#Tim ended up arguing with his brother about how to best keep Danny save

[flamingpudding]

Fictober23 Prompt: 5 - "You're the smartest person I know."

Fandom: DPxDC

Rating: T

Warnings: Mensions of Blood, Injury and Violence

A/N: This is kind of a bad timeline kind of situation that plays into the Gamer Pal Prompt I wrote before but can still be read independently.

Danny gasped as he staggered along the alley wall, with no idea where he was. He leaned with his shoulder against the wall as his left hand pressed against the wound on his stomach that refused to stop bleeding. He was confused, dizzy and pretty sure his father had given him a concussion, so closing his eyes and just sleeping on the side of the street was out of the question.

Tucker had thrown him through a portal Wulf had opened and that portal had spit him out here in… he doesn't recognise anything. But he was pretty sure he wasn't in Amity anymore. His vision was blurry but he was pretty sure that there were skyscrapers or at least buildings way taller than he was used to.

"Fuck." Danny cursed as another wave of pain made his body shudder. If he could just transform than maybe these injuries wouldn't be as bad but next to the pain Danny could also feel electricity surging through his body thanks to whatever Vlad zapped him with that stopped his transformation.

He coughed, squinting his eyes at the red spots that splattered to the ground. Things had gone to shit and real quickly and for a moment Danny thought that maybe they should have listened to their Gaming friend. Listened to his words of caution and advice to find a way to leave or to have at least a couple more of back up plans if things go horribly wrong.

Well it all came back to bite Danny like usually, as he spat out another glob of blood. Maybe Tim hadn't been as paranoid as they had assumed.

"You okay there kid?"

Danny needed to blink a couple of times until the red and brown blob before him finally took the shape of a person. He blinked several times more until his brain also finally caught up with who he was seeing before him.

"You're Red Hood?" Danny somehow managed to say in between coughing again. Tim had told them about Gothams vigilantes and how he could contact them to get them to help with Amity. To get them into contact with the Justice League. They had thanked him but refused the help, citing the fact that even one overshadowed hero could spell even worse trouble than they already had.

Now he felt stupid having refused that kind of help.

"Hey there kid." Don't black out now. Your bleeding pretty heavily we should get you to a doctors and-"

"No hospitals." Danny cut the vigilante off, coughing once more. Even though Tim somehow had managed to get the Justice League started on the removal of the Anti-Ecto Acts they were not yet gone. He couldn't risk that yet.

But meeting Red Hood meant that Danny was in Gotham, which meant he could probably go directly to Tim for help. His Gaming Pal did say that he knew his cities vigilantes personally.

"Okay no hospitals then." Hood confirmed for him as the man reached out to Danny just as he lost his balance falling forward. The last thing Danny remembers was muttering something along the lines of "Tim… I need to find him."

The next thing Danny then became aware of was the soft beeping of a heart monitor and loud arguing not too far from him. He groaned audible and the arguing stopped instantly. A wight rested on his shoulder and Danny blinked through the brightness and blurreyness once more until he vaguely recognised the shape of a person he so far had only seen through video chats.

"Tim?"

"You absolute idiot." Was the response he got and yea that definitely was the voice he had heard so often during all the late night Doomed gaming sessions.

"That checks out. You are the smartest person I know." Danny chuckled lightly until a sharp pain made him gasp. "Shit, I will feel that for weeks."

"The smartest person you know is Sam. Between the four of us she has the best grades, remember? Besides that, do you have any idea what kind of panic you and Tuck send us through?"

Danny peaked at Tim and grimaced at the frustrated glare the other teen was sending him. "Tucker was the one throwing me through a portal."

"You're lucky you landed in Gotham." The other then muttered, shaking his head.

"Again. You are the smartest person I know. You would have figured out some way to track me? Like the time you hacked our phones and tuned in onto Desiree's ectosignature to find her. Works better than the Booomerang that keeps hitting my head."

"That's because that thing is only tuned on you."

"And you somehow got rid of the GIW and I still haven't figured out how you did that."

Danny watched how the other teen shrugged. There was a silence between them. Tim was texting on his phone, probably informing Sam and Tucker. Danny, meanwhile, for the first time took notice that he was in some sort of medical bay, also noting that whoever Tim had argued with had already left. If he could believe Red Hood's words, then even if this looked like a hospital room it was not one.

"Hey Tim?" Danny finally broke the silence and the other teen only hummed. "Is your offer to stay with you in Gotham and to go to school and college here still open? I think I am ready to leave Amity behind now."

Tim looked up from his phone at Danny and gave him a feral grin. "About damn time. I had all the papers ready for you for ages now. It's about time we finally make use of them."

Danny chuckled. "And you still don't believe me when I say, that you are the smartest person I know?"

"Anyone in my family can do at least that, you know? These papers are nothing special."

Danny only raised an eyebrow at the other before both teens started to laugh, with one laugh getting cut short by a groan of pain and the other by fussing over the other right after it.

[centaurianthropology]

The Magnus Archives ‘The Masquerade’ (S03E38) Analysis

Wow.  We’re well and truly into it.  As Jon’s team moves into place to stop the Unknowing, things were bound to get more complicated.  Meanwhile, Martin’s plan is both simple and reliant on his willingness to offer himself up to pain.  Both plans begin to play out, but where will they go?  Come on in to hear what I have to say about ‘The Masquerade’.

We have the beginnings of both plans playing out at once.  Everyone’s performances this week were awesome, but the standout was Alexander Newall, without doubt.  Martin’s ugly sobbing was absolutely wrenching, as was his complete willingness to subject himself to pain to give Melanie the opportunity to get into Elias’ office.  The performance was just stunningly good.

The story was also excellent, even if it cut itself off with a bang.  The title itself seems to reference both the circus, and the performance Martin put on to keep Elias focused on him rather than Melanie.  But before we get to discussing Martin’s plan, let’s start the discussion of the episode proper with the circus.

They’re at the waxworks, surrounded by far too many (badly made) waxworks.  It’s not long before Basira realizes that all the waxworks were people.  Apparently, this is what happens to those people we thought were consumed by the Anglerfish.  They were turned into waxworks for the museum, creating an audience for the show that Nikola intends to put on.

We know that Daisy has set charges around the whole place and intends to blow it up with or without them there.  Tim still has a death wish, but is also acting as the conscience of the group at this point.  Well, sort of.  He’s always seen what they do as evil, and electing to kill all the people trapped in the waxworks, especially given how many of them there are, seems absolutely reprehensible.  Jon and Daisy argue that it would be sparing them, and there is a definite question of what becomes of a person trapped in a wax body.  Are they even alive?

I’ve got the terrible feeling that, even as much as it’s a moral objection, Tim knows that Danny is there. One of those statues is his brother, the man Tim changed his entire life to avenge.  He doesn’t want to blow them up, because he wants to save his brother.

Jon wants to stop the ritual, and he doesn’t want to lose Tim to do it.  He knows Tim’s been angling to get killed, so getting things done sooner rather than later is the best way of keeping him alive.  But they still have to interrupt the Unknowing in the middle of their ritual.  

And Daisy, as I predicted, just threw a great big kink into the plan.  We know she’s shot something or someone at this point.  The episode ended with a bang, but we don’t know who she shot.  It sounds fairly obvious that she was pointing the gun at Jon, but it was Tim who was shouting “No.”  Did Tim get in the way?  Did she shoot Jon?  I’ve suspected she’s been angling to put a bullet in him from the beginning, but shooting him now complicates everything.  The plan falls apart without the Archivist.  And even as tough as Jon is, getting shot and then escaping is going to be very, very difficult.

Which is where I think Danny Stoker is going to come in.  Now that we know the people killed by the Circus are trapped in the waxworks, I think Danny is going to save his brother and Jon.  I keep coming back to Naomi Herne and Evan Lukas, and how he managed to save her through his own family’s connection to the Isolation. Danny is claimed by the Stranger, but that may give him a power in the Unknowing that the others lack.  And I could absolutely see him getting them out and detonating the place himself.

I do find it interesting that Daisy insisted that Jon push the button.  As much as she believes that he knows the timing of the thing, I also think she wants him to be a killer.  She wants him to make the tough call, and not just fob it off on her. She still thinks he’s a monster, but I think she could justify working with a monster who is acting for the greater good.

The question is whether or not this is good, with so many people trapped there.  Will Jon push the button?  Will Danny?  Will it be someone else, unexpected?

And who got shot? With two more episodes, having one person maybe dead or maybe badly injured is going to make this plan a lot more complicated.

Meanwhile, back at the Institute, Martin started burning old statements.  Sounds like ones we’ve heard, going up in flames.  There is apparently no better way to draw down Elias than that.  What’s interesting is that Elias really doesn’t seem to know that Martin has more of a plan than throwing a fit at being left behind and being utterly furious about it.

This is another indication that somehow, Martin eludes Elias’ notice at every turn.  To read Martin’s mind, to drag the details of his admitted feelings about Jon out of him (and wow, Jon is going to hear that, and there’s really no way he can pass it off as ‘office gossip’ now, is there?), would take more effort than Elias can expend and still keep an eye on Jon and the others.

Martin is somehow wholly distracting.  When dealing with Martin, Elias can’t seem to perceive anything else.  If we’re lucky, he didn’t perceive what Melanie was doing in his office (though I worry that it was too easy, and that he knows perfectly well what she was doing.  Having only a few locked drawers could either be a ruse or hubris, Elias is good for either, really.)  

But Martin knew it would hurt.  I think he really did believe that Elias was going to drag all the embarrassing details of his infatuation out, but the fact it was his mother had to cross his mind. The details of what’s happened to his mother and what his life was like are still vague, but we now know that Martin was very young when his mother got sick and his father left.  I’m fairly certain that the details of that departure may be more complicated than Elias presented it.  My money has now shifted to Martin’s father being a runaway Lukas. That makes all the more sense that Elias would send Peter down to see him.  After all, if Martin is the spitting image of his father, Peter would know him in an instant, and would know exactly what Elias took from him.

No matter what, Martin’s mother believed them abandoned.  She came to resent and maybe even loathe her son, both for caring for her and for looking exactly like his father.  She was the one who insisted on moving into a care home, and is now refusing to let Martin visit her.  His letters make a lot more sense now.  Why write your mother when you can call?  When you can’t call, because she’ll refuse your calls.

Martin is desperate for affection.  If his mother really was as emotionally abusive as Elias implies, all of Jon’s snippiness must not have seemed so severe.  After all, Jon was just a bit of a dick, and when Martin was in trouble, Jon came through.  It very much sounds like no one ever came through for Martin before that moment.

In ‘Colony’, Martin sounded genuinely surprised that Jon both believed him and was taking action to keep him safe.  Given his past, I would imagine that this was a dramatic departure from the rejection he had anticipated, and was likely the initial moment when Martin started to fall for Jon.

But the thing about Martin that Elias doesn’t get (very much dismissing his anger as a child throwing a tantrum, fully expecting him to go back and be the docile bringer of tea that he’s believed to be) is that Martin has a spine of iron.  He stood up to Elias knowing that his past—either his love for Jon or his mother—were going to get thrown in his face.  He knew what he was sacrificing, and he was happy to do it.

I’ve long had the sneaking suspicion that Martin was meant to be Jon’s protector.  He’s interpreted that drive more as being a caregiver, because Martin is many things, but a fighter isn’t really one of them.  Not traditionally, at least.  But his desire to deal with Elias without violence, and his ability to talk Melanie around to his plan, despite her being inches away from being claimed by the Slaughter, points to what I think his other great strength is: aside from being far more courageous than we’ve anticipated, is a master of soft power.

Melanie and Daisy see violence as the only way to get things done.  Martin talks, he asks, he persuades.  It’s a fun reversal of traditional gender roles, with the female characters more adept and interested in solving their problems through precision applications of violence, while the make character uses words and persuasion to accomplish his goals.  It’s also nice to see both approaches getting respect.  Too often in storytelling, if it’s women or men using soft power, it’s treated as weakness and evil manipulation.  But in this story, it’s valid, and good, and may be the key to Martin and Melanie making it out of their situation alive.

If things go sideways, I have no doubt that Melanie will go full Slaughter on Elias or anyone else in her way.  But for now, she’s willing to let Martin’s plan play out.  He paid for it with pain, and now she’s got something that he apparently thinks will be enough to take down Elias without violence.

I hope he’s right.  So far, his plan is going far too smoothly. With everything falling apart with the Circus, I have the terrible feeling that the Unknowing will be wrapped up next episode, only for everything to go wrong at the Archives, sending whoever survives the Unknowing scrambling to get back in time.

Conclusions

We are in for a wild three-part season finale, it seems, and given how many things are happening at once, how many parts are moving, and how many balls are in the air, it’s not a question of if everything comes crashing down, but when.

I’m holding out hope that Danny Stoker can save the people trying to foil the Beholding, and hopefully save his brother and set him on a new and better path.  I’m hoping that Martin and Melanie can keep it together and that their plan at least goes well enough they survive it.  I’m hoping that this shattered group of people, all broken in some fundamental way, at least get a while to exist together.  I’m a sucker for emotional support and weird, screwed-up found families.  I have no idea if that’s a possibility in this universe, but I desperately want Jon to actually care openly and to deal with that caring.  I want Melanie to be acknowledged as grandly competent and to get respect.  I want Basira to figure out what it is she truly wants and to get it.  I want Tim to have some peace and closure in the wake of losing Danny.  And I want Martin to get the family he was denied.