junkdrawerfan

[junkdrawerfan]

It isn’t like Damian to miss a meal. Even when he was engrossed in a case, he took pride in sticking to his schedule no matter the circumstances. So for him to sequester himself in his room long after lunchtime has passed is unthinkable.

Bruce spoons yam soup into a china bowl, taking care not to spill a drop. Alfred would have his head if he stained the oak table after its Sunday cleaning. He does his best to avoid scooping up any of the onions floating in the tureen. If Damian was feeling ill, it was best to stick to as mild a flavor profile as possible.

Not that Damian had found any of the meals they’d been eating before his arrival particularly flavorful, Bruce reflects with amusement as he takes the stairs one at a time to keep from disturbing the soup, compared to his mother’s cooking, the Manor’s table was lacking. He’d probably find the onions a welcome addition, if anything.

All the doors on the second floor of this wing are shut, but Damian’s is the only room that’s occupied. Here, Bruce picks up his speed some, trying to avoid looking at the spotless, unlived rooms; proof that his nest is emptying out. 

Damian’s door is open, which is a surprise. He’s always been thorough with protocol when he’s sick, and he’d never risk transmission. But then again, the hallway’s resounding silence reminds him that there’s no one in the Manor besides the two of them and Alfred that he could even come in contact with.

He steps in without knocking, taking the open door as the invitation it could be, “Damian-”

He nearly drops the soup.

Damian glares up at him from where he’s seated at his dresser. Tubes of lipstick and mascara as well as a host of other makeup products are scattered in front of him. He’s styled a long, black wig over his head, carrying it with natural grace. From where Bruce is standing, he can tell that he’s in a dress, but he can’t make out anything besides its colour.

“Father”, Damian huffs, “I’m surprised you’d forego your manners so easily”

Talia, Bruce thinks dazedly, his heart too heavy for his chest, he looks just like Talia.

There, sitting at the dressing table with warm brown eyes and lips this side of too-full, is Talia how she’d looked in the early years of their courtship.

“You missed lunch”, he manages to get out, “I thought you might be feeling under the weather”

There’s a decorative side table by the door with a round glass vase, lemongrass peeking over its lip. Bruce places the china bowl next to it.

“I brought you soup”, he adds unnecessarily. He’s off-kilter, the breath knocked out of him by the sight of his son looking like someone he’d never thought he’d have the privilege of seeing again. He’d have known her any place, her movements etched into him bone-deep. But it’s uncanny, the way his face has transformed.

Damian’s eyes soften. 

“Thank you for the soup father”, Damian says, and it’s his voice that breaks the spell, too deep to match the honey-tone of his mother, “and for your concern. As you can see, I feel fine. I simply got carried away”

“Yes”, Bruce agrees, “you certainly seemed occupied”

“Recon mission with Jon”, Damian explains, looking back at the products on his table with disgust, “it was his idea that we use disguises. Robin could spook our marks, and Damian Wayne is too high profile”

He lingers by the doorway, feeling more and more like an unwanted guest with every passing second. Superboy and Robin had long become their own outfit, reporting to him and Clark only as a courtesy, and even that was mostly on a need-to-know basis. 

As it stood, Damian spent his nights at their base- the Fortress of Attitude, as Jonathan Kent had called it and what he’d taken to referring to it as in his own head- more often than not. Bruce had realised months ago that Damian only staked his claim over his room in the Manor out of worry for him. 

What a pair they make, circling each other but refusing to say the words out loud. He huffs a laugh under his breath. 

“You don’t seem too happy with this mission, son”, he observes, keeping his tone neutral and free of judgment. He’s learnt to avoid using Damian’s name, to use nicknames and endearments when he wants him to open up. He seemed to take it as an admonishment when his given name was used. 

It’s funny, the things he’s learnt with Damian that he’d never had with Tim. And then there were the things he’d discovered with Tim that had never come to mind with Dick. How each time he’d felt that bit more prepared only to be thrown off balance all over again.

“It’s not the mission so much as my disguise”, Damian huffs, looks embarrassed, “I am…unsure of how to proceed with the makeup. The products don’t seem to be working for me as they’re supposed to”

Now that he mentions it, Bruce can see faint traces of his failed attempts. A smudge of eyeliner at the inner crease of his eyes, his mouth stained a darker red. 

There’s an ache in his chest at the complaint, the familiarity of it. The memories it brings of his time under the stars of Khadym, a penthouse suite in Paris- little pockets of what felt like an entirely different universe. 

“I could help you”, Bruce offers, tries to clear his throat of the clog that’s building up.

Damian shoots him a doubtful look but doesn’t refuse.

“You’ll need to wash everything else off first”, he instructs, “use a cleanser and avoid makeup wipes. Your skin is sensitive and they’ll only irritate it”

He blinks, “It is? How would you know?”

How many hours had he spent watching Talia get ready? Her warm voice like birdsong, and him, watching the back of her neck from whatever bed they’d fallen into that night.

“I have a good guess”, he dismisses, pushing back against decades of history before they can collapse at once.

Damian obeys him, patting his face dry as Bruce sorts through the assortment of makeup he’d either purchased or filched from his older siblings’ rooms. He can recognise a lipstick that Cass uses, and an eyeshadow palette Dick kept on his bathroom sink. He hasn’t seen that one in a while, assuming that he’d taken it to Bludhaven when he’d moved out. But if Dick had left it here…

This is going to be tough. Bruce just has to grit his teeth and get through this, keep from falling to pieces before he can finish helping Damian.

“First, we start with a primer”, Bruce explains, helping him through the motions, “then we move on to foundation”

He picks up two bottles of foundation, blends a pump of each on Damian’s forearm and holds it up to his face.

“This already feels like too much work”, Damian grumbles, and the voice doesn’t match but the words ring in the back of his head. Talia had liked pampering herself, taking care of her skin and hair for the pleasure of it. But dolling herself up for LexCorp shareholder meetings had angered her, had brought her more annoyance than a sense of fulfillment. 

“Mm”, he grunts in response, “Do you want to do your eyes next?”

Damian shrugs in assent. It’s only then that Bruce clocks what he’s wearing. It’s one of Cass’ old dresses. It fits well enough- the two of them possessed a similar build- and Bruce counts his blessings that Damian hadn’t dug up one of Talia’s old dresses to go with the rest of his disguise. For all his meditative prowess, he didn’t know that he could keep himself together if he received such a strong slap in the face.

“You can skip the mascara”, he assesses Damian’s face critically, “your lashes are long enough on their own. Don’t do anything too bold with your eyeshadow or lip, it’ll make you noticeable”

“I do have enough sense not to stand out on an undercover mission”, Damian teases, rolling his eyes exaggeratedly, “I’ve been doing this Robin shtick for a good decade now, don’t you think you should have a little more faith in me, father?”

“Don’t sass me”, Bruce plays along, tapping the tip of Damian’s nose with the hard end of a makeup brush, “you don’t need bronzer and I’d skip the contouring. Use a darker lip liner than the shade of lipstick and maybe give yourself a few more moles along your neck, something by your eyes, to throw attention off the rest of your features”

“I will”, Damian confirms, chewing on his lip.

“Don’t”, he admonishes softly, nudging at his chin with the brush, “is there something you want to ask me?”

“Just how you got so good at this”, Damian says, swiveling his chair away from him to avoid meeting his eyes.

There’s a second where he wants to be selfish, hide the memory of Talia cradling his face in gentle hands, the way she’d walked him through each step, let him pretend it was knowledge for the sake of knowledge and not another string binding him to her. The sense memory of her jasmine scent washing over him as she leaned close, closer than necessary, her long fingers burning points of contact against his jaw, is his to treasure. His to mourn.

But one look at Damian’s poorly-concealed curiosity has his resolve crumbling. 

“Your mother taught me when we first met”, he confesses, “after our combat lessons, she’d teach me the finer points of makeup and more sartorial pursuits. I didn’t think it would be of any use, but Talia warned me that my identity as a socialite depended on perfecting my knowledge of all the things people in my sphere found important”

And if that had been his first kiss with her, clumsy, over-eager, lipstick smudging everywhere, that was something he couldn’t be pressed to share.

“My mother?” Damian echoes wonderingly, his hands flying up to his face on instinct. 

“Yes, she had quite the collection of products”, he recollects, “she preferred citrus scents with base notes of coumarin and she swore by Marc Jacobs. She used to joke that Cerruti was better armour than any polymer I could come up with, especially in our circle”

“Citrus notes and coumarin”, he repeats under his breath, like he’s committing the fact to memory. His heart feels like a bruise, soft and sore.

“You know, you look just like her”, Bruce says quietly, thankful for Damian’s foresight in turning away. He can’t pretend he isn’t at least a little misty eyed. 

“I do?” Damian asks, the undercurrents of joy to his tone plain as day. Talia had told him once that she’d wondered what their child would look like, had hoped they’d inherit his eyes and the stubborn set of his mouth. Bruce had disagreed. Damian, with his mother’s nose, the brown of her eyes and her dimples, was perfect, a mirror image of all the beauty that had stolen his breath when he’d first laid his eyes on her.

“You do”, he confirms, swipes at his eyes surreptitiously, “I doubt Jonathan will be able to keep his eyes off of you for more than a minute”

“Father!” Damian screeches, face suffusing with embarrassment, “That’s not-! We aren’t-!”

Bruce grins as he rises to the bait, “That’s very convincing, chum”

“Leave, please, and close the door on your way out!”

The weight in his chest settles some as he backs out of Damian’s room, still laughing. The empty house, the raw ache of her absence, he can forgive all of it in this moment, a new sweetness to his memories with Talia.

Rest well, beloved, he calls out to her softly in his head where he might have once done aloud, thank you for everything.

[junkdrawerfan]

I will never stop complaining about Morrison simply not understanding that what makes Bruce's dynamic with Ra's and Talia interesting is love.

Ra's knows Bruce's identity, he's richer than him, he has more resources and knowledge than him...he could destroy Bruce, but he doesn't. Because Ra's respects Bruce, but also because Ra's loves his daughter Talia and Talia loves Bruce.

Bruce is very similar to Ra's in many ways, but they fundamentally disagree on if it's okay to kill or not. The only reason why Bruce is tempted by Ra's offers is because Bruce genuinely loves Talia and wants to be with her.

Talia loves Bruce and frequently helps him in foiling Ra's plans. The reason why Ra's and Talia keep returning to each other despite that is because Ra's loves his daughter and Talia loves Ra's as her father.

If you erase the love between Ra's and Talia and also erase the love between Bruce and Talia none of their classic stories make any sense anymore and all of them become boring when interacting with each other.

[junkdrawerfan]

this took me embarrassingly waaay too long to finish omg 😭😭😭

[junkdrawerfan]

pass the torch

[junkdrawerfan]

Jason is not Robin (and never will be) au

[junkdrawerfan]

I really enjoyed Failsafe, The Bat-Man of Gotham, and Joker: Year One! I’m excited to read Dark Prison. But how necessary is Gotham War? Because I feel like Joker One I was missing some context?

Overall though, I think the series is doing some really interesting stuff, playing around with an older Batman is like and his doubts and writing, in a meta way, to directly conflict the idea “should Batman kill” and “Bruce Wayne’s real name is Batman.” The story constantly confirms this idea that Batman without Bruce Wayne’s humanity and compassion is a lesser hero and his deep belief that everyone is worth saving, even Joker, even if it’s just the small part of Joker that wants to be saved, is not just good but necessary to make Batman a hero. It also reaffirms that Bruce is better off with others and having close friends and family is important to his ability to be a good effective hero. I almost feel like it’s arguing against a certain subset of Batman fans :D

I also love how campy and silly the comic book is. It a genre aware arc that asks the readers, similar to Dragon Ball Z, not suspend their disbelief and accept the rule of cool. And I promise a lot of the stunts are very cool!

Also side note, I want to write a Failsafe and the Bat-Man of Gotham AU where Tim can’t talk because of the gunshot to the neck! I think it’d be so interesting to have to deal with that conflict on top of everything else!

[junkdrawerfan]

i am some sort of fey creature and my cat is the human who i have arbitrarily decided is my favorite human.

[junkdrawerfan]

1980's inspired Teen Titans

Here's some fun Teen Titans redesigns I did for the heck of it. I'm still working on Blackfire, and I am hoping to get around to some of the others. I know the roster of characters I have right now doesn't make any particular type of sense. But I just started drawing the characters that I like to draw and let it grow from there :)

[junkdrawerfan]

Really? Right across the Daily Planet where *everyone* can admire the view??

[junkdrawerfan]

So good news! I wrote it!!!

walking the path by TheQueen

Summary:

It was Barbara who brought it up first. The Drake Kidnapping hadn’t pinged as high priority on Batman’s To Do List. That is until Bruce started looking into their son. For Tim’s part, he never wanted to be a hero. It seems like the universe has other ideas.

If Jason didn’t die and Tim didn’t become Robin, Tim’s parents would have been killed by the Obeah Man** and Bruce would have become his foster father.

After all, who other than Bruce is qualified to foster a rich kid in Gotham? I doubt there are a lot of other upper crust folks who are capable or certified of being an emergency foster. And Tim is rich enough and public enough (a massive scandal where elite Jack and Janet Drake of Drake Pharmaceuticals is kidnapped in Haiti and ransomed by a foreign costumed criminal! It’d be headlines for weeks!!) to not get lost in the Gotham foster care. So off to the Wayne’s he goes.

I imagine angry and heartbroken at the death of his parents, Tim would see his fostering with the Wayne’s as a sign! After all, this is the same kid who asked if “Robins have to be Orphans” when his parents were kidnapped in the comics. He’s superstitious enough to believe in signs from the universe.

Imagine that first dinner. Dick has been invited over because Bruce has learned his lesson after Jason and he’s been busy reassuring both his sons that this is all temporary and trying to hid any proof he’s Batman in preparation for Tim to come. Alfred has cooked something simple and hearty for a heartbroken boy in the news whose big sad blue eyes remind him so much of the first Orphan he ever cared for. Jason is nervous about having another rich kid at the manor. And Dick feels like he recognizes this kid in the news from somewhere but he can’t put his finger on it.

And boom! Right after everyone is done scrapping their plates and thanking Alfred after a relatively normal dinner. Tim, who’s been very quiet, looks up and demands to be trained as a superhero. He’s not looking to be Robin, not with Jason alive. He’s not trying to replace Jason. But he won’t let what happen to him happen to any other kid. He wants to be a hero and he won’t take no for an answer.

Well fuck… I guess Bruce is keeping another one? What else is he supposed to do?

—-

** The reason Jack Drake lives is because Batman goes to Haiti to save him. If Bruce isn’t emotionally connected to Tim why would he care about this case personally? It has no effect on Gotham and he was in the middle of another a serial robbery case which is more pressing that he abandons to look for Tim’s parents. So I fully believe if Tim wasn’t Robin, Jack would have died with Janet.

Tim Drake is destined to be an orphan just like his brothers and sisters.

[junkdrawerfan]

Thank you for working on this drawing with me! I really enjoyed collaborating on this piece with me and being so open to feedback. I really adore how it came out! I am so excited to add it to the AO3 story! :D

My art for @junkdrawerfan 's @batfam-big-bang fic, walking the path! This piece ended up being very collaborative lol it was fun to see it all come together.

[id: image of Bruce Wayne standing outside on a stone balcony. He's looking up at the night sky, with Gotham in the distance. His phone is open to Jim Gordon's contact, the call button visible.]

[junkdrawerfan]

Thank you for taking the time to create for my story! I hope you enjoyed the final product! I can't wait to add your piece to the second chapter :D

[id: A digital drawing of Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson and Jason Todd in black suits on a bright yellow background. They are being looked at by variously sized eyes from all directions. Bruce is ruffling Dick's hair with his right hand and has his left on Jason's shoulder, who is scowling into a red drink. end id]

Hahaha guess who was in the this year's Batfam Big Bang and feels awful not even because this artwork sucks but because I KNOW I can do better anyone who's seen any of my other art knows I can do SO MUCH BETTER and yet this looks like this it's not even a good representation of the amazing scene from @junkdrawerfan 's incredible fic Walking The Path. Shout-out to the beautiful art made by my fellow artist @dc-sideblog and our beta reader @writergeek who all did amazing, and the @batfam-big-bang for organising this!!! I did have a lot of fun despite how my feelings about the drawing may suggest lol

[junkdrawerfan]

walking the path

Relationships:  Gen | Tim & Bruce | Bruce & Jason & Dick | Bruce & Barbara Gordon | Bruce & Jim Gordon | Tim & Original Male Character(s) | Tim & Jack & Janet

Rating: T

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Tim Drake Joins the Batfamily Late (DCU), Social Media, Miscommunication, Depression, Grief/Mourning, Family Drama, Angst, Jason Todd Lives, Tim Drake-centric (DCU), POV Bruce Wayne, POV Tim Drake (DCU), Tim Drake is Not Adopted, Bruce Wayne Tries to Be a Good Parent, Tim Drake Has a Bad Time, Bruce Wayne is Bad at Communicating, The Dangers of Being Rich Young And Famous

Summary: It was Barbara who brought it up first. The Drake Kidnapping hadn’t pinged as high priority on Batman’s To Do List. That is until Bruce started looking into their son. For Tim’s part, he never wanted to be a hero. It seems like the universe has other ideas.

Written for the @batfam-big-bang!

And please check out the amazing art done for this fic by @vaguelyart and @dc-sideblog! And a shout out to my amazing beta @writergeek! Thank you all for helping my create this fic <3

Comics Referenced:

"Rite of Passage" in Detective Comics (1897-2015) #618-621

"A Lonely Place of Living" in Detective Comics (2016) h963–968

[READ HERE]

Excerpt:

And then Barbara says, “I feel bad for him.”

Batman grunts questioningly as he leans forward as if to spy this mysterious “him” that Barbara is preoccupied with.

“Tim Drake,” she clarifies. “You should read some of these articles, B. It really makes you nervous who's going to try and snatch him up.”

That gets Bruce’s attention. “He doesn’t have any extended family?”

“Both his parents were only children and the only surviving grandparents are refusing custody. Apparently, they never wanted their daughter to marry Jackson Drake and they don’t want his son.” There is a moment of silence as if Barbara is waiting for something before she says, “It’s shaping up to be a real Gotham tragedy.”

It is a painfully familiar story, one he does his best not to draw parallels to. Bruce has pulled two children out of the mess that is the Gotham Foster System and was lucky to avoid a similar fate by the strength of his name alone. As an adult he has poured millions into trying to clean it up. But there is only so much Bruce Wayne and Batman can do. Some things just take time. “I’m sure it will work out,” Bruce comments after another long pause, unsure what else to say. 

Barbara hums uncertainly before directing his attention to a robbery six blocks over. 

[junkdrawerfan]

so I might've gotten a bit carried away (still a wip)

i really hope that this wont join the bundle of abandoned wips lol

[junkdrawerfan]

against my better judgement (wallet) i commissioned Jorge Jimenez again

oh reading this again makes it sound like i'm disappointed sdfgh i'm ridiculously happy!! and unfortunately ready to risk money at the next opportunity

[junkdrawerfan]

gotham is exactly the right amounts of wet and socioeconomically unstable to have spawned an INSANE grunge scene you just know their local shit is like the sonic equivalent of getting hit over the head with a car battery

[junkdrawerfan]

Hold that pose, say cheese

for @its-your-mind as part of @dcforgaza, thank you for donating!