#damian is sick and tired of being the only serious vigilante in gotham | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

inamindfarfaraway · 2 years

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Dark Oracle AU

Okay, I need to expand on this concept. I present my personal idea of a timeline from the canon state of affairs (or, well, my interpretation of them because comics are so inconsistent and full of crap, basically pre-New 52 with Duke) to Big Sister dictatorship!

The Batfamily is battling a really serious threat, like Ra’s al Ghul or the Court of Owls or a supervillain alliance or something. It’s a big deal. Very high stakes. The only reason they’re even attempting a mission this risky is because, thanks in large part to their resident information-finding specialist Barbara, they have a great deal of knowledge in advance and are sure they’ve planned for every possible outcome, as Bats tend to do. Except the villain has a secret advantage, another trick up their sleeve. There’s no way Babs could have found out about this, but of course she doesn’t believe that and blames herself, as Bats tend to do. The heroes aren’t prepared and in the chaos none of the contingency plans they’re able to execute work. By the time they defeat the threat… Black Bat and Batgirl are dead. Steph is killed first, heroically sacrificing herself, and Cass, the nearest to her, is caught off-guard in her shock.

I’m sorry! I am! But I truly think that Babs could not properly turn evil if she had Team Batgirl to remind her of her definition of heroism, of her own lingering inner Batgirl. She needs to just be Oracle. Cass is buried in the Wayne Manor cemetery; Steph in a public one the closest to the same distance from the Manor and Crystal’s house. They both get memorials in the Batcave.

Babs shuts down in depressed and self-hatred. She watched her daughter figures, her protégés, her Batgirls die because of (in her mind) her inadequacy. She feels like she’ll similarly fail at anything she tries to do now. She quits being Oracle and withdraws from the Batfam and her father. Remember, she has an eidetic memory, and watched and heard Steph and Cass’s deaths via the family’s mask cameras. They’re all she can see when she closes her eyes. Those screams are always ringing in her ears.

Meanwhile, Bruce takes this about as well as he took losing a child/young vigilante he inspired and mentored the last two times, but doubled. Although he and Alfred have enough experience that he doesn’t get quite as bad as fast as when Jason died, he’s still significantly more antisocial, aggressive, reckless and self-destructive and isolates himself more over the first months afterward. Jim notices the disappearance of Black Bat and Batgirl and the sadly familiar changes in Batman’s behaviour and puts the pieces together. He offers Batman what comfort he can, but is simultaneously worrying about Babs on top of his job. Crime rates go up whenever the Batfam’s numbers decrease.

The remaining Batkids are distraught. Other than Jason, they grow closer in their shared grief. Jason is off on his own turning his pain into violence even more savagely than normal. He recognizes that he’s falling back on his terrible coping mechanisms and doesn’t want to hurt his family this time, so he just doesn’t interact with them. Tim is hit especially hard due to being the closest to Cass and Steph - not to mention that he in particular so fucking sick and tired of his loved ones dying across his teenage years. He’s very unstable. Steph was one of the key people who taught Damian how to have fun and be a kid, and how important it was, so without her he’s more liable to forget that and backslide into acting cold, aloof, violently temperamental, etc.. Duke is made acutely aware of how short life is and that anyone he cares about could die at any time, so he actually strengthens his friendships with the We Are Robin kids. They can break down and be vulnerable with each other in private, but mostly push themselves harder because they each feel that it’s their duty to both keep Gotham safe and prevent Bruce and their siblings going off the rails. Dick is probably the least emotionally vulnerable because he has the most practice bottling up intense grief effectively and, with Bruce’s psychological decline and constant busyness, steps up more as the Responsible Adult alongside Alfred.

Bruce forbids Tim, Duke and Damian to go into the field and Dick agrees, because can they stop losing family for five minutes? A number of restrictions are implemented to uphold this. It’s Tim, Duke and Damian, though, of course they get out anyway. Helping people directly is one of the only sources of serotonin they have.

This is when things really start to go to hell: Bruce is killed. Because of his recklessness and accelerated by his poor health due to neglecting self-care. Because he charged into a dangerous fight alone, Alfred in the chair occupied with the Batkids. Because, Babs can’t convince herself otherwise, he didn’t have Oracle watching his back. The Batkids really could not stop losing family for five minutes. He’s buried right next to his daughter, the death dates just three months apart. Memorial in the cave, natch. But they don’t pretend he isn’t dead this time, so the whole city must mourn its Dark Knight. There are huge memorial services, statues made of him. Jim cries a lot. He already lost Harvey, now Bats?

Oh yeah, and - released a little later to throw people off and let them form a convincing cover story - Bruce Wayne is dead too. A massive blow to Gotham’s morale and even greater surges in crime follow. Their inspirational ray of sunshine and hope and belief in humanity is suddenly gone forever, and so soon after their original and most accomplished superhero. Who are they going to believe in now? Well… at least they still have the rest of the vigilantes.

Babs returns to work. Throws herself into it the way other people throw themselves off bridges. She stays on more formal terms with the Batfam at first, but does reconnect with them over time. She moves Cass and Steph’s memorials to the Clocktower “for motivation”, and this is evidently effective, seeing how she goes into overdrive and is soon leading and coordinating everyone alongside Dick. Gotham is floundering without Bruce and Batman and she refuses to let it fall into anarchy. She’ll be its Oracle, guiding it to a brighter future. She’ll never not know or foresee something ever again. She can’t. Jim is getting extremely worried.

If she’s doing badly, Bruce’s own children’s mental states can be summarised as deep shit. Everyone embraces the family’s classic coping mechanisms, workaholism and emotional repression, harder to try to cope with the chaos. Tim takes over more Wayne Enterprises responsibilities. You know, ‘cause he doesn’t have enough on his plate. Unlike last time, Bruce is definitely permanently dead and he doesn’t take that well. Alfred… is going through it. Sorry, Alfred. A small comfort is that Jason is inspired to treasure his remaining family and he and his siblings and grandad work on repairing their relationships.

Things don’t go Gotham meets Oceania overnight. Babs eroding her code of ethics to the point of evil dictatorship is a slow process, the kind you may not even register until it’s happened. One year after Bruce’s death she’s composed enough to run for mayor, still cripplingly afraid and resentful of Oracle’s limitations. She needs political control over Gotham to make it a better place in the long run. Who are the people going to believe in now? Barbara Gordon! Her loved ones are proud and supportive of her, having been reconnecting with her lately, if concerned that she isn’t processing her grief that much even compared to the rest of them. Her policies are focused on security and reforms to the police force and legal system that aim to reduce crime and corruption, which in the context of the soaring crime rates and spiralling despair of the Gotham public all seem wonderful to many. Surely, things at least can’t possibly get worse than they have been. She wins in a landslide.

The mayor’s power plus Oracle’s power soon goes to Babs’s head. Over the next year she slips from hero to antihero to a darker shade of grey. Her level of surveillance gradually moves out of the reasonable zone. Her patience for disagreement wears thin. When the Batfam or law enforcement take down a crime organization, she will siphon off their assets and information to consolidate her power rather than redistribute all of it to the people. For the greater good, obviously!

This culminates two years after Bruce’s death when Oracle defeats the Court of Owls with a cunning scheme (if they’re the ones who killed the Batgirls, this part hits extra hard): she fakes an alliance with them to set up a double cross, her ‘downpayment’ of information to gain their trust being false and luring their high command into a massive vigilante and police ambush. But Babs doesn’t dismantle the Court like the Bats expect her to. She takes control of it and integrates its vast, rich archives and information network into her own, now essentially omniscient regarding Gotham’s criminal underworld. She also uses the Court’s under-the-table connections to manipulate political and legal proceedings. It’s great for eliminating all corruption besides her own.

This move triggers the ideological conflict that’s been brewing amongst the Batfam to spill over into a devastating fight. Babs and Dick are at the forefront. Babs is accused of tyranny and selfish ambition, Dick and his allies of holding onto a naive, obsolete ideal of protection, both sides feeling betrayed and that the other is “becoming what they fought against”. It’s very emotionally charged. Very painful and bitter for everyone involved.

In the end Alfred, Dick, Jason, Duke and Damian leave in regret and disgust. To explain why them: Alfred is never turning evil. We all know that. The fabric of the universe would unravel if he did. Dick is likewise functionally incorruptible because he’s Dick Grayson, he’s the light of the DC universe. He is utterly heartbroken though. Him and Babs being enemies is the maximum angst option, I couldn’t not take it. Jason has already been through a ‘using villainous methods to protect Gotham how Batman won’t because a) I genuinely believe the ends justify the means and b) my mental health is a train wreck’ phase and basically come out the other side. He isn’t gonna do that again, but as a subordinate. Him and Duke’s backstories make them both more down-to-earth and grounded in the reality of the average and lower-class Gotham citizens’ everyday lives than anyone else in the Batfam, so they can see most clearly how Babs’s actions are harming their people. And Damian is closer to Dick and Duke than Babs, but also similarly to Jason did the edgy ‘morals hold you back, absolute punishment and terror will fight crime more efficiently’ thing and outgrew it. He learned to value human life and rights and swore his loyalty to the mentors who taught him this and their code. He learned how to reject the toxic bullshit the League of Assassins had been feeding him his entire life; it would insult his character growth in my opinion to have him accept Barbara’s toxic bullshit.

That leaves Tim to be Babs’s primary enforcer. Sorry, Tim. Someone had to do it. Between his severe psychological vulnerability and lack of his brothers’ personal experiences with immorality and insights into the average Gothamite’s life, I think it should be him. He’s also the CEO of Wayne Enterprises and involved in the Wayne Foundation and that pairs nicely with Babs’s data collection. Any Wayne Technologies device can covertly monitor people. To sever himself from the bat and bird motifs of the lost and unenlightened and show his allegiance to Oracle, he creates a new vigilante identity called Python. This is a reference to the Greek myth of a giant serpent called Python (from the original name of Delphi, Pytho, and the namesake of the snake classification) who resided in and guarded the site of Delphi, before Apollo killed it and installed his own prophetess Pythia in his place. He’s got a green scaly jumpsuit with armour plating. Two curved swords imitating fangs. Scale throwing blades. A penchant for nonlethal gas and aerosol tools like knockout gas, tear gas and smokescreens, in allusion to the natural hallucinogenic fumes at Delphi that led to its holy reputation. It’s cool. Sinister, but cool. Snakes don’t have eyelids, matching the relentless surveillance theme. Fun fact: pythons eat bats and small birds.

Shock of the century, Babara “Heaps of Recent, Untreated PTSD From Losing Loved Ones and Compulsive Need to Always be Aware and On Top of Everything” Gordon doesn’t take being ditched by all but one of her found family in stride. She has a total breakdown, blames herself for not being able to make them see things her way and lashes out by cracking down even harder on the populace. She’s accordingly immensely grateful for Tim staying and very protective of him. Were he to leave her too, it could be enough to shatter her.

The five rebels join the Birds of Prey, who leave Barbara after hearing how she turned on them, the Gotham City Sirens, Holly Robinson, Slam Bradley, Duke’s We Are Robin friends and a number of other malcontents, including Crystal Brown, to form a resistance. This alliance is called the Shadow Guard - ‘shadow’ because they literally are largely nocturnal, but furthermore it’s a contrast and opposition to Oracle’s prying and shining a light onto things; a declaration both that they are her blind spot and that privacy, the unseen, the ability to keep people ‘in the dark’ deserves to be protected. They’re guardians in the real shadows and of the figurative ones. There’s the angle that they’re only shadows of the Batfamily at its peak and the people they were then too. The rebellion uses pre-internet technology to be safe, with the occasional exception of scavenged tech cut off from Babs’s network.

Mayor Gordon declares Nightwing, Red Hood, Robin and the Signal to be dangerous, untrustworthy public enemies, even suggesting that they’re responsible for the mysterious disappearances of Dick Grayson, Damian Wayne and Duke Thomas. This forces Jim, who’s been putting off realizing that his beloved daughter and the only family he has left is having a moral degradation arc in favour of softer appeals to her compassion, to confront that Babs is now pretty damn totalitarian and he cannot stand by any longer. He joins the Shadow Guard as a spy, and supplies resources, equipment and other employees with consciences to their ranks. His hope is that once her power is removed, Babs will have to face the consequences of her actions and come to her senses. The three year mark is when her directing of the police cycles around to be so militarized and oppressive that her initial real ethical reforms are trampled, vindicating Jim’s decision.

Why don’t external superheroes and the government officials intervene? Because Babs is still their information broker. She provides them with vital intel and has truckloads of dirt on all of them. She isn’t above passive-aggressively reminding people of her ability to ruin them to get them off her back, even demonstrating it by leaking sensitive information, causing a scandal, giving an advantage to a rival, etc. every now and then. The rest of the US is watching the events in Gotham thinking, as people so often do, “Someone should do something! …But it’s not gonna be me!” (For the sake of the plot just quietly ignore the Superfam and Wonderfam and Flashfam and so on, okay?). Besides, Gotham’s crime rates are the lowest they’ve ever been. Oracle is untouchable and none of the illicit activity can be traced back to Babs, or even proven at all most of the time.

Keep in mind, Babs still doesn’t technically directly kill anyone. Tim doesn’t either. He just arrests criminals and disturbers of the peace and hands them over to the justice system. Business as usual. When they and all records of them disappear overnight, and when nobody ever gets out of Blackgate or Arkham… well, questioning that isn’t in his job description, and Babs and his job are all he has left. He’s come too far to give them up.

Four years into Babs’s mayorship, Gotham’s settled into its continually worsening dystopian status quo under a utopian facade. The roll down the slope accelerates when Jim’s spying is discovered. Babs is horrified, furious and deeply hurt. She almost, almost backs down, but falls victim to the sunk cost fallacy and desperately reaffirms her self-righteousness. He has frustratingly durable moral integrity, so she orders him arrested to get him out of sight and out of mind because again, she cannot handle another loss. The rebel Batboys break him out, they fight Python and the police, it’s sad and dramatic. The rebels get away by the skin of their teeth, but they’re followed. A raid on their base deals harsh blows and gets a sizeable proportion of them arrested, killed or traumatized into submission. They regroup and try to find a way to take Oracle by surprise. Jim is now the Shadow Guard’s co-leader with Dick.

Gotham is peaceful. It’s orderly. Supervillains are a thing of the past. Barbara is like the oracles of legend: whatever she says will be, will be. Needless to say, she won’t have much competition in the upcoming mayoral election. From there, she plans to expand beyond Gotham. The only problem that remains is how to stop her treacherous family and lay the past to rest once and for all…

That’s the catch with oracle stories, isn’t it? In the end, you find you’ve become exactly what you most strived to avoid being. Think of King Oedipus, the archetypal Greek tragedy and ironic prophecy story: a just, wise and noble leader stubbornly seeking knowledge to protect their people from ruin in a time of great suffering, only for they themselves to be the criminal they were looking for and the cause of their city’s corruption.

I’m ending it here with a five year time difference and pretty much in the heroes’ darkest hour, because this is where I would have (my) canon Babs, Steph and Cass transported to this world to help bring dark Oracle down.

#babs: i’ve made a gotham where none of the entire batfamily’s tragic pasts could ever happen #dick: what about the kids whose parents don’t agree with everything you say?#babs:#dark oracle has the anime menacing reflective glasses effect a lot because a) scary and b) she is just emotional repression central #i just want to see black bat and batgirl fight and ethically debate a dictator version of their mentor #in the process deactivating and cracking the wall of giant surveillance screens in the clocktower #so that barbara is forced to finally confront her reflection fractured in darkness #is that too much to ask?#dark oracle au #barbara gordon #babs gordon #oracle #batfamily #batfam #stephanie brown #batgirl #cassandra cain #black bat #team batgirl #bruce wayne #batman #dick grayson #nightwing #tim drake #red robin #damian wayne #robin #duke thomas #the signal #alfred pennyworth

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thr-333 · 3 years

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Drastic Measures- Part 8

@daminette-december2019-2020

~Wind~

It’s just a nice day in Gotham, like always.

Ao3

First< Previous > Next

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“You know what?” Ladybug says to Chat as they both take shelter from the wind, “I really hate Gothams weather,”

“It’s fine Ladybug,” Chat jokes, daring to look around the building only to hide again with severely windswept hair, "Just don't go into hibernation,”

“I might just watch me,”

“You there!” they both look over to see an officer pointing a gun at them, “Leave! Let the pros handle this!”

“Excuse me! We are the pros!” Ladybug snaps despite their cowering behind a building from wind.

“But if you want to try take over your welcome to it!” Chat Noir yells, grabbing Ladybug and leaving their shelter before they got shot. They get thrown back into the wind, blown back a few steps. They hold onto each other working together to reach the Akuma hiding in a self-made tornado.

“Do you think someone was just as mad at the weather as I am!?” Ladybug yells over the wind, trying to throw her yo-yo only for it to get blown back in her face.

“Well, I have to say this is kind of a step-down!” Chat shouts, trying to poke his staff through the tornado getting jerked to the side, only saved by Ladybug catching him, “Stormy Weather could control all sorts of weather,”

“Yeah and almost started several global catastrophes!”Ladybug pulls him back down to the ground, both crouching down.

“Well, maybe we need some luck before there's another!”

“You got it,” Ladybug nods, gearing up to throw her yoyo, “Lucky charm!”

The lucky charm is immediately blown away.

“... Maybe we should have done that further away,” Chat muses.

“You think so?” Ladybug sighs, “Maybe the city road maintenance could use some bad luck?”

“Oh I get what you're putting down,” Chat grins, “Cata-”

“Help!” The look towards the cry, a couple of officers and their car getting pulled up to the sky.

“Looks like they took you up on your offer,” Ladybug deadpans, running over to them with a tailwind.

“I was trying to make a joke!” Chat Noir jumps up catching the two and getting carried off by the wind.

“Trying,” Ladybug throws her yoyo out wrapping it around Chat and pulling him and the officers down.

“Well how about we try making a new manhole?” Chat Noir places the officers on the ground, they duck down getting pressed to the road by the winds.

“That's all you Kitty!” Ladybug shelters the police long enough they can grab onto a lamp post.

“Cataclysm!” Chat Noir hits the ground, lowering the level of destruction to a smaller radius. He keeps it activated until the hole is big enough for them to drop down into. Ladybug sticks close to him as they tunnel under the tornado.

“Do we know where the Akuma is?”

“Why don’t you brainstorm?” Chat says with slight irritation, “Kinda trying to focus,”

“Sorry,” Ladybug cringes, keeping quiet for him.

“Here should be good,” Chat Noir says, turning to point his hand up and make their way back to the surface. They pop up in the eye of the tornado everything calm but wind gushing around them. Marinette throws out her yo-yo unimpeded catching the floating Akuma's legs and pulling them to the ground.

“YoU!” The Akuma lashes out at her with a fan, a slight flick, and Ladybug is blown back into the tornado.

“Chat! The fan!” Ladybug tries to pull herself back into the calm but the winds are too strong, she only prevents not being blown away by her yoyo still wrapped around the Akuma's legs.

“On it! Cataclysm repeat!” He calls on it again grabbing the fan and turning it to dust. The storm calms and Ladybug lands on her feet getting the leverage she needs to grab the butterfly and purify it.

“Bye bye little butterfly,”

“No to be the bearer of bad news,” Chat Noir half whispers to her, “But we're out of the pot and into the fire,”

Ladybug looks around to see the police starting to form a shaky barricade around them, it's easy enough to evade if the batclan wasn't blocking every viable exit.

“So police or Batman?”

“I honestly can’t deal with his high and mighty routine right now,” Ladybug sighs still chilled to the bone from the wind, “Police,”

She walks over with purpose to the man she had researched was the commissioner; Gordon. On her way she finds a spotted item lying on the side of the road. So that's where her lucky charm went. A fan, cute.

“Miraculous ladybug!” Ladybug stands before commissioner Gordon, whom she knew had to have dealings with Batman, he marvels at the repairing ladybugs until she gets his attention, “You want to talk sir?”

“You finally want to talk to me?” He asks instead, almost good naturally if tired like he was used to it. Definitely had dealings with Batman.

“If I wanted to hear get out of my city and leave this to me I would just record him,” Ladybug gets Chat to chuckle, not the commissioner but she can tell he wants to, “What did you want to talk about?”

“Your a hero unaffiliated with the Justice League or any government,” The commissioners lays out, “In other words, you're a vigilante and I don’t know if you can be trusted with Gotham's safety, Batmans been around for years he’s a vigilante but he does protect the city, so why are you here?”

“I understand your concerns sir, but unfortunately this isn’t a matter of borders or what city each hero protects, the villain hawkmoth can only be stopped by us or other miraculous users, so even if you dont approve we will continue to operate even if we have to fight the police along the way,” Ladybug says with all the confidence, hoping to also portray that she really dosent want to, “As for trust we operated in Paris for years, we have the trust to the citizens and officials, if you want a reference call the chief of police or the Mayor we have worked under the approval of both,”

“I will, thank you Ladybug,”

“No problem,” Her earring beeps, “Now if you’ll excuse us, bug out,”

They jump up, using their skills to reach the rooftops.

“Oh man I forgot about this guy,” Chat complains as Batman is right there when they land.

“Ladybug-”

“Yes leave the city, yes I’m not needed here, thank you I’ve heard it before,” Ladybug tries to just walk past him but Robin lands in her way, “You know we have to stop meeting like this, wouldn't you prefer a nice dinner date?”

Robin makes a choking sound which must be offended. Chat laughs, coming to lean on her shoulder.

“We’ve traded places bug-a-boo,”

“Heh,” She smirks at the old nickname, “bird-a-boo,”

Robin completely freezes, giving them the chance to run by, he doesn't even react, until she calls.

“Later bird-a-boo~”

It’s an interesting reaction.

---

“You seem distracted,” Marinette tells Damian, both working separately together in their study.

“I’M NOT!”

“Oh forgive me, clearly you are completely relaxed,” Marinette rolls her eyes, pinning a new design to the wall.

“Heh there must be a pretty girl in his life,” Adrien smirks from the seat he stole from her earlier.

“Why are you even here?!” Damian snaps, taking the papers Adrien was shifting through.

“You didn’t deny it~”

“Oh is there someone?” Marinette ignores the sick feeling for plastered cheerfulness, “Tell us about her,”

“It’s none of your business!” Damina snatches some more papers from the desk and storms out, blushing all the while.

“Don’t be embarrassed!” Marinette calls after him letting go of her gratefulness she didn’t have to hear about her, she says quieter, “I bet she’s super cool,”

“I’m noticing a pattern with you Marinette,” Adrien hums, her sketchbook now taking up his attention.

“Adrien I was madly in love with you for like a year and you didn’t realize so I highly doubt you can notice a thing,” Marinette takes her book from him, whacking him lightly with it.

“Right back at you bug,” Adrien tries to snatch it back from her only to get pushed back.

“Flirting doesn't count,” Marinette rolls her eyes, putting her book safely on the shelf, “No one can tell if you’re serious,”

“Is that so~” Adrien hums, “What about Robin?”

“I’m not flirting with him,” Marinette rolls her eyes, gathering up some fabric to start her next project.

“You so are ,” Adrien accuses, outraged.

“I am not!” She slams the fabric down on the desk and turns to him.

“So are,” Adrien smirks sinking back into the seat.

“I don’t even know him,” Marinette rolls her eyes again it's scary how much that's becoming second nature at this point.

“You could~”

“Adrien!”

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No tag list sorry, I’m horrible at keeping track of them :P

#miraculous #miraculous ladybug fic #miraculous ladybug #miraculous fanfic #MLB #ML #ml fic #Marinette #miraculous marinette #badass marinette #maribat #daminette

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and-the-world-is-quiet-here · 3 years

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Of stormy nights and sorrows

The night was dark and stormy. Of course all nights in Gotham were dark and stormy, but this one seemed to be particularly vengeful, pummeling the ground with strong whips of water, and throwing saplings like ragdolls. Causing chaos in homeless shelters as vagabonds scrambled for a place with walls and windows. The rain was so great that it had caused all the usual suspects to run for shelter, emptying the streets faster than black bats glare ever could - Cass was just a little jealous. But no crime meant no vigilantes, and dad would never put his kids out in a hurricane just to save some cats in trees.

“But father, you can’t be serious! Rain should be no match for a warrior of my caliber!” Cass didn’t understand the words but she could feel the insult behind them.

Jason started in too, desperate to get out of the manor “Yeah b we’ll be fine! You can’t keep us here anyway! I am a grown ass adult”

Dad grunted, his standard response for any kind of disobedience.

Turning his back to the 11 owlish eyes boring holes into his head, he went back to sorting the batarangs tutting as he did.

Then there was silence, it was long and she didn’t like it. Too long, too quiet for too long, something bad was going to happen, she could tell. She shifted uneasily on her perch, preparing to move at the first sign of trouble. She did want another argument there had been to many already.

It was oppressive.

Quiet. Quiet. Quiet. Quiet. Quiet. Quiet. Quiet. Quiet. And oh! Steph finally broke, she had been expecting it (steph may as well have been screaming her intention) but the loud noise still startled her

“Oh my god Bruce! Will you speak in sentences for once in your goddamn life!”

Bruce-dad tensed unnoticeably and she watched him with a closer eye from her nest on the banister. He prepared himself as if to give a speech, but only managed to spit out “Its cold, and nobodys out there anyway. The last thing we need is one of you getting sick.”

Silence, silence that stretched out miserably and then…. “I’m gonna go play among us, anyone want to join?”

“Oh my god Duke read the room”

“Oh shut up duke some of us are actually are actually used to not spending the night scaring the crap out of our neighbors and work 9-5 like a normal person”

Huh she thought neighbor…neghibor…“Ne-i-gh-b-or” she mouthed the word, (And what a word), neighbor she concluded must mean criminal.

In her distraction her siblings had disappeared and she shifted uneasily. She had let her walls down too far, and lost track of her family. That would need to be amended.

Now, the two loneliest residents were left to brood in silence--plus one of course, when those two were alone it was always with a hidden plus one.

Dad still leaned over the table, gripping it with both hands like his life depended on it.

He was worried, that much was obvious to anyone, It was all over his face.

But Cass knew better than to take it at face value, she examined other parts too. Everyone relied on faces too much she thought, when they really didn’t tell you that much. It was better to look at muscle; muscle, skin, and bone, they tell you the whole story.

He was worried, but it was more than that. He was….scared, his whole body screamed “PROTECT!” as if he had tooo…he had tooo… oh what was it he had to .. yes! He had to shield them! He had to shield them, his body yelled “PROTECT!” He stood like he was the last person between evil and family.

What a silly thought! He didn’t need to worry, she would always stand between evil and family.

“tt”

Dad sighed, “Father while I understand your decision to preserve the health of your soldiers, it should go without being said that I will be joining you tonight”

Dad’s nostrils flared, his arms tensed, and his feet shifted into a wider stance - a fighting stance.

Oh no, bad, bad, bad, bad. Dad…no…Batman slammed the batarang on the table, and turned to Damian,

“And why? Why is that Damian? Why do you constantly have to put yourself into danger just to prove your worth? You are not a soldier! You have never been a soldier! Your siblings are not soldiers!" Batman took a step forward pointing his finger towards Damian.

“YOU are an angry CHILD and if I was anyone else, you would be in bed by now. But I don’t make you. I LET you be robin, because I thought it would be good for you, But maybe I shouldn’t have”

Dad sighed and turned back to the table. The tension left his shoulders, and he slumped. He was more “SAD!” then angry, he was hurt and the “PROTECT!” crumbled into "Regret!", Cass looked the other way.

Dad was calming down but Damian was just getting started, he let out an angry shriek.

Flashes of a memory danced across his face, dimming his eyes,, setting his mouth, and furrowing his brow until he was a mirror of Dad,but one filled by “SAD!“ not “PROTECT!” “You underestimate me father, I am the heir to the dragon. I have already received more training then Brown ever will! I wield a sword better than Thomas can! Yet you insist on keeping these deadweights around despite their worthlessness!”

She inched closer, bad, this was bad, it was bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, ba-“SLAM!”

Dad dropped the Batarang and whirled around, murder in his eyes.

“No, no, you don’t get to speak about your siblings that way! You are not better than them! NO ONE is better than them! Stephanie could lift you over her head like you were nothing! Duke saves dozens of people everyday, no, you don’t get to speak about them that way. They earned their place here!”

Damian was scared now. He curled in on himself, radiating sadness.

“Get out!” Dad grit out in the silence

“GET OUT NOW!”

then the sound of fleeting footstep and a depressed sigh.

She came out of the shadows, she had hid long enough. She let her feet touch the ground just long enough to let it be known that she was there and left, leaving a whisper of a touch on the shoulders of her father, and a simple string of signs pressed into her fathers back

“Not mad at little brother, mad at the people who made him that way.” A sorrow comfort but a comfort nonetheless.

She bade her time and lied in wait, it would be no use to comfort him now when he was still upset. So instead she made use of her freedom, wandering the halls in search of her siblings, changing day clothes into pajamas, tinkering and going through her positions.

When at last she deemed it time, she made her way over to the vent. It lifted easily off the wall, the screws that held it there having long since been removed. Even easier though, was climbing into it, the vents were from the original part of the manor-meaning they were huge and someone as small as Cass had no trouble fitting in them. What was a struggle though, was stealth, she found after many tries that walking on the palms of her hands worked best. So that was how Cass moved, arriving steadily in a vertical shaft that required only 2 quick bounds to clear.

She landed elegantly as all ways, and nearly looked to Cain for approval before she remembered that she was not there, that she was safe. Well, as safe as you can be perched precariously on a loose rafter in a 300 year old attic.

Quietly, she padded along and picked up the sniveling mess that was Damian and made her way back to sanctuary. He would sleep through it, she had made sure of it, a journey through the vents would be bumpy and she was sure he would not want to be seen in the hallway like this.

Cass dumped him in the middle of her rug and returned back to her tinkering waiting for him to awaken.

It took twenty minutes for him to stir, and in the meantime she was treated to the sounds of war and horror sprouting from the mouth of a child.

When he finally did wake up, he was angry. “Where the hell am I Cain?”

He looked around bewilderedly before considering her; she knew he was afraid of her. She was the only fighter he had ever been taught to respect “the one who was all” A myth, a monster, a begrudged ally, but not a sister, never a sister. This was yet another thing she had to fix.<br />

She becond him forward with her hand, keeping her eyes carefully on her working hands. He approached cautiously and sat

“Cain”

“little brother”

“I am not your brother"

“and I am not a Cain” it was a stalemate neither would relent so she switched topics

“Come help”

“And why would I? I owe you nothing.” she paused

“Because you are tired, but you will fight sleep. Come little brother, help”

“tt fine”

He scooted closer, sitting barley a foot away from her now. For the first time, he looked at the diorama, and she, him. The display was sprawling, an exact replica of Wayne manor and its grounds, scaled down to size. It was placed on a low custom fit dining table, one barley the height of a Japanese tea table (similar to one Cass could remember from her childhood). The house wasn’t finished of course, that would be no fun if it was finished; and while some would say it was “good enough” (like Babs when she wanted Cass to spend her time reading or writing) she would not compromise, it had to be perfect.

“What would you like to build little brother” Damian paused and she saw fear flash across his face. Ahh so decisions scared him, she could work with that

“How about we do the menagerie”

“why?”

“Its not done and you know it best” Damian scrunched his brown frustrated at not being understood

“No why come and get me? Why build this? And if you care for it so much why let me help you?”

She turned to him, in her stupor she had neglected to look at him and she cursed herself for it. She stumbled, she had to do something, but she was lost at what to do, he needed words, she had none of those. He needed signs, she had many but it felt like not enough. So instead she settled for a hug and found she herself satisfied with it

“I love my little brother even if he does not love me, I am hurt and he is hurting so we will hurt together.” She paused and took a steadying silent breath, closing her eyes, and retreating back into herself.

“I came here, and the world was big and loud. Too much too quickly. I was expected to talk to understand the way they communicate. Their language. But no one tried to understand mine. I know bodies not words. You came here and you knew words, but you did not know bodies. No one acknowledged that. You struggle, you have no Babs, so I will be your Babs.”

They were crying now. His body was racked with sobs, and he was taking deep shuddering breaths, giving in he fell into another hug, crying loudly into her shoulder.

He cried for his mother, he cried for the sister and cousin he lost, he cried for the pain he caused his new family, the hatred they felt towards him, and the pain he felt, most of all he cried for the world he had lost and his place in it.

When he finally stopped, he was empty, a husk of the great Al Ghul heir remained, sniveling in the arms of a bastard child. He had been fractured, chipped away at every day, until even the pieces he held most dear fell away leaving a sad small child.

Finally she broke the silence holding his face in between his hands “When my world was too big, I made it small, and that way my monsters seemed smaller. They all have ways of dealing with their monsters, they lock them in caves and they lock them in their hearts. It doesn’t work. Don’t do it. Little brother, we must instead find a way to make your world small”

#cass cain #damian wayne #bruce wayne #cass-centric #cass cain-centric #fanfic #damian has a heart #cass uses asl #asl #this is the hill im dying on #making her fluent in spoken language by the second comic is dumb and undermines her disabilities and character growth #and when given the choice in the comics cass chose to undo the mind vodo and go back to her native language #dc your abelism is showing #also bruce isnt a bad dad he just feels overly protective of the family #and he is bad at emotions TM #bat fam #batdad

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