hi hi!! i loveee your writing (always makes me smile/cry whenever i read it)
Have you got another part of Unfinished Business (i think that’s what it’s called - the one where Gotham is getting cleaner through a computer game) ??
LOVEE YOUR WORK!!!
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Bruce poured over the maps, searching for the random new streets that had appeared overnight. There were traces of them, but Bruce could have sworn they had been closed down or remodeled years ago.
Some buildings have been built over the old roads too, around the industrial revolution. The expeandtion of Gotham also meant that some places were removed or added on. They vanished. They were redundant.
Someone or something had made those roads reappear, and the many abandoned places had vanished or been fixed simultaneously. The question is, why?
Why were they doing this to his city?
It made no sense.
Was it a warning that they were powerful enough to remove entire structures with anyone the wiser? Bruce did not like it. He hated it. With so many of the buildings gone or fixed up, it seemed that the city was less cluttered.
He could see across the city now, and it caused hives to break out on his skin. If they were this powerful, what could they do to people? To his kids?
"Bruce, we got something," Tim hisses from his right. He had ordered everyone to go into lockdown within the cave. He doubts that anything in here will stop universal manipulation but it made him feel better to have his kids with him. "Their in Crime Alley."
Babs is running eyes on Gotham. She was biting her lower lip so hard blood had started to slowly drip down her chin. She had been in the manor when the first changes had begun. After calling her father in a panic- apparently, the police force work to the dirty copies just admitting they were corrupted in mass hysteria- she decdied to remain at the cave in order to use the panic room.
James wasn't sure what was going on, but he rather his daughter be behind the best security measures money could buy. He remained at the prescient, handling half his department turning themselves in.
He had always been professional but he admited to Babs that he felt a specail terror at the sight of his men's eyes going foggy then watcthing them one by one form a line to enter the cells.
Once they were behind the bars, they started talking, detailing who they work for and where the proof was for their arrest. James had at first thought it was something like a new form of Fear Gas but after three hours they confirmed it to be true.
The sky had turned blue by that point, and the cloud of pollution was long gone. She could do nothing for her father who was out there, facing whatever monster was cleaning up the city.
Bruce pats her arm, gently squeezing until she realizes what he wants. Her jaw relaxes, lifting her teeth from her flesh. He hands her an ointment to put on it without comment, and she uncurls her hand from over her mouse to take it.
Babs nods at him, face still filled with stress, but there is a softness in the corner of her eyes. For all that, she wasn't his daughter- even if for a while he truly believed she would be a daughter-in-law back when she and Dick were together- he adored her like his own.
He doesn't need words to know she's grateful for him reminding her to be kinder to herself.
Bruce turns his attention back to the screen, hissing through his teeth when he witnesses a start to glow gently in a familiar green color before the graffiti vanishes. It doesn't desolved or gets wiped away.
One moment, it's there, marking the territory of various gangs, random hooligans, and some genuine art, and the next, it's gone. As if though it never existed.
"Zoom in" He commands. With a few taps on her keys, Babs does just that. The camera is one of the city's older models, so the image isn't the clearest, but regardless, she clicks the record option anyway.
The glowing green surrounds the words, before one blink to the next, gone. Then to the alarm of all the watchers the brikes, reshape to new, expanding slightly and even having a finsihes repainting.
"No," Tim whispers in horror and loss. "Not the condemned fire station where I had to get my first tetanus shot. There were so many rusty pipes there."
Bruce reaches out, bringing his silent child into his arms as he feels his own tears welled up. "I feel through that roof my first night as Batman. It's alright Tim, we will avenge it."
Bruce gently pats Tim's hair, feeling his boy hide his face into his chest like a young child seeking comfort. He knows Babs is heartbroken too. That fire station was the place she used to go to with a sledgehammer whenever she had a fight with an ex-lover.
It was her comfort rage place. Bruce had even bought Bab's very first sledgehammer and had watched he break down her very first pillar back in her first few weeks of Batgirl.
All those memories. Gone.
"Shit," She gasps as the glow expands towards the camera and the resolution suddenly sharpens. It's clear enough to be the newest modles. "City secuirties have been compromised! Aborting systems"
All the screen go black and the Gotham natives can only sit in horrified silince.
"What more can they take from us?"
Alfred rubs the space between his eyes. He stands at the top of the stairway, watching the three's interactions after raiding the kitchen with food for the rest of the family.
The cave was equipped for months in a lockdown, but Alfred wanted to get everything non-preventive before sealing them in. The rest of the kids were behind him, helping grab supplies. "Hopefully, they'll aim for your stupidity next."
________________________________________________________
"Daniel Fenton, if you don't stop playing that silly game and come do your chores, you can forget about going out this summer!"
"But Mom, I'm this close to clearing out the legal system's corruption! Just thirty more minutes, please!"
"Now, young man!"
Danny pouts, staring at the screen that was shown casting Gotham City. He had removed the crooked cops and the brided lawyers, but the judges, prison wardens, and even some of the jail prisoners needed to be dealt with.
He had just purchased a better security camera and street post for the worst part of the city, hoping to earn some points from lowering crime there.
"I guess I can distribute some wealth to the working class from the Court of Owls in the meantime." He mutters, opening his citizens' profiles. He clicks on groups, wrinkling his nose at the Court's karma status. "Lawfully evil, prepare to be under the law again."
He presses the start time and leans back. Cracking his neck and hands, Danny lets the scenario run. He just has to do the dishes, clean the lab, and mow the lawn. That should be enough for the four hours on the wait time to finish. He hopes this will lower the general public's stress levels.
Gotham will be so happy when she sees her character's happiness ratings. Danny thinks with a smile. I could even add some tourism. That should really get the people's bank accounts growing!
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Sat too long in my feelings about the Gotham Knights video game Jason Todd going to therapy and trying to engage with his siblings from a place of healing and hurt myself, so now I'm inflicting this on all of you, but:
Do you ever think about how Jason only ever gets to experience Dick as an extension of the breakdown of Dick and Bruce's relationship at that time? Granted, depending on the comic era, Dick maybe doesn't show up as much as he should, or Jason acts like an antagonistic little shit, but overall, Dick's falling out with Bruce overshadows all of it.
And, like, yeah, it's funny to joke that only Jason knows that Dick went through a shitbag teenage phase and that no one ever believes him. (Gaslight, Gate Keep, Gotham ✌) And Jason is irate about it because how can they not see through what is clearly The World's Best Big Brother Act? How can no one else see it's fake?
(Unless it's not fake, and Jason just wasn't worth loving... No, fuck off, he doesn't care, he doesn't. Leave him alone.)
But at the same time, what if Jason's the only one who realizes it's a trauma response?
What if Jason's in the middle of a therapy session or reading one of the self-help books we see him ordering, and he just has to take a moment to breathe because, of course, it's a fucking trauma response. Of course, it is.
Dick's not pretending to be anything. He was, in fact, so severely affected by Jason's death that he over-corrected and now refuses to let himself be anything other than the Perfect Big Brother. Because he can't. Because when he's not perfect, when he's not there for them, they die.
Suddenly the golden retriever's cheerfulness is less grating and more worrying. Dick's need for perfection is less an annoying personality trait to compete with and more an exhausted cry for help that no one else seems to see. Not even Dick.
Because Jason realizes now that he might have never managed to live up to the Golden Boy mantle, but Dick will never get to put it down, either. Because he can't let himself. Because bad shit happens when he does.
So what if that's what he hopes Dick reads between the lines in the email he sends him in GK?
What if, by saying, "Hey, I realize now trying to hold myself to your standards was damaging my relationship with you, but I need you to know it wasn't your fault," was also Jason saying, "Hey, this shit isn't healthy are you fucking okay?"
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