy · 1 year
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Alfred comes home and there's a whole noise from the kitchen.
Alfred: Is everything okay?
Damian: Dumbass is coming out.
Alfred: Oh.
Alfred (to Dick): ...I figured this day would come sooner or later...
Dick:
Alfred: Don't think I didn't saw it my boy, and pardon me if I should said something before...
Dick: No, no, no it's not
Alfred:... I mean It was obvious from the start but I figured I shouldn't press-
Dick: Alfie It's not
Jason: No, no let him finish.
----
Batman: Yes, my kid also came out to me recently.
Superman (to Dick): Oh wow, that's great! I'm proud of you buddy.
Dick:
Dick: What
Tim: It's me.
Superman: Oh
Superman: Oh wow, thats great! I'm proud of you buddy.
Dick: No, wait you can't just-
----
Jon: I'm just glad in not being alone in this, you know.
Titans:
Dick: It's not me.
Titans: "Oh, right. Sure." " Yeah we knew it" "Totally"
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nu-so · 9 months
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I feel like Tim would know about Lance. Like.
Bruce and Dick don't say anything, Jason doesn't know. But Mr. stalker over here knows everything about the batfam.
So maybe Jasons arguing with bruce again on how he died as robin and tim (on like 2 hours of sleep in 48 hours) goes 'you weren't even the first one. calm your tits'
jasons demanding answers, bruce and dick want to know how he knows, and everyones kinda mad that they kept lance a secret.
it'd be cool if Lance did come back too, but he's just living his life in like. San Diego or smh as a beach body.
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brucewaynehater101 · 9 hours
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For those Titan's Tower AUs where Tim is all like, "That's Jason, so I'll let him torture/kill me when he pops by," what if Red Hood walks in on Robin being extra prepared. Tim greets him at the door with a smile, beckons him on over, and shows him the table of torture devices he gathered. It's almost like a kid trying to show their parent the amazing job they did in hopes they'll be praised.
"I wasn't sure which ones you preferred to use, so I grabbed a variety just in case."
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Bart: *casually traps a fifth dimensional imp for eternity by quantum entangling him inside of an atom*
The Team:
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alexanderender101 · 4 months
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DcxDp prompt
based on a mix of "TWINcognito mode" on ao3 and the "mad scientist fenton" au and some other clone promt i can't remember the name of (2 for 1 or something)
so essentially ra's makes a clone of tim with his spleen (because he's a creep) and dunked it in the lazarus pits because something, readers choice. But something went wrong, like really wrong and now not only does said clone (now danny) have some eldritch soul
But because of the pits, his memories (both from tim and danny) are so mingled and messy that he can't tell the two sets of memories apart from one another.
So with his mixed up mind danny runs away from ra's and vanishes from the league of assassins radar.
On another note multiple heros/vigilantes have this mad scientist teen running around calling himself fenton
(Danny only has vague memories from both himself and tim as well as a bunch of random information, but he can't tell the memories apart from each other, also I'd like to imagine that because he has such vague memories he ends up creating Android/robot versions of like sam, tucker, jazz and such)
and here are the references for this prompt
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maybesomemilo · 11 months
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After the tower incident once Jason finally gains some semblance of his mind back he implements a city wide hands off rule for Robin. Anyone even thinks about touching Robin and and Hood puts a bullet between their eyes.
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weewoow-20706030 · 1 year
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Tim and Damian hc
They finish eachothers sentences... Like- all the time.
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Like that.
But the thing is they don't even notice, they will be insistent on their intense and unmovable hate for each other then turn around and pull this shit.
They share the exact same thoughts about most subjects.
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Au where when Jason died he became a ghost in the Ghost Zone/ Infinity Realms and became friends with a bunch of child ghosts. They never knew how or why he disappeared one day, but continued playing together hopping that one day he'd come back and tell them all about his newest adventure.
The day they met Phantom was a fun one! There was a huge explosion and when they went to investigate there was this white haired kid just floating through the rubble of rocks and weird metal, completely unconscious. He reminded them so much of thier lost Robin, so of course they adopted him into thier group.
One day a new ghost was telling them stories about the superheros in the living realm and they learned that Robin was apparently alive and with this scary bat guy who ruled a city with fear. That didn't sound like something thier Robin would be okay with so being little kids, they came to the conclusion that Robin was being held against his will and thats why he never returned to play with them.
Featuring: Phantom and other ghost children sneaking around Mt. Justice, breaking into the Watchtower, Danny overshadowing an old computer and becoming 8-bit for a while, Martian Manhunter playing with the children and pretending to be vanquished via foam sword, Damian (as Robin) getting kidnapped-called a liar for claiming to be Robin-thrown into a closet for "being mean"-and subsequently forgotten about, Red Robin also gets kidnapped and it goes way better and the kids play with him a while and explain they're looking for thier friend who was a hero named Robin. Tim puts the pieces together and subtly informs the League whats been happening.
Jason gets called in and freezes upon seeing the ghosts and feeling the pit water stur before he runs away screaming when they run towards him. Them calling him by both his civilian name and "Robin" and asking him to "come back" and "play with us" did not help
Later, the JL whisper-fights in the meeting room cause all the children are scattered around sleeping (some in peoples laps) when Phantom (from where he's asleep in Batmans lap) has a glowing ring appear around him and changed his form.
Hearing the commotion, one of the kids wakes up just long enough to tell them "Oh yeah. Phantom randomly gets revived sometimes. He'll go back to normal in a few hours." Before conking out again.
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elvesandlanterns · 11 months
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Writing Prompt AU
Please take
In a world where Alfred dies after Tim joins and subsequently after Jason’s death, Bruce and Tim’s relationship becomes far more loving and paternal.
The problem?
Tim is the one acting like the parent.
And it’s working.
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d33zn33tz · 2 years
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Drabble of Damian (Damage) Wayne being a teen cause they fucking deserve it
        It was a normal day- well, as normal as any day in Gotham could be- for Tim. He was at the kitchen island, working on another of his cases, as one does. The last thing he ever expected was for the youngest member of the Batfamily to come waddling- yes, waddling- through the kitchen “door” (it was honestly more of an archway?) staring at him with a determined look that made Tim question his safety.
        Damage waddled over to Tim’s chair, looked up at him, and grinned.
        Yep, Tim is definitely in danger.
        “Why cocaine when there is cheese”
        …
        Tim looked down at the fourteen year old with utter confusion. What the actual fuck?
        “Where do I even begin with that?” 
        Damage just continued grinning at him like this was the funniest thing in the world. Tim could see them practically shaking with their struggle to not laugh. What is wrong with this kid?
        Eventually, Damage turns around and waddles back out the door/archway, probably to confuse the fuck out of the rest of their siblings.
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confused-wanderer · 7 months
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“You’re such a Dick” is taken as a far more devastating insult than “you’re such a dick!”
Why? No one wants to admit it. They’re all stubborn, petty siblings. And if there’s one thing siblings hate, it’s always being compared to the other. They all spent the first half of their lives trying to live upto Dick, to be him and then spent their latter halves living as far apart.
The first time, Tim lets it slip to Jason is when they were at a warehouse, Jason checking in on everyone over the comms after a vicious gang takedown, and the amount of concern and checking up he was doing made a half-conscious and definitely concussed Tim blurt out: You’re such a Dick.
The horrified pause that followed before Jason clicked off was enough to make Tim realise the extent of damage he’d done. Red Hood spends the next two months gunfighting, taking over the underworld and dealing in shady illegal hands before he even shows up to the mansion again.
Tim got his karma though. He was entertaining people at the gala as Timothy Drake, wooing suitors and investors, turning on the charm and rizz that left everyone swooning over him and completely enamoured. He’s trying to manipulate them to donate millions to a good cause, maybe make a few powerful connections he could use when he laughs, disentangles from the crowd and gives a charismatic wink to his followers.
He pauses, refilling his drink when he hears the disapproving tut from the shadows.
“What do you want Damian.”
“Drake. What are you doing?”
“My job, trying to make the best of a worse situation.”
“With those flirtatious compliments you gave? Drake, you made the mayor’s mother swoon.”
Tim shrugs.
“Not my fault they can’t resist my charms”
And then. Damian levels him with a scrutinising look, scowling before he mutters.
“You’re such a Dick.”
Tim doesn’t realise the glass has slipped from his fingers until he hears it shatter along with his mind.
Dick, god bless him, has no idea. He genuinely thinks that they’re fighting and the insults just get to them. However, he’s still confused why when he goes to check on them they refuse to make eye contact with him, and then disappear off the face of the planet.
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“The what?”
Danny and Duke had been having a pretty okay day. Duke got a ridiculous packet to complete from his professor, and Danny tripped down the stairs in the library, causing a ruckus that got everyone’s attention.
So yea, everything was going well until they decided to push their luck and go to a new coffee shop a bit further away. It wasn’t the coffee shop itself, but the goons that came out of nowhere to kidnap Tim Drake-Wayne who was getting an order to go, which turned into a gang fight in the middle of the street.
Danny and Duke, along with Tim, ended up sheltered behind a car and missed the opportunity to bunker down inside the shop.
“Well, this isn’t what I planned today,” Tim comments.
“Same,” Danny agrees.
“Maybe we can wait it out?” Duke suggests.
The other two give a look that says that it was not going to happen.
“Rock, Paper, Scissors for peeking,” Danny says, already holding out his fist.
“Bet.”
They look at Duke.
Peer Pressure works and he groans with clear discomfort at the situation.
Duke loses. A bullet whizzes past his head.
“Nope! Nope. Not doing that again.”
Tim rolls his eyes at the dramatics, but with Danny still there he bit his tongue.
“What’d you see?”
Duke looks at Tim like he’s crazy.
“Lots of people with guns,” he answers hysterically.
“Need a hand?”
Red Hood had swung down from the nearest rooftop, hand gun in both hands. He pops off three shots before having to duck behind the car with them.
“Hood, what are you doing here? This isn’t Crime Alley,” Tim asks like they bumped into each other at the supermarket.
Hood shrugs, “Close enough.”
“Oh sweet, can I borrow that?” Danny randomly asks.
Before anyone can question what he was talking about he was already reaching out to take the handgun off of Hood’s thigh.
“Whoa-“
Danny turns to look over the car’s hood and pulls the trigger. Nothing happens.
The others pull him back quickly. He winces at the hard fall to his tailbone.
“Holy crap! Danny!”
“Dude, are you trying to get yourself killed?”
“What is wrong with you?”
“Hey!” Danny interrupts their freak out. “It’s not my fault his gun is broke.”
“The safety is still on, idiot,” Hood tilts his head.
“The what?” Danny asks in genuine confusion.
The three brothers all pause and look at him.
“The safety? On the gun? So there isn’t a misfire?” Tim explains. He was stuck between shocked and judgmental.
“This is why people who don’t know how to shoot shouldn’t touch guns,” Hood says in frustration while reaching to take it away.
Danny pulls it back out of reach.
“I know how to shoot, thanks. My parent’s weapons just don’t have safety things. I’m not used to it,” he grumbles.
“What do you-“
But Danny was already finding the safety and flicking it off before trying again. This time he hits two goons, one in the shoulder and another in the leg.
The batboys glance at each other.
“So,” Hood tries to be casual, “what do your parents do?”
“They’re scientists,” Danny answers, mainly focused on shooting another person dressed in a mask, “but they make their own weapons.”
“Are they by any chance mad scientists? Or borderline rogues?” Duke asks as half a joke.
“Of course not,” Danny answers. Then he pauses to actually think about it. “I don’t think so.”
“Cool. That’s fine.”
**
After that Danny had a few more ‘meet and greet’s with the local vigilantes and saw some lingering shadows around their apartment. They had the weirdest questions about his family.
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dcxdpdabbles · 4 months
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I JUST SAW THESE POSTS OF DANNY BEING RAS AL GHUL CHILD LIKE THE FIRST THAT IS LIKE 25-30 YEARS OLDER THAN TALIA AND MAKE MY BRAIN WORKS FUCKING WIGGLE!?!?!??
anyway
Danny established the status quo and the disappeared for 20-60 years and the is summoned by Ra where he’s like “Dad you could’ve have called my personal phone you know that right?” And Ra’s like “YOU WENT OFF THE GRID FOR YEARS AND NEVER TOOD ME-!!??!? Now do you look different? Are you eating? What’s with comingoutthesummoningcirclefortheghostking? HMMM???”
“Ah- I knew I forgot something! Let me tell you all about it! I see you brought the whole fam and in laws let’s have dinner and discuss it- AWWWW THATS BABIES!!!” *Damian, Jason, Tim, and Dick being referred to as “babies”*
“Excuse me.” Danny then fucking tackles them in hugs and loves while dodging and/or holding their punches and kicks
"My maternal uncle is coming for a visit and likely evaluate my living arrangements.. We must be at our absolute best when he is here. " Damian announces one evening right as the family is finishing preparing for a night of crime fighting.
Everyone freezes from their respective stations, twisting around to stare at the young Robin in confusion. He doesn't notice; he is too busy making sure his katana is sharpened to perfection and balancing it on his fingertips.
"Baby Bat?" Dick calls, "What do you mean by that?"
Damian pauses in his prep work, approaching the eldest with a pretty impressive scowl. " Mother sent a messenger a few days ago about Uncle's plan audit. Should we fail it, I shall be removed into a different household."
"An audit? Removed?" Steph repeats, confused, but Damian has no idea why. He thought it was pretty apparent that Uncle Daniel would be scoring them, which would determine if Damian would be allowed to continue living within them. He has done so to all of Ra Al Ghul's offspring, and nothing his Grandfather has done has been able to stop him.
How could they think they would have more power than his grandfather?
"When shall Dusan be here?" Father asks, quickly switching on the home security. "What kind of attack should we expect?"
Damian scoffs, "Not the White Ghost. Uncle Dusan is on the other side of the world on a mission for Grandfather. No, Uncle Daniel will be the one conducting the suit. He is the eldest, after all."
Father's eyes narrow behind the white lenses of his masks. "I was unaware your mother had more siblings."
Damian considers the words, wondering how he could politely- at least he shames Alfred- remind his father that his grandfather has been around for hundreds of years. Staying at his peak through the usage of the Lazarus Pit, he has never been short of lovers.
And sometimes those lovers have given him children, many who aged and died naturally, as none has deemed worthy of the Lazarus. All except for one, the First Son, who has never needed the Pits but remained youthful and powerful on his own.
The perfect heir.
It's too bad he had abdicated long before Damian was even a thought.
"Grandfather has had many children, but Uncle Daniel is different. Special. He is the First Son."
"Capital letters," Todd cuts in, shaking his head. "It's never good when the League of Assiasans assigns capital letters. How strong is he?"
"He could easily best Grandfather and all under Grandfather's command," Damian replies, watching as the rest of the vigilantes grew uneasy by the information. It's good that they are wear of Uncle Daniel's power but they have nothing to fear of his wrath. "Uncle Daniel is a pacifist. He carries a protective core."
"A Al Ghul that a pacifist? I'll believe it when I see it." Drake droned as he was clipping on his utility belt. At once, Damian felt his body grew hot with rage. No matter what, it seemed Drake would always curse his family.
The way he says the family name drips with disrespect as if the other teen was saying a swear.
"My Uncle Daniel is a great man!" He shouts, gripping his sword so har his knuckles ache. Drake's face twists as if though he smelled something foul and the rage burning in Damian's chest spreads to his whole body.
He is just about to reach for his throwing knives when a familiar cold hand settles into his hair. "Aw thank you Little One. I love you too."
"Uncle Daniel!" Damian shouts excitably, forgetting the fool he was about to run his blades through. His uncle stands before him, the same darl night hair, warm blue eyes, and a crooked smile that had secretly comforted him in his youth.
"Where in the world did he come from!?" Damian hears one of Father's adopted brutes gasp but does not care to see who as his uncle quickly reels him in for a hug.
Hugging Uncle Daniel was like being wrapped in warm blankets in winter. He always ran rather cold, but it was lovely to be wrapped in his arms and surrounded by his protection.
It felt like nothing in the world could harm him from here.
"You seem well, Little One. Are you happy?" His uncle says. The delict of their native tongue is another comfort Damian can sink into.
"I am." He allows, snuggling his face against his stomach, as childish as it is. If only he could grow taller like his father.
"Wonderful. I'm so glad." His uncle then switches to English, ignoring all the weapons drawn and pointing at him from the Bats. Damian steps back to admire the man he wishes to grow into. "I'm terribly sorry for arriving so late, nephew. You must be tired. When is your bed time?"
"I do not have a bedtime." Damian scoffs. Uncle Daniel frowns, reaching into his chest to pull out a clipboard and a pen- he'll never get used to his uncle storing things within himself no matter how often he sees it. Damian is pretty sure he heard someone gag.
A soft click is heard as his uncle opens the pen and quickly scribbles something down. He is not tall enough to see what is written, but he can see clearly as day that his uncle selected the red ink of the muli-color pen he is using.
He only uses red when he is doing bad things. Damian breaks into a sweat. "What was that? Uncle what did you just write?"
"No bedtime. Tsk tsk." Uncle Daniel mutters, looking around the cave with disapproval. "No proper heating living space."
"Oh no! I do not live down here. This is merely the training grounds. We live upstairs" Damian quickly says, waving his hands frantically in the air as his uncle's unimpressed look. Curses, the auduit just began and already he got bad markings.
"Would you care for a tour? I shall not be going on patrol-"
"He forces you to fight crime? At your age?" Uncle barks, throwing a look of utter disgust at Father. It's the same one he gives Grandfather whenever the older man tries to raise child soldiers.
Even Damian had not been sent on any missions. His childhood had been intense training but nothing that was life-threatening.
"I volunteered to go!" He tries to defend Father, but his uncle only clicks his pen and scrambles more red ink on his paper.
Drat and Damian were actually enjoying living at the manor. He will likely have to say goodbye to it all and be moved to some house Uncle deemed more child-friendly.
"What is your diet here? Have you been taken to the doctor? Any form of therapy?" His uncle fires each question quickly, walking through Todd and Cain when they try to apprehend him without a glance.
His uncle is, and not to sound like the fools of his school, so cool.
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orionremastered · 3 months
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I’m actually so obsessed with the way you write the boys like🫶🏾🫶🏾🫶🏾🫶🏾
why thank you anon this made me smile
and because im nice (school hasn't started yet)
Masterlist
911 Texting the Batboys
Dick Grayson
Exactly one minute after you send him the text, the living room window shatters into a million pieces across the floor. Nightwing calls your name, voice raw with concern, before surveying the state of your apartment.
"Oh," you say quietly by the kitchen, staring at the broken pieces of glass across the floor and then at your boyfriend who stares at you, chest heaving as he looks at you, confused.
"You're not hurt?"
"Well— I— the pan caught fire. I put it out though. I'm not burnt, I promise."
He looks at you doubtfully, storming over before pulling you into a tight embrace. "You scared me."
"I'm sorry," you whisper.
"Don't be. It's okay. Don't be scared to text me if you're in any trouble. Promise you'll let me know if you're in danger?"
"I promise."
"Good," he mutters, though more as a reassurance for himself, resting his head on yours and breathing deeply.
"You can let me go now," you point out gently.
"Two more minutes."
Jason Todd
When your boyfriend takes longer to show up than expected, you start to get confused. And cold— it's the middle of winter and your hoodie was stolen while you were out with your friends.
And that wouldn't be a problem if you're car wasn't starting either.
The familiar roar of a motorcycle engine catches your attention, dark shape speeding down the street towards you. It skids to a stop, the tires screeching in order to slow.
"Hey," you say with a wave and a smile. "Car broke down and—"
Red Hood rushes off his motorbike, carefully grabbing you to look you over in the empty street. When he finds nothing, he sighs. "Thought you'd been kidnapped. Couldn't find you at your apartment."
Without waiting for your reply, he shrugs his brown leather jacket off his shoulders and places it around yours, helping you put your arms into the sleeves despite you protesting that you can do it yourself.
"Let's get you home," he says gruffly, aching to hold you in his embrace when no one can see. "I'll call in a favour to get your car fixed."
Tim Drake
You don't think you'd ever been more embarrassed in your life when you realised you forgot your phone, which has your card in the case, at home.
Tim rushes into the store, having tracked your location immediately and driving well over the speed limit, still in his pristine CEO outfit.
"What's wrong? Is someone bothering you?" his eyes dart around the store, taking everyone's face and putting it to memory.
"No... I forgot my phone and card. And I have a full cart of groceries. Tim, I can't put this all back, that's weird."
"Why didn't you ask me to pay before?"
"I— hmm. I'll do that next time."
You lead him to the counter were the high school aged cashier gapes at the richest man in Gotham who pays for the food without even glancing at the price.
Damian Wayne
When you texted 911 to your boyfriend, you certainly weren't expecting this. Somehow, in the five minutes of the text being sent, he managed to gather ten League of Assassins members that now stand in your suddenly very cramped apartment, sharp katanas at their side.
"Are you alright?" Damian himself has two katanas, glinting in the terrible lights. "What's wrong?"
It seems so stupid now with ten assassins behind him. Maybe you shouldn't have texted after all. "Look, it's really—"
"I don't care how little it is," he states, "You texted me for a reason."
"I... I thought I could hear someone talking and moving in the walls."
All eleven of them tense, exchanging glances. Damian gives them one sharp nod and the assassins begin locating any hollow spaces in the walls, tapping their knuckles and listening closely to the sounds.
"وجدت ذلك," one says after a few seconds.
"Don't worry about it habibi, we'll tear the building apart and find them," Damian assures you, pulling you into his arms.
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mypoisonedvine · 8 months
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𝖇𝖑𝖎𝖓𝖉𝖘𝖕𝖔𝖙𝖘 | professor!jonathan crane x batgirl!reader
𝖘𝖚𝖒𝖒𝖆𝖗𝖞 | it can be difficult, living a double life: spending your days as a scholarship student at gotham university, and your nights as batgirl, the legendary heroine, fighting alongside batman and robin. though it proves to take a toll on you mentally and physically, flunked term papers and missed lectures will be the least of your problems when you encounter the scarecrow somewhere in the shadowy alleyways of gotham...
𝖜𝖔𝖗𝖉 𝖈𝖔𝖚𝖓𝖙 | 7k
𝖜𝖆𝖗𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖌𝖘 | NONCON SMUT (18+ only; violent/rough sex, use of fear toxin, degradation, semi-public sex/exhibitionism, bondage), professor/student dynamic (therefore implied age gap), some angst and depiction of ptsd/aftermath, reader is dating robin/tim drake
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“And so,” Professor Crane continued, looking towards the class from the board, chalk in hand, "this triggers the fear response, and all that comes with it.  You're probably familiar with the symptoms of fear: heart rate increase, cold sweat, overall heightened arousal."
A few giggles could be heard at that, and he rolled his eyes.
"Not that sort of arousal, necessarily," he frowned.
Everyone else just brushed off the childish humor of the moment, but you narrowed your eyes, getting a sense that the word necessarily was doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.
He returned to his lecture, drawing lines in chalk over his crude diagram of the human brain, explaining how each area of the brain contributed to fear and the fight-or-flight response.  As he spoke, you re-read the handout he’d given today— and you chewed on your lip absent-mindedly as you reviewed the bibliography.
"Dr. Crane?" you raised your hand, interrupting his lecture mid-sentence.  "I had a question about some of the studies you reference here."
"Yes?" he returned, turning to face you with a slightly confused expression.
"Well you cite a paper out of Berkeley from 2002, to support the conclusion that exposure therapy is the best response to aggressive phobias— however, if you actually read the paper—"
"I read the paper, Miss," he interrupted sternly.
"Then, if you actually understood the paper," you continued, a few students gasping and laughing softly at your insubordination, "then you would see that the conclusions indicate the perceived decrease in fear response comes at the expense of long-term stability.  Don't you think that negates any positive implications?"
The silence in the room was tense: everyone was waiting for how he would respond to your critique.  Instead, he just smiled at you slightly.  "I think you may have more context for how research is conducted, and reevaluate your conclusions, when you get a chance to organize your own research— in about a decade."
"Actually, Professor, I'll be leading my own experiment this quarter," you corrected, just as he was about to turn away from you and keep lecturing.  "I'm the recipient of the Wayne Enterprises Collegiate Scholarship— which pays for my education here and also comes with a fifty thousand dollar research grant."
“Ah,” he said, bitterness dripping from his tone as he set his hands on the desk and leaned forward a bit.  “May I ask what topic you hope to explore with your research?”
“Crime,” you explained, “and criminal behavior.”
“Hm,” he nodded, frowning slightly in an impressed sort of way, taking his weight off the desk.  “And it doesn’t bother you that you’re here studying psychology?”
You lowered your brow, confused by his question.  “I’m sorry?”
“Criminology is a subfield of sociology, which is related to but distinct from psychology,” he explained.
“Would you recommend that I switch majors, Doctor?” you asked simply.
“Well, it’s no secret that you’ve set the curve on our last two exams,” Dr. Crane smiled, tilting his head slightly.  “So, no— I think I’d rather keep you here.”
You straightened up slightly, taken aback by his wording.
“Plus, while you’re still in my department,” he continued, “I have a better chance of talking some sense into you.”
With that, he returned to teaching, and you noticed how the other students were watching you before you sighed and tried to listen to the rest of class.
~
You caught up with him on a long stretch of hallway, just as he stepped up to his office door.  “Professor!” you got his attention, and he turned to you with a slightly smug look as he held his hands together.
“Ah, yes,” he greeted, “I see you’re here to apologize for how you spoke to me in class today?”
You knew he didn’t actually expect that, he knew better after having you under him for the last two quarters— um, so to speak.  “Just as soon as you do,” you offered with a smirk in return, shifting your weight on your hip.
That was what moved your button-down slightly, and his eyes drifted down to your neck— when they did, confusion and concern suddenly painted his expression. “My,” he gasped a little, pulling on the collar of your shirt with one finger to expose a healing scrape on your chest; his fingertip brushed over your skin and the golden chain of your necklace, and you jumped away slightly.  “How’d you get that?”
“It’s nothing—” you blurted out, blinking quickly, “I tripped, on campus, actually.”
“That wonky step up to the Commons?” he assumed.  “I’ve filed two complaints about that loose brick…”
“Yes,” you agreed quickly, smiling.  “Yeah, I wasn’t looking where I was going, and I didn’t catch myself well while holding my books—”
“Hm,” he nodded back, “that’s a shame.  A girl as smart as you, forgetting the Commons building doesn’t have brick steps— or steps at all, in fact.”
You swallowed thickly, glancing away. 
“You sure were eager for an explanation, though,” he smiled.  “How’d you really get such a nasty scrape?  It does look like concrete, but I’m guessing it didn’t happen on campus—”
“It’s no matter,” you assured.
“It wasn’t that boyfriend of yours, was it?” he pressed.  “Mr. Drake, as I recall?”
“Wha— no!” you gasped.
“He’s not your boyfriend?”
“Well, he is,” you explained, “but he didn’t—”
“You know you can tell me anything, right?” Crane offered, lowering his voice slightly.  
“Of course,” you sighed, “but there’s nothing to tell.  Things are fine with Tim, I promise.” 
“He shared your interest in criminal studies, didn’t he?” Professor Crane recalled.  “Clearly, he didn’t share your scholarly aptitude, though, seeing as he’s dropped out.”
“H-he was smart enough,” you justified, “he left because of stress.”
“Ah,” the Professor nodded, “and he doesn’t take that stress out on you at all?”
“C’mon, Professor, Tim’s a good person,” you promised.
“I’m inclined to agree,” Crane replied, “but it’s the ones that act the kindest that have the most to hide, isn’t it?”
You knew there was another meaning to that statement, but there were so many possibilities that you couldn’t settle on one.
“You understand that if I suspect anything, I’m required to alert our student wellness services,” he reminded you.  “They’ll have a counselor reach out to you—”
“Listen, Dr. Crane— I didn’t come here to speak to you about my personal life,” you reminded him, “I wanted to ask you about my performance in the class so far, in your opinion.”
He paused before sighing in relent.  “I’m a little concerned, actually,” he admitted, “about your most recent paper.”
He pulled it from the folder under his arm and handed it back to you— covered in red ink.  You blinked at him, biting your lip in confusion.  “I thought these wouldn’t be returned until—”
“I worked on yours first,” he explained quickly, even though that explanation only brought more questions than answers.  “It’s still very strong, but it’s not what I expect from you at this point.  It feels rushed.”
Rushed— yeah, I remember this one.  I wrote it all the night it was due because I spent the three days before recovering from that fight with Falcone’s thugs at the docks—
“I’ll let you rewrite it,” he offered, “if you can get it back to me before I return the rest of your classmates’ work.”
You laughed a little, looking at the paper in front of you, and Crane knitted his brows together.  “You know, Professor, sometimes I can’t tell if I’m your favorite student, or your most hated.”
He smiled a little, glancing down briefly at the floor in a sort of self-effacing way.  “I don’t have favorites,” he assured, unconvincingly.  “You’re not my best student, or my worst— you’re an entirely different kind of student.  You’re nothing like those other… juvenile, moronic co-eds looking in the exact wrong place for an easy A.”
Your eyes widened a little, seeing the way he let a little irritation— disdain, really— paint his tone.  He snarled a bit as he spoke, his nostrils flaring; like he was holding it back, how much resentment he really had for your classmates.  
As quickly as it came, he seemed to shake it off, and then he smiled again… but it was tight, and forced, you could see that just as easily.  “You challenge me,” he finished quickly.  “I appreciate that as much as I detest it.”
You smiled back, somewhat genuinely despite the icky feeling that suddenly wiggled in your stomach.  “I suppose I feel the same way,” you admitted.
He opened his mouth, hesitating slightly, before tilting his head the other way and starting over.  “Could you come into my office for a minute?” he asked suddenly, a strange glimmer in his eyes behind the thin silver glasses.  “I’d like to show you my latest work— I think you’ll find it quite intriguing…”
He reached into his pocket, pulling out a ring of keys and started to unlock his office door, and you didn’t feel too excellent about it.
Just then, a group of students walked by, and you heard them talking amongst each other as one looked at a text message on her phone.  “Oh my god,” one said as she explained to those around her, “my friend’s at the bank right now— she said someone’s holding up the place…”
“What?” another student asked, and you tilted your head a bit to hear them better.
“Yeah, the one on Main and 57th?  The police aren’t there yet— she said they have guns…” 
Your heart started to race.  Sounds like a job for Batgirl.
Crane was in his own world, though, about to open the door.  “Maybe I can even convince you to change some of your conclusions about the study of fear,” he posited.
You stepped back, motivated to leave just as much by a strange suspicion of Professor Crane as the opportunity to stop the nearby bank robbery.  “I-I have to go,” you said, before you’d thought of a good excuse— and that hadn’t gone well for you last time, but hopefully he wasn’t going to quiz you on campus architecture again to trip you up.
He looked confused, a little sad even, as he turned to you again.  “This won’t take long,” he promised, “I’d just like to show you—”
“Sorry,” you blurted out as you kept backing up, “I gotta… you know, um… buy tampons.”
Hoping something that awkward would get him to stop asking questions, you turned on your heel and darted off down the hall, looking for the best way off campus and to a secluded spot where you could pull your Batgirl get-up out of the false compartment in your bag and get to work.
~
“I don’t like you going out there alone,” Bruce said flatly, not looking up from his hands clasped in his lap.
“Wow, really?” you rolled your eyes, feigning surprise.  “News to me.”
“You’re too young, and it’s dangerous,” he continued anyway.
“Doing all the greatest hits tonight, huh?” you smirked.  “Next you’ll say you need to keep up your identity better, study hard so no one suspects you and then finish it off with don’t touch the Batmobile.”
He sighed and shook his head.  “You can touch it, you just can’t drive it.”
“Right,” you agreed flatly, sighing as you adjusted in your spot on the couch.  You’d taken up shop here in the Wayne Manor private library: something about your interaction with Professor Crane yesterday made you want to study off-campus for the afternoon…
You knew Bruce had a point about working alone— you didn’t really want to be alone, you were certainly safer when you had Batman by your side.  The problem was that you were too safe… Bruce protected you so well that he hindered you; you’d accused him of wanting you to just stay behind and patch him up after fights rather than actually helping.  He denied it, obviously, but actions speak louder than words— and there was such a difference in the way he treated you and Robin was obvious.
In fact, that itself had driven a wedge between you and your boyfriend— one of many reasons Bruce had implored you both not to get involved in that way, but it was sort of unavoidable.  You can only do such high intensity, high pressure work alongside someone for so long before the tension is too much to bear… 
Then again, that very tension that made your relationship with Tim threatened to break it, and you knew that— you felt that, even now, as he looked at you with a sympathetic sort of stare.  You cleared your throat and focused on your book again.
“Please don’t go out without us again,” Tim asked— softer, sweeter, lacking that father-figure-sternness Bruce was always trying to muster.
“I think the people in that bank are pretty happy that I did,” you replied with a snarky smile.
“We were on our way—” Bruce began.
“It was a one man job!” you insisted.
“There were seven men on that heist team— and two more parked outside,” Bruce explained, getting more frustrated as this discussion continued.  “It doesn’t matter.  We work as a team.”
“Except when you go out alone,” you reminded him.
“I’ve been doing this longer,” he explained, standing up, “I’ve been doing it better, and I’ve been doing it on my own since you were still in high school.”
“Then why did you take me in?” you returned sharply, knitting your brows together in confusion and frustration.  “Why did you train me, why did you bring me here and tell me the truth?”
“Because I saw your potential,” he answered as he began to walk away, “not because you’re ready to save the whole fucking world by yourself.”
You shook your head in frustration— almost disbelief, except of course he would do this— as Bruce shut the door behind him.  Conversation didn’t go his way, he just left— that was normal.  Ironic, for a man who interrogated criminals on the street almost daily.
“He’s right,” Tim informed you after a pregnant pause, and you glared at him.
“Would you excuse me?  I have to study,” you explained sharply as you motioned to the textbooks and notepads laid out on the table, as you’d had them before you were interrupted by these two, “because apparently the best thing Batgirl can do is not be Batgirl.”
“Hey,” Tim sighed, “he doesn’t mean it like that… he just wants you to keep focusing on your studies, that’s all.”
“I just think it’s funny—” you began.
“I bet it’s not gonna be very funny,” Tim noticed with a frown.
“— that Bruce thinks it’s so important that I keep my grades up so nobody knows what I’m doing at night— so nobody knows that I’m not getting any goddamn sleep— but you got to drop out and that apparently wasn’t going to make anybody suspicious?” you noticed.  “You know, I had a professor ask me about you today— wondering what was up with you leaving so suddenly.  Why is nobody worried about that?”
“We worry about you because we care about you,” he explained.
You tossed your books aside, standing up to face Tim properly.  “That’s bullshit,” you spat.
“You think I don’t care about you, seriously?” he asked.
“I know you care about me, but you don’t respect me,” you explained, “neither of you do.  You two go off and do what you want, you’d rather me be your nurse than actually be out there— when you know damn well that you need me!”
“I need you,” Tim promised, “in so many ways.  That’s why I can’t let anything happen to you—”
“Well, things need to happen to me sometimes!  Isn’t that what life is, things happening to you?!” you laughed exasperatedly.  “I mean, shit, why do I go to school at all?  Why don’t you guys just lock me at the top of Wayne Tower and I’ll never ever leave and you can just climb up my hair when you wanna come visit!”
“Christ,” Tim groaned, “you are so fucking ridiculous sometimes— what are you trying to prove?  Why do you need to be out there every night beating up bad guys, whether Bruce tells you to or not?”
Instead of answering that, you simply accused: “He obviously likes you better than me.”
“Is that really what this is about?  You want Bruce to like you?!” Tim scoffed.  “Are you that shallow?”
“I want him to trust me!” you clarified.  “I want him to understand what I’m capable of!”
“You know what you’re capable of,” he replied, grabbing your shoulders.  “I know.  Is that not enough?”
You let out a long breath, looking down at the floor.
“I love you,” Tim sighed— but it didn’t sound very sweet when he said it like that, it sounded sad.
“I love you too,” you replied instinctively, but it felt oddly hollow leaving your lips.
“Please,” he breathed as he pressed his forehead to yours, “please stay safe.  You’re stronger than me, you can take a lot more than I can.”
You were about to ask him what he meant by that, since you both knew he was physically stronger and more resilient than you, walking away from fights that could’ve put you in a stretcher.  But before you could ask, he spoke again.
“My heart can only take so much.”
But that only proved your point, though you didn’t tell him out loud: that what him and Bruce wanted you to do had nothing to do with your strength, and everything to do with their weakness.
~
In your defense, you took the night off.
But the next night, you had to get out there— Bruce and Tim told you to stay behind so Batman and Robin could go save the day, and you?  You were holding down the fort, keeping the couch warm.  What a fucking waste; there was more evil in this city than two men could purge— there was more for you to do.  As tempting as it was to meet them at the rendezvous location they’d figured out and try to help clear out the gangsters there buying an illegal weapons shipment, you knew that would just lead to the same fight again.  This time, the plan was to go out, kick some criminal ass, come back, and leave Bruce none the wiser.
You scanned police radios patiently, waiting for just the right thing— small enough to fix on your own, big enough to matter.  You wished, sometimes, that you had less to choose from…
Units respond, units respond — 10-79 reported at West Main and 88th.
Bomb threat.  That felt manageable, and you were pretty handy with defusal in case that threat had any credibility.  You turned off the radio and stood up, looking down over the city from your vantage point on a highrise fire escape.  It was beautiful, in its grimy Gotham way: a light rainfall coated everything in a fuzzy static like old film; it made the concrete reflect the neon lights a little clearer, the whole skyline sort of slick and steamy.  
Running and jumping to the next roof, you made a path to your destination and navigated the city unseen, like any good Bat-person would.
You were nearly there when you stopped on a roof above an abandoned manufacturing plant— well, that’s the thing, it wasn’t as abandoned as you thought.  There was a glass sunroof, and even though it was dark and rainy, the light inside brought your attention to a group of men inside.  Not to profile or anything, but 4 bald guys with guns standing around is usually a good sign that someone’s up to no good…
Trying to get a better look at what was going on inside, you carefully lifted one of the glass panels and slipped inside, sneaking around the metal scaffolding as the sound of the rain was muffled and replaced with distance, echoing voices.
You crouched in the rafters, watching with narrowed eyes as the group of men faced against a figure you couldn’t make out with the shadows and pillars in the way.
“So, are we good for this deal, or what?” the leader of the group asked.
A modulated, deeper voice answered: “This is half of what we agreed.”
“My team had some… road bumps, trying to bring this to you,” the man explained, stepping forward slightly.  “We lost some of the compound.  This is what we’re offering, take it or leave it.”
“I’ll take it,” the shadowy figure agreed.  “How much for what’s left?”
“The same price we discussed.”
“For half the amount?  How does that work?”
“It’s a flat rate,” the smuggler— that’s what he must have been, right?— explained with a smug smirk.  “In fact, I should charge you more— call it hazard pay, for what my men had to go through to get this here.”
“I see,” the deeper voice replied.  “How about this: I kill all of you, and take it.”
Your eyes widened; isn’t this guy alone?  He’s sure got some balls…
The group of men paused before beginning to laugh.  “You?” the leader repeated.  “This skinny guy in the suit is gonna kill all of us?”
“I can do worse than that— I’ll make you beg for me to kill you.”
Feeling the tension of this discussion reach its breaking point, you realized you needed to intervene now: leaning over to make sure you had the right spot under you, you took the grappling hook off of your belt and pointed it down.
Firing it with a metallic whooshing sort of sound, the device grabbed one of the men and yanked him up into the shadows of the ceiling with you.  Everyone on the ground looked up in shock and fear, pointing their guns aimlessly into the darkness.  Before he could even really react to what had just occurred, you dropped the man back down— onto one of his friends, of course, which incapacitated them both but saved him from a much worse fate than if he’d landed on that concrete warehouse floor.
“What the fuck?” the leader of the group yelled as he tried to fire indiscriminately up at you— but you were already running along the steel beam, following one of the men as he tried to make a dash for the exit.
A blast from your long-distance taser gun brought him to the ground instantly, and as the last one left searched for the source of your attacks, you jumped down to the ground just behind him, landing in a crouched position.  As soon as he’d turned around to face you, you’d grabbed a loose metal pipe from nearby and hit him over the head with an oddly-satisfying bong noise.
You knew the other man was still somewhere in the dark nearby, and you called out for him: “Whoever you are, stop hiding in the shadows: that’s kinda my thing,” you informed him.
He stepped forward in the cool, gray light: a man in a torn and tattered suit, with a burlap mask that had massive stitches like scars.  Batman had just warned you about this guy, what was his name again?
"My," he purred with pleasant shock, his voice clearly deepened electronically by something in that sack on his head.  "If it isn't Batgirl.  Nice outfit, very… shiny."
"Yours looks pretty rough," you noticed.
He shrugged.  "It does the job."
You smiled back, remembering finally who you were dealing with.  "Not with me.  I'm not scared of you, Scarecrow."
"You will be," he promised.
You swung first, a roundhouse kick right at his head, but he ducked and came back up at you— he tried to grab you but you slipped away.
Instead of going after you again, he ran— grabbed one of the suitcases off of the palette nearby, whatever this ‘shipment’ was, and bolted for the door into the alleyway.  You almost laughed, impressed that he thought he could outrun you, but then again this was the guy who threatened to kill four armed men straight to their face.
You chased him right out the door, but as you dashed into the alley behind the manufacturing plant— the one that faced the northern street— you learned a moment too late that he hadn’t run at all, but was waiting for you there.
He sprayed something in your face, and you coughed as a cloud of vapor filled your lungs.  You assumed it was pepper spray at first, but it didn't burn— actually, it smelled a little sweet, sort of herbal.  But the effects were almost instantaneous, the pounding in your chest and the sinking feeling in your gut, the world spinning around you.
The fear response: heart rate increase, cold sweat, overall heightened arousal.
Instantly you felt old memories rushing in— awful, horrifying ones, and even worse than you remembered them.  For a moment, there was fear with no real object, just the feeling… until he grabbed your face and forced you to look at him, at the wicked mask that seemed impossibly close— that seemed like it could swallow you whole.  You screamed, trying to turn away or shut your eyes or something, but nothing assuaged the terror.
"Please," you sobbed.  "Make it stop!  Please!"
“Nothing can stop it now,” his voice returned— even rougher and darker than before, the deep bass of it making you shiver.  “This is who you are.  Give in to the fear.”
If nothing else, he had a point that fighting it wasn’t proving very useful— but giving in meant letting the world collapse in on you, letting the darkness pull you back… the darkness you’d fought so hard to make into an ally was becoming your enemy again.  
He grabbed your mask and tugged it away; even overwhelmed with primal terror, enough logic remained for you to reach up and try to cover your face.
But he simply grabbed your hands and shoved them away.  You heard a laugh behind that horrible mask, just before he suddenly took it off.
The toxin changed his face, too— his smile was wider and his teeth sharper, his eyes totally black— and you couldn't recognize him at first.  Only when he addressed you by name did you finally put it together; "Professor Crane?" you realized with a horrified gasp.
"I imagine you haven't finished rewriting that paper yet?"
"Oh god," you sobbed, "you— you're— how can you do this?"
You struggled against him again, but he held you back effortlessly.  “I said I liked you because you’re a challenge,” he remembered with a laugh.  “But out here, you’re no challenge at all.  Just a stupid little girl in a mask.”
He slapped you hard across the face, making you stumble even more as you lost your balance, colliding with the damp black asphalt.
He descended onto you, turning you on your back when you tried to hide your face in your arm as an escape from the terrifying visions.  “I’ve been waiting for a chance to put you in your place,” he admitted with a growl as he started to pull your armored clothes off of you roughly.  “You act a little too fearless for my liking… good to know it’s all an act.”
You cried, shaking and flailing beneath him, but you couldn’t actually put up a fight like this— the darkness throbbed around you, shadows reaching out to pull you into their abyss.  “Please,” you begged again, “no!  Stop, please!”
You weren’t even sure yourself if you were talking to him or to the hallucinated, anthropomorphized energy in the dark, but neither stopped.  He struggled at times to get your clothes off, they weren’t exactly designed to come off quickly but you shuddered violently from the cool night air when your chest was exposed.  You heard a deep growl from him, and you whimpered loudly as his hands ran over your skin.  “What are you so scared of?” he asked, sounding amused— but in your mind, those hands were claws that could shred you to pieces at any moment, and you breathed so fast that your chest just spasmed and quaked.  “I think you’ve been needing this for a while…”
He roughly turned you onto your stomach, face down against the street, and started to tug down your pants.  You were too scared to even beg him to stop, to try to bargain or reason with him— you just shuddered and cried, hiding your face and hoping for relief from the dread.
He smacked you on your bare ass, once it was exposed, and chuckled to himself at your whine in response.  The next thing you heard was the sound of a belt opening, a zipper unzipped…
Was it the toxin that made you afraid he would rip you in half, when he pressed his erection against your thigh?  Or was that just common sense?
You grimaced when you heard him spit into his hand, but it fell into a whining cry as he pushed his tip against your opening.  With your pants only down to your knees, you couldn’t even spread your legs at all, making you feel even more like there was no chance he could fit.  The sick, anxious fear felt a little different now— maybe not as strong, but mostly just something new… something deeper and subtler and heavier.  It wasn’t visions of monsters or memories of suffering, it was just this inevitable violation and the sureness that you were completely helpless.
He pushed his hips forward sharply, making you scream out and instantly reach back to try to grab his hips and push them away.  He ignored it and kept going forward with a low groan.  “Mm, you can take it,” he promised gruffly.  “Fucking take it.”
You cried as he put a hand on your shoulders, keeping you pressed down painfully into the ground, as he slid the rest of the way in.
It stung, it stretched you in an awful way and went far too deep… but you were wet, you could feel it.  Overall heightened arousal… not that sort of arousal, necessarily.  He obviously noticed as well, growling a bit.  “You like this, hm?” he accused.
“N-no,” you managed to slur, but it was hard to even breathe with his weight pressing you down.  You pushed back harder against his thighs through his undone trousers, but he growled and grab your hand to pin it down above your head.  He brought the other up beside it, and quickly pulled his belt out from the loops to tie around your wrists.  “Professor,” you pleaded under your breath, feeling your warm tears mix with the cold rain on the ground.
But he was already inside you, it was too late for that— and with your hands conveniently out of the way, he breathed heavy as he started to pull back and shove back in.
There was no build-up after that, he just fucked you as hard and fast as he wanted with no regard for how you cried and struggled under him.  He grabbed your hair and forced your head back awkwardly as you sobbed.
“Say my name,” he ordered, apparently irritated by the title of ‘Professor’ — but you didn’t know for sure if he wanted to be addressed as Jonathan or Scarecrow, and you feared the consequences if you chose incorrectly.  
Still, you blurted out the first thing that came to mind: “J-Jonathan,” you spat out hoarsely, and he grinned happily before dropping you back onto the ground.  You struggled against the belt around your wrists— not actually expecting to get out of it, and not having any plan if you did, just mainly out of instinct.  All it did was dig the sharp edge of the leather into your skin, making you cry harder.
It rocked you back and forth on the ground, those rough thrusts— the friction inside you was hot and fast, and each time he slammed all the way in, you heard the clapping of skin on skin and felt his tip ram against the deepest places inside you.  You didn’t even realize it was possible to be bruised inside like that, but you knew you would be by the end of this.
He didn’t slow down, really, but he changed his rhythm slightly and found an angle to go even just a bit deeper into you, until you whined pathetically with every pump into you.  It seemed like the toxin was wearing off, in that you weren’t seeing things anymore, but there was still obviously a sick feeling in your stomach, and an unreliable beating in your chest, and a deep throbbing in your ears.
“You’re getting even wetter,” he noticed with a low chuckle, and you whimpered as you hoped not to have to acknowledge that.  “Fucking soaking me— poor girl, I don’t think you can help it…”
At least it made this hurt a little less, but no amount of wetness could prevent him from holding your hips painfully tight and fucking you so forcefully it seemed hateful.  You whined loudly with every movement, fingers curling into shaky fists even when it was useless with his belt restraining you.
When you turned your face to the side, you saw figures at the other end of the alley— not hallucinations, nothing scary, just passersby on the street— and you reached out for them instinctively as hope flooded your chest.  Blinking the tears from your eyes, you could see them clearer: a man and woman, older, well-dressed.  “P-please,” you croaked out in a broken voice, “please, help me— call the police—”
They heard you, and they turned and looked at you, only to grimace and turn away; the man pulled his date closer, shuffling her away with him as they kept walking.  You whimpered pathetically, and Crane laughed above you.  “That’s Gotham for you,” he mused.  “No one wants to get involved.  These are the people Batgirl wants to save?”
They weren’t the only ones who saw, either; later, a small crowd of young men in bandanas and baggy pants passed by— some of them looked young enough to still be in high school.  You prayed to anything that would listen that they would move along without noticing, but one of them saw and pointed at you two with a scoffing laugh.  Feeling as if you could throw up, you shut your eyes tight and heard the chorus of jeers as they realized what they were seeing.  They laughed and hollered; what the fuck, dude! and ohh shit and hey, she’s pretty hot declared in juvenile voices between raunchy chuckles.  You saw flashes of light when you blinked your eyes— were they taking pictures of this with their phones?  You wondered if Jonathan would be forced to stop them, if he was concerned about evidence, but he didn’t react at all… he didn’t even slow down.
Once they’d gotten an eyeful and the sight had lost its shock, they wandered away— you could still hear their voices echoing around the buildings for a moment until it all faded in with the ambient sounds of the city: sirens, horns, footsteps, and that perpetual Gotham drizzle.
“I can feel it,” he whispered to you suddenly, “it keeps squeezing me.  Such a needy fucking cunt.”
You didn’t know if the ‘cunt’ was referring to your anatomy or to you as a person, and either option made your throat a little dry— but dryness was the least of your problems between your legs, in fact you were pretty sure you were dripping now, you could feel how slippery and sticky you’d become.  Your thighs were coated, it was even running down over your swelling and neglected clit.
He lowered himself a bit, resting his arms beside your head and breathing close to your ear.  He even brushed some of your hair out of the way with his hand, wanting to get a better look at your face, and you shut your eyes.
Increasingly loud groans and sighs above you made you realize what was about to happen, just as much as the throbbing feeling inside you.
“F-fuck,” he let out in a scratchy voice.  “Fuck!”
You whimpered yourself just as you heard him choke out a sort of high-pitched, shaky moan, and his thrusts went from erratic and desperate to slower and uneven.  He twitched inside you, and you felt the flood of heat in impossible contrast to the cold ground under you.
“God…” he groaned, his hand on your shoulder tightening and digging a little too deep into your skin.  Then he laughed a little as he finally came to a stop— breathless, light, almost making him sound impressed.  With you or himself, it’s hard to say; it sounded like a laugh of relief.
A lump formed in your throat as you considered what you were supposed to do now— he’d just come inside you, raw, and it made your stomach sink (but it made your walls clench unexpectedly, too).  As he carefully pulled out, you whimpered at the way it reawakened the sting of his first entrance— especially when he first pushed inside.  He sighed heavily when he finally got himself out of you completely, and then his hands— hot, a little clammy, and strong— came into view to free your aching wrists from his belt.  
He stood up over you, and you heard him readjust his trousers before zipping them up and putting back on his belt.  “Was it good for you?” he asked with a quiet, but smug, chuckle.
Bringing your hands nearer to press against the ground, you tried to lift yourself up on shaking arms.  When your torso was only a few inches off the pavement, Jonathan put his polished shoe on your back between your shoulder blades and pushed you back down.  You whimpered as he looked down at you, tilting his head while he admired your helpless form.
“Stay down,” he ordered.
Finally taking his foot off of you, he picked his mask up from the ground, sighing as he shook some of the raindrops off of it and put it back on.
“Well,” he began with a sigh, his voice modulated by the sack over his head again, “I’ll see you in class.  I look forward to seeing what you do with that paper.”
You didn’t watch him leave; you just heard the warehouse door shut again.  Your eyes were looking blankly forward, blinking away stinging tears, looking at the way the neon lights of the buildings across the street reflected in the puddles on the ground.
~
You jolted, much more than necessary, when someone knocked on the bathroom door; it made the water in your bath ripple, though the fluffy white surface of the bubbles was hardly disturbed.  “Can I come in?” you heard Bruce’s voice.
“Yeah,” you answered, but he stopped when he opened the door.
“You’re not decent,” he noticed, turning away.
“There’s bubbles everywhere, you can’t see anything,” you sighed, and he stepped the rest of the way in.  A pause that both of you pretended wasn’t awkward occurred.
“Tim told me that you came back roughed up,” he said eventually.
You said nothing.
“I told you not to—” he began.
“I know.” 
He sighed; you kept staring forward at the white tile wall in front of you.  "What happened?" he asked simply.
“I know Tim told you already— two guys, probably Falcone’s— they went at me in a tunnel by the Southside,” you explained with a sigh.  “I was just following a stolen van, I didn’t know who took it— I would’ve called you if I knew.  I just wanted something I could handle on my own.”
You knew the story didn’t add up; Falcone’s men would’ve probably given you a black eye, maybe a broken nose, and bruises on your stomach from kicks and punches.  Instead what you had were concrete scrapes on your cheek, fingerprint-sized bruises on your hips and thighs, and thin abrasions all around your wrists.  Not to mention the jitters and auditory hallucinations from working Crane’s toxin out of your system— his voice, still in your ear: just a stupid little girl in a mask.  You’d stopped looking over your shoulder by now, but your heart still raced every time.
You knew the story didn’t add up, but you knew it didn’t matter, because Bruce was going to buy it.  He wasn’t ready to imagine the truth yet.  This time, when you heard Crane’s voice, it wasn’t a hallucination but a memory: you sure were eager for an explanation.
Bruce nodded and began to walk out of the bathroom.  “Alright,” he said.  “Rest up.”
You scoffed to yourself as he left quietly— for a detective, he still had a few blindspots.  Surely, we all do.
Left alone in the bathroom again, you were surrounded by silence once more.  In silence, it was easier to hear his voice in your ear.  Just a stupid little girl in a mask.
The shrill sound of your cell phone startled you, and you awkwardly leaned out of the tub just far enough to grab it off of the pile of towels you'd left it on.
"Hello?" you answered, irritation obvious in your tone.
“Hello, ma’am, this is Tracy from the Gotham University Student Wellness Center,” the sweet, lilting voice came from the other end of the line.  “We recently received notice of concern that you may be experiencing domestic violence.  We’d love for you to come into our office to discuss this and receive complementary counseling, when’s a good time that we could—?”
You hung up and tossed the phone away, sinking down into the water.
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