#babys first introduction to nightwing and oracle

[franollie]

baby fran watched nightwing, oracle, and batman interact in The Batman (2004) s4e7 “artifacts” and has been chasing that high ever since

[breyito]

Batfamily Introduction- Matt Reeves universe

So...this is how I'd go about assembling the Batfamily in Reeves verse. I have (at least the movies about Jason) completely developed in my brain, but well, writing the scripts is a whole other issue. I could, but 2k fics are too much for me at the moment, so I thought I'd share this with the world, free some space in my brain, so to speak. Praying that someone out there, that has the actual pull to make this happen, reads this and maybe uses it a little. Mainly about Jason, because my poor boy deserves better, and an live action portrayal that is accurate and true to character, instead of the constant angst trainreck that is his life in the comics, for some reason.

The more detailed an idea is, the more doubts I have about it, idk. Dick's is less developed since pretty much everyone is familiar with him, so I kinda skipped him, sorry. And Damian...well, I don't know enough about him to write him much more than he is, and tbh, I'd like to do something with him and Jon more than anything else.

Here it goes!!! (Also, I'm just a fan, so please don't hate on this, yeah? If you don't like it, move on.)

Batman: Gravity / Gravitas/ Gravitational Pull

(Dick's origin story as Robin movie, Zucco,  Selina helps, Ace shows up, Zucco almost dies but D!R decides not to, little scenes with Batgirl (?),etc)

      •Robin the first*: Dick's solo movie when he's older, establishing the Titans (Babs, Roy, Donna, Joey(?)), Deathstroke as antagonist(?). He ends the movie as Nightwing (?).

Batman: Mind Games

(Jason as Robin origin story, Jason steals the Batmobile tires, B sends him to a home. Mad Hatter/ Dollmaker is buying kids from Ma Gunn's and Jay helps B & Gordon realize this and to put a stop to it, B ends up kidnapped and Nightwing isn't answering Agent A and Batgirl is holed up in the precinct with Gordon; so Jay dresses up as Robin and goes to try and stop the freak. He trips the rogue with his marbles and knocks him out, waiting until Batgirl/Nightwing come to free the hostages from the tech, keeping the conscious kids calm. Dick is surprised about Jay but not a dick about it. Bruce offers to adopt Jay, and says it's not necessary to be Robin too, but Dick Is all "unless you want to, little wing! I'm gonna teach you all the *best* moves B is too old to do!" Sue me, I want one happy Batfamily, ok? Ok).

      •Robin the second*: Jason's solo movie, Kid Devil Pen pal, Kyle(?), Rose(?), Gar(?) or the Titans say he's too little?; Catwoman/Ivy/Nocturna as mentors/aunts? Heist movie. Professor Pig/Toymaker as antagonist? He ends up saving the Titans/Batman despite the doubts about him.

Batman: "A death in the family"/[?]

(Garzonas/child trafficking ring; they butt heads about 'procedure' and 'too much violence'; Barbara is paralyzed; Jay looks for Haywood, she sells him out to Joker, Jason dies. A few months later, B gets called to deal with Flashpoint and finds out Flash is the reason Jay died ("Allen, you killed my son? You killed my SON!" "I'm sorry- Bruce, I'm-" "Effective immediately, Allen's tenure in the Justice League is terminated. Central City will be relegated to Wallace, if he's ready to take on the name." "Bruce!" "If he can not use his powers responsibly, he can not be trusted with them. Unless you want me to give you an antidote." "...you don't have one." "Are you willing to try me?" post-credit scene. Jay's hand breaking the ground of his grave post-post credit scene)

Batman: [?]/Bane of the City

(Tim as Robin Origin story. Broken back, Dick as Batman for a little while, they defeat Bane, Bruce heals a little bit, Barbara remakes herself as Oracle and saves their asses at a crucial moment, etc. Jason is alive and with the LoA, baby!Damián? post-credit scene.)

    •Robin the third*: Tim's solo movie, he finds Connor and goes against Lex? + Cassie and Bart, of course. Steph is introduced at the end (iconic brick-in-the-face moment).

Batman: Under the Red Hood/[?]

(RH takes over the Alley in a couple of weeks; steals the kryptonite and ruins deals for Black Mask; kills the leutenants of the mobs and gains control over them, etc. ("B, this guys is not out of control." "Dick?" "I'd say this guy is completely in control. Look at these! He hasn't killed a single innocent. Every one of these men and woman have charges for murder, rape, abuse, child pornography or molestation, human trafficking... and all of them got away with it or got the minimal sentence or had the charges dropped or the witnesses killed. They weren't casualities, they were targeted." "It doesn't matter, he's still killing people." "Yeah, bad people! The worst society has to offer." "Dick..." "Bruce, we have bigger problems than a man that keeps the civilians out of things, the children protected and only takes his rage on the worst of humanity.") Jason still attacks Tim at TT, but only to keep him out of the final confrontation -broken wrist, ankle and bruised ribs- ("No more dead Robins" is written in Jason's blood on the wall). Jason as RH reveal; B accepts Jay killing Joker -he turns around and gives him permission- but the damn clown blows up the building before he can and scapes even after RH shoots him a few times. Jason collapses in Bruce's arms, sobbing, terrified. B asks Jay to comes home and he does, to a heartfelt reunion. Jason apologizes to Tim, giving him the R he cut off the Robin suit in the case instead of the one he took in the Tower. Damian's existence bomb drop post-credit scene. One big happy Batfamily, see?).

    •Robin the fourth*: Steph's solo movie. She starts the movie as Spoiler, ends the movie as Robin but dead. Steph tries to stop her dad, meets R!Tim, they fall in love somewhere in the middle. R!Tim wants her as part of the Titans, she refuses cuz her mom doesn't know about Spoiler and she wants to stay in Gotham due to Cluemaster. Jack Drake forces Tim to give up Robin (Steph finds out his identity due to him screaming threats to Bruce) and Bruce offers R to her a few days later, she agrees. Tim doesn't like ir, but Steph is Tim's only contact with the Batfam, so he's ok-ish with it. Cluemaster realizes his daughter is Spoiler/the new Robin and sells the info to Sionis, hoping he'll get him out of prison (he thinks Black Mask will use it to find out who Batman is, not torture her to death, but still). B&Steph butt heads, some "you're too much like Jason" comments/classism thrown her way (Jason is in the LoA trying to convince Talia to give up Damian to B, btw) She starts a war between two gangs to stop them destroying her block/neighborhood's business and homes. BM kidnaps her then, and tries to torture the info of Batman and Red Hood (his bitter enemy) out of her. She holds out until N&B&RH rescue her, but too late. She "dies" then ("was I a good Robin?" "you were a great Robin"). (Post-credit scene is her waking up gasping in a hospital bed, her window shows a Savanna.)

Batman: Blood Son/ Blood Feud

(Damian gets to Gotham to witness the end tail of the gang war after Steph's death. Tim is back in the Manor, back as Robin (he put on the suit to stop the war and BM; since Jack is in a coma he doesn't care anymore), working with B & N & RH to clean things up. R almost kills BM by beating him, so RH puts a blade to the guy's throat and says he will kill him if Tim says the word. Tim, in the end, says no. RH then cuts through BM's spinal cord, leaving him paralyzed. ("As a compromise" he grins savagely at Batman, winking.) Damian tries to off Tim the moment they meet, but Tim is very on edge and puts him down quickly and brutally ("You want to be Robin, remplace Steph, with *those* skills? Ha! Give me a break/Pathetic.") Dick tries to explain how fragile Tim is at the moment, while Jason & Alfred try to make them bond by cooking together, and B makes them solve cold cases together (it turns into a competition, of course, but since it ends with Tim spending less Time on the field, B doesn't stop it). Jack dies after an attack at the hospital by Cap Boomerang; after the funeral he goes out as RR, to get revenge. Zsasz gets him first, since RR is out of it. Damian -who was following him, not worried- ends up saving Tim after Zsasz kidnaps him on BM's orders, as payback. He stalls Zsasz until the others get there and cuts off one of his arms while trying not to kill him. (I wanna add Killer Croc here somehow, he's hired but Damián either convinces him to leave or beats him by drugging him or something). While Tim is recovering in the hospital/cave he passes the R to him. (''You'll do a good job." "Tt, of course I will." "Just...maybe get a less sharp weapon?" "Because blunt force trauma is more elegant?" "Nop. It's usually less deadly, tho."))

The (*) means I have no idea for a tittle. I know I want it to be secuencial, like a series, because that's what they are lol.

[when42-0fallasleep]

[ << previous post ]

"Where are we going, Hood?"

"Relax, Demon Brat," Robin didn't need to look through that mask to know that Todd was grinning, "As long as you don't tell no one, we're gonna be fine."

"Especially B and Red," Black Bat signed while walking next to him, making him nodded, "Right, especially B and Red, since those two are gonna dig too deep, and my friends here keep a hell lot for themselves."

Well, Robin could see the vision: instead of "staying at Todd's apartment after patrol because Father was being insuferable" like he told Nightwing (and to which, Grayson just laughed because he just "being petty because B didn't allow any more animal in the manor"), he was walking down a narrow corner of Crime Alley, with Red Hood and Black Bat, to somewhere since both of his older siblings were being unnecessary secretive about all of this.

"And... we're here," Red Hood announced, as he pointed to a... who was in their right mind to open a book café in such a place?

Hood just nodded at him, "Right, this is not the right time nor the right place for a café," At least he knew how problematic this is, "But we are here for another reason. We promised to introduce you to the club, Demon Brat, so just come in."

And against his doubt, did Robin listened to him.

As the door bell jingled, the three stepped into quite a spacious area, with a book isle in the middle of the place, and infinitely tall bookshelves covering almost all of the wall, saved for some sitting corners and what seemed to be the ordering counter and some windows looking out to somewhere that totally not Gotham at all, judging by the night sky full of stars going beyond.

"Hey Jazz!" Robin heard Hood's voice calling to the red-haired young woman sitting at the counter, "I brought the company!"

She looked up at them, and Robin almost mistook her for Oracle - if not for her baby blue headband and her cyan eyes- and the little tint of Lazarus green that he almost failed to notice.

"Jason! Cass!" Jazz smiled, "Hi there, we are all waiting for you!"

Did this "Jazz" just called Red Hood and Black Bat by their civilian name?

"Why are you two-"

"You must be Damian then," Jazz cut in, "I am Jasmine Nightingale, and welcome to Cosmos's Coven." A little bit, then, "Your identity is safe with us, don't worry."

"For your information," Todd added before he could say anything, "I didn't tell them. They figured out by themselves."

"We met Jason and Cass as Red Hood and Black Bat first," Nightingale continued with a light chuckle, "Then we realized their identity the next time we met their civilian self. Us death-touched can recognize people by the soul after all."

Recognize by soul? So there were magic involved, and the unusual view outside the windows makes more sense then. He must be far away from Gotham by now.

"The club's bi-weekly meeting is going to be held upstair, do you want a drink to bring up there?"

As Nightingale said that, a staircase magically appeared out of thin air in-between the bookcases, near the counter.

Damian, having taken off the Robin mask, followed his siblings and Nightingale up the stair, with his hot chai latte in hand, to what seems like an observation deck: a geodesic dome covered in transparent glass and vinyl floor. There is a common space in the middle of the room, with many bean bags, some already occupied. Damian recognized a familiar face in the group.

"Greetings, Raven."

"Hello there, Damian," The purple-haired nodded to him, "I didn't know you would come."

He sat down on a bean bag as guided by Nightingale. The young woman also proceeded to sit down on the bean bag next on his right, and Todd, alongside with Cain, sat down on the two bean bags on his left.

As everyone had settled down, the boy sitting next to Nightingale stood up - he seemed like some one Father would adopt: black hair, blue eyes, and a lanky figure - and announced with a smile.

"Since we have a new member today, I think we need a round of introduction for him!" He then glanced at Damian, "Welcome to the Death-Touched club! I'm Danny Nightingale, and Phantom on the field. You already know my older sister, Jazz over here," He pointed to the older Nightingale, who gave him a little wave.

"My turn!" A girl, probaly around Damian's age raised her hand up, "I'm Dani-with-an-"i" Nightingale," It seemed like this family was not really creative in name choosing, "Alias Phantasy!" Case in point. "I'm Danny's clone!" So this is the one Thomas met around a week ago. And a clone at that, no wonder why she looked like a carbon-copy of Danny save for the gender. Judging from the hair and eye color being different from what Thomas described, it seems like they has transformation ability.

"The name's Dante Nightingale," The man sitting next to Dani spoke in a low tone. He looked around Grayson's age, and his build could rival Father or Todd, "Despite the look, I am second oldest. Field name's Phantasma." And the non-creative naming sure must have run around the family.

Next turn was the goth girl, "Sam Mansion, alias Phalya," This must have been the one Drake met then. Mansion was a name that coming up the guest list of many Wayne Galas, so she must be the daughter of Jeremy and Pam Mansion, "I don't think I need much introduction, since I'm probaly somewhere in the Bats' flies already," which was true, and this should also add many things to her file. Moreover, her presence here might explain why she implied to Red Robin that they can find the Bats, as Jasmine stated that they can "recognize people by the soul" after all.

"The only one you don't know should be Tucker, or Pharaoh, our resident ghost tech nerd," Danny continued, "He's back at the Realm, since our friend Technus appearantly has figured out something new." It shouldn't be too hard to find his information then, since they're all friends, "Constantine is on a mission, Deadman is with him." Only Constantine knew of them, and the man didn't really catch up much with the League, so it made sense. Judging how close Raven and Mansion seemed to be, he could guess that Raven chose to keep them a secret because of their friendship.

As though Jasmine was reading his mind, she patted on his bean bag for his attention, "Don't blame anyone about this. We came here not so long ago. We wanted to settle down a little first before getting to know the locals here."

"That's it about us, how about you, new guy?" Danny grinned at him, "Can you little introduction for the club?"

"Well, a proper introduction is needed, indeed," Damian huffed out, "My name is Damian Wayne, and I am also known as Robin. I am the blood son of the Bat. Pleasure to be an acquaintance to you all."

"Wow, all formal and stuff," Dani blinked at him, "No wonder why you're Batman's son."

"Appropriate language does not limited to anyone," He instantly quipped on instinct. The girl just snicckered at him, "Yeah sure."

"As fun as this sounds," Danny seemed to holding back a snort, "Shall we begin our activity today?"

[mochegato]

Hope on Board

Chapter 26 – A Bird is Never Late

Chapter 1     Chapter 25

“Two sentries at the door, reporting in regularly. As soon as they miss a check in, they’re going to know we’re here,” Red Robin observed quietly.

“Uncanny, can you record their check ins?” Chat asked.

“I can next time they do it and play it back when it is time if I have their radios,” Uncanny confirmed.

“Perfect,” Spoiler grinned.

“Are you in their security?” Snowflake asked.

“Yes.  Everything is looped.  We can sneak in without them seeing on the cameras.  I can’t break into the radios though,” Uncanny reported.

“We’ll just have to try to get them before they are able to send out an alert,” Signal shrugged.  

“Have you located Marinette?” Nightwing asked.  The anxiety in his voice and tightness in his stance was clear even if everyone present hadn’t had training in observation.

“I haven’t.  I don’t think they have her on security camera,” Uncanny shook her head in confusion.

Snowflake tapped Uncanny to let her know it was time to record the sentries, then signaled the rest when Uncanny confirmed she had it.

As soon as they got the signal, the group went into action.  Red Robin and Red Hood dropped behind the sentries and knocked them out quickly.  They grabbed their radios and passed them off to Uncanny.  “Everyone split up in groups of two.  Chat, you’re with me.  Everyone goes in a different direction.  Snowflake and Uncanny, you stay here until we call you.  I need Uncanny focusing on security, see if there’s another video system that might have Marinette.  Snowflake, I want you with her and available when we face a talon.  Anyone finds Marinette, report in immediately,” Batman instructed.  “Anyone gets into trouble, report it.  Anyone finds a talon, call in Snowflake immediately.  Let’s go.���

Everyone looked to one another and gave a determined nod.  This was for family, both Marinette and the twins were family.  They were not going to allow anything to happen to any of them and they were willing to do whatever they had to do in order to protect them. They paired off and went in separate directions without another word.

Somehow, they were extremely lucky and they seemed to miss all the guards doing their rounds, not that there were many.  As Batman had predicted, they hadn’t been expecting anyone to find them so quickly and their guard wasn’t fully up yet. They were able to make it deeply into the building with only having faced a few owls.

After about thirty minutes, Red Hood’s voice finally broke the silence over the coms.  “Fuck… Take a look at this Oracle.  What do you think is in the capsules?”

“Scanning now,” Oracle reported.  It only took a few minutes to come back with an answer. “People, or people shaped figures.”

Red Hood grimaced at the answer.  It was exactly what he feared.  “Talons?”

“Could be,” Oracle hedged.  “There does appear to be a lot of electrum in the bodies. Whatever it is, it can’t be good.”

“There’s hundreds…” Red Hood trailed off aghast at the idea.  If they woke these guys up, his team wouldn’t stand a chance.  They’d be dead in seconds.  Not to mention, even if they saved Marinette and the babies, the Court of Owls didn’t take failure well, they would retaliate.  Marinette and the twins would never be safe.  “Snowflake, can you make your way to my location?  I think it would be a good idea to blast this room before they activate any of these guys.”

“Affirmative.  On my way with Uncanny,” she answered quickly.

<><><><><> 

Robin opened the door to the next hallway carefully. With the door made of solid metal, there was no way to see if anyone was in the hallway except to actually enter it.  He froze when he saw partially concealed movement on the far side of the hallway. His eyes flicked up as a blur of red appeared and disappeared.  He studied the scene to try to ascertain if the movement was Marinette or a threat, easing into a fighting stance.  

But with his focus entirely on the movement ahead, the missed the thick, wooden plank heading for him from the other side until he heard wood shattering above him.  He jumped up into a flip to escape the attack.  Unfortunately, the attacker threw the remainder of the plank at him, hitting him mid flip, knocking him off balance, and gouging his skin.  He landed in a crouch ready to launch into a counter attack, but paused at finally being able to see the attacker.

“Shit!  Robin. Sorry!  I keep hurting you guys.  But, thank God you’re so short or that first swing would have caught you full in the face.” Her eyes bugged out when she realized she had just insulted him. “I mean…”

“Marinette…” he looked at her amazed for a moment before touching the blood running down his face and examining it in surprise.  He shook his head and tapped the com in his ear. “I have her.  I have Marinette.”

“How is she?” Nightwing asked in a frantic tone.

“She looks in good health and well trained.  I see three owls knocked out on the ground in the hallway behind her.” He raised an eyebrow at her.

“I’m pregnant not incapacitated,” she gave him an insulted look.  “I may not be able to run but I can stab someone or swing a bat, or batlike object in this case.  In fact, I have more mass behind my swing now.”

“Stab someone?” Robin asked with a raised eyebrow. That was not an answer he would have expected from her.

“They had knives.  Now they don’t.  I wanted something in case I got taken,” she shrugged.  “And I sure as hell wasn’t going to leave them with weapons they could use if they woke up.”

Robin nodded in approval.  “Smart.  Of course since they were looking for Grayson’s children, you could have always just informed them that yours are not in fact Grayson’s.

Marinette nodded at him, keeping her eyes on the hallway behind them.  “I considered that.  But it seemed like there were only two likely outcomes to that.  First, they believe me and kill me immediately, also killing the babies.  Or, second, they decide to make sure and take a blood sample before they’re born and confirm that they are in fact Dick’s.  So all that would have bought me was death or endangering the babies, because I don’t believe they would have been all that careful in taking the blood.”

Robin stared at her analytically for a few seconds as if seeing her for the first time.  “Less talking more moving,” Batman instructed gruffly over the coms.  “Snowflake, if you could make your way to my location, Chat and I could use your help, immediately.”

“I’m making my way to you, Robin,” Nightwing reported.

“Let’s get you out of here before you go into labor,” Robin told her.  “I’m not delivering any babies.”

“What?  Not looking forward to an upfront introduction to reproductive organs?” Red Robin laughed.

“I have had an extensive education on reproduction. I’m just not looking forward to seeing my… I’m just not looking to put my education into action.” Robin corrected quickly.

“Stay behind me,” Robin directed Marinette already moving back into the hallway he came from.  Marinette nodded and rushed to catch up, keeping an eye behind them, knowing Robin couldn’t.

They reached a corner and Robin motioned for her to stop. She pushed herself against the wall behind him as he listened for signs of movement in the other corridor.  He motioned to her that he heard two people coming and to stay back.  She nodded in understanding and tried to press even further into the wall as though there was any way to hide with her belly bulging as far out as it was.

The two figures passed their hallway, barely glancing in their direction before doing a double take, clearly not having expected to see anyone there.  Robin took advantage of their momentary hesitation, attacking both at the same time. He sent a flying kick to the first owl, sending him into the wall.  He quickly pivoted to the second owl.  He sent a series of jabs to his side.  The owl bent over in pain.  Robin roundhouse kicked him in the face, sending him into the wall.  The first owl tried to sneak up on him but Robin ducked at the last second.  He spun quickly knocking his legs out from under him.

Marinette watched in awe for a few seconds.  Robin was a whirlwind of punches and kicks. Fast and effective.  She turned to check behind them while he punched the second owl and let out a surprised gasp.  Three more had snuck up on them while Robin had been fighting.  The third owl grabbed her, holding her by the neck while the other two moved to attack Robin.  Marinette stopped struggling against him.  She wasn’t going to win a battle of strength or speed right now. But she didn’t need strength.  She had steel.

She slipped one of the knives she’d taken from the owls earlier and stabbed behind her catching the owl in the side.  He immediately let go falling as he grabbed his side, gasping for wet sounding breaths.  Marinette kicked him in the face and turned back to the other two owls who hadn’t noticed she was free yet.  She pulled the next two knives out of her boots.  The fourth owl was about to strike Robin.  Marinette threw the knife hitting him in the head with the hilt of the knife.  The owl held his head and spun toward her.

She gave him a strained smile.  “Need to work on that,” she offered weakly.

The owl shook his head and moved toward her while the fifth owl attacked Robin.  Robin got into a fighting stance, eyes darting to the owl moving toward Marinette. He snapped his eyes back to the owl advancing on him.  Marinette groaned and curled over grabbing her stomach.  “You have got to be kidding!” she groaned breathing heavily.

“Oh, come on!” Robin exclaimed almost losing his focus on the owl in front of him.

The owl moving toward her grinned and reached for her. When he was next to her, closer than an arm’s length away, Marinette shot up, driving the knife into the owl. The owl gasped, looking at her confused. Marinette punched his face, sending him sideways.  Robin, having already dispatched his owl, followed her punch with a kick, knocking him out.

“Are you okay?  Was that a contraction?”  A look of fear that hadn’t been there while fighting the owls, had now settled on his face.

“No, thankfully.  Hopefully I didn’t tempt fate though.” She grimaced at the thought. Their doctor actually thought it was extremely likely she would deliver any time now and this was not where she wanted to go into labor.

“Oh thank God!” He let out a relieved sigh.  “So you used your precarious situation to feign weakness?”

“Yes… I wanted him to lower his guard,” she said like it was obvious.

Robin stared at her for a few seconds again before nodding in approval.  “Adequate.” They both spun in the other direction when a figure ran into the hallway.

“Marinette!” Nightwing yelled running to her.  He ran up and hugged her tightly before pulling away just enough to check her for injuries.  “Are you okay?  How are the babies?  Are you sure that wasn’t a contraction?  The doctor said five weeks early wasn’t unlikely.”

Marinette stood stock straight.  “Um… fine.  I’m fine. Uh… Nightwing, right?” she asked awkwardly.

Dick immediately backed away.  “Yes.  Nightwing. That’s me.  Right.”  He forgot he hadn’t told her yet because Jason had called it from the beginning, he was a fucking dumbass.  His eyes caught on a large patch of red on her sweater.  “You’re bleeding!”  He moved closer again to examine her.

Marinette gave him a confused look and examined her sweater for what he was seeing.  Finally she saw the blood.  “Oh, that’s not mine.”  She gave him a sheepish look.  “There’s a few people that could belong to and none of them are me or Robin.”

Nightwing blinked at her a few times, unsure how to respond to that.  “Less talking, more moving,” Batman reminded him over the coms.

“Right.  Let’s get going.”  He took her hand and gently pulled her behind him as he moved.  Robin naturally fell into position behind her, watching their rear.

They seem to have had luck on their side once more. They made it to the lobby of the building with only a few more owls finding them, but that is where their luck ran out.  They could see the exit doors when a talon stepped in their way, standing between them and the doors.  Other owls entered the room, surrounding them.  The three took in the scene apprehensively.  “I estimate fifty owls and a talon,” Robin said conversationally, informing the rest of their team what was happening.

“Odd to only have one talon on call,” Nightwing agreed with a forced casualness.

“I’ve already taken care of one,” Batman rasped into the coms.

“Robin, you’re on protection duty,” Nightwing said quietly enough that only he and Marinette could hear.

“Of course,” Damian scoffed.

“We’re coming.  Black Bat and I should be there in a few minutes,” Red Robin reported.

“We cannot let you take the Gray Son,” the talon spoke gravely.

“The Gray Son?” Nightwing asked, face scrunching in confusion.

“The prophesied one.  Her child will be the perfect talon.  He is the true heir,” the talon continued.  Robin stiffened at his words, his stern expression tightening further. “The Gray Son of Gotham.”

Nightwing narrowed his eyes at the talon.  They were after his children?  They were going to try to turn his children into one of them?  How dare they?  Maybe the children should take Marinette’s last name.  There is the slightest possibility that might deter them.  He mentally shook his head.  That was unlikely and there was something else strange about the situation.  “The Court usually waits to take children until they’re older.  Why take these before they were born?”

“The recent failure forced us to ramp up our plan. The Court decided to start training the Gray Son in our ways as soon as he was born, to bring him to his destiny as early as possible,” the talon explained calmly, tightening his grip on his knives and subtly assessing the group.

“And what about the Gray Daughter?” Nightwing asked with a hostile edge in his voice, taking note of the number of weapons the talon appeared to have.  Likely he had more, but the ones on display would give him an insight into what else he might have.  He also took in how the other owls acted, their stances, their sense of hierarchy, their weapons.

“Of no consequence.  We likely would have killed her along with her mother.  You may keep them if that satisfies you,” the talon offered with a flippant tone.

“Sexist assholes,” Spoiler muttered over the coms.

Nightwing hummed in consideration, discretely looking around the room as he did.  “I think we’ll leave with all three.”

“Then you’ll leave with none!” The talon launched at Nightwing.  Robin pulled Marinette out of the way as Nightwing leapt toward him to block his way to Marinette.

Marinette tried to watch Nightwing fight the talon but couldn’t focus on him.  Robin was pulling and pushing her around so she was out of the way of punches and kicks that might have connected with her.  Luckily or not, they were aided by the deference the owls showed to the talon, giving him wide berth to attack and kill Nightwing.  That left the space behind Robin and Marinette open, but it also meant that every time the owls pushed them back, it pushed Marinette closer to the talon.

Robin and Marinette kept an eye behind them. Marinette stayed as close to Robin as she could without infringing on his fighting too much.  She had to stay away from the owls so they couldn’t grab her and take her to a different stronghold.  She grabbed one owl’s arm when he tried to pull her, twisting to trap his arm and ramming her elbow into it with enough force to break his arm. The owl recoiled and Robin finished her attack.  Unfortunately, that left her other side open, an opening that the other owls didn’t hesitate to take.  Marinette screamed when the owl took her, alerting Robin to the new threat.

However, the scream also attracted Nightwing’s attention, distracting him from his fight with the talon.  The talon launched at him, ripping into his skin with his claws. Nightwing let out a muffled cry, but pushed down the pain.  He didn’t have time for pain right now.  He had to protect Marinette.  The talon would take advantage of any distraction, as he already had.  He had to focus entirely on taking down the talon and trust his team to protect Marinette and his twins.

Marinette struggled against the owl that was pulling her away, but Robin just smirked at him and punched the owl next to him without looking.  Marinette furrowed her brow in confusion until she felt the arms around her loosen and heard the owl fall to the ground.  She turned to see Red Robin pick up the owl and throw him at the other owls.

“You’re late,” Robin snarked, turning back to fight more owls.  

“A Red Robin is never late.  He always arrives precisely when he means to,” Red Robin answered lightly.

“Nerd,” Stephanie scoffed into the coms.

“Well, he should have meant to arrive a while ago,” Robin growled.

“Eh.  You were holding your own.  And Marinette’s been covering for your mistakes.  You were fine,” Red Robin answered with a smirk as he hit several owls in one swing of his Bo staff.

“Besides,” Spoiler added, flying over the heads of a few more owls to land on the other side of Robin.  “This isn’t the only part of the building with owls.”  She punctuated her comment with a few well-placed kicks and swipes with her Bo staff.  

There was quite a bit of jostling, but Marinette had mostly been isolated from the attacks.  The few owls that made it through the line were off balance, just barely making it through and making them an easy target.  It was easy enough for Marinette to punch or kick them hard enough to make them fall and vulnerable to one of the other heroes.  

Signal worked from the side of the room to take down more owls, moving quickly and efficiently from one to the next and back again, using each as leverage to push harder against the other, adding power to his hits with his Eskrima sticks.  Black Bat arrived in the room from another direction and made quick work of taking down the owls in front of her.

Marinette looked up when she heard a yell from Signal to ice the room.  She did a double take seeing Snowflake blow into the room, making it freezing.  She gaped at the sight.  What was Snowflake doing in Gotham?  Her eyes caught back on the fight between Nightwing and the talon. It seemed like the frost was affecting them both.  She quickly glanced around the room and noticed the movements from the rest of the room slowing down slightly as well.  Reaction times reducing little by little, but it especially seemed to have an impact on the talon.  His entire fighting style changed.  He was more guarded now, more protected, more afraid of getting hurt, giving Nightwing an advantage.

Marinette jumped when a body landed next to her.  She had been so distracted by Nightwing’s fight, she hadn’t even seen him approach.  She lunged to punch him, but the figure twisted along her arm.  ���My Lady!” He exclaimed loudly, holding up his arms in a placating manner.  

“Chat!” Marinette gave a relieved cry and pulled him down into a quick hug.  She pulled back to notice he was wearing his ice form, which made sense if he was the one to bring in Snowflake.  He had anticipated the change.

“You’re here!  And you brought friends.”  She grinned at him, pulling her back into a hug.

“Could have been a lot more too if someone hadn’t hid the glasses.” He gave her a playfully scornful look that quickly turned into an analytical one.  “You seem a bit less affected by the cold than I would have anticipated, Bug.”

She gave a devious look.  “Wayne Enterprises tech fabric.  Can’t even feel the cold except on my face, honestly.  Plus,” she added innocently, “it’s impervious to fire. That seemed valuable in Gotham. Wouldn’t save me from the blast force from the explosion but would save me from any fires created… like if a cult’s building got blown up.”  She gave him a serious look.  “Not that I’m suggesting you cataclysm an entire building, of course.”

“Of course,” he gave her a conspiratorial grin.

“Plagg on the other hand…” she trailed off, letting him finish the sentence himself.

Chat nodded in understanding and looked around them, calculatingly.  “Okay, this party has been fun, but honestly, not my scene.  Ready to take our leave?”  He looked at her again, focusing on her stomach.  “This is going to be a bit more awkward than it used to be but… need a ride?” he grinned at her opening his arms.

Marinette smiled and let him pick her up.  He was right.  It was a lot more difficult than it used to be due to her belly bur they made it work.  She could hold on if it meant the difference between her babies living and dying.  She held onto his shoulders while he extended his baton taking them in a high arc, well above the owls, to the doors.

The talon growled and pulled out darts that could incapacitate them.  Before he could use them Nightwing twisted in front of him, slamming an Eskrima stick into his hand hard enough to break it followed by his other Eskrima stick hitting him in the face.  The talon hid his groan of pain and launched at him again with his good hand and his arm. His hand may be useless right now, but the rest of him could fight.  He swung at Nightwing in a series of calculated punches that forced him back closer to the crowd of owls.  Nightwing caught a glimpse of Marinette and Chat making it through the door and felt a new surge of strength.  He looked back at the talon and launched into a volley of kicks and hits with the Eskrima sticks.

He pushed the talon back until he was on his knees, hitting him one final time to knock him out.  He turned back toward the front doors and took off running to find Marinette. With the talon taken care of, there were only a few more owls standing and his family could handle them.  He could trust his team.  He had to focus on his family.  But, with his focus on Marinette, he missed the talon sit up and aim a knife at him with his good hand.

A flash of light bathed the room in red for a moment. The talon seemed to be frozen for a moment until he moved in slow motion looking down at his chest and back up again just in time to see Nightwing run through the doors.  His strength left him a second later, as he collapsed on the floor, unable to regenerate.  

Uncanny Valley watched impassively as he fell.  Batman looked at her in shock.  She looked back with a questioning look.  “He was like the others wasn’t he?  Like the ones in the capsules I destroyed?  He wasn’t human.  He doesn’t have blood.  He was designed to destroy.”

Snowflake came up next to her and patted her on the shoulder as Signal knocked out the last owl standing.  “You did good,” she whispered to Uncanny.  She looked back at the bats.  “Do you need us for anything else?  I think I should get Uncanny back to her mom.  I think she’ll need to talk.”

Batman stepped forward with a kind smile.  “I think we can handle it from here.  Thank you for your help.  I don’t know if we would have been able to do it without you.”

Uncanny gave him a bright smile.  “You’re welcome.”  Snowflake nodded to them and guided Uncanny out the door with her.

“What did she mean he was like the others,” Red Robin wondered still watching the door they left through.

“She meant the room of talons waiting to be activated. I had Elsa freeze the room and Uncanny destroy each of the caskets and the talons inside with her beam thing,” Jason answered.  “I confirmed the things inside won’t ever come back no matter how much electrum they give them.”

They all snapped to attention when Chat walked back through the doors.  “Where is Marinette?  Are she and the babies safe?” Spoiler asked.

“Of course they’re safe, idiot.  Chat wouldn’t have left her unless she was safe and Nightwing had her,” Damian scoffed.

Chat gave a quick nod of agreement.  “Like the little man said.  She’s safe and with Nightwing.”  He looked around with a practiced nonchalance.  “So… how do bats feel about demolition with a single touch?” He asked waggling his eyebrows.

Chapter 27

Tags:

@dickinette-february @demonicbusiness @ichigorose @iloontjeboontje @ladybug-182 @toodaloo-kangaroo @dast218 @golden-promises @trippingovermyfeet @emimar7 @laurcad123 @lady-bee-fechin @thewitchwhowaited @redscarlet95 @jayjayspixiepop

[bigskydreaming]

Making this its own post because replying to the ask got so weirdly formatted I can’t even. Oh tumblr. You work so well.

@themessofthecentury  asked:

jsksjf my tumblr notifs are bugging and i didnt see your post but!!! The patron Saint of Robins?? I am much intrigue!!

(This is from this ask game, just....gotten to late, lololol. And I still have more I’m getting to, no worries. Just had a rough couple days is all, laid me up a bit.)

Okay, so The Patron Saint of Robins is kinda like the situation at the end of Grayson, except also not at all. And actually this is one of my older WIPs, and according to Scrivener I started it in 2015 afhislfhalhfalf, so it really has nothing to do with that. Also, its Young Justice-verse, but for two specific reasons:

1) YJ-verse is my go-to for Good Dad Bruce Wayne, when I don’t want to actually tackle the issues I have with his and his kids’ dynamic in comic book canon. I don’t carry over things like the adoption issue or the Robin succession into YJ fics, as I don’t think there’s anything that suggests they’re ever a specific issue in YJ and I don’t feel a need to make them one. So pretty much anything and everything I write in YJ goes with the backstory that Dick’s already adopted by Season One, and he’s the one to grant each later Robin permission to use the mantle, with no conflict over that, and more of a pre-Crisis transition to Nightwing than the post-Crisis firing from Robin. And this fic inherently needs Good Dad Bruce Wayne to work, lol.

2) I needed Klarion the Witch-Boy. Who of course exists in comic book canon, but is muuuuuch different there, and I just needed him to be a little demonic evil shithead, who sets everything in motion to get payback on the heroes for thwarting the Light in Season One, and he targets Robin due to being the oft-cited ‘first of the baby brat heroes’ and the ‘heart of the cape community.’

You don’t really need to be familiar with YJ canon at all for this one, as it goes sharply AU from after Season One, and only faintly and vaguely references specific events from that season. And I use my own YJ-ized version of the Titans as much as the actual YJ Team.

So basically, the plot of this one is to take revenge on the heroes for spoiling his game in Season One, Klarion plays a new game, by putting a chaos curse on Robin. It essentially erases him from peoples’ memories, though he’s perfectly able to make new ones. If he re-introduces himself to someone ask Dick Grayson, for instance, they don’t suddenly remember who Dick Grayson is or was, but they don’t forget about him again from that point onward, its like they meet him for the first time as a stranger.

But the curse part of things is only Batman can break it and restore everyone’s memories of Dick and his actual history, and only by identifying him for who he really is. And Dick can’t be part of breaking his own curse or else it seals it and makes it permanent and unbreakable forever.

Which of course leaves Dick completely miserable at first, understandably, and Bruce (and everyone else Dick knows, to varying different degrees) feeling some kind of loss but with no idea what it is they think or feel that they’re missing. Dick makes some half-hearted attempts at starting a new life for himself in Gotham, and in the process befriends a street kid named Jason Todd, though Dick introduces himself to Jason with just the name Robin.

The way the curse operates is it restitches together peoples’ memories to cover up the gaps where memories of him would go. So for instance, even though Jason never knew Dick before the curse, he was familiar with Batman and Robin just as much as any Gothammite was.....but due to the curse, the name Robin, upon meeting Dick, had no special meaning to him or anyone else. As far as he knew, Batman had always operated on his own in Gotham, the first teen superhero was that Speedy kid in Star City, etc. So when Jason first meets Dick, he just thinks he’s some dude whose name happens to be Robin.

Eventually, because Dick’s been kinda torturing himself by spying on Bruce just to ‘keep an eye on him’ and still watch his back, and he’s recognized by now that Bruce is mourning his loss without even knowing that he’s missing something....so Dick, who has also kinda come to see Jason as a little brother figure due to watching out for him as well....decides to kill two birds with one stone, unfortunate pun not intended. (Jason doesn’t die in this one, lol). Basically, Dick puts in motion the chain of events that lead Jason to stealing Batman’s tires, because he doesn’t know EXACTLY what Bruce will do but he knows it’ll get his attention in a big way and Bruce will take it from there.

One thing leads to another, Jason ends up living with Bruce and when eventually he wants to be trained by Bruce so he can do what he does and protect kids like he used to be.....when asked to pick a name....Jason names himself after the guy who always looked out for him, and who led to him being found by Bruce in the first place. He doesn’t know that his friend ‘Robin’ steered him towards those tires deliberately, just to bring him and Bruce into contact, but he does credit him with making the suggestion that ‘inadvertently’ (as far as he knows) enabled his and Bruce’s introduction, and so he names himself in honor of the boy who helped him and who he tried to track down again to similarly help, after Bruce adopted him, but was never able to find again.

Over the years, Dick also ends up steering Tim, Cass, Duke and Damian to Bruce in different ways than comic book canon (Steph and Babs’ debuts remain their own, as family adjacent but not family specifically) and thus is integral to the forming of the Batfam and has a connection with them even before the curse ultimately ends up broken and he’s able to reclaim his full identity. And each of them end up Robin at least briefly, like Steph is never Robin in this AU, and sticks with Spoiler, whereas Cass IS briefly Robin before becoming Batgirl after Babs. I did this for a few different reasons...

One, I really like that Cass is never Robin in main continuity as it creates a different dynamic between her and Dick than most of their siblings have, BUT I’ve always been curious to play around what Cass-as-Robin might even be like, just for an AU. Two, part of the Black Bat and Batgirl but never Robin sequence of mantles for Cass in the comic book continuity is like.....although it doesn’t get explored nearly enough, Babs was as much a kind of mother figure for Cass as Bruce was a father figure, despite Babs’ young age. So it makes more sense for Cass to stick more to just Bat-mantles than to ever be a Robin in the comic books. But in YJ, Babs is even younger, and just way too young to have the specific kind of dynamic that leads to that in the comic books, so its not as unreasonable IMO for her to have a different dynamic in her early days in the family here, before becoming closer with Babs and taking up the Batgirl mantle after she moves on to become Oracle.

And then also, and this is also the primary reason for making Duke a Robin briefly, before Damian is old enough....I got hung up on the title and it just didn’t work as well if it was Robins + Cass and Duke, lololol. See, in addition to helping steer the family into the points of introduction that make them a family, over the years he also acts as like, a guardian angel figure to the various family members, looking out for them and interceding in times of extreme danger, like when Jason is almost killed by the Joker. He’s always in disguise, but the kids eventually compare notes and realize there’s a singular figure behind each of their introductions to Bruce and the guy swooping out of nowhere to save their behinds whenever they’re most in danger, and Jason eventually connects this back to the guy who apparently NOT so coincidentally suggested he go after the Batmobile’s tires that fateful night, and the kids end up jokingly/not-so-jokingly referring to this figure as the Patron Saint of Robins. (Shout-out to the occasional mentions/allusions of Jason’s Catholicism).

They never tell Bruce about this figure (at least before Bruce starts to put together clues on his own), because they all figured out that for whatever reason, this person despite wanting them all to meet Bruce seems to want to avoid Bruce himself, and they kinda want to respect that as a kind of payback for his help, and also like....Bruce, even a kinder, gentler Bruce, is still Bruce. And when Bruce is gonna Bruce, that means Batparanoia. And all of them for various reasons DO trust that this guy has nothing but good intentions towards them, and so they don’t want to like....ruin or tarnish the positivity they associate with his intercession in their lives with paranoia or treating him like a bad guy. Which ultimately is really just smoke and mirrors for saying that he’s kinda a ‘just for them’ secret. Its a Robin thing.

(Until its not).

Because meanwhile, Dick, in between meeting the various Batfam members and pulling strings and looking out for them from the shadows, at first travels the world looking for ways to break his curse. But when ultimately its clear that the only way to break it is the loophole built into it already, Bruce identifying him for who he really is, but without Dick doing anything to steer him towards the answer, Dick settles into a new hero identity as Nightwing, and forms the Teen Titans, a public group of young superheroes (minus Roy and Wally, unfortunately, but still with Donna, Garth, Raven, Kory, ignoring season 3 Vic and also Terra because AU redemption arc what what, etc). And the Teen Titans avoid both the Young Justice Team and the Justlce League with EXTREME measures, much to the other heroes’ confusion and aggravation, because in the early days of the Titans, in a moment of what he’d term weakness, on one of his ‘bad days,’ Dick tells them enough of his story that they’re able to put together a good sense of what happened and who he really is by reading between the lines and what he leaves unsaid....

BUT as a result, all end up extremely committed to not mixing and mingling casually with the rest of the cape community because they don’t want to risk dropping any hints about the guy under Nightwing’s mask, in case that might count as steering Batman towards clues and seal the curse for good. So I have a lot of fun with having the Titans just nope out of the scene the second the bad guys are defeated even when they have to team up with other heroes, leaving the other heroes confused as hell and trying not to be all ‘WHY DON’T YOU LIKE US??”

Anyway, so yeah, that’s the gist of this one, lol. With it of course following the eventual plot that like...the Batfam starts to Detect and put things together.

ANYWHO!

Snippet

Damian versus Klarion: Round One

“Aww, its adorable that you think you’re in my league,” the Witch-Boy cooed in an absolute mockery of sympathy. Damian bristled, but before he could do anything more than that, he was faced with a much more pressing matter as reality completely lost its mind.

The walls of the cavern fell away in an instant, only to be replaced with a whirling dervish of winds all around them, as if they now stood in the center of a cyclone that bled red and silver and black. It shrieked and wailed in a chorus of voices just on the other side of being comprehensible, a symphony of the damned that set every nerve in Damian’s body aflame with a primal instinct to get out, to find silence, to be anywhere but here.

He’d barely staggered a step backwards when the ground erupted beneath him, splitting apart into jagged obsidian shards that bobbed precariously in the sea of magma barely glimpsed through cracks now spiderwebbing their way across the floor. Spears of lightning burst upwards through them, stabbing impossibly at the heavens rather than raining down from them. They hissed and crackled as they flickered like forked serpent tongues of electric violet and black. The forks becoming branches, the pillars of sky-shattering light transforming into the trunks of great trees that grew upwards and outward, weaving a canopy overhead. One that wept violently red leaves that fell gently to the ground, only to hiss and bubble like acid once they did.

“See, normally this is when I’d hit someone with a little razzle-dazzle like this,” Klarion called out over the song of madness he’d created, as it crooned and careened wildly all around them. He snapped his fingers, and in the span of a second it all ceased. Reality reaffirmed itself, and all was right with the world once more…except now the two of them stood at the end of a hallway in Wayne Manor.

Damian stumbled, the sudden reappearance of firm ground paradoxically being the thing to challenge his balance. The demon boy standing beside him crooked his thumb and forefinger in the semblance of a gun, the smile pasted across his face one of wickedly gleeful malice.

“But you, kiddo, you’re special. Cuz there’s nothing I could do to you now that could top what I’ve already done, so why try when I can just savor the moment instead?”

“What are you babbling about?” Damian demanded roughly. In the wake of what the Witch-Boy had just conjured up with nothing more than a gesture, he was keenly aware of how flimsy a shield his bravado made. He just had absolutely no idea what else to fall back on.

Klarion only threw back his head and laughed though, skipping merrily down the hall as he did.

“I know something you don’t know,” he sing-songed and Damian lost what little grasp of his patience he’d managed to hang onto.

“You overestimate my need for an answer. Attempt to intimidate me all you wish, but I have no desire to indulge your little game any further.”

Klarion jerked to a stop and spun around, his face screwed into a childish pout. He stomped his foot, petulance personified. “I’m not intimidating you anymore, I’m gloating! Ugh, you’re so stupid! They’re completely different, how can you not tell?”

Every light in the hallway flickered and fizzed abruptly. The walls wavered, bubbled, momentarily molten as if made of wax.

Again Damian was reminded just how mercurial this being he was faced with was, and how dangerous. Perhaps, as Father would say, this was not the time to indulge his own instinctive inclinations. Or as Todd would put it, just because you’re already fucked, that’s no reason to fuck yourself over more than you have to.

Crude as his older brother was, there was occasional merit to his…pithiness. Not that he would be admitting that any time soon, of course.

“Fine. What is it you wish to gloat about then?” Damian grated out. The appeasement, such as it was, tried its best to stick in his throat before finally clawing its way free. But at least it proved worth the effort when the godling’s mood reverted back to impishness as readily as with the flip of a switch.

“Well. Its like this, you see.” Klarion said. He dragged it out as he folded both legs underneath him to sit cross-legged in the air, plopping his head into his hands. “I did a baaaaaaaaaaaaad, bad thing to your family, a loooooong time ago. And none of you have done anything about it, because you don’t even know! Isn’t that funny? Doesn’t matter how big a hero Daddy Bats is if he doesn’t even know what needs saving huh? Little Catch-22 there, you might say.”

“Yes. Quite hysterical,” Damian said dryly. “So what is it you claim to have done then?”

The Witch-Boy just sat there, regarding him with amusement, and the seconds marched on into minutes. Damian’s skin crawled. Prickling with impatience and possibly something…more. He wasn’t quite ready to name it anxiety or something as melodramatic as all that yet. In fact, he’d rather not put a name to it at all, but today did not appear to be a day for configuring things to his liking.  

Klarion’s wicked grin grew as if sensing his thoughts, though to the best of his knowledge (and Damian did quickly ransack the library of his memory just to be sure) there was no indication telepathy was included among the Chaos Lord’s many, many powers. And still that detestable smile stretched slowly wider all the same, in perfect synchronization with the rising tide of Damian’s unease. Perhaps the Witch-Boy’s file was in need of annotation.

“How many doors would you say are in this hallway?”

“What? Seven.” Damian snapped out his answer, annoyed by the non sequitur. Not to mention baffled. Was it too much to expect even a semblance of linear thought from the Chaos brat?

“Are you suuuuuuure?” The Witch-Boy stretched his query out obnoxiously. “Maybe you should count again. Just for kicks and giggles.”

Damian throttled back each and every retort attempting to spring to his lips, stuffing them back down and cramming a lid on everything he most dearly wished to say to this most vexing of…shitheads. Once again, it appeared as though nothing less than Todd’s preferred form of nomenclature would suffice. Wonderful. On top of everything else Damian had to deal with today, he seemed to be finding common ground with the man all over the place. Was there no end to the indignities he must suffer?

But marshaling his own formidable willpower, Damian took a deep breath and indulged the Chaos Lord, glancing his eyes down the length of the hallway and counting out each doorway one by one. There was his own room of course, with Cassandra’s to the right of his, and the room Brown used when staying over to the right of hers. That was three. Then there was Thomas directly across from his own room, with Drake to his right and Todd just beyond that, with Father’s room at the very end of the hall, his master suite staggered and with no direct opposite like the others. Seven.

Except all of a sudden there was a door directly opposite his father’s. For a total of eight.

Damian’s brow furrowed in consternation. The faint whispers of uncertainty already seeded throughout him bore fruit, ripening into poisonous stabbings of doubt.

“That’s not real,” he stated with as much conviction as he could muster.

The Witch-Boy’s smile only grew wider still. “Isn’t it, though?”

“There’s never been a door there before,” Damian persisted, striding confidently down the hall towards it. The Chaos Lord flitted ahead of him, inverting til he was upside down and skipping merrily once more, though this time from the ceiling.

“Or has it been there all along?” He sing-songed some more.

“I would think we might have noticed if it had been,” Damian growled.

“Yes, you’d think, wouldn’t you? You are all supposed to be a family of detectives, I thought. Makes you wonder…if you could miss this, what else might you have failed to notice?”

Damian snarled to himself and did his best to shut out the demon boy’s prattling. He quickened his strides, eating up the length of the hallway in his haste to reach its end. He wasn’t sure what opening the door would prove, let alone what bewilderment the godling had conjured on its other side, but it appeared the only end to this game of his was through it, so let there be an end to it already.

And yet, for all his certainty - or best facsimile of it - he couldn’t help but pause once he reached the door in question. His hand hovered within reach of its brass knob, but some instinct, some…caution, held him at bay. As much as he wanted to dismiss all this as just one more of the Chaos Lord’s inane charades, there was a tension in the air that felt too weighty to be the product of just magical conjuring. Something more was in play here. Real forces were at work. His father might disdain magic, but Damian had been around enough of it himself to know when true power had been raised. And the span of empty space between his hand and this hither-to-unseen doorknob held more of it than Damian had felt throughout all the mad warpings Klarion had made of reality thus far.

“Are you sure you want to do that?” Klarion asked from somewhere overhead. His voice, usually pitched to carry, was so soft for a moment Damian mistook it for his own inner doubts. “Some doors are easier to open than to close again, you know.”

Even knowing the goading for what it was couldn’t stop Damian then, and with a simple breath to fortify himself, he reached for the knob, spun it once, and shoved the door open all in a single sharp movement.

The Witch-Boy giggled up above.

The door swung wide, a forceful arc that should have revealed anything and everything within it all at once; the better to react quickly to whatever that might be. Fine in principle, perfect in execution, but thwarted by one small detail:

There was nothing on the other side.

And not in the sense of it being just an empty room, but true nothingness. A pitch-black abyss darker than the deepest night, yawning forth from the doorway in a vast, impenetrable shroud. Nor was anything hidden in the darkness, Damian knew, even if just intuitively. He could feel it, that he stood on the edge of an impossible cliff, that there was nothing beyond this threshold but an aching chasm of emptiness and loss. The surety of it hung in the air, thick and heavy, a miasma that seeped through to his side of the doorway and clung to him like the moisture of a fog beads upon the skin.

Klarion’s head suddenly popped up alongside him, hovering just over his shoulder.

Albeit still upside down.

“Well that doesn’t seem right,” he mused, tapping at his lips with a forefinger. “What do you suppose is meant to be in there?”

The last of Damian’s brittle patience shattered.

“Enough! What is the meaning of all this, demon? Speak plainly, for once in your miserable existence!”

His self-preservation instincts and the reminder of just who it was he was shouting at kicked in too little too late, but he wouldn’t take his exasperated fury back even if he could. He was who he was after all. But fortunately, that described the Witch-Boy just as accurately, and rather take offense or perceive any actual threat from Damian’s rage, the Chaos Lord just shrieked with laughter and sprung backwards. He flipped right side up, still hovering in mid-air, and clapped his hands with glee.

“Oh, I should have done this ages ago,” Klarion sang out. “Why, you’re almost as fun as he used to be. Back before he got all droll and serious, that is. He’s no fun at all anymore, nothing like this. Never wants to play, always just running back to his tower with that little bitch of a demoness.”

His face soured like he’d just sucked on a lemon. But rather than stop there, his countenance kept morphing into an increasingly savage scowl, the longer he ranted. The hallway was suddenly sweltering, baking with unseen heat that twisted the air into shimmering ribbons. The small horns sprouting from his forehead burst into scimitars of flame that cut through those ribbons and set them similarly ablaze.

“Always putting on airs like she’s some kind of royalty, just because her Daddy Dearest put the fear into a few peasants back in the day,” the Witch-Boy snarled viciously. “As if that’s enough to put her on par with the likes of me. No one is the likes of me. NO ONE!”

Reality itself quaked with the force of his shout. White-blue flames spat forth and crescendoed down the length of the corridor, splashing against its walls and searing them to a crisp. Damian braced himself for all the good it would do, keenly aware of the void still gaping hungrily behind his back, but before the fire could become an actual danger to him as well, all was quiet once more.

Silence hung in the air much like the demon boy, poised yet motionless. Suspended. Waiting.

And then Klarion simply inhaled and brushed his hands down the front of his garments, smoothing out the wrinkles as he reclaimed his calm. The corridor restored itself to its former self, curtains of vintage reality unrolling from the ceiling to the floor as though papering over the damage. Damian felt rather than saw when the portal behind him swung shut and was replaced with the expanse of ivory paint and ornate sconces he was used to seeing in its place.

“I am one of a kind, after all,” Klarion finally remarked. It was a casual drawl offered forth almost off-handedly, as if more a reminder to himself than uttered for anyone else’s sake. He used one hand to spell out letters in the air. They appeared and vanished again in bursts of fireworks and fluorescent flame. “U-N-I-Q-U-E.”

“As I, apparently, am not,” Damian said, seizing upon the Chaos Lord’s restored calm and good cheer. “Who is this ‘he’ you mentioned? If I’m to be pitted against him as entertainment in your eyes, might I at least know his name?”

“Nuh-uh-uh,” the Witch-Boy scolded. He wagged his finger at Damian. “No spoilers. That’s not how the game is played.”

Keenly aware of the boy’s power once more, Damian gritted his teeth and pressed on. “Well, if there are to be rules, shouldn’t I at least know what those are?”

Klarion sucked in a deep breath, drawing himself up along with his inhalation as though preparing for some great speech…and instead just toppling backward, flopping onto an extravagant fainting couch that suddenly appeared beneath him, though similarly floating in the air.

“I can’t recall at the moment.” His now-faint voice drifted up from where he lay buried amid a mountain of pillows. “I’ve had a terribly exhausting day. But you’re supposed to be a detective, remember? Go…I don’t know. Detect things.”

He flapped an arm at Damian dismissively, and then crooked a finger into a twirling motion that set his divan to spinning in lazy circles.

“Isn’t life grand?” Klarion sighed fondly. “With all its twists and turns, its eddies and swirls. I mean, take the two of us. Scant hours ago, we were mortal enemies, and just look at us now.”

The Witch-Boy lazily rolled his head to the side as the couch drifted to bring him face-to-face with Damian. His lips spread wide in that malevolent, wicked grin of his once again, but somehow it managed to be even wider than any he’d shown off before. His eyes blazed with a hellish inner light, and his voice, when next he spoke, dropped deep into a demonic register. A bass that boomed forth and set Damian’s very bones to rattling.

“Ain’t we got fun?”

[nefelibata-agibilibus]

Why Young Justice is a disappointment

I just rewatched Young Justice, and I’m thinking about the disillusion I felt, and why, for a few days I have been thinking about this, and I want to write it, this will be a long post, and is just me venting about my feelings.

Why I like Young Justice

I love to see cartoons, series and movies. I always liked superheroes, and, when I found Young Justice I loved it, the animation was great, the fights were cool, the characters, the plot, It was awesome, into the things I like are:

The big plot: It was awesome, as we learned about they machinations of the villains, we met them, the idea of the Light, this group of people, using the Justice League, in the fight between Darkseid and Vandal Savage, the two of them conquering the universe, waiting to fight each other in the last, ultimate, fight.

The way we learned about the Light was cool too, in the first season we don’t know who they are, we watch a lot of people planning things in the background, before knowing what they want we know who they are, and, by learning all the kind of villains are part of this, we understand the plans are big, mixing technology, chaos magic and metahumans powers, with influence on the ocean, the world politics and one of the greatest group of assassins, even alien conquerors.

The core of the show: We can say this show, deep down, is about found family and teenagers stepping up.

The team is about found family, in the first season Artemis, Conner and M'gann are alone, and they found family on the team and their allies, Mount Justice became the house of Zatanna after Zatara puts on Nabu’s helmet, they are kind of a surface family for Kaldur’ahm, in the second season a lot of people live there, and call the place home, this is the new home for Bart, and the kids kidnapped by the Reach found friends on each other, in the third season the team is a family for Violet, Bryon, Vic, Tara and Forager, and the youth center for metahumans is meant to be a home, they even buy a new place to be their quarters.

This is specially for Artemis, she was raised by abusive parents, Sportmasters trained her to fight, in the comics we see she knows other villains kids, Jade ran away, Artemis wanted to ran away, and her mother is manipulative, she cries so Artemis accepted entering Gotham Academy, despite not wanted to do it, her mother also uses Lian to make her quit the superhero life and enter a relation with Will.

At the beginning she doesn’t trust the team, she hides the truth about her origins, and she is really worried they would find out, at the end she trust them, and, after five years, she and Wally even consider start their own family, in the mental playground M'gann created is clear they talked about marriage and having babies, she offers a home for Violet and Tara, not only teaching them how to control their powers and work as a team, but offering kindness, and that kindness saves Garfield life and helps Tara cut the relation she had with the Light, both of them were in abusive places, and a group of friends they made are the ones helping to be better, they choose the kind and loving people over the manipulative and abusive.

The second core of the show is teenagers asking to not be treated like kids without agency, untrusty of the league secrets, they can make decisions too, they can fight crime too, the world the grown ups are crafting is theirs too, and, yeah, the grown ups are more mature, can take better decisions because they have more experience, their brain is fully developed, and, at the beginning, Red Tornado, Black Canary and Batman look after the kids, keep and eye on them, assign the missions, do the training, Black Canary is a teurapet too!. They are taken care of physically and emotionally, but they ask for trust, Garfield and Conner said it, work with me or move away, this is my world too, and, if I can take decisions about what’s happening to it, I will act.

Artemis and Kaldur’ahm act won’t have worked without the team, they were trusted enough by the league, so, Kaldur betraying would be useful to the Light, but the big public didn’t knew a lot about him, and their missions were undercover, no big shows and public fights for the normal people to know about them, so the betrayal affect just the heroes, Artemis death just affects the team and the league won’t need to said out loud that she died, and then said “Just kidding, she was in a deep undercover mission”, like, If Wonder Woman, Superman, or any league member died, the people would get angry if later they just take back that and go away with it.

And they are important in other ways, during the first season, when Klarion created two worlds, the team were essential to calm the kids, and asked for the older ones to take care of the youngers, and, during the fight, they needed them to fight against Klarion and brake the stone in their reality to join the worlds, Zatanna is the one to put on the Helmet of Fate, she is the decisive piece to win the fight; in the third season, when the outsiders stepped into the spotlight, they save people, and show that Luthor’s impediments could cost lives, in the final moment the outsiders, by defeating Granny on earth, saved all the heroes.

The fights: The animation is 10/10, smooth, easy to follow, clean, I love it, but, especially in the first season, the fights are more than heroes punching villains, the fights develop a character, give exposition about their history, an inside on their minds, or moves the plot.

This is awesome, taking on account the first two seasons were made to be broadcast on cartoon network, for a casual viewer, while zapping, would stay for seeing the fight, but, for a viewer who wants to know the characters, it is always going to have exposition, for the plot or the character.

You can take, as an example, the episode 5 season 1 “Schooled”, we watch how Superman don’t want to work with Superboy, and we’re reminded about Conner’s anger issues, he’s acting proudly and Black Canary defeats him easily, Robin is the one smoothing him, a kind of foreshadowing for Dick being the leader, Conner gets the lesson “raw force won’t help you win every battle”, and, during the fight with Amazo, he understands that, they even present Artemis.

Some people would stay, watch the episode, and enjoy it, it has its own story, there is no real need to know all the plot to enjoy it, for a fan, or someone invested in the show, the episode is good, we watch the relation between Superboy and Superman, foreshadowing about Robin leadership and a lesson for Conner. 

The consequences: The things happening to the characters aren't capsuled on one episode, they do things that will affect them in the future.

I will take, as an example, the episode 17 of season 1 “Disordered”, chronologically is after the exercise of the aliens, a traumatic experience for the characters, and it isn’t swept below a rug, we got and inside of every character, you have the cool episode fight, and an introduction to New Genesis and Apokolips tech, something really important for the next seasons.

We deal with the feelings of everybody, and they give us hints about the secrets or the future of the characters, Robin wants to be away of Batman’s darkness, putting on track Dick’s journey to become Nightwing, for Wally, he acts like nothing happened, and is still in denial about his feelings towards Artemis, we get hints about M'gann secret and how she is affected by the idea of others knowing, the writers foreshadow Kaldur’ahm leaving the leader position for Robin, the fear Artemis has about her friends finding out about her family, and, Superboy’s wish to be Superman, all of that is the road to the character grow.

But they ruined it with the time skips.

        2. Where Young Justice failed?

Time skips: I was watching Young Justice with my dad, it was my second time with the series, he ended the first season, we started the second one, and my dad asked me if Netflix didn’t add a season, no, they didn’t forget a season, they decided to age the characters, put a lot of info in the firsts episodes, and I felt robbed.

The first skip is of five years, the team grow, M'gann is less like Hello, Megan, she and Conner broke up, she is dating a L’gaan, is treated like a sister by Garfield, whom developed powers and now is Beast Boy, Superman is treating Conner like a brother, he have less anger, and helped the Genomorphs to be free of Luthor, Roy tried to enter the Light undercover, with Jade help, they failed, decided to have a normal life, married, have a baby, and now Roy is in a bad place, everyone is worried and Jade rejoined the villains, Artemis and Wally keeped their relation and leaved the superhero life, they were doing fine, Dick became Nightwing and is the leader, dated Zatanna and broke up, Barbara became Batgirl, Batman adopted Jason, Jason died, he adopted Tim, and Kaldur’ahm, lost Tula, discovered Black Manta is his real father, (in the comics we met his father and mother, so everybody lied to him about his family), quit the team to become a villain, but, plot twist, is on a deep undercover mission, and, apparently, only Dick, Wally and Artemis knows about.

And we didn’t need the skips, like, all the things happening would be useful for one or two seasons, and, if you wanted the undercover thing, you have Roy, you, literally, said he was undercover with the Light, you had things with every character, a way to develop them.

The second skip is shorter than the first, but it wasn’t necessary either, they grieved Wally, Dick ended his time out of hero life, Barbara became Oracle, Bruce adopted Stephanie and Cassandra, and they became Orphan and Spoiler, M'gann and Conner were doing a home life, M'gann was the team leader, Roy decided to be a normal man, changed his name to Will and raised Lian with Artemis, she kept Tigress alias, and lied to his mother about being a hero, Kaldur’ahm got a boyfriend and became Aquaman, leading the Justice League, all Atlantis knew he betrayed them, and now he is the great hero for all the atlanteans, Bart took Kid flash’s mantel, got adopted by the Garricks, and was able to spend a good time with his grandparents, father and aunt, Jaime got a girlfriend, and the kids kidnapped by the Reach aren’t around, except for Eduardo, who is helping in the Youth center for metahumans, and Virgil, who’s a hero and wants a girlfriend.

If you start a show with a core group of characters, and they are the main characters, you can’t insinuate grow for them, give the hints about their future, and swept them under the rug with the beginning of the next season, then, the new characters I’m starting to care about are pushed away too, it disappoints me. I wouldn’t be surprised if in season 4, the team are the babies we saw in season 3.

And there is no need to do this, are little things you could justify to need the time, but aren’t really important or could happen before is stated in the show.

In the first jump you could justify the Kroletan invasion as a reason to skip the five years, but the Kroletans aren’t the main villains, they are only used to make a database about the Justice League, and, in the comics, changing the leader of Bialya to be under the control of the Light, (and this is never brought again), furthermore, you could justify the building of a complex base under the earth in few months, days or weeks with alien technology, or just begin with the Reach, and justify the existence of the database about earth heros with info given by the Light.

And during the second time skip you could say, Tara needed time to be brainwashed by Slade, the tech to activate the metagen is new, and the mental controls to the metahumans.

But, technically, they said Vandal Savage is a meta human, and he is older than human history, if you don’t want to count him, you could start the metahuman gen active since 1950, I think, if they have on the Light mind controllers, people older than the team, and literally made clones, have access to Apokolips technology, they have Lex Luthor! The Light didn’t need the time, and the way to activate the metagen is really different between the Reach and the Light, they didn’t need the Reach to begin the investigation.

The lack of character growth: They were doing well at the beginning, and were good, and they hit a few things on other characters during the other seasons, but they miss a lot.

Dick, for example, has a lot of little brother energy, out of mission he is teasing his friends, when Black Canary defeated Conner, he laughed, he made fun of Wally the first time they were with M'gann, he is asking, with mockery, Artemis about what she is doing in Gotham, he calls M'gann Bald Megan, when they are on the first mission on Santa Prisca he is mocking Kaldur about explaining the disaster to Batman; he is going to be the leader of the team, but he is young, despite being the one with most time working as a vigilante, he is only 13, in age the next is Wally, with 15, and that Robin is interesting, in the comics he is the leader of a lot of teams, he is the older brother of the batfam, but he has to learn how to work with a team, to be trustful, to talk to others.

Creating Dick’s growth about leadership is an excellent idea, learning to guide people, how to talk to them, and, when he is a leader, he learns to be a mentor, he is teaching Violet, Bryon and Forager to control their powers and work together, an seeing a character grow to this point, would be satisfying, but they don’t do this, and yes, he is leader on season 2, but he is barely there, the missions, the action they are doing, Dick is away, he only fights one or two times, when the alien traps them on the Justice Hall he is not there, when Bluebettle betrays them, Dick’s not there, and he leaves, M'gann is the new leader, and they never gave hints about her doing that, Barbara has more foreshadowing than M'gann, Dick tells Kaldur Batgirl can step up and help, not M'gann, and we don’t see her really leading, Dick is the trainer, and Garfield is the one creating the Outsiders; Dick is a leader, you want him leading a team, but you don’t let him be one.

And if you wanted a love interest, in the comics they said Dick and Barbara liked each other before the team started, when you only watch the cartoon is, almost, out of nowhere the relation, Barbara is in Gotham Academy a few seconds on season 1, she makes a joke with Dick on season 2, they are dating on season 3, and they only interact a few times, I would rather see both of them grow into a relation than Mal and Bumblebee having a drama, Barbara, literally, said she is waiting for Dick to be ready, right now he is a dog, textual words from Wally and Barbara, and the idea of two peoples saying “I love you and I want to be with you the rest of my life, but right now I’m not ready to give you all you deserve” is astonishing, or, you could talk about healthy polygamus relationship, condemning the jealousy that could destroy a couple.

The show had good points, other character starting big, but falling flat, is Bart, he is from the future, a dystopian future, he is willing to leave behind all his friends and family to be in the past, he had a flashback when he is, literally, slaved by the Reach, he is using a collar, doing hand labor, and we don’t know if he really succeed, the only glimpse we got is the man helping Bart, not scarred and radioactive, but still on a bad world, and, on the third season he is a comic relief, saves a girl, and takes a photo with Jay and Barry saying #WeAreAllOutsiders.

Too many characters: Having six characters as the core team, none of them being more important than the others, could be hard,  but they were doing it fine, the things went down with the second season.

Now we have a big team, we don’t really know their names, how they became heroes, why they are here, in the first season we met Zatanna, and get a few chapters of her interacting with the team and Artemis, the only one that the watcher don’t really care about is Roquet, but she is important showing the sidekicks they aren’t a shadow of their mentors, they aren’t just kids on costumes, they are real heroes, they inspired her, and, we could guess, inspired others.

But in season 2, there are a bunch of characters I don’t know, and I quit the show at the beginning of season 3 because I wanted to watch the original cast, Wonder girl wanting to be more, Mal and Bumblebee having romantical issues, L’gaan jealous about M’gann and Conner, Tim wanting trust, nothing of that matters to me, you didn’t need them, needed their drama, because they go nowhere, and, in the third season, they aren’t bring up again.

You needed Jaime, he was the weapon against the Reach, and Bart was a good character, but his presence meant they failed saving the world, and he was a kind of comic relief, but not annoying or silly, and they did good when Tye was kidnapped, we watched the worry of Jaime, how he searched for him, by that we cared about Tye.

I understand why they created Violet and Victor, having a father box and a mother box with them, not as a computer, but as thinking beings, Violet is the answer for Darkseid plan, Victor was created from the father box, and now is working with the team, and they are poc, Violet is no binary, they are good characters.

Bt they started a journey with a character, gave us hints about they journey, and then, all the developing on the background, in season 3 Will tell Dick to stop being a loner, Jefferson is surprised Dick searched for him to save the kids at Markovia and asked help to enter Granny’s house, Dick, for the viewer, was never a loner, on the first episode he is making the team, in the second season he is the leader, his first appearance on third season is working with Oracle, asking help for the mission on Markovia, doing a team with the Harper boys, and training Forager, Violet and Bryon, Will said “Whom are you recruiting this time?” For us that means Dick, usually, asks for help to do the missions, they tell us Dick was working alone, but never showed it.

        3. Conclusion

The most infuriating thing is the show is good, they have a lot of great ideas, I will watch the fourth season, I want to watch the DC Fandome, I love the show, all this babbling came from my heart, and I’m sad, because they have great ideas, they put seeds for an excellent show, but barely water them, they let the ideas rotten and die.

[coolgirl]

how do i start reading about the batkids i’m really overwhelmed help

fuck it if I know… probably the smartest way to tackle it is to follow this list, which pretty much covers the vital Batman related arcs. PERSONALLY, I don’t care about reading about all the batkids, I just picked my favorite ones and just.. read everything I could about them (and lucky for me my favorite batkids don’t have thousands and thousands of comics so ! yay!) here’s some reading orders I made (except for the Damian one)

Jason Todd

Stephanie Brown

Cassandra Cain

Damian Wayne

Duke Thomas

Okay so, if u wanna read it in some kind of order, heres a bit of a general chronological-ish list thats probably innacurate bc i haven’t read all of these and the ones i did read was.. a long time ago. anyways, i hope this is useful, and again, imo its not necessary to read everything in order, but this might help to know a bit whats the timeline of some major events i guess? also i’m definitely going to be editing this post as people point out the mistakes rip! 

(the batkids i added to this timeline are the ones that have active roles in rebirth atm, Dick, Barbara, Jason, Helena, Tim, Stephanie, Cass, Damian, Duke, and the basics of Azrael, Kate, and Luke because i love them)

Dick’s time as Robin (that i have no clue how it goes but uuuh read Robin Year One / The Long Halloween / Dark Victory / The New Teen Titans up until #53)

Batgirl: Year One  

Birth of the Demon and Son of the Demon (here’s the original comic about Damian getting conceived)

Jason time as Robin (post crisis) stop before death in the family

Nightwing: Year One 

Batgirl Special #1 - The Last Batgirl Story 

unfortunately… you gotta at least know a bit of what the killing joke is about

NOW read death in the family… two blows one after the other, If you’re reading the trade that includes a lonely place of dying DON’T read that yet

now you can read the rest of the new teen titans up to #59

now A Lovely Place of Dying, which is Tim’s introduction. 

rest of ntt if u wanna

NOW for oracle!barbara you can either read the suicide squad comics as a whole, which includes little hints of her coming back, or you can skip to  issues #48 and #49. Then The Batman Chronicles #5.

Huntress Vol. 1 - Helena Bertinelli’s introduction

NOW! Steph’s introduction happened on Detective Comics #618

Stephanie’s list, if you’re following the whole list stop at Robin #70 (Tim’s solo is really good to know about them)

Azrael vol. 1: Fallen Angel - Azrael’s introduction

Batman: Knightfall - you know the infamous pic of bane snapping batman’s back like a stick? here it is.

Nightwing (1996)

Young Justice (1998) (NOT the one based on the tv show)

Birds of Prey i would say.. up to #7 

Batman: No Man’s Land

now it’s Cass Time!  Batman #567 was her introduction, and Detective Comics #734 n Legends of the Dark Knight #120 are vital to her story.

Batman & Huntress: A Cry for Blood / Huntress: Year One

Titans (1999)  

Batman Gotham Knights (2000-2006) is a good comic for batfam interactions

Rest of Birds of Prey ig

Teen Titans (2003)

Batman: Hush

Batgirl Volume 1 up to #52

War Games (when Stephanie dies rip)

rest of Batgirl

Batman Lost Days / Batman: Under the Red Hood 

Robin #172-174 (2008) steph comes back!!

Batman: Batman and Son He (Damian) is here babette

Batgirl volume 2 (2008-2009) and  Batman and the Outsiders (2009) are good cass comics up to #14

Robin/Spoiler Special (2008) 

Batman R.I.P. 

Final Crisis

Batman: Last Rites

battle for the cowl SUCKS the only important thing to know is that Dick is Batman now

Batman & Robin (2011) up to #12

Batwoman: Elegy 

Batgirl (2009) up to #14

The Black Mirror is a really good bats dick story.. or so i’ve been told

Red Robin

Batman: Return of Bruce Wayne #1-4 

Batman and robin from #13 to #14

Batman: Return of Bruce wayne #5-6

Batman and Robin #15-16

Batman:The Return 

Batman INC. (2011)

everything else in Batman and Robin, and Batgirl

Gates of Gotham #1-5 (2011) 

OK NOW.. N52. So new 52 was the reboot and it basically just took everything i just mentioned and threw it out of a fucking window. Changes: Barbara is Batgirl again, Cass and Stephanie didnt exist in this timeline for like four years, somehow Jason isnt such a dick, i think Damian didn’t get so fucked over, and uuuh i have no clue what happened with Dick and Tim but i think their whole story with their teams (teen titans / titans / young justice) got incredibly fucked over. Almost every single member of the Batfam (that didn’t get booted from this contuinity) got either a solo or a team book, which are. super good to start, reading order be dammed, but the batfam went through a lot of shit (court of owls, the joker, bruce kinda died, jim gordon became batman, bruce didnt remember anything, dick kinda died and got exposed but came back as a spy, damian died, bruce lost his mind, they kinda went to hell, damian came back, dozens of robins ran around, etc etc etc) so im gonna try to order it as best as i can T__T

Batman, Vol. 4 (Secret City) / DC Comics: Zero Year / Batman, Vol. 5 (Dark City)- Okay so, this wasnt the starting storyline for New 52 but its basically the basis of the batfam and co and introduces Duke and Harper so it’s kinda vital.

Ok so here you can start reading the first volume of.. any of the titles lol. Red Hood and the Outlaws / Batgirl / Batwing / Nightwing / Batman and Robin / Teen Titans

Batman: The Night Of The Owls  

Batwoman (2011-2015) 

Batman INC up to #6 - im gonna be honest this run fucking sucks but uh important stuff happens here

Nightwing / Red Hood and the Outlaws / Batgirl / Batman and Robin / Batwing / Teen Titans Vol. 2 (approx the issue #9 of all these runs were included in the Night of the Owls crossover)

Death Of The Family - this one.. bad.. but ig its important

Nightwing / Red Hood and the Outlaws / Batgirl / Batman and Robin /  Batwing / Teen Titans Vol. 3

Batman INC #7-8 - okay so. Damian’s death. 

Requiem / Batman and Robin: Requiem - the aftermath of Damian’s death. The first one isn’t collected afaik so i liked you to a reading order if you’re interested 

Nightwing / Red Hood and the Outlaws / Batgirl / Batwing / Titans Vol. 4 (here’s Luke Fox’s introduction!)

Forever Evil - the one where shit happens to Dick that i think leads to Grayson and all that spy bs

Yeah.. Grayson now (vol 1-2) - Helena gets re-introduced here!

Red Hood and the Outlaws / Batgirl / Batwing / Teen Titans Vol. 5

Batman Eternal - where Steph gets re-introduced

Batman and Robin: Robin Rises

Batman Endgame (Batman #35 -#36, Batman Annual #3, Batman #37- #39) - Duke is back!!

Grayson Vol 3 

Superheavy (Batman #41-44 / Detective Comics #41-46) - ok so Bruce is gone and now Jim Gordon is Batman.. just nod and smile

Ok so now, Red Hood and the Outlaws and Batgirl don’t get involved in any big storylines anymore, and Teen Titans started from #1 again. 

Teen Titans Vol. 1-2

We are Robin Vol 1 

Batman and Robin Eternal - where Cass gets re-introduced 

Robin: Son of Batman Vol. 1

Red Hood/Arsenal Vol. 1

Robin War 

Grayson Vol 4

Teen Titans Vol. 3-4

Red Hood/Arsenal Vol.2

We Are Robin Vol. 2

Robin Son of Batman Vol. 2 

Super Heavy Part 2 (Detective Comics #47-52 / Batman #47-52 )

OKAY SO. Rebirth is a continuation of New 52, but with some changes bc almost every single damn character got.. lets say nerfed, and people didnt like it so they’re slowly bringing back some elements from pre 52. Here basically just read whatever whenever unless you wanna get into like. the metal event. then i would recommend you to start off the bat with that to get it out of the way as some comics have tie ins. Then heres where the kids appear

All-Star Batman (2016-2017): Bruce and Duke 

Batgirl (2016): Barbara and sometimes Dick

Batgirl and the Birds of Prey (2016): Barbara, Dick, and Helena

Batman (2016): originally Bruce and Duke but now its the Batman and Catwoman show

(if you’re interested in Duke i would say to read those two first as it explains where his character stands on Rebirth)

Batman and the Signal (2017): pretty self explanatory

Batman/Shadow (2017): Damian appears sometimes but.. i heard Bruce is a dick to him here so fuck it

Batwoman (2017): Kate and Julia 

Detective Comics (2016): Cassandra, Azrael, Kate, Tim, and Stephanie

Nightwing (2016): Dick, and sometimes Damian and Helena. 

Red Hood and the Outlaws (2016): Just Jason except for the annual that had Dick too

Teen Titans (2016): Damian.. baby boy leads a team

Titans (2016): Dick

Super Sons (2017): Damian team sup with Jon Kent (Superman’s kid)

and finaaally.. some elseworld stories (basically aus) that have cute batkids interactions

Tiny Titans (2008-2015)

Lil’ Gotham (2013-2014)