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igotanidea · 7 months

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Crawl back to you: Jason Todd x reader

Summary: Mexican!reader celebrating dia de los muertos, going throught the process of grieving after Jason's dead and her process of getting better through the years with a little plot twist at the end.

Thank you @thefandomdiaries07 - I played with the idea somewhat, hope you'll like it.

Disclaimer: this is not, in any way, a hate on religious belief, the reader's attitude just fit in the plot. (no offence to anyone meant here, truly)

***

Dia de los muertos.

Day of the Dead.

Despite her origin and upbringing Y/N never really felt connected to this celebration.

Remembering people who died and who she was too young to remember in the first place felt just … weird.

Of course, her mother, aunts and grandmothers got her involved in preparing the ofrenda and preached her about the importance of preparation for the souls’ arrivals but she always did it only half-heartedly, putting on a fake smile and pretending to enjoy the festivities.

But deep down she felt like a freaking hypocrite, while in fact not feeling anything.

And when her family moved to Gotham, out of all places, it got even worse. Poor girl felt conflicted, unaccepted, unsure of who she was and dealing with identity crisis, going as far as renouncing her ancestry to fit in the crowd. She was a teenager what else could you have expected.

Anyhow.

A few months passed and she got used to that god forsaken, lawless hole, keeping herself a bit away from her family, even if technically she was still living the same house. But with her struggles with ethnicity and traditions, she was a bit of a black sheep of the family, having not many true friends and spending most of the time alone,

recklessly wondering alongside the streets, pretending to be a freaking globetrotter.

And that was how one day she got involved with the batfamily, starting from being saved from an assault, by the Batman sidekick, Robin.

Jason Todd.

Whose name she learnt a few weeks later, having lost all the hope to see that red, green and yellow bird boy ever again.

However, surprisingly, those two clicked fast enough and even though they were technically still young teenagers something bigger than friendship started creeping in.

He kissed her for the first time when they were 15.

And it was magical, romantic and send her into a spiral of love and dreams and worries and thoughts about future.

It was pretty much prefect for a whole year, as they somehow managed to make it work despite being forced to keep their relationship a secret from both families.

Imagine the panic that would spread in her family if they knew she was in love with a vigilante.

Imagine the panic that would spread in his family if they knew he told his identity to a girl he fell for.

That was obviously a no go.

So they kept on meeting in secret.

Almost every night she sneaked out of the house to check out on him after patrol and he was escaping Batman’s watchful gaze to have at least a few hours together alone with .

But one night changed everything.

He went to search for his biological mother.

And she should have stopped him or tell him how reckless he was being or do anything to dissuade him from this idea. Instead she laid her head on his shoulder, holding onto him tighter, kissing his lips briefly and making him promise he’d report to her the second he gets back.

A promise he never kept.

***

“Hello? Who’s this?” she picked up her phone, blissfully unaware of the news that was about to fall upon her.

“Hey… um… is this Y/N?” an unrecognisable male voice reverberated on the other side

“Yes” she frowned “Who is this?” the girl asked again.

“My name’s Dick Grayson. I’m Jason’s older adoptive brother. We’ve never met but… I know you two were close…”

Wait. Did he just say were close?

“What – what happened…?”

The receiver fell from her hand, tears flooded her face and her heart broke in half.

***

His funeral was probably the worst day of her life, even though she couldn’t remember much more than the see of blackness, plenty of people she knew from Jason’s stories but saw for the first time and some meaningless words of consolations.

***

YEAR ONE

It had been eight months since his death and she was still grieving, unsure if the pain in her chest would ever subside or the tears would ever dry.

In that short time, she had become very close to Jason's brother, Dick, who was the perfect definition of an eldest child and had sort of taken her under his wing (pun intended). After everything with Jason and everything in between, she couldn't and didn't want to stay in Gotham, a place that was a painful reminder of the past.

Y/N took a different route every time she came across the places where they hung out or where they first kissed and where they secretly met at night and considering the fact that Gotham wasn't that big, it was slowly becoming impossible to move. And going to school and seeing couples and happy people was like a shot to the heart, making her a walking fountain almost every school break.

She felt a sudden need to get away from everything and moved to Bludhaven, where she started a new school and where Dick made sure she was safe and (as much as possible, meaning not much at all) happy.

It was October and dia de los muertos was right around the corner, of which her family was kind enough to inform her, inviting the girl to the family celebrations, and mentioning the resulting obligations of the living.

Making her angry at first.

Angry and with the sense of unfairness and stupidity of life. You’re there one second, enjoying the presence of the loved ones, and then, in another second you are just gone and it’s like you never really existed.

What was the point of life, apart from constant suffering and uncertainty of tomorrow?

This whole celebration freaking sucked, and she was not going to celebrate the death, having loved and lost the most important person in her young life!

But…

Once she got herself into that spiral of thinking, Y/N slowly started feeling something more than annoyance at her nation’s cultural habits, overwhelming depression and lack of any motivation to move on. Maybe…

It was the first time she had someone she knew to remember. And to hope that maybe, on this special day, his soul were walking amongst the living and watching her from the other side even if she could not do the same.

Maybe…

And if he was, maybe it was her only chance to somehow communicate with him, tell him all the words she kept hidden in her soul, that never found a way out. Perhaps from the silent beating of her heart he would feel the love that was still there, the longing, the needing and the fact that despite being gone, he wasn’t and would never be forgotten by her.

Her eyes grew wide and she jumped off the bed, gathering all the necessities and beginning her work.

***

“Y/N?” Punctual as always Dick entered the apartment, carrying the box with her favourite takeout. It was their Thursday tradition to have some good food and hang out together and he was not going to be a breaker. But he definitely did not expect to see his friend kneeling on the floor in front of something that looked like a tiny stairs, painted in red, green and yellow ending with an arch. It was decorated with something he recognised as salt, candles, water and marigold flowers. And the whole apartment smelled like lavender for some reason. “Y/N? What are you doing?” he put the food on the table, seriously concerned by her mental state.

“Oh!” she almost jumped at the sound of his voice, turning around to face him. “Hey, Dick. It’s just a little celebration.”

“Of what?” he frowned, not understanding a thing. “What is this?”

“ofrenda” she explained, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, but his confused gaze made her realise that maybe not everyone were familiar with the festivity. “an offering.”

“An offering? Of what? To who? And why?”

Y/N almost rolled her eyes.

“I thought Bruce made you go the private school. Don’t you know anything about dia de los muertos?”

“I thought you were done with your national customs?”

“I was…” she sighed deeply reaching for the picture she was about to hang in her little altar. Jason, smiling, happy at some point back in time, that was never supposed to go back. She took the photo at one of their walks in the park in the autumn, with the sun shining and colourful leaves falling down from the trees. “but things have changed…” Y/N whispered, caressing Jason’s cheek on the photo, her eyes still shining with love and affection, but also tinged with sadness. “I miss him…”

“I know, Y/N. I miss that little prick too.”

“Yeah, he was a prick, wasn’t he? And an asshole, sometimes.” She chuckles as Dick sat on the floor next to her. “I bet if he’s around he’s annoyed at us bad-mouthing him.”

“If he’s around?”

“Yeah, the whole point of this day is that the souls come back to earth to visit us.”

“so it’s basically something like Halloween.”

“ more or less so. But cut the haunting part.” She smiled a little “We can’t see the deceased but we can feel them…”

“do you?”

“do I what?” Y/N frowned at his question. “Do I feel him?”

“Yeah. Sorry if it’s too soon or too bold thing to say, Y/N…”

“It’s not. It’s okay. I can’t exactly feel him, but it doesn’t mean he’s not here. We both agreed he was a prick sometimes, maybe he’s just hiding from me. Just to tease me. But that won’t stop me from calling upon him even from beyond the grave.”

She stood up and put the picture at the top stairs.

“Hey Todd, if you’re somewhere there, I’m not gonna go easy on you. See you next year, you little asshole.”

YEAR TWO

“Hey, Y/N, I dropped by decorating store and bought some things for your ofrenda this year, wanna take a look at them?”

YEAR THREE

You know, Dick, I’m not sure if Jason would appreciate us using the cape here….

“Your limiting my imagination….”

“I don’t care. I’m in charge. Remove it, now”

YEAR FOUR

Did you make the ofrenda without me, Grayson!?

YEAR FIVE

No way in hell she was going to let Dick take charge this year. For the past four of them he was growing more and more fond of the day of the dead, starting from assisting and doing shopping ending on going behind her back in finalising his own crazy concept. And finally, the tide had changed and Y/N had to put her foot down.

“What do you mean you want me to leave?!” Dick cried out the second she told him what punishment she chose for him “Y/N! Why?! It’s so unfair, I – “

“You hijacked my preparations last year. And two years ago. And to tell the truth, three years ago as well!”

“I didn’t – ok, fine…” he raised his hands in surrender “but you can’t blame me for that! It’s really fu-“ he stopped in the middle of the sentence.

“You wanted to say funny, didn’t you?” Y/N raised an eyebrow and Dick blushed a little. Maybe it was a bit inappropriate and unfortunate word to use.

“NO! No I wanted to say… um…” Dick was desperately searching for more accurate wording, also starting with fu, but obviously the alternatives were even worse.

“See that’s the whole point. You kind of missing the message of the day. Yes, sure, it’s supposed to be fun way to honour the dead and tame death in some way, but still it’s also supposed to be at least a little bit of an opportunity to stop for a second and think about things and people. I really appreciate your positive attitude and it’s not like I’m kicking you out, but...”

“but you do.” Dick smirked and nodded with understanding.

“I just feel like I need to be alone for a while, ok? It’s been five years and at his point I feel like I sometimes need to focus to even remember his face without a photo. It’s all becoming a blur, lost in the joy and amusement. And I don’t want that. I want to remember.”

“Is that why you never gave any boy any chance to –“ he cut out again without really thinking what he was saying.

“Grayson… “ she trailed warningly.

“I’m out! I’m out! Don’t hit me!” he rushed towards the exit. “Just call me when it will be safe to come back, ok?”

“Got it. Now get out!” she chuckled, closing and locking the door behind her friend.

Every little word she said was true.

She wanted to remember.

She had to remember.

It was the only way to fill that little dent in her heart, that Jason left when he died. She couldn’t just let go of him, even though Dick was probably right, and after so many years she should have moved on. But both her heart and her soul refused to do so.

Maybe you only get one chance to meet your soulmate and Y/N was close to sure that Jason has been hers.

”It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all" she whispered the quote to herself while reaching for Jason’s photo she chose for this year’s decoration, turning them over in her hands for a while, looking at the face of a 15 year old she used to know “I wonder what you would look like now. Bet you’d be even more handsome and all the girls would be jealous I got such a catch.” She laughed a little “Hope you don’t hear me now, cause god damn, that would be such an ego booster for you.”

“You don’t look so bad yourself.” The sudden male voice coming from behind her made her jump (almost the mirror situation to the one that occurred five years ago when Dick found her preparing the ofrenda). But this time it was not Dick standing in her apartment.

“What the actual fuck!?” she yelled taking a fighting stance she learned from Grayson, knowing it would not help her at all due to the shaking of her body at the view in front of her.

“Handsome, huh?” Jason Todd in the flesh, absolutely not dead, brushed some unruly hair from his forehead, looking at her with a playful expression

“¡Estas muerto! ¡Eres un fantasma! ¡¿Qué está pasando?! Cómo –?“ as usual when she got nervous she started using Spanish. (you’re dead! You’re a ghost! What’s going on?! How-?)

“Baby…” Jason took a step forward, hesitantly. “Baby…” he opened his arms “I;m not dead, I swear to you. I-“

She cut him off by diving into his embrace, holding him tightly, wanting to make sure that he wasn’t just a friction of her imagination and needing to feel his warmth, the beating of his heart and his breathing.

“You’re really here!” she cried out, tears falling down her cheeks like a waterfall when she nuzzled into his chest. Honestly, she didn’t need any explanation, at least not at this point. She only wanted him close, afraid that if she let go for as much as a second he would disappear again. “Swear to me this is not a dream…” she muttered, against his shirt. “Swear to me.” Her entire body shook from the shock, she felt so small in his arms, but also safe as never before. It was like after five long years she got home again, that this missing part of her heart was found, and immediately jumped into the place reserved solely for him, unrepleacable. She was whole again and that was what count.

“Baby…. Oh, my sweet girl…” Jason wrapped his arms around her, caressing her back and hair, pulling her even closer, wanting to comfort her, to give her all that love and peace she was deprived of for what felt like ages. “I’m really here. I’m here. My baby… I’m back to you.” He whispered, closing his eyes, feeling equally, if not more emotional than her. He’s been through hell but the only though that made him keep on going was her. His angel. His joy. His only source of light in the eternal darkness that seemed to surround and swallow him. His grip on her tightened and he hoped to convey all these unspoken words to her through hugs and caresses and the gentle brushing of his lips against her temples.

“I love you…” she sobbed desperately, blurting out the only thing that was on her mind at the moment. “I missed you and I love you and –“

“I know baby. I love you too. And I promise you, you’ll never have to worry about hanging my picture in your altar ever again. Ever. I’ll crawl back to you every time and not even death can stop me from being with you. ”

And they just stood there, next to something that was supposed be an tribute to not-so-dead Jason Todd, holding and hugging each other tightly, creating the little bubble only for them two and being so very happy cutting out the entire world and reality, lost in daydream that happened to be the upcoming future for two people that have loved, have lost, and luckily, have found a way back to each other.

Talking could wait.

Silence, in the company of the only person that mattered, came first.

#jason todd x reader #red hood x reader #jason todd x y/n #red hood x y/n #jason todd x you #red hood x you #jason todd angst #jason todd fluff #red hood angst #red hood fluff #dick grayson x reader

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hijinxinprogress · 7 months

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YouTuber!Stephanie

Stephanie has a youtube channel (she 100% gives it a name like gotham_after_dark or bat_interpreter) where she follows Batman and mocks him, she definitely also makes content on tiktok and instagram

She’s recording fights with rogues and him interrogating questioning people and doing voice overs in a goofiest growl she can for batman but she also does voices for everyone else (it gets to the point where penguin puts a hit out and is actively trying to expose the youtubers identity bc steph does this terrible whiny british accent when she’s imitating penguin)

She starts her channel right after Bruce fires her from Robin and still does it to this day

Bc if she’s gonna get shit for not being Tim might as well go all the way right?? She’s just doing the opposite of what Tim’s doing or outright copying him depending on which would annoy them the most

Stephanie records batman dangling some guy off a roof for the 37th time this week while going “You said the cheese on the nachos at your restaurant was imported directly from Italy but I saw you…THIS CHEESE IS FROM A GROCERY STORE…in GOTHAM… do you know what batman does to liars??”

Batman’s chasing the joker? Again? Here comes Stephanie with her fucking camera “Joker baby, you know that fight with Cobblepot meant nothing to me” “You know what, Bats? Fight whoever you want!” “Why are you going to Cobblepot’s lair with a grenade launcher? Baby…?” “Well, if the wellbeing of fucking Oswald is sooo important to you, you fucking cheater ☹️ I’m gonna kill him” “HUH” Stephanie’s joker voice is pretty good but she stops when Jason follows her channel after admitting he watches it (however Damian gives zero fucks and edits in his scarily accurate joker impression and will break into Jason’s apartment at random to do his joker impression)

Stephanie’s Duke impression is just her making puns in a bad robot voice and Duke hates it sm bc she’s saying shit like “Don’t signal for backup bc I’m already Signal-ing this ass whooping” “The yellow is the Signal for you to run” “Hey hey hey, night time is when you do this stupid shit rn is Signal Time” “The sun is my Signal to be vigilant-y” “Setting off that alarm should’ve been enough of a Signal for you stop” (Dick made tshirts and Duke refuses to talk to him when he wears them)

You legally have to be a level 79 hater to be a vigilante in gotham so most of Steph’s videos esp after Bruce has pissed her off are just her shitting on batman in a terrible growl “Damn, I’m getting too old for this…my knees hurt so much” “Nightwing thinks he’s funny, asking me if I remember the dust bowl…mf I remember the fucking big bang” “I’m so good at this, I don’t think anyone knows I’m a vampire” “Bruce Wayne owns gotham general and can’t cure Alzheimer’s?? I hate that asshole, I don’t even remember where tf I’m going” “I wanted to be Spider-Man and now I’m this” “Ooh, I’m Batman and I hate fun, happiness, and joy” “Don’t do crime, be like me…perpetually bitchless and breaking kneecaps” “Some people need coffee for a pick me up but I just need to see a purse snatcher piss their pants” “I don’t actually meld into the shadows, I just have Apple Maps and it takes me the long way”

Batman’s fighting or arguing with black mask? Stephanie has been waiting for this moment so every video with black mask is just her making fun of black mask to the point where there’s barely any batman slander “My real names fucking Roman so I had to go all out with this stupid ass costume…I’m not even a real gothamite, I’m from metropolis” “Sionis…I don’t care… you blew up thirteen hostages” “ITS NOT MY FAULT, OKAY?! Did you know you’re supposed to wash masks? Especially if you wear the same one everyday? Bc I fucking didn’t” “…Sionis…” “THERES MOLD ON MY FACE and this mask smells like ASS” “Everyone knows that, you moron…How do you think I found you? I can smell your stench from damn near two miles away…” “I’m like scary though right??” “No, Sionis, you just have poor hygiene…and issues” “Dammit, I’m like a dollar tree version of two face” “Not quite, what’s lower than that? Dollar tree is too good for you…don’t tell joker but Harvey’s way-”

Stephanie has a two hour video of batman grappling across Gotham just shitting on metropolis and sixty seven minutes of it is just Superman slander in a terrible growl

There’s short clips of cass suddenly disappearing or appearing out of nowhere before and after dismantling someone with the michael myers theme playing in the background (Cass does dramatic flips and landings every time steph records her)

When Bruce complains about the threat to their identities and compromising ongoing missions/investigations, Stephanie (who is purposely trying to piss him off) just looks him dead in eye and goes “Well, you’re not the boss of me sooo” so Tim gives a presentation and shuts down every single argument Bruce makes just to be contrary bc he’s a fucking asshole

Tim only has a problem with it when Stephanie and Damian start working together bc Damian does concerningly accurate impressions and Damian keeps making Tim sound like a fucking idiot and it’s worse bc he can mimic his speech patterns (“I can’t do this anymore… I’m sad and pasty… Call the fifth robin, you know…the only competent robin…”)

Like Damian’s repeating one of Tim’s caffeine concoction induced rants about bagels in Tim’s voice while Steph is growling at him to focus in her batman impression

When Tim brings his complaints to Bruce about Stephanie’s youtube account, Bruce cites Tim’s own argument back to him so Tim takes over editing and recording to be an asshole

#stephanie brown #spoiler dc #bruce wayne #batman #tim drake #damian wayne #duke thomas #jason todd #dick grayson #cassandra cain #dc gotham #dcu #youtuber!stephanie brown #Damian stands at the end of Jason’s bed at 3am and just does the joker laugh for no fucking reason #Damian is 100% responsible for Jason’s mental health decline #Steph does an accurate british accent but it’s still whiny bc Alfred gave her the ‘I’m not mad I’m just disappointed’ look #Stephanie’s yt channel actually makes it easier to keep their identities secret bc she uses every batman theory in her videos #Stephanie 🤝🏾 Damian: psychological warfare on their friends and family #They probably think they’re just being mildly annoying but in actuality they’ve caused 67 mental breakdowns a week

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toomanyfandoms11 · 30 days

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Background on the Tim hiring Deathstroke thing in this https://www.tumblr.com/toomanyfandoms11/749474013724721152/toomanyfandoms

In my little universe that I like to maladaptive daydream in basically, Janet Drake, Slade Wilson, and Wade Wilson are all siblings.

Janet is the oldest child, and thefore according to family tradition the only child that cannot legally be linked to any crime (plz ask me about the Drake family lore. Also, Jack was the one killed by Captain Boomerang ), Slade and Wade are twins, (their father had a sense of humor and their mother was too out of it to complain.)

, and bear the title of murder uncles. Getting to the Joker bit: when Jason was being killed by the Joker, Tim was on a “family holiday”(training trip) to upstate New York (X-Mansion, most of the X-Men were too afraid to ask about the 10 year old that followed Deadpool around except for Wolverine, who taught him how to skin a moose, and Madelyne Pryor for some reason) and as a result did not learn about his death until about a month or so after it happened. When Tim learned about his death he decided to wait a bit for Batman to settle down, thinking that he just needed to get the anger stage of grief out of the way and then he would go to therapy like a normal person. Tim was the sort of kid that would read the picture books about getting over grief when he was waiting in the doctors office. Unfortunately, there were no picture books about superhero phycology. After about few months, Batman showing no signs of stopping and expressing his grief like a normal person, Nightwing finding out about Jason’s death through a newspaper tabloid and the two of them having an argument on top of the Gcpd station that was live-streamed by anyone with a phone and became headline news for a week, Tim decided to take matters into his own hands and hire his current favorite uncle (Wade had recently given him a pair of socks as a gift instead of the forensics book he wanted) and ask him politely (blackmail him with the time Slade had given him coffee while babysitting) to kill the Joker, “Pretty please Uncle Slade? I’ll make you cookies!” Slade accepted this offer and went (with no small amount of glee/relief) to finally put a bullet through that waste of carbon’s skull. But, alas, Paul Verlaine (King of Assassins, Executive in the Port Mafia, Ex-Titans member and former boyfriend of Nightwing) got there first. After this, Tim’s story goes the route you would expect (with a twist~). After one too many times of Batman putting criminals in the ICU instead of talking to a therapist, Tim decides enough is enough and goes to Nightwings apartment in Bludhaven to ask him to arrange an intervention for Batman with the Justice League, or he will release Batman and Nightwings identity’s to the public. Dick Grayson, after hearing this, dose not go “This seems like Bruce’s problem” and drop him off at the Batcave. He instead goes “who’s sassy lost child is this”, has the Bat-adoption gene arise for the first time, and decides that he will adopt this child who ran around Gotham alone stalking Batman and Robin, or die trying. Janet, after talking with the man who drove her child back from Bludhaven at 4:30 am, is slightly leaning towards the second option, but she knows that A. Jack is a terrible father, and while she tries her best, she is also not winning mom of the year anytime soon and B. Shared custody is a thing. And so, after 3 sword fights (one for each Drake-Wilson sibling), 5 panicked calls to Alfred about “Holy frick I’m turning into Bruce”, many late nights studying “how do I parent a 10 year old”, 1 realization of “holy **** I really do want to be a parent”, and a very well paid lawyer ( Matt Murdock), Dick Grayson becomes the legal parent of a one Timothy Drake, with the media explanation (that is true, but deleteing the superhero parts) being that Janet and Jack realized that they could not be the parents the Tim deserved to have, and that Dick Grayson could. (They got alternating weekends and cultural holidays (Jack is Chinese). After a month or so, Dick takes Tim to meet Bruce (Dick did the intervention thing, it took the combined forces of Superman, Wonder Woman, Black Canary, Alfred, and Catwoman to get him to go to therapy.) and in the meeting Tim cheerfully reveals that A. He had figured out Batman and Robins secret identities when he was 9 (He went to a gala that the Wayne’s were at, and Dick did a quadruple somersault off of a chandelier that Tim remembered Nightwing doing) and B. He once hacked into Shield on accident when he was looking for a website that had a show he liked on it

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havendance · 11 months

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Robin III: Cry of the Huntsman

Right now, I am in the middle of both of my major wips and they’re both long and feel like they’re going on forever, so here is something fun and quick and wrote in between for the Helena Dick Roleswap AU. Enjoy.

—

Mob creeps were all the same, Dick thought. Didn’t matter whether they were Italian like Zucco had been or Russian like this latest set. They still chewed up all the innocent lives around them to make their profit. The Russians had killed a father for resisting, and then his daughter for witnessing. For them, it was just part of their twisted game. The least Dick could do was ruin it for them.

His shift at the bar came to an end and he walked back to his place, planning his next move. The presence of KGBeast complicated things.

There was a lamp on when he entered his apartment. Dick knew that it had been off when he’d left.

“Who’s there?” he called, reaching for the escrima he kept stashed near the door.

“It’s just me.”

Dick turned the corner to see that Robin was sitting in his armchair, fingers steepled in front of his face. He relaxed marginally. “What are you doing here?”

“You agreed to team up on this,” Robin pointed out.

“Yes, but that wasn’t an invitation to show up at my apartment. How’d you even know where I live anyway?” And, the more important question, since Dick wasn’t the Huntsman right now. “How did you know who I am?”

“I figured it out. It wasn’t that hard.”

All the effort Dick had put into keeping his identities separate, well the costume and mask at least, and the kid says it wasn’t that hard. It was honestly a little insulting. He sighed. “Mind elaborating?”

Robin suddenly looked shifty. “It’s not important.”

“Considering it’s my secret identity, I think it is.”

“Look, I’m sorry about breaking in. Next time I’ll just meet up with you somewhere else.”

“Robin.”

The kid had stopped his little steepled fingers thing and had started fidgeting with his cape instead. He wouldn’t meet Dick’s eye. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said softly, almost a whisper.

That threw Dick for a loop. “What do you mean?”

“It’s just— I really don’t think you need to know.”

Don’t snap at the kid. You don’t want to scare him off. “I kind of think it’d hurt me more not knowing what holes in my security I’ve got.”

Robin kept fiddling with his cape. He looked up at Dick and then back down again quickly. Dick waited. Finally, the kid said: “Last night, that flip you did. There’s only ever four people who ever managed to pull off.” Dick felt himself freeze. The quad. He hadn’t thought about it, had needed the extra power. Robin kept talking. “Of those, two of them are dead and another’s in Russia.” He gave a little shrug. “Process of elimination.”

Dick remembered to breathe. “You’ve got pretty good eyes to catch that. What if it’d been a triple and you guessed wrong?”

Another pause. This time, when Robin spoke, he sounded almost apologetic. “My parents used to take me to the circus every year, when it was in Gotham. I know what it looks like.”

Oh. “Then, were you…?” It had been nearly three years ago now since Haley’s had last come to Gotham.

Robin looked away again. “I’m sorry.”

That was a yes then. This kid who’s name Dick didn’t even know had been there on one of the worst nights of his life. The one that he could never forget. The one that haunted his nightmares. Judging by the look on the kids face he didn’t have any problems remembering either. He suddenly looked very young. And hell, it had been nearly three years ago. “How old even were you?”

Robin bristled. “I wasn’t a baby. Look, don’t we have mobsters to take down?”

Right. The reason Robin was even here in the first place. Well it wasn’t like Dick wanted to talk about this topic any more either. He let the subject drop. “I’ve got a few leads,” he said. “Give me a minute ti suit up and we can head out.”

“I’ve got a couple too,” Robin said.

“Sounds like we’ve got our work cut out for us.” Dick shook off memories of the past as he walked into his room. He didn’t need any more ghosts haunting him tonight when he’d need his focus. Zucco was dead. He’s made sure of that. His parents could rest knowing that Justice had been done. With any luck, he’d be able to ensure the same for the family the Russians had killed. It was time for the Huntsman to work.

#tim drake #helena dick roleswap au #my fic #havendance writes #I also have something for a lonely place of dying but that still needs to be transferred to my computer #carthago delenda est #dc #bats + birds + affiliated #dick grayson #last of the flying graysons

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dc-sideblog · 24 days

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I'm starting WIP Saturdays because that's more manageable for me than WIP Wednesdays. Send an ask and I'll post a snippet

Cryptid Bats

“Stop,” Wonder Woman said. She unhooked her lasso from the clip at her waist. Set it on the conference table. “There is a simple enough answer to this.” “I wouldn’t lie to you.” “Bruce.” Diana took his hands in her own. “I am concerned that you are lying to yourself. You are a rational man. I think you know, perhaps just subconsciously, what is really the truth.” Bruce stared at her. Diana didn’t blink. He unlatched his gauntlet. “This will prove only that I know my own mind.” He wound the rope around his fist. “I am… not human. Anymore.” Oliver wasn’t the only one who swore, then.

Cass and Jason are Twins

“You look just like my brother,” what a fucking prick. No Jason the fuck did not. It’s been four years since Dick last saw him, and during that time, Jason went through puberty, injected a shitton of testosterone into his veins, got dunked in a Lazarus Pit, and started killing people. He grew over a foot taller, put on more than a hundred pounds of mostly muscle, and has war in his eyes now. Even his hair and eyes are different. Dick deserved for Jason to have said worse, honestly. At least he had the good sense not to say that Cass looked just like his dead little brother, true though it may be. “So how do you two know each other, anyway?” Jason asked, just to force Dick to come up with a cover story on the spot. Fuck that guy.

Deaged Batkids

“Wait, no,” Dick said. “We can continue the meeting. I don’t want to delay anything important.” “Robin, that’s kind of you, but this is serious,” Vixen said. “I can handle peace negotiations! I’ve been a vigilante for four years.” “Your people employ child soldiers?” another well-dressed alien asked. “No! No, of course not. Robin here is a… child hero,” the Flash said. “it’s different.” “Very different,” a man with a scruff and scaled armor said. He looked… a bit like Garth. But Garth was twelve. Not… twenty-five? He was also, um. Pretty. Handsome? Garth grew up well and Dick thought his face might be hot.

Blood Drinking Dead on Main

Her interview was conducted with Superman, Batman, and an HR rep.

“So, Dr. Fenton, Arsenal tells me you have experience with ethics in heroism?” Ms. Hofbauer asked dubiously. “Yes, that’s correct. I provided psychological support and mentoring to the young heroes of Amity Park for two years.” “Which young heroes?” Ms. Hofbauer asked. “Phantom and Red Huntress.” She nodded. “How exactly did you support them?” “I offered counseling and advice on problem solving and stress management. I was a sounding board for the issues that came up in their heroic and personal lives. I also subbed in as a supportive fighter on occasion.” “How do you know Phantom?” Batman asked. “I’m sorry, I’m afraid that’s confidential. I will be respecting Phantom and Red Huntress’s privacy as much as possible here. I’m sure you understand; having a secret identity yourself.”

#dc #wip wednesday #using the tag anyway #✍🏻

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airasilver · 1 year

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'Heart of Glass, Mind of Stone' by LylaRivers:

Here's the link to the first story and then go from there. You won't regret it.

I love this so i wrote a lot.

Under the read more because I know it's long.

It's so long and while I know most wouldn't have minded, hopefully, the replies following each other I didn't know how much AO3 would letr do. I think they are all in order but I had them in notes until I put them here so I'm not promising.

I love the way Tim just follows them and then decided to talk to Jason.

Tim doesn't even know how much he saved Jason and the family in general just by doing so. I'm so happy he met his brother and dad, even if he's scared, because yes, it got them looking for him and hopefully it'll bring him home faster.

^ Tim just wishes there wasn’t a massive secret hanging over their heads. He wants to tell the older boy that he knows about Robin- that Jason is a hero, that Tim has admired him from afar for years.

He can’t, though. He doesn’t want Batman to try to put a stop to his nightly outings for good. Moreover, he doesn’t know what exactly Batman will do to him for figuring out the secret. ^

Jason will be flustered and then happy to know he's one of your favorite heroes. Take you into the family. That's what Bruce will do.

^ Ooops. Tim did not mean to reveal that. “They’re on a business trip. They’ll be back in a few days.”

It’s one of the first true lies he’s told Jason. The lie sits heavy in his stomach, curdling the joy of being invited over to simply hang out.^

Tim, baby, you are going to need a lot of hugs and love. I'm prescribing your oldest brother's hugs. The others will help hug you but not as much as Dick. Love, you'll get from everyone. You're also going to find that it'll be coming back to bite you.

^ “I’ll let our housekeeper Ms. Mac know, since she watches me when my parents are out of town, but she should be fine with it,” Tim says. Another lie, this one tinged with truth, but still factually incorrect. Ms. Mac watches the house. He just happens to be in the house some of the time. ^

Yeah, you're good at this but I hope it'll clear up soon.

^ “Dick?” Tim asks. He’s pretty sure Jason is referring to Richard Grayson, the first Robin, but he probably shouldn’t know that.

“Yeah, my older brother. I cannot believe that any sane human would decide to use the nickname Dick for Richard. Like, seriously? There’s about a million jokes just built in, and you can’t counteract any of them, ‘cause you chose to call yourself after a literal penis. Rich and Rick were right there ,” Jason grouses.

��Richard seems kind of formal,” Tim says. “I know that I hate being called Timothy. It’s what my parents call me when I’m in trouble.”

“Oh, the power of the full name,” Jason agrees wisely. “I have never seen someone drop out of the air so quickly as when B pulls out the ‘Richard John Grayson Wayne’ when Dick is about to break something by flipping on top of it.”

“What’s it like to have a brother?” Tim asks.

“It’s mostly like being an only child, since Dick is older and we didn’t grow up together,” Jason explains. “B actually adopted me after Dick moved out. He comes by on weekends and we go out for ice cream or to the movies or whatever. He has an absolutely endless supply of terrible nicknames, which I suppose I should have expected, since he literally goes by Dick .” ^

I can't not think of him as anything but Dick. Rick, just makes me shudder and Rich would do the same. Just wait...you'll be getting full named soon if you haven't already, Jason.

^ Nightwing is the whole reason Tim was able to figure out the identity of all of the Bats. ^

I love how every story that brings Tim in differently has something like this in it.

^ “It’s one of my earliest memories. I have a picture somewhere, of us. Me, and my parents, and the Flying Graysons.”

Jason bites his lip. “Dick doesn’t have many pictures of his parents. I don’t think they really had time to take family photos in the circus. Certainly they didn’t have a place to keep many photos.”

“Do… do you think Dick would like to see it?”

“Probably. Like I said, I don’t think he was able to keep much from the circus."^

This makes me smile because Tim gives Dick back his parents in a way. With technology they should be able to do the picture of the three of the them...though I don't know how they take Tim out if Dick was holding him.

I love how Jason just casually mentions kidnapping his baby brother. Who’s freaking a bit because he did.

^ But Tim knows better than anyone how anything can be armor to shield a completely different personality with enough practice. His parents wear politeness and impeccable manners as a shield for the multitude of problems at home. Brucie Wayne is a shield for Batman- and possibly for the true Bruce Wayne, as well.

What is Dick’s sparkling exterior a shield for?

Tim is stabbed by a sudden shot of fear. “I don’t know where the picture is,” he whispers.

Jason turns around in the front seat. “Don’t worry about it, Tim.” He might as well have told Tim not to breathe. But he also doesn’t have time to give in to the worry, because Alfred pulls into the driveway at Wayne Manor. ^

His anger. When he lets it out. Don’t worry Tim, you’ll be able to give it to Dick, let him see it later on.

Tim, you'll be lucky to leave Dick's arms...I'm exaggerating but nope, you won't be able to sneak around.

^ Tim crawls out of the car seat, carrying both backpacks. “Hi,” he says. “I’m Tim Drake. It’s nice to meet you.” Again. ^

Okay but this is making me think of Tim in a literal car seat.

^ Dick gasps, and covers Tim’s ears dramatically. “Jay, how could you use such language?”

Tim ducks away. The skin on his ears feels warm and tingly where Dick’s hands were. “I’ve heard worse,” Tim says.^

Get used to it Tim, you’re the baby brother and you’ll be having this done a lot.

^ Tim doesn’t like missing information. Knowledge is power, and Tim needs more of it. ^

We sure Tim is Jack’s son? Because this is totally Bruce.

^ “I’m hurt! I’m wounded! My only brother, declaring me an asshole? What did I ever do to deserve this?” Dick asks, pressing a hand to his forehead.^

For now Dick, for now he’s tor only brother.

^ He can’t remember the last time he had a homemade cookie. If ever.^

You’ll soon have as many as you want Tim….hopefully soon.

^ “Yeah,” Tim lies. Being a bother is a much easier excuse than ‘I’m afraid you’re going to lock me up forever for knowing your secret’.

“Allow me to dispute this, Master Tim. You have been remarkably helpful with Master Jason’s infirmity, and with minimal prior friendship as reason for the help. You are one of the first friends that Master Jason has been motivated to bring home, infirmity or no. You are, in fact, the exact opposite of a bother.”^

Alfred would know. He knows everything.

^ “Bold of you to assume we’re capable of acting normally,” Dick says brightly. He launches himself into a front handspring, and leaps at Bruce. Bruce catches him, and backs away from the table.^

Bruce will always catch his kids if he's near them and they leap at him. Always.

^ “Could be worse,” Dick offers. Jason raises his eyebrows. “You could be dead,” Dick says.

No one laughs.^

Dick, baby boy....if only you knew. Thank the Lord that you don't in this 'verse.

^ Tim wants to soak this warmth up like a sponge. He wants to recall every single moment of this joy, and bottle it up like one of his mom’s expensive perfumes.

Is this what having a family feels like?^

It is baby boy. It is.

^ The conversation moves to other topics, and Tim can let his mind run wild. He has one shot to get this right. He needs to come clean, without making it weird.

It’s going to be weird. He has to have an escape plan, too. They won’t want him to stay over if he tells them the truth, will they?

Will they?^

They'll want you Tim. You'll see.

^ Dick meets his eyes. For a moment, Tim wants to berate himself for bringing up his own memory, but Dick’s eyes are shining with gratitude. “I don’t have many photos of us, all together. Thank you,” he whispers. “Can I give you a hug, Tim?”

Tim drops his backpack, and lets Dick wrap his arms around him. “I didn’t want to bring up bad memories. But you should have a copy of it,” Tim whispers.

Dick squeezes his arms tightly. “I’d much rather have it, and be reminded, than not have anything at all. Thank you.”^

This made me cry and smile at the same time.

^ “Oh no, Dick got you into his tentacle-like clutches,” Jason says as they enter the den. “Tim, I hope you know that I’m not saving you. Every person gets to fend for themselves against Dick’s death hugs of doom.”

“I don’t mind,” Tim says.

“Jason,” Dick warns.

“What?”

“Why don’t you tell Tim about your experience with touch starvation, since he seems to think it’s normal.” Dick says as he drags Tim to a seat on the couch, not once letting go of him.

“My parents touch me,” Tim says, not even sure why he’s trying to defend them. “I mean… not like that. You know what I mean. They’re just not big cuddlers, that’s all.”

“Tim, you looked like you were about ready to cry when I hugged you. That’s not normal,” Dick says quietly.^

Tim is gonna gets lots of touch from his brothers, dad, and grandfather. He needs it. It'll also make it a bit easier to understand why he could follow them alot.... hopefully. (I want a Nightwing hug now.)

^ Jason casts a critical eye over the fort. “I dunno if there’s enough room for three in here, and you’re always complaining about how your back hurts when you sleep on it wrong…” he says. He grins when Dick pushes his lower lip out further, and furrows his brow. “It’s fine with me if it’s fine with Tim,” Jason says.

Dick turns pleading eyes on Tim.

“I’d like it if you stay,” Tim admits, sitting at the entrance to the fort. “I don’t want to keep you from patrol too long, though,” he adds absently. Then he freezes, realizing what he said.^

I don't know why this has me laughing but it does. Probably because of how Tim just blurts it out.

^ Screw it. He was planning to tell the Bats he knew tonight anyways. “Patrol. Because you’re Nightwing,” Tim says confidently.

Dick raises his eyebrows. “What makes you think that?”

“Quadruple somersault,” Tim explains succinctly.^

Yep, Dick's fault. I love you Dick but this is totally your fault.

^ Bruce rubs his temples. “Dick, what did I tell you, over and over again, about style points?”

“I’m a reckless showoff who’s going to endanger all of our identities, and style points don’t actually count for anything anyways?” Dick asks.

Bruce splays both hands out in front of him, eyebrows raised. “And here we are,” he says. “I’m very impressed. Wraith . How long have you been sneaking out at night to follow us?”

Tim grimaces. “A while?”

“Define ‘a while’,” Bruce says, crossing his arms.

“More than one year,” Tim hedges.

“Give me a more exact number.”

“Like… four years?”

Tim can see the exact moment this settles with all three vigilantes, as they do the math. “You were running around the streets of Gotham at nine ?” Dick asks.^

Tell him Bruce! Why are you shocked Dick? You were his age when you started.

^ “So were you!” Tim retorts.

“Boys.” Bruce interrupts.^

Total exasperated dad here.

Love how Bruce started looking into Tim before this. They might have had an idea it was him but didn't know for sure.

^ “Jason, what was the ratio of actual business meetings to nonessential archeological digs?” Bruce asks, looking over at his younger son.

“Like six to one in favor of archeological digs, in terms of actual trips,” Jason says. “In terms of time spent, the ratio was way higher. I don’t remember the exact number there, but I ran the report.”

Tim pales. He’s pretty sure the bottom has completely disappeared from his stomach. That’s… a lot of time. His parents always made it seem like their traveling was for business, and the archeological digs were a brief vacation in between business meetings.^

Ouch. That has to hurt. It hurts me just reading this.

^ “Drake Industries is primarily an American company, with few international contracts or interests,” Bruce explains. “Those few overseas holdings are primarily in Europe. As far as I can tell from the travel receipts and dig permits, any travel in Asia, Africa, or South America was archaeologically based.”

That’s a lot . His parents have spent a lot of time in both the Middle East and South America- neither of which, apparently, have any Drake Industries assets at all. Tim can feel his eyes well up with tears. This is… he had no idea. Years and years of ‘we can’t possibly let the company down’, and ‘do you want to be the reason hundreds of people can’t feed their families, Timothy’, as excuses to leave with as little fanfare as possible- and that’s all they were. Excuses. Blatant, horrible lies with minimal grounding in reality. ^

Now I hope Bruce gets custody soon. Tim needs the family and probably therapy....if that'll work for him.

^ “I would like you to stay over, indefinitely, while your parents are out of town,” Bruce says.

“You can’t call CPS,” Tim says, shooting up with a sudden burst of energy, and breaking away from Dick’s loose hold. “You can’t . I won’t go into foster care. I’ll disappear. I’ll… prove to the world that you’re actually Batman.”

“I’d prefer to talk to your parents, first, before any more drastic measures,” Bruce says. “That being said, it’s not safe for you to be living alone, particularly when we are more than willing to take you in, right next door.”

“You barely know me,” Tim counters.

Bruce meets his gaze steadily. “I know enough,” he says calmly. “More than that, though, I will not willingly leave any child in a dangerous situation, particularly when there is a perfectly reasonable solution at hand.”

“That’s… that’s fine, then,” Tim says. Immediate danger dealt with, he lets himself collapse into Dick again. Tim pushes his head into the hollow underneath Dick’s shoulder, hiding his face so nobody can talk to him. He’s quite done with upsetting revelations for the night. ^

I know it's hard Tim but it'll get better in time. It'll take time but it will.

Thank God they were there for this panic attack but now I'm sad that Tim probably had others no one was there for and he didn't know what was going on. Sometimes you don't remember if you had any. Especially of they weren't as severe.

^ “Alright,” Bruce says. “You said that you don’t remember this ever happening before, right?”

“Nope. Zero out of five stars, though. Would not recommend or repeat the experience. I’m exhausted.”

“I’m not surprised. Panic attacks use up a lot of energy,” Bruce says.

“Can confirm,” Jason adds. He slides from where he was perching on the side of the couch to fully sit on the cushion. Tim never noticed him moving closer to them. “Panic attacks suck major ass. And yes, Alfie, this is a moment of distress, so I’m claiming exemption from the swear jar.”

“Entirely fair, Master Jason.”

“You…?” Tim starts to ask, but he can’t quite finish the sentence.

“Number one, living alone on the street tends to leave some scars. Also, I’ve had a few traumatic experiences since then and now.”^

As I wondered above, Tim might have had some but can't remember or maybe he just slept then. At least Jason is helping even if it's to finally help Tim's curiosity in figuring out what happened.

^ Hopefully, he’ll finally get his suspicions confirmed.

“Yeah,” Jason agrees. “But given that you've already had a panic attack this evening, how ‘bout we not talk about that tonight. ‘Cause it ain’t a pretty conversation.”

“ I’m going to hold you to that,” Tim says.

“If you stay here, you’ll have plenty of time to hold me to that,” Jason agrees.^

Good reason Jason and good way of getting Tim to stay even though he's already agreed. Can't hurt to makes sure he is staying for sure.

^ “I’d rather stay down here,” Tim says. “We already got all these blankets out and built the fort. Also, where did this blanket come from?” He gestures to the weighted blanket around his torso and legs.

“It’s one of the spare weighted blankets,” Dick explains. “The first time I used one, I fell asleep in like fifteen minutes, instead of lying awake for hours. After that, Bruce decided we needed about six more.”

“You can keep using that one if you like it,” Bruce says.

“It’s nice,” Tim says. “Never heard of it before. But I like it a lot.” ^

I've tried a weighted blanket before and it didn't work for me. I'm glad it did for Tim. I just pile on blankets and then kick them off. (Probably why the weighted blanket didn't work.)

^ Bruce stops to hug both Dick and Jason. To Tim’s surprise, he stops to study Tim for a moment, then slowly and carefully leans in to hug Tim, too, before leaving the den, closing the door gently behind him.

“Do you need to go be Nightwing?” asks Tim from his cocoon. He doesn’t want to give up the comforting warmth of Dick holding him, but he knows that Nightwing has more important things to do than coddle one overemotional teenager.

“Nah, I’m the responsible adult for the night. Alfred’s running comms in the cave for B, so someone’s gotta be up here to make sure you don’t burn the house down,” Dick says. “I should probably change out of my jeans, though.” ^

Tim, you are more important right now. Besides Dick loves to cuddle, especially if it's his family.

^“Look, rich people compare the size of their stock portfolios the way normal people compare the size of their dicks.”^

Thank you for this image. Never seeing stocks any other way now.

^ “From what B said, it could have been so much worse,” Dick says. “You managed to take on the Joker, alone.”

“If B had gotten there even five minutes later, I probably would have died,” Jason says.

“The Joker?” Tim asks. “You said something about your bio mom and a car accident- clearly it wasn’t a car. But was your mom involved?”

“Oh, yeah. She did actually kidnap me, and tried to hand me over to the Joker to pay off her drug debts, to make a very long story short,” Jason says, voice forcedly light. “It sucked. Zero out of five stars.”^

Damn. He really is lucky.

^ “You’re so mean to me, Little Wing. You’re killing me- your first, oldest brother. I’m dying, and it’s all your fault.”

Jason rolls his eyes as they walk into the kitchen. “Dick, I’m your only brother.”

“B has an adoption problem. I’m sure it won’t be long until I’m not your only brother.”

“Hm. Pretty sure two adopted children isn’t actually classified as a problem.”

“He impulse nabbed me after my parents fell to their deaths during a show with him in the audience. He impulse nabbed you after you stole the literal tires off of the literal Batmobile,” Dick lists off. “With a track record like that, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time until B sees another sad orphan or needy child that he’s just desperate to swoop in and save.”^

Your new brother is walking with you both right now. Giving Tim a hint, Dick? It seems like it.

^ The rest of breakfast passes in a blur. Tim has never had a breakfast quite like this one- fresh baked goods, company, light conversation, and delicious coffee that he didn’t make himself. It feels totally different, basking in the warmth of the kitchen against the chill outside. Bruce seems genuinely interested in what his children have to say, once he’s drunk enough coffee to wake up.

Tim could get used to this. ^

Get used to it Tim. Once Bruce has custody, you will enjoy this for the rest of your life.

^ This is it. This is the ‘it’s been lovely, but you’re far too much trouble, and we’re going to lock you up forever to keep you from telling anyone our secret identity’. Or maybe they have some gadget that can wipe his memory.

Tim forces himself to look at Bruce, despite the fear. Bruce rests both hands palm up on his lap. “I want you to feel safe here,” Bruce says. “That includes feeling like you can voice your opinions, and state your preferences. If you don’t enjoy a particular food, you don’t have to eat it. If you don’t like an activity, within reason, we will try to minimize the time you spend doing it. Obviously, homework and household chores need to be completed, but any optional activities are just that- optional. If you are interested in something, we will do our best to accommodate that interest. Do you understand me?”

It sounds too good to be true. Tim can barely believe what he’s hearing.

But, Bruce’s words logically line up with his actions over the past two weeks, the few times he has interacted with the man behind the mask. In private, Bruce has been nothing but a loving, attentive father, who just so happens to go out in a leather and kevlar suit to fight crime at night.

Tim wants to believe. ^

When Brucw says something he usually means it. He means this so believe Tim.

^ “I know, but it’s a big house,” Bruce says. “It’s okay to have boundaries- both on your time, your space, and your interactions. If you’re not ready to interact with them, they can wait to come back into the room, or you can go into a different room."^

Bruce is so patient with Tim. Dick and Jason really helped him out that way.

Tim is confused but he is going to learn and get help and love from his family.

^ On the one hand… doing something with Dick Grayson , the original Robin. On the other hand… he still doesn’t know the rules here. He can’t just change the schedule… can he?

“Come on,” Dick says. “B converted one of the smaller ballrooms into a gymnast's heaven, cause he’s an extra Dad like that.”

“It was better than cleaning up broken glass from the chandeliers that you shattered in the first few months of living with me,” Bruce mutters.

“What was that, Bruce?” Dick asks, smiling with all his teeth.

“I mean I love you so very much, my wonderful eldest child,” Bruce says louder. Then he turns and winks at Tim. “Alfred and I cleaned up a lot of glass that first year. And cuts from glass. The gym was absolutely worth all the effort and expense for decreasing my gray hairs.” ^

Go have fun with your brother Tim. You love him Bruce. Also, how many ballrooms do you have? It's got to get more than three if you converted one into a gym for Dick and now Jason and Tim to use. (That way they don't always need to go down to the cave to get a workout done.)

^ Every so often, as they work, Tim has to stop and mentally pinch himself. Dick Grayson, the last of the Flying Graysons, the first Robin, is teaching him how to tumble.

It’s a dream come true. It’s something he didn’t even know he could dream about, even. What are the odds that Dick Grayson would just teach some random kid gymnastics.

“Actually, the odds are pretty good,” Dick says with a laugh when Tim makes the mistake of saying it out loud. “I actually teach acrobatics at a gym in Bludhaven, so I do work with a lot of kids. If you’re in a position to know about Robin and Nightwing, the odds aren't actually that bad.”

“It’s just a little surreal,” Tim says.

Dick ruffles his hair. “Welcome to the Batclan, kid.”^

I love this part. Dick is so patient and just treating Tom not as one of his kids at work but family. The end of the chapter helps prove that. The boys are going to have a great relationship.

^ Tim darts across the hall to his parents’ room. This room too is lifeless- cold, sterile, impersonal sheets. No decorations or photographs along the walls. The only indication that someone lives here is the ornamented wedding ketubah between Janet and Jack Drake hanging over the bed. ^

I wonder....is Tim being Jewish canon or is it fanon? Because Bruce also seems to be Jewish in alot of stories. Dick, I think is nonreligious and Jason is Catholic. At least in a lot of fanfics I read, Jason is the only one in canon that I know of that was given an actual religion and that was an AU. (Okay, I just finished 'Robins Being Robin' and Bruce, according to Dick isn't religious. So I'm guessing it's headcanon/fanon for at least Bruce being Jewish.)

^ “It was that or be caught,” Tim says shortly. “I had some close calls that first year.”

“How close?” Bruce asks.

“I wasn’t always as good at hiding as I am now. There were a few close calls, I think ‘cause of light reflecting off my camera lens or something. But I’ve always been pretty quick on my feet, so when I saw someone coming my way, I scampered, and no one ever caught me. No one expects to see a kid out that late.”

Bruce slowly exhales. “Tim, the reason no one expects to see a kid out that late is because it’s dangerous.”

“Jason and Dick both did it,” Tim defends himself.

“That’s true,” Bruce acknowledges. “But, Jason and Dick also both had immediate adult supervision, both while out in Gotham and afterwards, in case they were injured. I didn’t let Dick patrol alone until he was sixteen. Jason has never been on patrol alone. I’m very impressed with what you’ve accomplished, but I also want to impress on you just how dangerous it was. You had no direct supervision, and no one at home if anything went wrong. It sounds like you were extremely lucky that first year.”^

Bruce is already becoming Tim's parent. Tim is defensive though because he is used to his life and not really getting I trouble...at least for leaving the house.

^ “Except for attention, support, and adult supervision,” Bruce says immediately. “Tim, children cannot and should not be left on their own. From a purely scientific standpoint, your brain isn’t developed enough to take care of all of your needs. Recent scientific research actually suggests that the brain isn’t fully developed until age twenty five, particularly the areas surrounding executive function and impulse management. From a more emotional standpoint, children need constant love and affection to grow into healthy adults.”

“I’m not a child,” Tim protests. “I’m a legal Jewish adult.”

“Which only became true this year, and has no bearing on your status under common law. And besides, teenagers also need consistency and comfort,” Bruce says immediately. “If you were left alone for only a few hours at a time, with regular adult supervision, we would be having a different conversation. But being left alone with minimal supervision is a serious detriment to your health and well being- not to mention exceedingly dangerous.

“From a purely practical standpoint, you are simply not old enough to take care of many of your needs. As Dick pointed out last night, you can’t drive. While you’ve clearly done an excellent job adapting with the city bus and your bike, it’s still dangerous, here, more than anywhere else. This is Gotham . Surely I don’t need to tell you about the dangers of our various villains and the prevalence of organized crime in this city.”^

Okay, I will be shocked if Tim isn't Bruce's kid by blood. (I know, I know) He's to much like his dad and they haven't even really been a family yet.

^ “My life just got turned upside down, and it’s only gonna get worse when you call CPS on my parents and I get dumped into the foster care system,” Tim says, just as bluntly. “No one wants me. Ms. Mac seemed thrilled to not have to take care of me. Clearly my parents don’t want me that much, either. Bruce is only doing this cause he feels bad.”

“Maybe Ms. Mac is thrilled, as you say, because she was worried about you being alone,” Jason says. “I know I can’t really speak to the actions of your parents, besides being horrified at you being alone. However, I can safely say that Bruce doesn’t ‘just do’ anything. Some people dress up in a leather fur suit and fight crime to cope, and some people impulsively adopt sad children to cope. Bruce just so happens to do both, because he’s richer than G-d and can afford a crazy hobby and to support a bunch of traumatized children who also are filled with rage and want to fight crime.”^

Jason is such a good brother.

^ “Eh, we figured out pretty quickly you weren’t a threat,” Jason says. He leans over to ruffle Tim’s hair, and Tim lets himself relax. “How did you know to seek me out, anyways?”

“This is gonna sound stupid,” Tim mutters.

“Can I come sit next to you?” Jason asks. Tim nods wordlessly.

Jason shoves himself to his feet gracelessly, and sits next to Tim on the bed. “Don’t get me wrong, I ain’t complaining,” Jason says quietly. “If B hadn’t been there, totally in the loop like he was, I woulda died. Full stop. If he had been even a few minutes later than he was to rescue me, or if he hadn’t even known I was gone, the Joker would have blown me to smithereens. Your warning saved my life. If you saw something on the street, or knew something was going to happen…”

“It was nothing so certain,” Tim scoffs. “It was just a feeling I had. I started Bat Watching at the end of Dick’s time as Robin, and there was this… distance between the two of them. In those days, I wasn’t good enough to get real close to Batman and Robin, but I overheard plenty of arguments.

“You had that same distance that developed really quickly, between you and Batman. But you’re a lot younger than Dick was, so it’s not like you could really strike out as your own hero as you are. I just…” Tim trails off. He still can’t quite put his finger on why he was so compelled to intervene.

Jason lets Tim pause and gather his thoughts.

"Okay, there was one other thing, but it's going to sound really stupid.".

“I dress up in traffic light colors and fight crime every night. Try me.”

“I had a dream something was going to happen,” Tim says quietly. He feels stupid even uttering the words out loud.

“Weirder shit has happened,” Jason says. “Have you had any other dreams that have come true? Or have you had any dreams you’ve acted on and changed an outcome?”

“Dunno.”

“Might be a latent meta gene,” Jason muses. “Or who knows- the multiverse is a strange place, and sometimes events from one timeline bleed over into another. It doesn’t really matter, one way or another. I’m just glad this timeline didn’t get fucked to hell and back, for whatever reason.”^

I just adore this part for some reason. Probably because I know canon and the way you wrote this part is so good.

^Did you, really?” Jason counters. “Tim, I know you’re not thrilled about having your life turned upside down, but the way you were living wasn’t healthy- and I say that on good authority, given that I lived on the streets for a few years. Dickie will expound on this until your ears fall off, but humans are pack animals. We’re not meant to be alone, especially as kids. People need other people.”

“My parents say that needing people makes you weak, and people will always disappoint you.” Their statement has certainly been true enough in regards to his parents. Tim honestly can’t say he’s had enough experience with other people to make a judgment call of his own, though.

His stomach lurches uncomfortably. His parents could have told him anything, and he would have believed it. Was this just one more way they lied to him, so he’d let them leave easier?

“I’m just gonna come out and say it, Timbit, your parents sound like shit,” Jason says bluntly. He wraps his good arm around Tim tightly, pulling Tim almost entirely on to his chest.

“I have a home to live in, and food to eat, and…” Tim starts to say, not totally sure why he’s defending his parents. It’s not like they ever defended him.

“And no one there to help you,” Jason cuts in smoothly. “Yeah, I’ll agree your circumstances ain’t exactly dire, compared to living on the street. But also, abuse comes in a lot of forms- not just physical. There’s emotional abuse, as well as neglect. Just because they never hit you or starved you or whatever doesn’t actually make them good parents, Tim.”^

I think Jason will get through to his little brother a lot better than Bruce. He's closer in age and had delt with a lot of things like Tim has.

^ Jason ruffles his hair. “I know, baby bird. But we want to convince you that what’s happening to you is wrong. Bruce wants to help fix it, but we can’t do much if you don’t let us.”

“Baby bird?”

“Do ya like it? Dick is fond of bird themed nicknames, for somewhat obvious reasons, knowing our little secret. If I’m Little Wing, and he’s Big Bird, that makes you Baby Bird.”

“It’s a lot better than anything else you’ve come up with,” Tim says, managing to sound grumpy despite the warm glow the nickname brings. The nickname, more than anything else that has happened in the last twenty four hours, convinces him that whatever is going on here is genuine.

“I mean, I’m not likely to abandon all the Tim themed nicknames in a hurry,” Jason warns. “It makes you puff up like a lil Robin yourself, and you get all indignant about it, which is totally satisfying, and I fully understand why Dickie likes doing it to me.” ^

I love how the baby bird nickname is brought in here.

^ “Bruce has a terrible adoption problem. I’m sure you’ll get to experience the joy for yourself.”

“You and Dick keep talking about Bruce’s adoption problem. What does that have to do with me?” Tim asks.

“Is it not obvious?”

“No.”

Jason pulls his head back, so that he can look at Tim fully. “Tim, I’m pretty sure the next victim of Bruce’s adoption problem is going to be you.” ^

Truth. Tim won't believe it but it's true.

The way Jason explains mental illness and the way Tim listens and breaks and then just packages it away....hurts. Baby boy needs help and he'll get it. It'll be slow but he'll get the help he needs. Slow, because Tim needs to learn how his parents are abusing him.

^ It takes barely one week to settle into a rhythm. It almost seems as if he’s lived here his whole life. ^

This sums up exactly what I'm thinking as I read this story. Tim, has become such a part of the family, it seems as if he was always there.

^ Tim presses his fingers against the glass surrounding what looks like the very first Robin suit. “This looks thinner than your suit.”

“I’m trying not to think about how you’ve gotten close enough to me as Robin multiple times to know that,” Jason says dryly. “But yeah, back in the early days, Dick mostly wore spandex. Or something similar, I think. After a few close calls, B finally convinced him to add some armor. It helped that Wayne Enterprises was testing out a super light armor weave at the time. Dick doesn’t like to be weighed down.”

Jason leads them through a wall of suits. “Here, of course, is my favorite suit- the Discowing. I have no idea why Dick thought fighting crime with his chest on full display was a good idea, but damn is it fun to tease him about it.”

“There’s not very many Nightwing suits here,” Tim observes.

“Yeah, Dick keeps his suits in Bludhaven for the most part. He only deigns to let Bruce display the really old outdated suits. Hence, Discowing.”

“He pulled it off.”

Jason gives him a sharp look. “He absolutely did not and never, ever, say that to his face. Come on. Let me show you the trophy room.”^

I love Dick but come on Tim. Dick doesn't have the best sense in fashion or keeping himself safe with his suits. At least he has family to help give him some armor....even if it's not as much as they want him to have. (Maybe he has more now in canon.)

^ “The penny and the T-Rex were before my time, so no idea how B got them into the cave,” Jason says. “I can tell you the story behind some of the other trophies, though. Dick tells the penny story best.”^

I actually want to know how Bruce built all of the cave without it being big news. Especially when he started bringing in some trophies, like the Penny and the T-Rex. Do any of the comics say, tell how he does it?

^ “Can we look at something else?” Tim asks quietly. The love that the Batfamily has for each other permeates the walls. Tim can’t even imagine his parents doing the same for him.^

Just wait Tim. You'll soon have your own place on the walls and will realize how much they love you.

^ “‘Kay, so you know how Dick was ten when he started out? Yeah, he thought it was hilarious, and B’s too much of a softie to try to change any of the names now.”

Tim giggles. He’s unlocking so much new Batman lore- he’s pretty sure he’s died and gone to Bat Heaven. “That’s amazing .” He walks back towards where Jason is sitting. ^

Considering the comics I just read had everything the same, just whatever their viligante name was, it seems as if it will follow every Bat.

^ Tim loses himself in looking at crimes across the city with Jason. He offers Robin several insights that the older boy praises as helpful. With every compliment, Tim glows with internal warmth. He’s helping to make a difference. His insights are valuable . It’s been a rare feeling in his life, and Tim chases it with the same intensity he might seek water in the desert.

He had no idea how starving he'd been, until he’d been fed. ^

I love this so much. Jason's just giving Tim compliments, like he should have had, and Tim is slowly realizing that he's never really been given any so when he gets some? He's hoaedinf them close.

^ Tim nods seriously. He may never have seen Alfred upset, but he can easily picture the kind of chaos the older man could wreak if he were so inclined.^

Alfred runs the family. Bruce might be the head of it but Alfred runs it. There's a reason why people are afraid of him.

^ “Well, as civilians Dick and Barbara Gordon were always hanging out and flirting, and Robin and Batgirl had the exact same flirtatious vibes, sooo…”

Dick slams his head on the table theatrically. “Am I your explanation for everything?”

“If Timmy could figure out this much about you just by watching, imagine what he’ll be able to solve as Robin,” Jason says.

Tim turns to stare at Jason. “What?”

“Oh, sorry, was that not the foregone conclusion when I graduate, eventually?”

“But… you’re Robin.”

“So was I, incidentally,” Dick says. “It’s not a gig that lasts forever.” He glares at Bruce. “Not that that was my intention at the start, though.”^

Yes, Dick. You are the answer to Tim figuring everything out. You always will be.

^ “Robin was my mom’s nickname for me,” Dick explains. “I chose the name to honor her when I was hunting down their killer. Robin became so attached to Batman, though, that when I was trying to step out of B’s shadow I changed my name. Someone decided it would be a good legacy superhero identity.” He ends this speech with a pointed glare at Bruce.^

Bruce is trying. He at least apologized and I can tell it helped because Dick and Bruce seem much closer.

^ He wants to join in the bantering and laughter, but he can’t quite figure out how. It’s so different from the silence he’s used to.

But maybe- just maybe- he can get used to it.^

You will soon Tim. You'll get used to it and then join in.

^ Tim stares at the email in dismay. “Bruce. Bruce, what do I do?” he whispers, holding the phone out to him.^

This opening sucks but it also shows how much Tim trusts Bruce to come right to him about his parents returning.

^ “Two things,” Bruce says. “Tim, I need you to look at me for this, please.”

Reluctantly, Tim pulls away from Bruce. “I’m listening.”

“Number one, we’re going to get you a wire and camera,” Bruce says. His eyes are steely and cold- Batman focused, even in civilian clothes. “The Commissioner has some gear for me to give to you, that should be easily concealed. We need to be able to prove neglect- try to get them to talk about how long they’ve been on their trip, about who’s watching you at home, things like that. Audio recordings will help us present an airtight CPS case that all the money in the world won’t let your parents wriggle out of.

“Number two, I’m giving you a Bat panic button, just in case. If something happens that endangers your physical safety, I want you to press that button, do you understand? If you are in physical danger, for whatever reason, we will come and get you, consequences be damned.”

Bruce doesn’t blink. “Tim. Do you understand me? We will get you out. I know that this is uncomfortable, but if we want to keep you- and we do, make no mistake- we have to play by the rules.”^

I'm hating why Bruce has these rules but I'm so glad he does. I'm also glad it seems as if Gordon is involved. It'll help if the Drakes find the wire and the camera...which is why Bruce had Jim get involved. That and they want to get Tim home to them for good. To do that, it has to be legal.

^ Still, it doesn’t stop the pit from forming in his stomach. He hadn’t been aware how much he thrived on being around people until it was taken away. He misses seeing Dick hanging from the chandeliers, Bruce’s inability to function until he has at least one mug of coffee in his system, Jason’s constant companionship, and Alfred’s silent but reassuring presence and sharp wit. He misses the constant bantering tossed from room to room- Jason’s sharp street drawl mixed with Dick’s excited tone.

Drake Manor is as silent as ever. Now that he knows what he’s missing, the silence is oppressive. Tim has the desperate urge to sing, or talk, or scream, or something , just to make the halls echo.^

You never has things like that before Tim. Once you had it, you want it all the time.

^ He misses the Waynes. He misses dinner with life and laughter- Dick perching on chairs, Jason arguing with anyone who will participate. He misses the warmth of eating with three or four other people who actually want to be around him.

He misses Alfred’s cooking. Ms. Mac is a good chef, but he had no idea just how much of a difference it made to have the food cooked fresh, not out of a microwave or reheated. ^

You miss your family. That's what you miss. Family that cares. Ms. Mac cares but you know for sure that the Wayne's do.

^ His father is angry . Tim wants to cower in his room and hide for the rest of eternity. “Do you want me to sit with you while you eat?” Tim asks. He’d rather be anywhere else.^

I thought Janet was bad with her distain for Jason...Jack's worse. He's going to hurt Tim isn't he? Not just verbally but physically also.

^ “Remember whose company this is, and remember where your power comes from,” Janet retorts. Her eyes are cold as ice, and her voice could cut diamond. Tim hides a shiver. These moods are rare, but dangerous. “Timothy. I expect you to act as perfectly befits the Drake heir. You will stay away from the gutter filth. Do you understand?”

Tim breathes out slowly. “It’s pretty pathetic that he needs so much help in school,” he says, matching his mother’s coldness with his own frozen tone. “I would certainly never seek him out.”^

I always thought Jack married in and just kept the name. This seems to help my headcanon on that fact.

Tim is more Janet than Jack in a lot of things. Like his tones in canon and fanon.

^ Tim stares at his reflection in the mirror. “It’s only a few hours,” he says aloud. “What’s the worst that can happen when we’re all offline?”^

A whole lot. Especially since you'll be getting hurt probably. Hopefully it'll help you get home faster...even if I dont like it.

^ Jason’s eye twitches, but he doesn’t argue. “Twenty four hours,” he says, instead. An apparent non-sequitur- but a subtle reminder that the end is in sight.

“Twenty four hours,” Tim agrees quietly. He takes his cup of punch and moves away from the table. Jason gives him a small smile, but blessedly doesn’t follow him. ^

Less than that because your parents mess up. Of course Tim follows their rules and he'll still mess up according to them. Why they ever had him and kept him I'll never understand. (I'm glad but I won't ever understand.)

^ “He approached me. As a fellow classmate and gala attendee, it would have been impolite to not acknowledge him,” Tim says calmly. “Additionally, he believes we are friends, or at least study group partners. It does not benefit Drake Industries for me to act otherwise, as Jason Todd-Wayne stands to be a major shareholder in Wayne Enterprises one day.”

“You smart mouthed little bastard,” his father snarls. He unbuckles his belt. “Where is your respect for your mother? Jacket off.”

Tim takes a very deep breath, and holds himself with steel in his spine. “I followed my mother’s directions, in keeping my friends close but my enemies closer.” Sorry Jason , he thinks.

“Jacket. Off,” Jack snaps. “If you can’t get respect through your thick skull with words, I’ll just have to beat it into you.”

Tim holds his breath, and looks at his mother. Janet Drake has already closed off, emotions hidden behind a carefully constructed society mask.

“Well?” Jack demands. “You have thirty seconds before I take the jacket off for you. Now.”

Resigned, Tim takes his suit jacket off. All he can hope is that this will be brief. Before his father can ask, he takes off his shirt as well, making sure the button cam is facing towards the scene.

That’s all the comfort he’s going to get.^

For now baby boy, for now. This will help your case and the Drakes can't say it was forced on you or anything else because Jim Gordon helped make this happen to get you away from the Drakes.

^ “Get up,” Jack orders. Wraith slowly pushes off of his arms, and turns to face him. Facing his father makes reality sink in, and Tim rises to the surface, shaking and shivering.

“Pathetic,” Jack sneers. “You can’t even take your punishment like a man.”

Tim sniffles, and moves to put his shirt back on. His father sneers at him. His mother watches over the scene, serene as she was at the gala. “I wasn’t aware men still got whipped with belts,” he mutters, against his better judgment. His back hurts , the pain overruling his normally iron control.

“Say that again,” his mother orders.

Tim puts his suit jacket back on carefully, and turns to face his parents. He holds himself straight and tall, just as they’ve always ordered. “I said I wasn’t aware men still got whipped with belts,” he repeats.

“He’s inherited your hot head,” Janet says to Jack. She grabs Tim by the collar of his suit jacket, and drags him to the front door. “You can come back in when you’ve cooled down,” she says, opening the door to the outside. She pushes him outside.^

He's a fucking kid who just got hit ten times and told the truth, what he thinks is the truth, and you say he's hotheaded? Tim's exactly like you Janet! Exactly!

Bitch. I hope this brings you both down and the company goes to Tim, all of it. You locked your kid out in winter just because he talked back. You deserve everything coming for you. Everything.

I'm so proud of you Tim. You asked for help. Yes, you waited a bit but you still asked for help. That took courage.

^ The warm glow that was steadily building from the warmth, hot cocoa, and companionship is abruptly doused. “Oh,” Tim whispers. Right. His parents locked him outside of the house in the middle of February. And beat him repeatedly with a belt.^

It hurts to think about but it will help the case against the Drakes. You'll soon be home with your family for good. Not making the 48 hours isn't your fault, Tim. You did your best. It's your parents fault.

^ “Bruce?” Tim mumbles.

“I’m here, sweetheart. Can you tell me what happened?” Bruce asks.

“They locked me out,” Tim whispers. “They never really wanted me, did they?”

“I don’t know the answer to that,” Bruce says. “But that doesn’t matter to me. We want you, even if your parents can’t see what they’re missing.”

Tim flinches. Shouldn’t his parents want him?

“‘S like I told you before, Tim. Some people ain’t fit to be parents, but they procreate anyways,” Jason says. “On the flip side of that, some people would be great parents and they never have kids of their own.” ^

Bruce is a great example of this. The way he cares for his kids, for Tim who he barely knows, shows this.

^ Tim shrugs. He’s getting tired of all of these endless questions making him make decisions, when the decision is patently obvious. “Sure,” he says.

“Thank you,” Dr. Thompkins says. Tim watches dully as she pulls out her phone.

“Are you doing alright, Tim?” Bruce asks.

“Fine,” Tim mutters. Soonest done, soonest over with.

“I know it feels frustrating that we keep asking for your permission, but we have to verbally make sure that you consent to everything that Dr. Thompkins does,” Bruce explains. “It may feel very redundant, but it’s important that we document your consent throughout the process.”

“Okay,” Tim says.^

I don't think Tim really understands. He's trying to though. He's just so tired and just wants to be done and sleep.

^ “It’s hardly nothing,” Dr. Thompkins says. “The documentation we did today was important, and the damage could have been severe. Fortunately, most of the bruising seems to be higher up, away from your kidneys. Bruce and Alfred will have to monitor you for signs of kidney damage for the next few days, just to be safe. You can put your shirt back on, though. The cuts are all fully wrapped, Tim.”^

You might think it's nothing Tim but it's something. It is proving that the Drakes are abusing you and it's showing that you trust Bruce enough to go to him for help. You are helping your own case. Plus, as they said, it's better to be safe.

^ “Do you want me to get Dick to come pick you up?” Bruce asks.

“I can walk,” Tim protests. He doesn’t really want to, though.

“You look exhausted, though. Would you like to be carried?” Bruce asks.

Tim shrugs. “I don’t know.”

Bruce pulls his phone out again, and starts typing. “Dick and Jason are on their way,” he says. Tim shrugs again, and buries his head against Bruce’s chest.

“I hear you have a baby bird for me!” Dick says brightly.

“Good to be passed off?” Bruce asks.

“Kay,” Tim mumbles.

Warm, strong arms take hold of him around his legs and shoulders. “Come on, Timmers, let's get you into a bed,” Dick says.^

Let your family care for you Tim. I'm proud of you. You are making decisions and/or telling them if you can't think. You aren't hiding which is good.

^ Jason keeps up the soothing movements against Tim’s scalp. “How are you doing, baby bird?”

“I just want it to wake up from this nightmare.”

Warm hands cup his cheeks. Tim opens his eyes, and comes face to face with Jason. “It takes a long time. I still have times when I have to reprocess something that happened to me. But we’re all here for you, okay?”

“Kay,” Tim mutters, closing his eyes again.

“Go to sleep, Tim,” Jason says. “Everyone will still be here when you wake up.”

Tim wraps both arms around Jason, and falls asleep.^

You will Tim, you will. You'll wake up with your family and never leave them again.

#fanfiction #comments #mine #batman #tim drake #jason todd #dick grayson #bruce wayne #recommendations

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maruyaaya · 2 months

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one of my favourite things about always an angel (never a god) (seriously i need an acronym for this fic) is that yes, it does focus on jason not knowing what the fuck his gender is, but also everyone around him is just as confused as him. (rambling below the cut)

tw // unintentional misgendering?

jason, at the moment, has no label for his identity. if i, as the author, were to give him one that would most accurately describe him, i’d say he’s genderfluid, but jason doesn’t know that’s a thing and i don’t know if he’ll ever really decide on a label for himself.

so speaking as to other people, bruce obviously has no idea jason is struggling with his gender at all. it’s not out of malice or anything—he just genuinely hasn’t noticed. sure, he’s the worlds greatest detective, but it’s just not the type of thing he looks for! he’s too busy worrying about jason running off and getting himself killed!

in fact, bruce probably doesn’t even know that struggling with gender is a real thing that people go through. he has never thought twice about gender. he’s kinda the epitome of “i’m probably nonbinary but i have a job so idrc about that rn”. bruce’s gender is justice.

so yeah, bruce isn’t really the person for jason to go to about gender. it’s funny because bruce is the person that jason is most afraid of discovering that he’s not actually a boy, but bruce is probably the one who would care the least. the conversation would go something like:

“bruce, i don’t think i’m a boy.”

“ok 👍”

“are you okay with that?”

“you are not a boy. you are justice. you are the light of gotham. you are beyond anything comprehensible. the dirt quakes with each of your step, knowing it should bend to your every step, but you are kind and it breathes with you. you are not a boy or a girl. you are robin.”

“huh”

(and then bruce would freak out bc what the fuck is a pronoun???)

so yeah, moving on from that, we get barbara and dick who are both trying to figure out what jason’s gender is, but equally have no idea. barbara is pretty certain that jason is a trans woman and that he just doesn’t really know how to put it into words yet. dick, bless his heart, is trying and after catching jason trying on one of kori’s dresses, starts referring to him with every manner of pronoun under the sun. he just starts switching between every pronoun set he can think of, much to the confusion of the people around him who have no idea what’s going on in dick’s head.

dick’s head is basically just a constant “jason said that he—wait no, jason’s not a boy. she wants—but is he a she? is she a she? wait can i use they? that they wants? no, not wants, they want? think, dick, what’s politically accurate nowadays?“

i have this idea floating around in my head of an interlude fic that would go between chapter 5 & 6 as a sort of 5.5. it would be focused around dick, bruce, barbara, and alfred after jason dies and how they are dealing with that. my main intention with this little interlude fic is a confrontation between dick and barbara that goes a little something like this:

“look, dick, i probably spent more time with jason than you did.” barbara’s biting her tongue—dick can tell and he’s probably the only person who can—and he knows that she wants to say something worse.

dick invites her to.

“he was my brother!” dick yells in response as if claiming the title of ‘brother’ somehow makes his argument more valid. he knows that he wasn’t the best brother to jason. he doesn’t even know if he was around long enough for jason to consider him one.

sure, he tried, but how often did he really swing around the manor just to see jason? how many times did he tell jason he was there to spend time with him, only to hang around him for a half hour at most and then run off to argue with bruce? how many times did he claim he was in gotham to see jason when he was actually just there on titans business (and how many of these times did he leave gotham without even stopping by the manor)?

calling himself jason’s ‘brother’ is arbitrary, but it’s not like it even matters because jason isn’t here anymore to correct him.

he’s not here anymore. it stings every time dick remembers it.

“yeah, sure, you were brothers,” barbara seethes on the word ‘brothers’, staring up at dick with her face twisted in anger. “you knew nothing about that kid! she just wanted to help people and where the fuck did that get her?”

“she?” dick’s voice breaks, knowing that he’s focusing on the wrong part of that sentence. “he’s a—i mean, she wanted to—was she—”

barbara sighs, “i don’t know. that’s what i thought. we’ll never really know though. i don’t think she ever knew either.”

“so then what do we call her—him? them? i don’t want an angry jason todd haunting me for misgendering… them?” dick looks pointedly at barbara to see her reaction to the them pronoun.

“i don’t know, dick. maybe we should have paid more attention to jason when we could’ve.”

dudes i need to stop writing this bc i’m just writing the whole interlude at this point and i do want to actually turn it into a little bonus fic. but yeah, you get the gist of it. i just want to have a lot of confused, angry regret over not noticing what they think they should’ve earlier.

another scene i’m really excited for is one where dick and bruce have an angry, heated argument where they’re yelling and screaming, sort of based on the new titans 1988 #55. bruce and dick would be arguing and bruce would yell something about dick not knowing anything about jason and dick would yell back “did you? because i don’t think you knew anything about that kid. it doesn’t matter if he—if they didn’t want to tell you, you should have asked.”

and this is dick in all his hypocritical glory because he’s fucking up on jason’s pronouns in the middle of his speech because he didn’t really know much about jason either. he’s echoing the same words that barbara said to him. he wants so badly to find a way to absolve himself of guilt because it’s fucking eating him, but with each word, he can’t help but feel that guilt dig deeper into the lining of his stomach.

dick doesn’t know whose fault it is, but it needs to be someone’s. how else do you reconcile yourself with the fact that your little brother—little sibling?—is dead and you will never be as close with them as you should have been. you don’t think you were ever really siblings anyway, but it’s a lot easier to think back and pretend you were a lot closer than you really were. dick doesn’t think he could handle another regret.

and bruce is right there. it’s so much easier to lash out and send that guilt elsewhere instead of letting it build up inside him. he knows bruce is doing the same. neither of them actually blame the other. it’s just easier this way.

btw this is not dick grayson slander or even bruce wayne slander. i love them both sm. i just really like writing their conflicts bc they are so interesting to me and i feel that they argued about jason a lot during jason’s robin days and neither of them were right, but neither of them were completely wrong either. their arguments are made of love at the centre. it’s just that neither of them really know how to express it.

#lo and behold the long post i mentioned #now why in the fuck would i write this instead of actually writing the fic #girl has mental illness. more at 7 #also this is VERY rough writing. this is: i had a thought in my head and i needed to think of words writing #nobody judge me on this it’s like 2am rn #imeda rambles!!#fic: always an angel (never a god)

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blinktwicebaby · 3 months

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I did it! 29 prompts for 29 days of my first ever febuwhump ❤️

I really feel like my writing saw some much needed improvement by the end of it.

Fandom: Batman (all media types)

Word count: 32,864

Posted as: Featherly

All ficlets can be found here

Since all of my responses to the prompt appear in the link my super post will be a summary instead:

Day 1- Tim and Dick attend Bruce Wayne’s funeral. Tim is helpless to remove an uninvited guest.

Day 2-Jason is used for different villains torture methods within the walls of Arkham. Ivy heals his injuries and he finally gets to sleep.

Day 3- Dick as Robin is captured by Joker and Batman saves him, but not before permanent damage is done.

Day 4- Jarvis Tetch captures Tim Drake as Robin and implants a mind control device in his brain. Tim cannot escape. (TW implied rape)

Day 5- Dick as Nightwing is captured by riddler, waiting for Batman to save him. The riddle might be too vague though, and the coincidence is unnerving.

Day 6- Jason and Roy take Tim out. They pull a nasty prank that lets Tim know just how they feel about him, so Tim let’s them know just how he feels about them.

Day 7- Damian tries to hide his injury, but Bruce finds it and helps Damian where he can.

Day 8- Jason watches the rain, remembering that the best part of his childhood was actually one of the worst.

Day 9- Bruce goes on a tour of an enormous garden to find out information on where Tim went. He plans to return as Batman, but what he finds renders that unnecessary.

Day 10- Dick as Robin gets tortured by zsasz. He takes his only opportunity to make it stop.

Day 11- Jason is caught in a time loop until he can stop the bomb from exploding. He uncovers a terrible secret that can’t justify his death every night.

Day 12- Dick as Robin goes on his first mission. It ends with him in hospital and his identity compromised.

Day 13- Dick teaches Tim how to ride a dirt bike. They go on Tim’s first ever track but don’t see the hidden danger until it’s too late.

Day 14- Dick as Robin goes out on his final patrol after donating almost everything he has (TW suicide)

Day 15- Dicks school councillors are concerned about the bruises. His lies are see-through and the police take over. Bruce isn’t happy about the fact

Day 16- Jason returns home in the dead of winter. Alfred nopes out of there immediately, but Bruce wants to find out why he has his son back.

Day 17- Jason as Robin doesn’t listen and faces the consequences of his actions

Day 18- Dick as Nightwing fights until he can’t. After 38 rounds, he can’t.

Day 19- Bruce asks Jason as Red hood to come on a mission. He hates Tim as Robin immediately and makes sure the kid doesn’t forget the fact

Day 20- Damian is in therapy and forced to open up thanks to something in his drink. His therapist gets to the bottom of his issues pretty quickly because of it

Day 21- Jason as Robin is injected with fear toxin and neither Dick nor Bruce can pull him back from it

Day 22- Bruce teaches Tim how to shoot in the growing darkness. They find out that someone else was out there too.

Day 23- Dick and Jason try to do something normal after Tim’s disappearance. They find their first and only lead while at lunch.

Day 24- Dick hasn’t slept since Jason’s disappearance. He has become unpleasant to be around because of it and Bruce does what he can to put a stop to it

Day 25- Talia Al Ghul wants information. Dick as Nightwing has that information. She doesn’t like what he has to say.

Day 26- All four boys are stuck in a pit with a countdown above them. One of them managed to get a message out, but as the timer gets closer to zero they wonder if they’ll get out.

Day 27- Bruce reflects on the life he had and what will become of the legacy he’d created

Day 28- Jason sees his first kill.

Day 29- Tim as Red Robin is killed again and again. He becomes something terrible.

#batman fanfiction #batman #ao3 fanfic #ao3 writer #febuwhump 2024 #Febuwhump all days #Febuwhump master list #febuwhumpcompletionist

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penny-anna · 2 years

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Hijinks are good don’t get me wrong, but I too deeply enjoy some angst!

ok u are asking me to expose my current guilty pleasure here!! let's see what i got:

inhibition

Batman gets hit by a Poison Ivy special. Jason is unfortunately caught in the crossfire.

CW: this one has some very heavy themes around sexual assault, but no actual assault occurs - read the warnings on the fic.

cuddle pollen is a new concept for me!! im into it. author has a bunch of cuddle pollen fics but in terms of h/c this was the stand out for me.

The Worst Kind of Crush

Civilians came first.

It was one of the foundational truths of being a superhero. Their job was to save civilians regardless of the personal cost. Each of them knew and understood the risks associated with the cape when they put it on.

Still, rules got fuzzy when one woke up underneath a building.

Or the one where a building explodes and Tim is trapped under the rubble

u like h/c. here's some excellent h/c.

answers we're not wise enough to see (i love you freely)

It’s very nearly perfect, and so much more than Damian ever hoped for himself. But it’s not enough to distract him from the fact that there is still one of his siblings whose mark he does not- and apparently, will never, carry, and the pain of rejection threatens to overwhelm the relief he feels at being so easily accepted by Father and his family.

Because for all that his brightest mark so far- brighter even than Father’s- is very clearly displayed on Richard's neck, there is no corresponding cerulean blue mark on Damian’s nose.

In a world where your first touch on a soulmate leaves a mark that shows how much you love them, Damian struggles to understand why Richard apparently does not love him back.

platonic soulmate AUs are also a new one on me!! im also very into it!! the only actual batfamily comic i've read is steph brown's run as batgirl and i realised reading this that i am very invested in Dick & Damian's relationship actually and gjfkglhfjkghf. loved this.

Inbox

When Jason Todd died, Bruce Wayne had a hard time letting go or dealing with any reminders of his son.

When Jason Todd came back, what he needed to know was how much he had mattered. Fortunately, these things overlapped.

Or, the story in which Jason listens to some voicemails for a dead boy— the boy who was him.

remember how i was joking around abt jason getting messages bruce left for him while he was 'dead'. here is that concept but like Serious. im still getting over a semi-recent major bereavement at present and this caused me physical pain (compliment)

I Wanna Shoop, Baby

Talking over Bruce's attempts to desperately stop the unwanted laughter, Dick said, "I don't really understand what my soulmark means. It doesn't have any hints about their identity, so I just memorized the words instead."

Bruce fought for control and took a deep, sobering breath. “Whoever your soulmate is, I can’t decide whether I hate them already or need you to meet them.”

“Need me to meet them?”

Bruce chuckled—he chuckled—and said, “Dick. I have a feeling the two of you are going to be a particularly troublesome pair of best friends.”

& finally, some hijinks!! not strictly batfamily (it's birdflash) but batman and robin are both there so w/e. very entertaining. absolutely edge of my seat all the way through waiting to find out wtf dick's soulmark was. it did not disappoint.

and that's all i got for now!! hope there's something here you'll enjoy :)

#batfam #batfamily

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outoftheframework · 3 years

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my proposal for tropes we as a fandom should adopt in all fanworks going forward: Duke Thomas edition

So every fandom has tropes and characterization quirks that have been generally accepted into fanon and, like, maybe? they were originally based on some obscure comic panel from the 80s or something but it doesn’t really matter because we’re all just,,, cool with it? Like for example- in the dc comics fandom, an art piece could show 3 of the bats that look virtually identical except one of them is holding a box of cereal so that one is obviously Dick Grayson. . . Y’know?

Anyway, these things usually come up naturally I guess but I’ve been here a while and it’s finally time to put my foot down. It’s high time for Duke Thomas to be more in fanon than “the sane one.” Because he might be the relatively new guy but he is certainly fears no gods or laws of the land just as much as the other bats, lemme tell ya.

TL;DR here are character quirks (”canon-based” or otherwise) that we should all really latch onto seriously I’m begging y’all to make at least one of these happen-

Duke “Habitually Jumping Out of Moving Vehicles” Thomas

This one’s actually based in canon y’all; Duke did indeed yeet himself out of the back of a cop car and off of a bridge (in We Are... Robin). Normalize Duke’s wearing knee and elbow pads as Signal because jumping out of a car turns out relatively fine once and then suddenly Batman’s rooftop disappearing act seems mellow compared to the amount of times Gordon has whipped his head around to see a now Signal-less backseat.

Like, he’s going 60 mph?? And he didn’t even hear the door open?? and tHE DOORS ARE STILL LOCKED??

Imagine this leaking into civilian life and Bruce waking up to a blurry photo of Duke mid-escape from a limousine on the front page of the Gotham Gazette.

(more under cut)

Duke “Puzzles are my Passion” Thomas

Duke is ~canonically~ very skilled at both solving and concocting riddles (as a child during that time where The Riddler just,,, controlled Gotham, he worked non-stop on riddles, trying to make the perfect one). Please y’all- let Duke solve puzzles. Have the other bats ask him for help after 36 hours straight of brooding over some brainteaser that Duke works out within the half-hour. He texts a picture of the solution scribbled out on loose leaf in the margins of his pre-calc homework because this boy shows his work.

My guy is a word-cross FIEND. A mind-sweeper speed-runner. That guy who mails into the Gazette to correct a solution in the “fun & games” section and also ps that photo is not of me I am simply a polite young man who is much too busy writing into the paper in the year 2021 to jump out of limos-

I also would love to see this integrated into the type of cases he investigates / runs into on his daytime patrol. Like, obviously the criminal activity is going to dramatically differ before and after sundown, but that doesn’t make Duke’s work any easier or less important. It’s a different skillset; he has to work differently. Instead of jumping into fights, halting mob meetings, saving civilians in dark allies, etc. Duke has to sort through all of the moving pieces before they all converge into something catastrophic.

It’s a known fact that criminal organizations in Gotham make and execute a lot of behind-the-scenes plans during the day specifically not to run into the bats. And Duke knows and monitors this shit all by himself; his work is crucial to logistics and information gathering for the bats as a whole. Now criminals have like, a 2 hour gap between bat-shifts to try and get stuff done. But Duke would 100% set traps on timers or lead them on this pre-set convoluted goose chase to distract them until the night bats come out and to let himself enjoy the whole thing playing out on the news while he finishes homework that’s due at midnight.

Duke “I Know a Guy” Thomas

So in going off of the basic concept for the “We Are. . . Robin” run in combination to his general likability, Duke has a lot of friends all around Gotham. Okay, sure, he doesn’t have a Super best friend or a Speedster on speed dial, but he does know this guy who details cars up on West 35th and will tell them all about the new mods on Black Mask’s transport vans if they come through the third floor window and bring takeout.

Bruce and Tim will be waiting for the facial recognition software to identify at least a partial match off of security cam footage when Duke pulls into the cave, takes one look at the screen, and says “Oh, that’s <insert name, address, abridged life story, and known associates here>.” This also brings in the opportunity for Duke to have some sort of perfect recall for faces, voices, names, etc. which I think could be a really cool element for his position as the batfamily member who has a lot more personal interaction with the people of Gotham.

I’m also into the idea of a lot of people knowing/telling stories about Duke. Not to reference the Chuck Norris meme but almost like the Chuck Norris meme lmao. Think about Jason mentioning his brother to someone and she replies, “Duke Thomas? Like that Duke Thomas? The one who swam across the harbor because he said it’d be faster than the subway and it actually was?” These stories have varying levels of truth to them but Duke will never confirm nor deny when he gets random calls from family members yelling “you dID WHAT”

So those are my top three, and the following is a little speed-round of headcanons :)

Duke has a super expressive face. Like when he’s relaxed around family, you can tell exactly what he’s thinking and how he’s feeling by his visual reactions to things

Duke rotates through picking up new and revisiting old hobbies at a pretty rapid pace. Some hobbies include: bullet journaling, origami, viola, cello, synth, conversational basics in multiple languages, up-cycling and embroidering clothes

Duke has a really fucking adorable smile. He can’t help it. He’ll try to grin sarcastically or smug to be annoying but his smile just cannot be anything other than endearing. He also has a very specific booming laugh that’s an absolute treasure to hear, because it’s the most genuinely happy thing ever.

Duke unironically enjoys Signal by Twice even though the first time he heard it was after Steph had set it as his morning alarm.

So.

Come and get your food, I guess.

Feel free to add on if you’d like! I’d love to see anything you guys write/draw/etc. based on anything from here if you feel compelled to do so!

Stay safe and be well :)

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buttterknifeee · 3 years

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Date with Destiny- Teen Titans x Aquagirl!Reader

Masterlist

Summary: you guessed it bitches its the prom episode with everyone's fav guy Robin (S2 Ep6)

Pairings: Robin!Dick grayson x reader

Word count: 4218

A/N: hey yall I love writing for this series bfgkfhg so if you want my inbox is always open to request!!! love yallll~

Nights in Jump City are the worst time of the day; the sun is long gone and the wind constantly bites at your skin. But it depends on what you're doing to decide whether you like it or not. Sometimes it’s not as bad; that’s when you’re hanging out with your friends, maybe going to a carnival or out partying all night. Sometimes it’s worse, like you being forced to chase after some villain who decided to only operate AT NIGHT. Unfortunately, the latter is true for you tonight.

You slump over in the backseat of the T-Car while Cyborg and Raven sit attentively at the front.

“Why can’t I sit in the front?” you whine, staring at the two Titan’s heads.

“Because I’m the only one that knows how to drive this car and Raven needs to use her telekinesis so we dont die!” Cyborg yells, focusing on the target, who happens to be a guy with a spider for his head that stole a bunch of jewelry.

You groaned and poked your head out the window. Starfire and Beast Boy were up in the air, Robin close by on his motorbike, and you were all chasing the half-arachnid. You stretched out of the vehicle and made punching movements at the criminal, ocean water from the bay twisting over towards him, mimicking your movements. The jets of water just barely nicked him before crashing into the sides of buildings, the teenage spider continuing to scuttle across the city.

You turn your attention back towards the road as the spider guy created a webbed barrier in front of Cyborg’s car and Robin’s motorcycle. You and Cyborg gasp, but Raven calmly holds her hand up towards the road. It cracks, creating a ramp for the four of you to jump over the webs with.

After making the jump, the half spider looks at the car. He shoots webs at you, and its splats on the car windshield.

“I can’t see!” Cyborg yells, swerving the car over to the side. You lurch forward as you finally come to a stop, thankful that Cyborg had installed heavy duty seat belts.

“I don’t see why you can’t let me drive,” you mumbled, stumbling out of the car. You aimed your hands towards the car and a jet of water sprung out from a fire hydrant, cleaning the silk from the windshield.

“I already said it, I’m the only one who knows the inner workings of the T-car! Besides, you don’t even have your license.” Cyborg said, stepping out of the car calmer than before.

“I do too!- You know what, we’ll talk about this later. Right now we need to find the others.” You say, taking in your surroundings. Then out of nowhere, Beast Boy popped out from behind the car.

“Uh hey guys! Kinda got lost back there!” he grins, dusting off silk strands from his arms.

“I’m going after them!” you tell the other Titans, sprinting off into the direction Robin and Starfire went. You flick your wrist as you run and water from the fire hydrant trickles out and forms a wave that you could ride on, like an aquatic skateboard.

You catch up to the two as Starfire gets shot down by the spider teen’s webbing. You make eye contact as you pass her, unsure whether to help her free.

“Just go!” she yells, already beginning to rip the webs thanks to her brute strength. You nod and race forwards to catch up with Robin. You find his abandoned motorbike and look up to see him chasing after the villain using his grappling hook. I’m trying to help him, but I can barely catch up to him, you grumble as you will the water to shoot you into the air, almost like a hydro-cannon. You bounce from roof to roof, inching closer to the Boy Wonder and his pursuit with the villain.

You were right under Robin when the spider-guy shoots some type of laser at him. Suddenly, he freezes up, and begins to fall, knocking you down with him.

“C-can’t… move,” he grunts, on top of you in mid air.

“YEAH NO SHIT” you yell, still stuck under him. Ok ok, options… you think, time seems to slow down around you. I can’t make a geyser because that’d take too long. I like Robin but not enough to break his fall, hmm…

You notice the grappling hook in his belt. You yank it out and shoot it at the wall you just fell from, wrapping your other arm around Robin. Your arm feels like it was about to fall out of its socket as you abruptly stop, hanging in mid air with Robin safely in your grasp. Starfire catches up with you, having broken free from the webbed trap. She helps you down and brings you to where Cyborg, Beast Boy, and Raven stood.

“He is okay?” Starfire asks, holding Robin in place while you catch your breath.

“He will be. The venom’s effect is only temporary.” Cyborg says, examining the Boy Wonder, who was still frozen in a climbing position.

“Getting away...we have to...go after him!” Robin musters, but almost falls over doing so.

“You mean, we have to go after him,” Raven corrects him.

“Yeah, you gotta wait until that stuff wears off,” you say, knocking on his frozen arm to prove your point.

“But-” Robin begins, but Beast Boy cuts him off.

“Dude, we can handle it. The guy's got a spider for a head. Not like he's gonna be hard to find.” he said. Robin didn’t say anything, which was code for a reluctant agreement. Cyborg, Raven, and Beast Boy agreed that they would go after the spider thief, while you, Robin and Starfire return to the Tower to get Robin sorted out.

Later at the Tower, you watched in utter horror and amusement as Starfire shook Robin while holding his feet. He hung upside down, making random yelps of pain as she did… whatever she was doing.

“Um Starfire?” you say. “You know I have healing powers… I could just heal him if we need to.”

“Nonsense Aquagirl!” she chirped as Robin groaned. “There are few problems that Tamaranean acupressure will not solve. Don’t you feel better Robin?”

“Uhhh yeah, thanks.” he said, getting back up to standing position. “Now we can focus on our other issue.” He pulls out his T-communicator.

“Titans! Any luck on finding our jewel thief?”

“We found something worse,” you hear Raven’s voice from the communicator. A live cam of the scene pops up on the living room TV screen. They were at the bridge near Jump City’s Bay; hundreds of cars pass there per minute. You noticed something was near the bridge cables, and upon closer inspection, you realized that it was thousands of moths gnawing at the bridge support. As more cables broke, the bridge grew more and more unstable, cars beginning to slide around.

“Titans go!” you hear Cyborg say, and the three of them run towards the giant cloud of bugs. Unfortunately, they were no match and could barely put a dent in the population.

“Uh, we’re gonna need backup.” Cyborg says to the communicator. You were already out of your chair and adjusting your wrist gauntlets.

“We’re on our way,” Robin says, the three of you making your way to the door. But a familiar voice stopped you in your tracks.

“Don't bother. Even if you defeat a few of my children, you won't be able to stop me from releasing the entire swarm.” the villain you recognized as Killer Moth said, his face appearing on the screen. “Unless you want your city reduced to a moth-eaten wasteland, you'll do exactly as I say.”

“What do you want?’ Robin asked, brows furrowed.

“My demands are simple. The city will declare me ruler, the Teen Titans will surrender, and Robin…” he starts. You flinched at the mention of the Boy Wonder’s name. What could he want to do with Robin? To step down as a hero? Admit defeat? Reveal his identity???

“... will take this lovely young lady to her junior prom.”

Huh?

“Hi Robbie-Poo!” said a girl who appeared on the screen next to Killer Moth. She had blonde hair and blue eyes, was wearing pink pajamas, and although you had just met her, you could already tell that she was a bitch.

“Um… What was that last part again?” he asked, clearly not expecting that demand.

“Um Robin?” you ask. “Who’s this girl and why’d she call you… er, you know.”

“Her name is Kitten,” Killer Moth gloats. “And you will take her to prom.”

“This prom is the matter of a duel, yes?” Starfire asked, not very assimilated in American culture. “Robin eagerly accepts!”

“It’s not a duel, Star. It’s a date.” Robin patiently corrects her.

“Oh”

“Robin! You can’t do this!” you say, looking at him through his masked eyes. “Isn’t that right Starfire?”

“Oh yes!” she agrees. “You mustn't accept!”

“We’re gonna need a minute,” Robin sighs, pulling the two of you away from the center of the room. You stare at him, arms crossed.

“This is so stupid.” you begin. “What kind of villain makes a superhero go on a date with some girl? And what kind of parent names their child Kitten? There’s no way you’re actually going to go to a dance with some random chick!”

Robin doesn’t say anything about your comments, but opens his T-communicator again,

“Cyborg, report. How bad is it?” he asks.

“Bad! We can’t hold 'em much longer!” Cyborg yells through the communicator. “If you’re gonna do something, do it quickly!” You stared at the floor, knowing what he’s gonna have to say to Killer Moth’s demands.

“I have to do it.” he grimaces. You stayed silent as Starfire reacted.

“WHAT?!” she yells.

“It's the only way to save the bridge. The only way to give us enough time to stop Killer Moth.” Robin explains. Starfire looks at you and back at Robin.

“But you do not even have the feelings for her!” she protests, looking straight at you.

“I’m sorry, but I have to, as much as I don’t want to. And I really don’t want to.” Robin says, walking back towards the screen.

“So do we have a deal?” Killer Moth grins, as much as a person with mandibles can.

“I’ll take the girl to prom.” Robin says grimly.

“Don’t tell me. Ask her.” Killer Moth says, referring to the blonde girl still pasted on screen. Even though you couldn’t see Robin’s eyes, you could tell that he was rolling them.

“You’ve got to be-”

“Do it!” the villain yells. Robin sighs.

“Kitten, was it?” he asks.

“Meow,” she replied. You almost threw up when she said that. You could see Robin reacting in the same way.

“Right. Will you...go with me to the prom?” he said, his voice showing his utter disgust.

“Oh, Robbie-poo! I thought you'd never ask!”

I can’t do this you thought, as the screen finally blipped off. Robin calmly pulled out his T-communicator and projected it onto the screen. Raven picked up, Beast Boy and Cyborg crowded around her. You could see in the background that the moths were no longer gnawing at the bridge. He told them that he bought them some time, telling them to find out what he has planned. Then he shows them a picture of Kitten.

“Who is she?” Raven asked.

“She is a manipulative gremlock not worthy of Robin's time.” Starfire pouts.

“Yeah, she's a bitch too.” you add.

“She's got some kind of connection to Killer Moth. Find the connection, and I bet you'll find him.” He said, turning to you and Starfire. “Aquagirl and Starfire will join you to help with the search.” you rolled your eyes; Is he seriously going to do this alone?

“Hey, what about you? Aren’t you going to help us?” Beast Boy asked.

“I can’t. I have a date.”

You and Starfire were going to prepare for your mission when she shoved you into her room. You’ve forgotten how pink all her furniture is, from the curtains to her pillows. She whips out her T-communicator.

“Starfire what are you-” you begin, but she shushes you.

“Starfire to Raven,” she says into the communicator. “Please note that I will be the only person joining you, as Aquagirl will provide Robin backup on his date!”

“Um… okay.” Raven says, then hangs up.

“What??? I’m supposed to help you guys, remember?” you protest. “And I thought you had a crush on Robin??” The alien girl took you by your shoulders.

“Aquagirl, my feelings for Robin have long dissipated, but I am sure you still have the feelings for him!” she chirped. “Do not worry, four Titans are more than enough to defeat Killer Moth! You should go to the prom of non-duels!”

“B-but what do I even wear? Prom dresses were not on my shopping list.” you argue.

“Oh do not worry Aquagirl, you may borrow mine!” Starfire opened her closet to reveal a rack of sparkly dresses, all in different colors. You eyes glittered in awe.

“Ok, I’m in.”

You spent the next half an hour getting ready for the prom. You picked out a blue dress with black lace and black gloves that went out to your elbows. Your suit was camouflaged underneath, just in case you needed to ditch the dress.

“Oh you look wonderful!” Starfire cheered. You blushed, looking at yourself in the mirror.

She flew you over to the prom location, which was on a boat. Water, you thought. Perfect. You looked at Starfire.

“Thanks again for, uh, everything.” you said sheepishly. She smiled.

“It is the no problem!” she says. “I will see you afterwards!” And with that, she flew off into the night. You sighed, holding a corsage for Robin in your hand. You hear the sound of a motorbike. Robin appeared in view; he was still wearing his mask, but his usual outfit had been replaced by a tuxedo. He was still stoically frowning, probably due to not wanting to be here, but something about him just makes your heart skip a beat.

You walked over and tapped his shoulder. He flinched at your touch, but calmed down as he realized that it was you.

“Aquagirl?” he asked, eyeing you up and down.

“Um, just call me (y/n) for today, don’t want to raise eyebrows.” you winked. You pinned the flowers onto his lapel. “It’s my first prom, so I got you a corsage.” It’s true; this is your first prom. You were supposed to go to your junior prom this year, but of course, being a superhero kinda distracted you from that.

“Aqu- (y/n)...” he began. “You’re supposed to be helping the others track down Killer Moth.”

“Well, you said that our job was to investigate that b- uh, girl. And there’s no better way to do it than up close.” you grin. “Besides, Starfire insisted that I backed you up, you never know if you need saving, right?”

Just then, you heard a loud honk from a car. You turn to see a pink limousine pull out. Out stepped an even pinker girl, Kitten. Her headband, dress, corsage, and heels were all an obnoxious pink. She scoured the scene until she found Robin, fiercely waving at him.

“Yoo-hoo! Robbie-poo! Your Kitten has arrived! Me-ow!” she yells. You both physically cringe at her words. Robin leans over to you before he leaves.

“On second thought, maybe I will need the savings.”

You purse your lips as Robin leaves, reluctantly linking arms with the girl. You open your T-communicator.

“Cyborg,” you say. “Robin just entered the boat with Kitten. “How’s it looking on your side?”

“Poor guy,” he says sympathetically. “We just reached Kitten’s house. Going in now. Nice dress by the way.” You grin.

“Thanks man. I’ll be watching him just to see if he needs any help.”

“Got it. Cyborg out.” the screen blips to black and you close your communicator with a sigh. Time for prom.

You awkwardly shuffle onto the boat, making sure to stay a few meters behind the two. Luckily, no one noticed that you didn’t go to their school because they were so distracted by Kitten’s yelling.

“OH ROBIN!, YOU’RE SUCH A GENTLEMAN! NOT AT ALL LIKE MY WORTHLESS EX-BOYFRIEND FANG!!!” your fists clenched as she moved closer to the Boy Wonder, all over his arm. Why did we let her take Robin to the prom again? I’d rather see that bridge collapse than whatever this is.

You stationed yourself at the punch table, pouring yourself a drink. The two were talking at the table. You knew Robin didn’t want to be here in the beginning, but what if he changed his mind? What if, somehow, he falls in love with Kitten, and then you are never gonna have a chance with him?

“OF COURSE ROBIN I’D LOVE TO DANCE WITH YOU!!!” Kitten yelled, the two of them moving towards the dance floor. Your cheeks burned with anger, and maybe a little bit of jealousy. You clenched your fist again, and the sickly pink punch from the punch bowl shot into the air. The couple next to you who was about to get some punch slowly walked backwards away from you. But you didn’t care. You stomped away from the punch table.

You were leaning at one of the clothed tables as you glared at Robin and Kitten dancing away. You don’t even know why you felt so angry; maybe it was the fact that they’ve been dancing for 10 long minutes, or the fact that Kitten’s resting her head on his shoulder, or maybe the fact that you’ve never held Robin’s hand before and she is!

You notice him looking at his T-communicator while he was dancing, relieving you of the idea that he was actually enjoying the dance.

“Kiss me,” you hear Kitten say, and you froze.

“Sorry, I don’t like you that way,” he smirks. “As a matter of fact, I just don’t like you.” YES, you thought, smiling from the table.

“WHAT?!” the blonde girl shrieks.

“Killer Moth’s being taken down as we speak. We’re done here.” He pulls away, tucking his T-communicator into his pocket.

“No we are not!” she yells, ripping the corsage off of her dress. The petals fall away to reveal a cylinder, push-button controller. “Daddy’s not calling the shots tonight, I AM!!!”

“Daddy?” you and Robin said at the same time, in shock. So that's why Killer Moth made Robin go to the prom with her.

“And unless you want me to let those bugs out for a late-night snack, you better pucker up!” she makes kissy noises at Robin, her lips inching closer and closer. Robin put his finger out at them as if to shush her.

“Not even if you paid me,” he said, pushing her away and grabbing the controller out of her hand. They fight over it, and you wonder whether to jump in and help. Suddenly Kitten turns her focus away from Robin.

“Fang?” she smiled. You turned to see the jewel thief from before climbing onto the boat, spider head and all.

“That’s your ex boyfriend?” he asked, staring in shock.

“Get your hands off my girl!” he yells, knocking Robin down with his spider leg, Kitten snatching back the controller. Ok, time to act you thought, holding up your hand. A jet of water sprung up from under the boat and hit Fang, sending him flying backwards.

“And keep your legs off my guy!” you yelled, not even sure if you and Robin were on that level yet. “You alright Rob?” you ask as the Boy Wonder stands up.

“Best I’ve felt all day,” he smirked, ripping off his suit to reveal his costume underneath. You smiled; you two seemed to be on the same track in terms of disguise. You ripped your dress off and your costume uncamouflaged, revealing the familiar blue and black swim gear you always wear. You yank off your gloves to show your gauntlets underneath, the spikes swing up into place. You both look back at Kitten and Fang to find them making out; mandibles and all.

“I think I’m gonna throw up,” you mumble, getting into a fighting position.

“You know…” Robin says, bring the couple’s attention back to you two. “You two make a really bad couple.” Fang charges at the two of you, shooting his webs and venom. One of the webs hit you, sending you to the floor. You used the spikes on your gauntlets to cut yourself free while the spider villain goes after Robin. You finally free yourself as Kitten watches the action.

“Isn’t it romantic? They’re fighting over me!” she swoons. Your cheeks burn hot with anger. Now that you're out of disguise, it's the perfect time to beat her up.

“You’re not worth anyone’s time to fight over!” you quipped loudly, causing Kitten to start screaming at you. She tackles you, and the two of you fall onto the table.

“What the-” you grunt, the air knocked out of you as you crash into the food. You roll over and pin her to the table. You try to reach for the controller, but Kitten smacks a cream pie in your face. She pins you down this time, but you extend your leg to her side and swing, sending her flying across the table. She lands flat on her back, stretched lengthwise across the table. You lunge at her, but she grabs you and dunks your head into the punch bowl. You almost burst out laughing; she was trying to drown you, and you could breathe underwater.

Your eyes glow blue from underneath the punch bowl as the beverage explodes in the girl’s hunched over face. She screams, and you push her into the chocolate cake. She lands on the floor, her pink dress now stained with chocolate frosting.

“YOU.. RUINED… MY… DRESS!!!” she screams, clicking the controller. You gasp in horror, she’s crazy. She runs at you again, screaming and you dodge her, using your water powers to shoot the controller out of her hand. The controller rolls away, right towards the bottom of Robin’s foot.

“Consider yourself dumped.” he said, breaking the controller.

“NOOOOOOO!!!” she shrilled. You rolled your eyes and punched her square in the nose, her falling to the ground.

“I’ve been wanting to do that all night,” you grin at the Boy Wonder, who looked at you in awe.

The other Titans rejoined you as you watched Kitten, Killer Moth, and Fang get pulled into a police van.

“Nobody dumps Kitten! Nobody! You're going to pay for this, Robbie-poo! YOU'RE GOING TO PASAY!!” the blonde girl screamed while being pushed into one of the vans.

“So, no second date?” Cyborg jokes. Beast Boy was sitting over the edge of the boat holding one of Killer Moth’s moth larvae. According to them, the controller Kitten had allowed them to turn into moths, but when Robin broke it, they all turned back into harmless giant bugs.

“So what becomes of Killer Moth’s larvae population?” Starfire asks.

“You know...now that nobody's making 'em all mutate-y,.these things might actually make good pets.” Beast Boy said, poking at the larvae's belly.

“Don’t even think about it.” Raven says, staring in disgust.

You and Robin walk towards some of the students to apologize for ruining their nights when spotlights turn on, the bright lights moving across the floor. The two of you braced for impact. The announcer began to, well, announce.

“And now, the moment you've all been waiting for...the king and queen of this year's prom are...Robin and (y/n)!” Your eyes widened at the announcement.

“I’m back on duty so it’s Aquagirl now! Sorry!” you yelled awkwardly.

“Well um then Aquagirl-” Robin begins, but you stop him.

“I mean, you can call me (y/n), if that’s what you want,” you offered, slightly blushing. He blushed back.

“Oh! Ok, then (y/n) it is.”

“So how about that dance, Boy Wonder?”

“I guess one more dance wouldn’t kill me.”

Robin led you towards the middle of the dance floor. You put your arms around his neck and he put his arms around your waist. His hands were gentle, and was only lightly touching your back, as if he was ready to pull them back at any time.

But he was smiling; something he barely did all night. You both laughed as you awkwardly shuffled across the floor; it's like you had two right feet and he had two left feet so it canceled out. You pulled in a little closer, he hugged you a little tighter. You stared at his masked eyes, imagining them looking back at you.

Suddenly you heard a whistle and whipped your head to see the rest of the Titans nonchalantly watching you two dance. They grinned, waving hello. You rolled your eyes and whipped your hand at them. A small geyser jumped up and landed on the Titans, drenching them. You and Robin laughed, then resumed your dance.

Nights in Jump City are the worst time of day, but with Robin, it’s a whole lot better.

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bigskydreaming · 3 years

Text

Brain topic du jour is reflecting on the frankly weird as fuck pattern in Dick’s life where....he barely ever experiences losses one at a time. Most of the loss he’s experienced in his life is compounded by him losing multiple people and other elements of stability all at the exact same time.

1) When his parents died, in some continuities this is coupled with him losing his extended family of his aunt and cousin as well, with his uncle left comatose and on life support for years before he eventually died as well. Even in continuities without Richard, Karla and John, the loss of Dick’s parents is compounded by the additional loss of his circus family in the sense that he was taken away from them by the state and their constant reassuring presences in his life were no longer comforts he was able to rely on.

2) When Jason died, Dick didn’t just lose his brother, as the tragedy was compounded by Bruce’s reaction. I’ll never be able to gloss over the effects of NTT #55, personally, because I think its too key to Dick’s entire characterization and the specific direction his character took in the years that followed this, to like....disregard that Bruce however unintentionally, while lost in his own grief, added to Dick’s own sense of loss for Jason in probably the worst way possible. As by kicking Dick out and telling him to leave his keys, Dick - having no way to know or guess that they’d ever reconcile, just like he never actually went back to the circus being a regular presence for him - to Dick, this was in essence the equivalent of his childhood tragedy all over again. Losing not just one family member, but his whole family in one sweep, and all the comforts and stability offered by a home he was forced to leave. Even Dick’s contact with Alfred was minimal for awhile, because why would the guy who basically JUST saw history repeat itself and was like, well I know how THIS tends to play out.....why would he think that if Alfred felt forced to actually choose between his loyalties to Bruce and Dick respectively, that Alfred would pick Dick over the man he’d known and raised from childhood himself?

3) Titans Hunt. I know I harp on this one a lot, but you can’t deny that it fits the pattern. Dick didn’t just lose one friend and teammate.....he lost Joey, he lost a good four or five lesser known Titans who nevertheless were people he viewed as directly HIS responsibility to keep safe. With these tragedies compounded by the fact that though comics played out a lot more slowburn and extended stories over years back then, like.....the aftermath of Titans Hunt was still everpresent and directly died into Dick’s reactions and emotions during the Mirage storyline and everything that happened with the failed wedding and his breakup with Kory AND the fact that he was literally forced off the team he’d basically founded, by the government agency that took over the team and appointed Roy as its leader in his stead.

3) Graduation Day. The second time the Titans disbanded it was again not due to a singular loss, because Dick didn’t just lose Donna at this point, but also Lilith died in the exact same story and though Lilith is criminally underused, like, she’s also one of Dick’s oldest friends. She was literally the first Titan to join after the original five. This then led into the Outsiders era, where Dick was shown to still be reeling from the losses of this story for an extended period of time, and in a fun parallel to the Titans Hunt aftermath, Dick was also ousted from his leadership of THIS team by essentially a vote of no confidence by his teammates (and uh, Bruce too, literally).

4) The Blockbuster arc. Where Dick’s emotional state was due to a continued string of multiple losses. He lost his apartment building and almost every one of the neighbors he’d built a community out of, as we’d been shown him actively involving himself in their lives and vice versa for YEARS before this point. Then he lost his circus, his childhood home, burned to the ground and with dozens of deaths - both spectators and actual performers Dick had known and loved as a child. Then he lost his relationship with Barbara, his sense of self-security and autonomy to Tarantula, he lost another teen vigilante who died in his colors, the mantle HE’D created, when Stephanie was believed dead in War Games, and it all culminated in losing the city he’d invested himself in as his CHOSEN home, the place he dedicated himself to protecting, when Chemo blew it up.

Oh just for the record - my nonexistent passport to the magical kingdom of Narnia for a fic that raises the point when bringing up Tim’s losses in the Red Robin era, that like.....ALL of the above happened at literally the EXACT SAME TIME as all Tim’s referenced losses occurred. Obviously Steph meant more to Tim than Dick on a personal level, but I also included her largely as an anchor point to the timeline, to show how that death, and not long after that Jack Drake’s and then Superboy’s.... occurred right smack in the middle of one of the absolute WORST periods of Dick’s life. To be clear, I don’t intend this to suggest that no actually, Dick had it harder than Tim - nah.

No thank you. Hard pass. I hate that sort of thing even in support of my own faves over other characters. No, instead the thing I’d love to see explored more is just in light of the SPECIFIC angle fics take here - that Dick’s actions while Bruce was lost in time showed an obliviousness to everything Tim had lost lately - for literally ANYONE to bring up or introduce into the timeline here an awareness of everything Dick had lost AT THE EXACT SAME TIME PERIOD. To establish that actually, Dick didn’t just ‘not understand what it was like’ - rather, its more accurate to say that nobody in universe around this time ever shows an awareness of Dick’s own losses and says oh wait, that doesn’t track then.

Because obviously, with this stuff put in proper perspective, Dick understands VERY VERY WELL the exact thing we’re accusing him of not understanding by being oblivious to Tim’s losses that he’s not actually oblivious to because he tries to talk to Tim about them all the time, while meanwhile its everyone else who has absolutely mum to say about the fact that Dick’s emotional state is compromised to hell and back at this point, not JUST because of losing Bruce, but also because *gestures wildly* literally ALL OF THE ABOVE in the exact same time frame Tim’s extended losses happened in.

And okay I am going to indulge in slight tiny itty bitty pettiness and point out my ire that so many fics set during this time tend to recite listicles of Tim’s losses, with Steph, Kon and Jack Drake at the very top of said list....while paying no attention whatsoever to the fact that STEPH WAS LITERALLY BACK BY THE TIME THE RED ROBIN SERIES HAPPENED. She’s LITERALLY a person Dick sends to check up on Tim after Tim turns Dick away when he tries himself. How are you gonna stress the impact Steph’s loss has on Tim when you’re not even acknowledging STEPH’S RIGHT HERE IN THE EXACT SPECIFIC CANON STORY YOU’RE CITING??? I just. afhioskhflafhlafhklfahlfa.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but you know who ELSE was also back at the same time? CONNOR. Superboy LITERALLY was already back to life by the time the Red Robin series even began. Like, the issue where a resurrected Kon and Cassie (Wonder Girl) have a heart to heart about the fact that Tim and Cassie ‘connected’ during his absence and Connor stresses that this doesn’t bother him or make him feel negatively towards either of them at all, because hello, he was literally dead at the time, why would he mind that two of the people he loves most in the world sought comfort in each other? Yeah, that issue? Literally came out BEFORE Tim even became Red Robin.

I MEAN. I’m just saying, when people constantly take shots at Dick’s choices during this period because of how much Tim had lost before Bruce already, in order to shift focus away from the fact that Dick lost Bruce every bit as much as Tim did......and you repeatedly emphasize the SAME three names as the focal point of Tim’s losses while paying no acknowledgment whatsoever to everything Dick lost at the exact same time Tim lost these three.....it quickly becomes kiiiiiiinda relevant in my opinion THAT TWO OF THE THREE NAMES CONSTANTLY MENTIONED AS BEING TIM’S LOSSES ARE NO LONGER EVEN LOST BY THE TIME THE SUBJECT COMES UP. Again, I’m just saying! Pettily, mind you! I am aware of the pettiness, I just beg awareness of like *again gesticulates wildly at all of the above* ALL THAT!

LOL.

But I digress.

5) When Bruce was believed dead while he was lost in the timestream. Again, Dick didn’t just lose the father who had been the only parent in his life for almost TWICE as long as his first parents......this was coupled with the loss of numerous other sources of stability in Dick’s life. There’s the matter of his personal sense of identity and self-expression....Dick FOUGHT against becoming Batman, trying to handle Gotham in Bruce’s absence as Nightwing for as long as he could, because he knew being Batman was very much NOT going to be good for him. He put so much of himself into building his identity as Nightwing, establishing himself in that role, that self-image, that yes, I maintain it was an actual LOSS for Dick, to feel like he had no choice but to give that up and everything it meant to him and his own life, in order to essentially live Bruce’s life for him in his absence.

Because it wasn’t just being Batman that Dick was struggling with at this time....he also had to act as the patriarch to the Wayne family, essentially raise Bruce’s ten year old son, step into Bruce’s old role in Wayne Enterprises, all while getting no acknowledgment for any of this, for literally LIVING his father’s life instead of the life Dick had worked so hard to build for HIMSELF....because of course Dick’s actions and struggles couldn’t even be advertised beyond the family and close friends, because the whole point of him doing all this was so that nobody else even realized that Bruce wasn’t really there anymore. Dick didn’t just assume Bruce’s responsibilities. Dick assumed Bruce’s life, so thoroughly that most people didn’t even put together that Bruce was ‘dead,’ between Dick handling Bruce’s actual roles and responsibilities while Hush made public appearances as him.

Like, when you’re living someone else’s life so completely that nobody can tell they’re even gone....how on earth does that leave any time or space for you to have ANY kind of life of your OWN, y’know? Not to mention the fact that like in so many times previously....all this meant that Dick couldn’t even afford to let his grief for his own losses show, because he wasn’t supposed to be grieving any losses in the first place, that was the whole point of the con!

Additionally, couple this with the fact that throughout this time period, Dick didn’t have Tim to lean on at all, because it was never that Dick kicked Tim out or neglected him or didn’t care....he’d actively stressed how much he needed Tim, because the partner Tim was convinced Dick chose ‘over’ him - Dick was the first one to admit back then that he DIDN’T trust Damian yet, couldn’t afford to, because he was all too aware that Damian didn’t give a fuck about him yet and couldn’t be guaranteed to step in to have Dick’s back - because that required mutual trust that Dick literally just hadn’t had time to build yet. And add to THAT the fact that during this time, Jason was actively antagonizing the family and Dick in particular at every turn, trying to bring them all down and basically write over what all of them saw as Bruce’s legacy with Jason’s own version of what he thought that should look like.

Also also, take into account that unlike how often we see fanon depict Dick as just too stubborn or proud to ask for help, there’s the fact that he actually had very few avenues TO ask for help! As already established, he DID ask Tim for help. Not like Jason was an option at this time, and Dick’s friends weren’t actually just sitting waiting in the wings and groaning about the fact that Dick was trying to do all of this solo....nah, they kinda had their own problems, which Dick was all too aware of?

Like the fact that in the wake of Final Crisis, it wasn’t just Bruce that was believed lost. Many other key Leaguers like Martian Manhunter were dead or lost, with others struggling to fill the gaps left in their absence. Cry For Justice happened right after Final Crisis too....that story where Lian was murdered? So it wasn’t like Dick was remotely going to try leaning on Roy when Roy had just lost his freaking DAUGHTER and very much wasn’t handling it well (and not to overshadow Roy’s loss at ALL, but please let’s not act like Dick - who had literally been the person to put a baby Lian in Roy’s arms for the first time and had known that girl for pretty much her entire life - like, it shouldn’t be used to detract from Roy’s loss at all, but it shouldn’t have to, to just acknowledge that Lian’s loss right at this exact time was painful as fuck to Dick, who’d loved his niece like crazy.)

The pattern of compounding, concurrent losses in Dick’s life. I’m just saying. Its there.

And it extends into the New 52 as well, where Forever Evil came right on the heels of Dick losing his circus in THIS continuity to the Joker, just as a way to hurt him in Death of A Family. And with the aftermath of Forever Evil and Dick’s own literal death, being like....the complete loss of Dick’s entire life, even though he was revived quickly. That didn’t mean he got to live HIS life though, since Dick Grayson was believed dead and he was told had to remain so, so its like fuck whatever he actually wanted to do as he went about on the Spyral mission aka something that pinched his own sense of morality and personal agenda at every turn and was kinda the last thing a therapist would recommend for a trauma recovery period, lol. And like, for all the focus that was paid to how Dick’s family were hurt because they believed they’d lost him when he was actually alive, let’s not forget that for all intents and purposes, Dick DID lose his family in the wake of his resurrection because he was flat out told over and over that due to what ‘he’d LET happen to him’ he was an ACTIVE danger to them, and thus wasn’t allowed by Bruce to contact any of them or lean on them to any degree, until Bruce got amnesia and stopped blocking Dick’s pleas to return home by just not being there to pick up the secret phone line at all.

(And omg, the obliviousness that just EMANATES off the hot takes that Dick had a ‘choice’ in all this and he still CHOSE to do what Bruce told him....like. LOLOL, stop being pissy about me bringing up the term abuse apologism when its literal victim blaming to paint the guy who had to be beaten into ‘agreeing’ to the Spyral mission in the immediate wake of the trauma of DYING, all while his father vocally blamed him for his own suffering and the ‘threat’ he now posed to his family, keying directly into the guilt complex Bruce knows damn well is at the core of most of Dick’s motivations.....fucking please. There’s no choice in all that. That’s active emotional, mental and physical abuse aimed at directly manipulating Dick’s actions, delivered by the guy who knows Dick best in the world and whose approval - particularly when Dick is at absolute rock bottom aka Current Location - matters more to Dick than just about anything because his sense of self-worth has more in common with dog shit than actual dog shit does. Or something. Idk. That analogy got away from me. But like. You get it.)

BUT. I. DIE. GRESS. (I guess).

Aaaaaaanyway, so yeah! That repeating pattern throughout Dick’s life of ‘loss? What loss (singular)? My losses only come in groups, lolol, fuuuuuun’ - mmmm. Yeah. So that’s what’s on MY brain right now. Thoughts?

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