#YJ! shimmer

[businesscasualart]

I’m curious if you have any thoughts or headcanons about Onslaught and alcohol. I imagine being a semi-functioning evil team is stressful and if Psimon is chucking everyone’s vapes then cigs and 420 isn’t an option, then alcohol is the second best thing right? Besides drinking together is team building and leads to this wonderful thing called “actually talking about your trauma instead of bottling it up for once”.

AAAA sorry about taking so long to get around to this.

I need to stop checking my inbox until I’m FULLY ready to yap and ramble. I need that lil blue dot reminding me I have asks so bad.

That IS a good question and I’m so flattered that y’all bother with my content. <3 I think they’d be at least somewhat different about alcohol.

(Sorry for any typos in advance, I wrote this mostly at various doctor’s appointments. ALSO. Last thing to apologize for. I’ve never vaped or smoked when I wrote the last part, but I also have never consumed alcohol and that fact may be more evident in this one)

Cw: Alcohol and some references to alcoholism, uh…references to angst but maybe more comfort than angst, kinda all over the place <\3

Okay so, in the beginning, Onslaught was Mostly teens. Psimon was BARELY even old enough to drink in America at the ripe young age of 21, flat. And I thinnkkkkkk Psimon is American? Even if he’s not, it seems the rest of Onslaught is, so I think  Psimon would probably step up and be all “No, no,” confiscate all the bottles and cans and it’d make the teens so mad and indignant. Literal felons are being BABYSAT. Even when they travel where the drinking age is lower. 

But when the teenagers turn old enough to drink, they have a whole little birthday celebration with what they can get, and of course, offer the first taste of alcohol. Their choice for what it is, as long as the team could afford it. Of course, they laugh and tease if they recoil from the taste. 

Most of the team is pretty fond of drinking, usually together. It’s nice bonding.

Devastation is the only exception to the “Psimon Says no alcohol until you’re 21” rule from the beginning. The team can argue “She is LITERALLY one (1) year old” all they want. She is LITERALLY built different, Psimon is fine with her drinking. 

Idk if she particularly has a preference for any kind. She’s probably one of those who subscribe to the belief of “It ain’t right if it doesn’t burn a bit going down”. Wine is probably somewhat…nostalgic. For some reason. Takes her back to someplace she can’t name, someplace she’s never been, but I think that’d be one of the only reasons she might prefer wine. Her taste may be all over. May be whatever’s strong and good. I’m no alcohol savant, what do I know? 

She likes to drink to celebrate and to bond, sometimes to ebb at stress. It takes a LOT to get her drunk, but that’s not gonna stop her from getting drunk when she has the time and money burn on it. She gets drunk and gets even more jovial and warm and open, though she’s usually relatively open. Also, haphazard. She becomes a big fan of violating people’s personal space. Hugs, patting backs, throwing her arm around them, leaning on people shorter than her, etc.

It can annoy a lot of people if she does it too much, Psimon strangely doesn’t seem to mind too much tho…aheem…

Besides that, Psimon’s generally against the team drinking to the point of drunkenness, but there’s little to actually do about it; he struggles to track all of their limits, and when he’s focusing on one, that leaves all the others alone. He tries to avoid getting drunk himself instead. Someone has to stay sober, and his psionic powers don’t mix well with too much alcohol. And he’s the leader. It makes the most sense that it’d be him to keep his wits about him.

The Terror Twins are hearty drinkers; they also can drink a lot and get very warm and jovial when drinking, like Devastation. Any outing to a bar feels celebratory with them. They decided they don’t like to get fully drunk though, not too regularly. First Tuppence decided this, then Tommy when she pointed it out to him. They don’t want to open up more quickly than they intend. Psimon can relate to that, so he defends them when they drop out. That doesn’t stop them from having fun with everyone else though, or helping when things get bad. They’re usually decent at opening up on their own time anyway. 

Shimmer and Mammoth like to follow Psimon’s lead and keep excess drinking to a minimum. A couple of shots, a glass or maybe two, it really depends on what it is, but that’s it. Mammoth can take more than his sister, just by merit of him being so much larger, but he doesn’t like the taste of alcohol at all while his sister does. However, the second either of them get any kind of buzz ebbing at their senses is the second they quit. 

If they’re found sitting down and downing drinks, something is wrong. They’d only let go so much if they’re trying to drown their problems. Then, they can use some company. Someone lending an ear to their sorrows doesn’t sound half bad. 

If another team member is in a similar situation and needs someone to simply sit next to them and just be, or listen, Baran and Selinda are quick to be there for them.

Junior drinks for fun, he’ll seize any opportunity to drink. That man is getting “Krunk” as the kids say. He doesn’t know his limits and if he did, there’s no telling if he’d actually adhere to them. He WILL blackout if no one keeps an eye on him. He will be puking in the trashcan. The rest of the team has to steer him away from opportunities to drink lest he develop alcoholism at the tender age of 5-minutes-into-being-able-to-legally-drink. 

His mood becomes turbulent and fragile. He’ll typically be happy, loud, reckless, aggressive; but at the mention of the wrong thing or at the sight of something that takes him way back, he can breakdown rather easily. It’s actually pretty common for his drunken stints, when they get out of hand, to end in tears. Junior has to be one of the least repressed members of Onslaught, due in no small part to moments like these; where he lets his emotions run rampant and they go down a bad path. 

He’d expect ridicule, but Onslaught is actually very sympathetic to his struggles and complaints, whatever they may be. He can air his dirty laundry as much as he wants with little to no judgement, something he’s not used to. Once he starts, it’s hard to stop, but the team will listen until the end and it’s something he’s really grateful for. Despite being a troublemaker and general criminal, he tries to pay the team’s kindness towards him forward as much as he can.

If Psimon does end up drinking to lose his troubles, he usually does it alone, when everyone else is asleep. Or at least when he thinks everyone else is asleep. Sometimes someone will wander about looking for a late night snack or a glass of water, or even search for him himself. He dislikes being caught like that, dislikes not being so impervious and put-together for the team. 

Without fail, they’ll sit with him awhile. They’ll ask, they’ll listen, they’ll joke or comfort or sit in silence. Psimon will wither in place or try to get them to leave him be, but they’re a stubborn lot. They’re far from the most “upstanding” of company, but they treat him with the same care, empathy, and concern he tries to treats them with; and Psimon finds afterwards that, despite not enjoying being caught in a state of weakness or forced to open up, he wouldn’t have rather it have gone any other way.

[thingsasbarcodes]

Young Justice 1x04 - Drop-Zone

[yjhgvf]

*drops this and runs off like a raccoon*

:O

*-fucking eats it-*

[lazypanartist]

Bro you slayed so good on the request thank you 🫡

Also, this isn’t a request, but imagine Team Onsalught having a sleep over—like imagine the fights and cuddle piles they all have—

Pishdifbskabsk-

SO glad you liked how it turned out! I low-key love writing for 'em, the team's too underrated

But yeah. Onslaught sleepovers..

Ik that realistically they all probably share a living space, but imagine what happens when everyone's home together after a while-

Shimmer gets turned into a human popcorn machine temporarily (Iirc she has a heat-based power) If anything happens to catch on fire, Cameron's got it

They all watch movies while sitting like villains (or queer people); draped over random pieces of furniture and each other

Pillow fighting! Typically ends with pillows just being thrown at each other, and someone starting an impromptu wrestling match (usually Tuppence)

Y'know those serious chats that happen sometimes? Vent sessions with friends, whatever. Imagine that, but EVERYONE'S parentals are shitty and the friends have already killed people and would do it again for you. They've had to talk down Mammoth from actually trying to go out and kill Cameron's dad.. more than once

Pretty much everyone ends up falling asleep on top of Devastation, Tommy, and Mammoth. They're Big.

If anyone ends up having a nightmare, Psimon doesn't even wake them up, just attacks the problem at the source. Typically ends up with him and the other person leaning against each other on top of whichever Big Person has been chosen

:p I hope you like this, too ^-^ Thanks for all the ideas!

[batfambrainrotbeloved]

YJ Mako Mermaids AU (this post context)- Tail headcanons!!(and main powers)

Konners tail- (Hydro Thermokenisis)

Bright orange with dark red highlights on his more spike shaped fins. Very reminiscent of lava especially when the sun hits it just right. This is a tail made for POWER- lots of muscle under those scales that packs a nasty punch. He learned that after accidently smashing part of a reef bed, didnt hurt nearly as much as the lecture from Bart afterwards though.

Tims tail- (Hydro Cryokenisis)

A range of Blues from almost black to neon, extra fins are more wavy than pointed. It resembles something that would come from the deep sea and does in fact glow in the right light. A tail made for Dexterity above all else, tight twists and turns are a breeze. Though as a result of his new found ease, he's no longer allowed to play navigator since some of his "routes" are impossible for the others.

Cassies Tail- (None Siren song)

A gorgeous true and white gold that shimmers as she glides through the water. The real fun though? Her tail gives her the power and manuverability to launch herself out of the water at outrageous heights. Of course after a close call with her almost flopping on the deck of a Wayne research boat, she isnt allowed to do her "bursts" out of the water unless absolutely certian shes alone with her friends.

Barts tail- (Electrokensis)

An array of orange contrasted with white and black markings make Barts tail blend in the most of all. One advantage he does have over his friends is a tail made for pure speed, his top fin cutting through the water with no restraint. But such speed makes it hard to dodge objects when he isnt careful, and dragging an unconcious bart onto dry land while still in tails themselves? A nightmare.

None of their tails seem to tie back to any specific species of origin, but seem to have traits unique to their own features.

@yjcorefourenjoyer this is your fault.

[juchily]

songs I want to see in yj s3 (complete unreality this will never happen)

"Outsiders" by Franz Ferdinand I'm thinking a scene with adult Lottie in the asylum with this song playing and my thoughts stop there

"Shake it Out" by Florence + The Machine I'm thinking '96 timeline in the summer scene, just like a happy summer scene. Or; alternatively, it's a horrible mass self gaslight where they ignore everything that's happened and everything they've done (Javi... Jackie... Laura... Doomscoming and Travis), so a more ironic usage of the song

"Hemorrhage (In My Hands)" by Fuel Really this one, "Shimmer", or "Falls On Me" are really Yellowjackets coded so, no other thoughts

"Black Sabbath" by Black Sabbath It's perfectly slow and eerie, this is literally yellowjackets, this song is literally so yellowjackets I can't even. This is the song that they'd put during the finale or a really heavy or edge of your seat moment. "Figure in black which points at me Turn around quick, and start to run Find out I'm the chosen one" "Big black shape with eyes of fire Telling people their desire"

"Fallen Leaves" by Billy Talent FALLEN LEAVES, if you've seen my other Yellowjackets and song lyrics post, you know This song is literally about troubled kids from a troubled place

"You Know You're Right" By Nirvana This song is obscure, like that damned sapphic soccer team

"The Lovecats" by The Cure, this song is not about cats, look it up, tw if you're sensitive to suicide mentions, but the lyrics aren't inherent, you have to look it up to know what it was really written about it's giving... we're doing insane shit together that will haunt the narrative 🥰

"Champagne Supernova" by Oasis CHAMPAGNE SUPERNOVA, like I said before with Fallen Leaves, if ykyk This song is about things changing with time, and I think really encapsulates some themes in YJ

"Cult of Personality" by Living Colour

"Man Who Sold The World" by David Bowie or covered by Nirvana

"Since I Told You it Was Over" by Stereophonics "But you were on your track, it was me turning back, I left you freezing outside" WHAT JACKIESHAUNA "You've seen a cross, it's a cross I bear You're drinking, hard up, living without a hope or a care You're making do to please, see what makes you smile You're not around for long, you gotta see what's gonna move your life right along" ADULT TAIVAN, VAN???? n vibes "My head is filled with lies I told" 🙂🙌😧

"The Freshmen" by The Verve Pipe "We tried to wash our hands of all of this We never talk of our lacking relationships And how we're guilt-stricken, sobbin', with our heads on the floor We fell through the ice when we tried not to slip, we'd say" Shall I say more?

Metallica

VIBES:

"Barracuda" by Heart, what can I say, this is something they'd be singing in the locker rooms

"Spiderwebs" by No Doubt ☝️

"Run Through the Jungle" by Credence Clearwater Revival Just listen to the song, it's so yellowjackets babes I promise 🙏

"Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd or performed by David Gilmour What can I say? We like a good song about reminiscing on past decisions and situations 🙂

"Hunger Strike" by Temple of the Dog

TOSS UPS/AMV AND EDIT SONGS FOR YOU BABES:

"Eat Your Young" by Hozier This is a toss up for me, honestly, maybe it should stay in the edits and amvs 🤷

Greta Van Fleet, something from those guys I KNOW YOU HEAR ME

i need to see a ship edit or AMV to "Will You" by P.O.D. or I think I will combust into a million small lesbian flag coloured confetti that will pollute the local waterways and spread doomed yuri in a bad way because I WANT THIS

The Smith's "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now", it tickles my brain

"Rabbit Heart (Raise it Up)" by Florence + The Machine Obv, mainly for Jackie thou

Here's the link or you can find it up top at the beggining! On my Spotify you can find another Yellowjackets playlist based off of my first Lyrics post

@rougeclasslover here's the playlist I was talking about carp of the Misty Nation❤️

[baby-iloveyou]

Carpe Diem

pairing: choi yeonjun of txt x gn! reader genre: smut, porn with no plot, it's just dirty, no penetrative sex tho warnings: oral (yj receiving), swearing, making out, nothing about a relationship between these two is established, starts off with kinda dom/teasing yj but later he's a bit of a whiny baby it's cute summary: Seize the day, why not have some fun with each other? word count: 951 writer notes: i wanted to do more with the title, but i didn't feel like adding an entire plot line and stuff- it's not even completely finished but this is also a pretty okay point to stop writing at lol. if you do want a continuation of this let me know and i'm very willing to write it hehe.

the only std you should be getting is seize the day - bojan cvjeticanin from joker out (also the inspiration for this title)

Yeonjun’s heavy panting in your ear was something you wanted to hear on loop for the rest of your life. The way his black hair slightly covered his eyes, yet you could still feel the piercing of his sharp gaze. The way he was looking at your lips, your eyes, back to your lips, staring you down as much as he could. If only he could stay on your body like that forever. His hands holding your wrists, pushing them down into the soft bed.

You could feel his plump lips against your ear, when he whispered: “I think you’re driving me crazy.” That, paired together with the breathing and the smirk you saw appearing on his face, made you feel the same way. You were going insane. The only reaction you had to this was to close your eyes and smile like a fool. Your tongue prodding the inside of your cheek. He was fully hovering over you, his face and lips going from your earlobe towards your neck, to leave kisses there. You arched your back at his attachment with your body. A small groan left your mouth, and it clearly affected Yeonjun, as you could feel his already hard cock, through his dress pants, against your leg. 

You tried to unbutton his blouse as he was leaving open kisses on your neck, inching closer and closer to your chest. Because he was going down, it made it almost impossible for you to actually undress him, so you tugged at his collar, making it clear that you wanted him. And nothing else. He opened his eyes, scoffed but smirked, and undid his buttons while trying to maintain eye contact with you. “You like this, don’t you? You’re almost drooling at the sight of me undressing.” You didn’t notice, but he was right. Your eyes were huge, following his fingers as he undid one button after the other. Your mouth was parted, and once in a while you licked your lips. “What other reaction do you expect from me when you are on top of me?” You replied. He raised his eyebrows, making an “I don’t know, you tell me” face, and grinned. 

After Yeonjun ditched his blouse, he dove right toward your lips, kissing you hungrily. His tongue almost instantly asked for entrance, and with his sneaky hand tracing your body, it was very easy for him to get his tongue inside your mouth. You smiled as you made out. Your hands were now in his hair, trying to pull him even closer towards you (which was physically impossible). He pulled away, and said: “Don’t need these pretty clothes anymore for now, do we?”. You had your fun looking at him getting undressed, now it was your turn. As you took off your clothing piece by piece, Yeonjun softly palmed himself through his dress pants, his tongue hanging out of his mouth. “Leave some of that for me, will you?” You teased, when he closed his eyes from how good his hand already felt. 

Once you were left in only your underwear, you switched positions with Yeonjun smoothly, so that he was facing you, with his back against the bedrest. You slowly inched toward his bottoms, the dark dress pants shimmering in the light of the room, and undid his buttons. Before you pulled down the pants, you slowly traced the dick print that was clearly visible. “Ah ah ah, that’s sensitive…” You smiled at him, just thinking that he was really cute like that. You undid his pants and pulled down his white boxers. The view of him lying there, not knowing what your next move would be but already moaning simply because you were close to his privates, was addictive. His dick was so pretty: it was slender and a nice length, and the veins were so prominent. You stared at it in awe for a few seconds, before taking his tip in your mouth. “A-ah that’s so sensitive, Y/N ple-please!” His face scrunched up. It really was a very sensitive part of his body, seeing as he was whining this much. You could only smile as you took more of him in your mouth. His precum tasted so good, and you wanted more. 

Deepthroating him while looking directly at him; apparently it was one of Yeonjun’s weaknesses. The sounds he was making were absolutely unholy, and he was thrusting into your mouth out of neediness. You flattened your tongue against his girth, making him groan once more, and continued going up and down his beautiful cock. Once in a while you’d lick his tip and his slit, which would earn you a “fuck, do that again”. His hand was now in your hair, as he tried to slam his dick as far as he could into your throat - he was so incredibly turned on. “Shit shit shit, I’m gonna cum.” He moaned, leading you to take your mouth off his cock. He sighed, confused but then instantly gasped at your cold hands touching his privates, finishing the job with your hands. As he came, you tried to direct his spurts towards your face, letting the warm cum land on your face. You both moaned at the feeling and Yeonjun also at the sight. “Holy fuck. You look so good with me all over your face.” You opened your eyes, and licked your lips, cleaning off some of the semen with your tongue. For the rest of it, you grabbed Yeonjun’s hand to wipe it off, and then put his finger into your mouth, sucking on the digits. If he got soft again after his release, which he barely did, this made him rock hard again.

[prince-jjae]

You approach a weathered table, upon which 6 objects float. what will you choose?

a swirling vortex of wind. (yj)

recent; yj/ftm!reader hard thoughts.

a flower in full bloom. (sb)

recent; none yet...

a drop of pure sunlight. (bg)

recent; puppy!gyu breeding puppy!reader.

a dewdrop. (th)

recent; none yet...

a snowflake. (hk)

recent; In My Imagination, Ceilings pt2.

a handful of shimmering dust. (multi)

recent; Ceilings.

[eobard-thawne]

shimmer in ‘before the dawn’: i’ve been kidnapped by one of reach’s partners, probably aqualad. same people i’m supposedly on the same side with. i’ve been put in a pod. when i opened my eyes i was in the freaking manta-flyer. then i’ve been freed by the team. so obviously i’m not gonna help the team leave the ship but i’m gonna side with the reach. obvious choice here. oh now i’m getting my ass handed to me by batgirl. again. so i’m just gonna lean on the wall to catch my breath. i’m accidentally gonna vaporize a piece of the ship’s hull just by my mere hand. i’ll realize i’ve been experimented on and given new abilities by the reach. before i realize what’s happening i’m flooding the bay. i’m gonna sink a freaking submarine. can submarines even sink? i’m gonna cause everyone to drown. before everyone else though i’ll get knocked out by the water first. black beetle is gonna end up rescuing me. and because i’m knocked out i don’t even have time to think if this shit is worth it anymore. just another day of being a henchwoman for literally every bad guy ever.

[discow1tch]

Mutual Attraction

Summary: You run into the redheaded Green Lantern in the watchtowers infirmary after you both get injured in a fight and things get weirdly flirty

Warnings/tags: sexual tension, partial nudity, flirting, reader-insert

Notes: Look, I have terrible taste in men. I know this. Please try not to judge me too hard for wanting to fuck the worst green lantern.

Also, I'm not entirely sure where this is set. It's sort of loosely based on a combination of comics and cartoons. I'm really enamored with the version of him in YJ and the way Pat Gleason draws him in GLC.

You can also read this fic on AO3

"I'm fine," you insist but Dr. Mid-Nite is having none of it. He practically pushes you into the med bay.

"You hit your head. A professional needs to look you over."

Seeing as he is a professional you should probably listen to him.

"Yeah, alright."

The room is already occupied by one of the Green Lanterns - the redheaded one - sitting on the exam table and Mr. Terrific who is looking him over. The Lantern is a hot fucking mess. His hair is stuck to his head with sweat and there's blood spatter all across the knuckles of his gloves and the side of his face. It's hard to tell if it's his or someone else's. They both pause to look over at your intrusion. You give them a hesitant wave. Dr. Mid-Nite breaks the silence.

"Oh, good. You're already assessing the injured. When you're done with him can you check her for a concussion?"

Mr. Terrific sighs like he's being asked a monumental favor.

"Sure."

"Thank you. She hit her head pretty hard out there today. Better safe than sorry."

"Of course."

And then Dr. Mid-Nite is gone, leaving you to stand awkwardly in the doorway.

"I'm just getting my shoulder put back together. These things don't usually take long, right, doc?" Green Lantern says.

"I'm relocating the joint," Mr. Terrific corrects, "but yes, it should be just a few minutes. Feel free to take a seat."

"Kay." You locate a hard plastic chair by the door to wait on and pull out your phone.

 Ah. Of course. No service on The Watchtower. And no wi-fi.

"Alright, GL, suit off. I need to get a look at that shoulder."

You drag your eyes away from your screen to watch. You've always wondered how the suits work. You've been told that they're ring constructs but they're way more convincingly real than anything else you've seen the lanterns make. You can see all the creases in the fabric and everything.

"You got it, Doc." Green Lantern says as he pulls off his ring. You watch in amazement as the suit disappears in a whoosh of air and shimmer of light back into the ring leaving him in street clothes.

He's wearing jeans and a t-shirt with some sort of sports logo on it. It's all very normal except for the dried blood still spattered across his skin. You can even see the line in it across his neck where his GL uniform was sitting. You're wondering how it all fits under the suit and why none of it is wrinkled when he reaches back behind his head with his good arm to pull his shirt off in one fluid motion.

Your eyes go wide.

Ginger Lantern is built and has been spending some time in the sun if the freckles across his shoulders are anything to go by. There are faint tan lines around his biceps and collar. A not insignificant amount of hair covers his chest and trails down to the waistband of his jeans. You've never really talked to any of the lanterns but now you're thinking maybe you should.

You're jolted back to reality when Mr. Terrific speaks.

"This shouldn't be painful. Just sit still for a moment," he says as he works the lanterns joint back into place. You drag your eyes away from Green Lanterns chest only for your eyes to catch his. He tilts his head back just the slightest and gives you a cocky grin.

Oh no.

You can feel heat creeping across your face and neck. You dart your eyes away back to your phone. There's no use pretending that didn't happen but you try. The next minute stretches into eternity as you wallow in your embarrassment and pretend to be checking your email.

"There you go. That should do it."

From the corner of your eye you watch ginger lantern rotate his arm experimentally a few times.

"Thanks. The ring should be able to do the rest of the healing on its own." he says as he stands up and grabs his shirt. You steadfastly glue your eyes to your phone as he dresses but it doesn't stop your imagination from running free. It's not weird to fantasize about a strangers abs, right?

Mr. Terrific calls out your name and you practically jump out of your skin.

"Yes?"

"You're up next." he says with a tilt of his head towards the exam table before stepping across the room to look through a storage closet.

"Oh. Yeah."

Green Lantern reaches the door just as you're standing up. He stops with the door open and his hand on the outside doorknob.

"I saw how you were looking at me. You ever wanna do more than window shop just let me know."

You blink dumbly as his words sink in. He gives you a self assured smirk and then he's leaving. You stare at the door as it closes behind him.

That man is going to be the death of you.

[businesscasualart]

Sorry to spam you I’m so sorry but listen listen Psimon catching one of Onslaught vaping 💀💀💀——

Hey, this doesn’t even qualify as spamming to me but don’t EVER worry about spamming me! I’ve had so many notifications (well…okay…I went from no notifications to a couple everyday) and I feel so loved and it’s so fun talking to y’all and just DONT SWEAT IT! Okay? <333 I love this. The only distress I received is worrying I’ll miss or forget about one.

okay okay the actual ask now, that is SO funny to me. Hm.

idk if Psimon would intervene in the earlier years of Onslaught. I think he’d be noticeably irked but consider it not his place. But as the years go by, I can absolutely see him walking past an Onslaught member who thinks they’re being sneaky vaping off to the side until Psimon uses his telekinesis to yank the vape out of their hands and chuck it into the horizon without paying them a second glance. He’d tick any vaping members of Onslaught off so much but what can they do?

Trying to think of who’d get upset in his place earlier on and like, I think Shimmer? Idk if there’s a canon answer to if she speaks or not and I’m pretty undecided, maybe she speaks a little? She’d be the one to go up to them and be all “You know that’s addictive, right?” “You know addiction kills, right?” “Don’t be making me breathe that stuff in secondhand.” Etc. But even if she can’t speak, if looks could kill, I’m sure we can agree her body count would be doubled. She’d get her point across somehow.

Now, with Devastation, I don’t even think she knows what vaping is. Like…in the beginning of the show, she’s One (1) year old and she seems to be spending most of that time in prison. The most insane prison in the world I may add. She’s probably seen some crazy stuff, some crazy stereotypes, probably eye witnessed people cooking up drugs in the prison toilets and doing substances off of each other’s bodies and whatnot but like…she sees a teeny tiny lil vape pen? I don’t think it’s gonna click immediately. She’d walk up to a vaping Onslaught member and ask them “What’s that? OuO” and they just gotta stand there like a preteen caught doing something dubious on the internet but they’re parents aren’t internet savvy so they gotta gamble if they wanna explain it or try and pass it off as something that won’t get them in trouble. They are dead meat if she finds out they lied to her tho.

Tuppence and Mammoth I feel are on the same page. Maybe Tommy too? They don’t like it but don’t do much to stop it unless it’s made their problem. They huff and roll their eyes and look all annoyed but they don’t do much about it.

Now Icicle, and maybe Tommy, make think it’s pretty rad in a “hehe rebellion >:)” kinda way…however…everyone I think could competently vape has passed, been marked off as being against vaping, whatever. Cameron and Tommy would stand there coughing and stuff, I wouldn’t put it too far beyond them to accidentally swallow the dang pen, idk what they’re doing, they’re just on some knucklehead behavior. .

.

.

.

aheem…Psimon doesn’t like vaping but I think he’d have a particular disdain for the ones that are all flavored, masking the original bad smell and taste, bc it reminds him of the way hospitals smell, with the pinesol and bleach trying to desperately hide the scent of death and sickness. Okay bye-

[thingsasbarcodes]

Young Justice 2x05 - Beneath

[yjhgvf]

LRW, dunk: You're a bitch! A hoe! A slut! Zeta, also drunk: You talk too much! *the two proceed a catfight*

It's not a catfight if Zeta is clearly winning by a mile

[dowhattdewott]

I didn't notice this until just now but shimmer literally always gets knocked out. I think she's gotten in like two kicks on Robin before? Even after the time skip she wasn't much better. She 1v1 Batgirl after she got her powers for a bit but then got knocked out again. She's gotten KOed quickly in fight at least half a dozen times in two seasons. For season 3 I want a full fight scene dedicated to her. She doesn't have to "win," but at least draw or last a while at least. The entire episode is just her beating people up. Why do the writers hate her so much? She's such a cool looking character and she deserves better.

[bigskydreaming]

Comic book Zatanna is VERY different from YJ Zatanna. To such a degree that rather than look at YJ Zatanna as an adaptation of her, I pretty much just think of them as entirely different characters. Like YJ Zatanna is named after her older cousin or something, who’s too busy dealing with mystical threats to ever show up onscreen. Its pretty significant what a difference changing a character’s age and what generation they’re a part of can make.

(Its also why I don’t ship Dick/Zatanna in YJ. My go-to Zatanna will always be the comics one, who’s like....dated his DAD. Its like how a couple of adaptations have tried to pair Bruce/Babs as a nod to like waaaaaaaaaaaaaay early versions of Batgirl, when like...no, Babs has dated Dick, his son, in way too many comics and cartoons what are you even doing, I DISREGARD YOU, FALSE CANON. Anyway.)

So, in the comics, Zatanna is the same age as Bruce, or near enough. And she and Bruce have a long history together, (including at times a romantic one) because in some continuities, before he was Batman, when he was still traveling the world and learning from every teacher he could, he frequently visited circuses and carnivals and the like. They were where he learned escape artist tricks, picked up things from magicians’ acts like Zatanna’s (such as sleight of hand and misdirection, etc), and acrobatics. Its literally been given as a reason he was at Haly’s Circus the night Dick’s parents died - he was scoping out their act to see if there were any tricks he could learn from or incorporate into his own repertoire.

What I’m getting at is Bruce knew Zatanna even before he was Batman for the exact same reason he met Dick. He inserted himself into the circles both of them traveled in as members of performer families with a generations long history with circuses and Vegas and carnivals and the like.

Which means....take Bruce out of the equation, and there’s still every chance that Dick and Zatanna’s paths could have crossed while they were both still performers. And that their families could have known each other.

So! AU where Zatanna was in Gotham visiting friends at Haly’s the night the Graysons died. And rather than watch Dick get shoved into an uncaring system when they took him away from the circus and refused to let him stay with them, the Mistress of Magic spirited Dick away and took custody of him herself. 

Leading to Dick being raised by Zatanna instead of Bruce, continuing to work as a performer alongside her but now her magician’s assistant instead of an acrobat - though he still kept up with his acrobatics thanks to Zee’s acrobat friends letting him train on their trapeze whenever he had the itch to fly again. Dick grows up learning escape artist tricks and all the misdirection and sleight of hand Bruce learned from magicians, but straight from the source this time rather than via Bruce.

And eventually, Dick - child prodigy that he is - discovers that Zatanna’s act is the equivalent of hiding in plain sight, the perfect misdirection to cover up that she is a real magician, a homo sapiens magi, born naturally gifted in the mystic arts and one of the most powerful sorceresses in the world. Dick might not ever have her natural aptitude for HER type of magic, but there are many kinds of magic in the world, and thanks to her work (both professional and as a reserve member of the Justice League and occasional superheroine herself). Zatanna knows all the best and most talented magicians and sorcerers in the world. And many of those, Dick CAN learn from.

All of which leads to him eventually sneaking out as a vigilante on his own, combining his acrobatics with things like knife throwing and flashy misdirection that disguises his actual conjurings and spellwork when in the midst of battle. His specialties are illusion magics, spells of disguise and manipulation of shadows, vanishing into smoke and conjuring temporary doubles out of mirrors, etc. Just enough of what he does isn’t real that villains never see it coming when he conjures a real fireball right after they’d identified enough of the previous ones as harmless illusions and thought it was safe to stop dodging. Instead of it being just about raw power, he builds upon his ability to craft and sell an act. 

Eventually he forms the Teen Titans with other sidekicks like Wonder Girl, Speedy, Kid Flash and Aqualad...as well as Barbara Gordon aka Batgirl, protégé of the Batman. Even his best friends couldn’t say how much he’s actually capable of - though with them, its not because he doesn’t trust them though, merely because he’s a troll. He always dismisses any talk of him being a sorcerer or calling what he does magic. Instead he just grins and winks and says he knows a few tricks, is all. What he considers ‘a few’ or how far he stretches the definition of ‘a trick’, well, that’s anyone’s guess.  His entire hero career and reputation spins out of the fact that he COULD be one of the more powerful sorcerers to walk the earth....or he could simply be a great actor who makes the most out of a relative handful of lesser spells within his capabilities. Even his own teachers can’t say for sure. Every time someone thinks they’ve got his range figured out, he mischievously pulls out a new spell his previous shows of power have never hinted he’d be capable of, just to keep people guessing. 

And maybe Zatanna and Dick are back performing in Gotham one winter, and Dick’s off visiting Batgirl while they’re in town, and Zatanna takes a stroll through town and passes through Crime Alley. No particular reason, its just an expedient route and she hardly is someone to take its reputation as a reason she of all people should be concerned.

Which is when a homeless street kid named Jason Todd tries to pick her pocket. Naturally, it doesn’t exactly work out for him, given who she is, but Zatanna Zatara is one to appreciate the irony of someone trying to pick HER pocket...as well as impressed at how close he comes to actually managing it. She takes him to a diner to feed him, coaxes enough of his story from him to figure out he has no one to look out for him and will never trust Gotham’s foster system (not that she’d blame him, given what she saw of it when she first took custody of Dick and had doubts about whether she was doing the right thing for him)...and figuring since it worked out well for her the first time she went down this road, offers Jason a fresh start elsewhere with her and Dick.

It isn’t long before Jason’s intellect and skilled hands prove equally effective at sleight of hand and magician’s tricks, as well as an eager student for every bit of actual magic his new big brother shares, along with what he learns from the teachers Zee and Dick both introduce him to. Over time, he gravitates towards different tutors specialties than Dick though. Illusions and mindgames, smoke and mirrors...that fits Dick’s natural showmanship and performer’s nature, but its not Jason’s style. Oh, he can bluff the hell out of anyone, never play poker with him, and his natural bravado easily translates into working a crowd and playing a stage alongside Zee and Dick when working. Its just not his preference is all. 

No, he goes more for practical magic, straightforward approaches to achieving his intended results. Cut out the bullshit. Spells of primal force or elemental magicks, charms and runes of strength, healing and protection to augment his capabilities when he wades into a fight fists first and just starts brawling. He’s not afraid to summon a demon or two and make a bargain to achieve his ends - he’s even got the names of a couple inked into his skin as tattoos, a summoning shortcut that lets him call on his personal faves in a moment of desperation. Even demons have trouble circumventing a summoning or breaking free of its parameters when those things are etched permanently onto his body. 

Dick does tend to have a few elemental spirits always nearby and easily summoned without much notice or prep time, but Dick being Dick, in his case its just because he made friends with them. There’s a couple of wind sprites always hanging around on the off-chance he gets into a fight and might need their help. They find such instances to be extremely fun and exciting, and also they’ve adopted the fun little bird human who flies as a kindred spirit.

In contrast, Jason comes home one day and Zatanna catches him trying to change the coverings on a new tattoo without her noticing. She's not mad because he's fifteen and not supposed to be getting tattoos. She's not exactly thrilled about that either, but no, of greater concern to her is the fact that the tattoo is a name written in a long dead alphabet. A name she recognizes as that of a primordial demon she was extremely clear about being one of those forces beyond her teenage son's ken, and which he most certainly was not supposed to be messing around with.

Jason's expression tightens mulishly and Zatanna longs for the days when that was just purple prose she read in books sometimes while wondering vaguely how that even worked and what that actually looked like.

"Dick said I had to," her younger son says. He folds his arms across his chest defiantly. Zatanna closes her eyes and counts to five.

"I did not!" her older son yells right on schedule. The air shimmers like heat waves rising off pavement on a hot summer day and Dick drops the cloaking spell he's been using to eavesdrop. She's not sure why he even bothered with the thing; they both knew he was there the whole time. Not because his spell hadn't been text book perfect and beyond even her ability to pierce mystically, but because Dick tended to forget all the magic in the world can't keep predictable behavior from being predicted.

"You literally said Jason, you gotta do the thing," Jason insists, doubling down. Dick's arms flail like an anthropomorphic windmill tripping on shrooms.

"No, I literally said Jason, don't do the thing," Dick shrieks, cartoonishly outraged. Zatanna fights back a small smile despite the situation. She's seen her eldest smoothly engage a minor deity in a verbal chess match as the fate of his fellow Teen Titans hung in the balance, all without once breaking a sweat. One blatant lie delivered straight to his face by his younger brother though, and he went zero to sixty in two point five seconds, skipping straight past the realization he was being played. Zee still had every intention of grounding her youngest for the next decade for being so dumb as to ink himself with a mystical tether to a demon that once ate an entire civilization - yes, ate - but that didn't mean she couldn't also be impressed at Jason's attempt at finessing himself out of this situation. He'd jumped straight to the only thing that had even had a prayer of distracting Zee from his teenage idiocy - Dick at Defcon Five. Now if only she could get him to apply that same level of forethought to things like oh, the possible longterm consequences of giving a supernatural Being of Mass Destruction a direct dial up connection to him....

Dick turns desperate eyes on her. "Seriously Mom, I swear. I said the actual words 'Jason NO.'"

"See?" Jason flings his arm at his brother in triumphant vindication. "Have you met me? Everyone knows that's code for 'Jason YES.'"

"Oh my god, I will curse you to rot the pages of every first edition you touch," Dick hisses dramatically. Jason pales briefly, but rallies.

"And really, how is this any different from when you slept with Batgirl and I said that was a really bad idea and its totally gonna end up biting you in the ass, and then you said that I shouldn't have told you to do it then?"

"That's completely different," Dick howls, reverting back to Windmill, Drunk In A Windstorm. "You said 'Don't be mad, but that new scrying spell I was trying accidentally locked on to Batgirl instead of Batman and I saw her walking home from school out of costume just for a second before I shut off the spell but spoiler alert, she doesn't wear a wig while in costume, she really is a redhead even with her cowl off, which means now you gotta sleep with her, like, we all know its gonna happen anyway now. PS its Barbara Gordon, that's the punchline, you're already obsessed with her, oh crap now you're gonna be insufferable huh.' Which by the way, I so am not. Jerk."

"Yes," Jason says slowly and with exaggerated patience. Zatanna's migraine builds and builds. "And then I said, 'Dick, no, stop, I was making a joke, you don't actually have to...' and you said 'No, but I gotta'. Your shirt was practically already off by the time I finished saying 'redhead.'"

"Well, duh! Of course it was! Have you met me?" Dick volleys back in what Zee really hopes is her eldest making a deliberate callback to her youngest's earlier crack, and not some bizarre teenage superstition that has him actually thinking nope nope those thoughts are in the Bad Place, Zatanna, its absolutely believable that Dick is actually still twelve and the boys are just using embellishing language to feel grown up. C'mon, if you try hard enough you can milk a good thirty more seconds of denial about your son's sex life, you're literally magic, you can do this.

The ludicrousness of it all is so effortlessly identical to his brother's idiocy just moments prior, Zatanna has a brief, uncharitable thought that the Graysons had a second child they gave up for adoption and nobody ever told either of the boys. She opens her mouth to put a stop to the nonsense, but what comes out:

"You slept with Bruce's protégé?"

Dick pauses mid-rant and fidgets uneasily. His eyes dart around the room as if expecting the Batman to appear, summoned by the power of his name. "Umm. Only a couple times?" he says slash asks, warily.

"On several different occasions," Jason adds gleefully. Zatanna rubs her temples and rounds on him before Dick can return fire.

"And you tried to scry Batman?"

"Umm," Jason stutters. Stops. Aims an accusing finger at his brother again. "Dick dared me to!"

"That's it! Curse coming right up," Dick snaps, fingers crooking into arcane gestures.

"Enough! Both of you!" Zatanna feels slightly guilty when both boys fall silent and hunch over, metaphorical tails between their legs. Even when they were being obnoxious, it was still weirdly charming in a way - eww, who even was she right now? Maternity was a mistake. Still, she couldn't find it in herself to bring down the full force of her ire when all they were doing really was being....ridiculous boys being ridiculous brothers. She sighs and contemplates telling them just to go to bed, they'd discuss it in the morning after she'd had time to cool off and think about it....decides god no, that risks all of this happening all over again. Splits the difference and calls it a night.

"Jason, you're grounded for a month for whatever you did to even get someone to give you a tattoo while under eighteen without parental approval. And you're grounded from any spells outside of lesson plans and homework assigned by one of your tutors until you can tell me in detail why I'm concerned your choice of tattoo was an absolutely terrible idea, and you can present me with no less than three different wards or counterspells that prepare for the possibility of that absolutely terrible idea becoming an absolutely terrible catastrophe. Not a word," she finishes sharply with a pointed finger, when he starts to protest. He sulkily subsides again.

"Dick, one word answers only, no explanations, excuses or qualifiers. You made sure Barbara knew exactly who you were and that you knew exactly who she was before you both....made it extremely awkward for me to look Bruce in the eye at the next Justice League meeting?"

"Yes," Dick says wincing.

"You used protection....each time on each different occasion?"

"Yes," her eldest says, examining the floor as if weighing the likelihood of it opening up and swallowing him whole.

"You're not being every gross stereotype of teenage boys as normalized by Hollywood, using or objectifying girls in the name of toxic masculinity - you actually have feelings for this girl?"

"Yes," he says firmly, meeting her eyes again. Zatanna nods, letting that linger as she absorbs both his sincerity and the passage of time. Where did the last decade and that little eight year old with the baby fat and chipmunk cheeks go? But then, this is good too, she decides, and she nods, satisfied. Course, a little embarrassment is good for the soul, she figures.

"You understand that the world is full of other smart, beautiful redheads you could have chosen to pursue with far less complications?"

"Be right back, have to go die now," Dick announces loudly, and Zatanna chuckles and takes pity on him. Jason's paler Irish skin goes red at the drop of a hat, but it takes a much higher level of mortal humiliation for Dick's darker skin to betray any kind of blush.

"Nothing to get all red in the face about, sweetheart," she says because look, her kids had to get it from somewhere. Jason cackles, doubling over with mirth and Zatanna makes her exit while her youngest is too busy being amused at his brother's expense to remember he's ticked about being grounded.

She lingers on the other side of the wall, drinking in the sound of Jason's laughter and Dick's sulking, long enough that she's still there to overhear when Dick silences his brother's entertainment:

"Saved your ass, you manipulative little shit. Don't think I didn't know what you were doing there. You owe me for playing along."

"Yeah, yeah, all hail Benevolent Big Brother Dick," Jason grumbles, but there's gratitude beneath the grumbling. Zatanna's eyes narrow as she reflects on how much lighter a sentence Jason ended up with, compared to what her first instincts had intended. Well, crap. Dick hadn't been the one oblivious to all the layers of that little episode at all, had he? That was annoyingly humbling. Still, Zatanna shakes her head at herself and goes to bed with a smile. She respects the art of the con too much to be upset her children learned more from her teachings than she'd realized.

Well played, boys.

The brothers' respective preferences in summonings aren't the only places they differ. Where Dick has a half a dozen spells of invisibility or intangibility on stand by in case he needs to sneak into a heavily fortified place, Jason stays stocked up with an equivalent number of spells capable of just blowing the front door off its hinges.Of course, Tim Drake being Tim Drake, his inclusion into their little family happens exactly as you’d expect.

He literally follows them home one day.

His neglectful absentee parents are archaeologists, after all. Spending more of their time away at dig sites than at home with him. When they are home though, they make a show of caring, take him out to the circus and to shows, parading him in public so everyone can see what a nice family they all are and how much they dote on their only child. So just like in canon, Tim’s there at the circus too, the night the Graysons are murdered. And in the years to follow, he’s at a number of the Zataras’ magic shows, and easily puts together that Dick and Jason are the two masked mystical teen superheroes that spend as much time doing flips and punching and kicking villains as they do weaving actual spells. 

And his parents, being the kind of archaeologists who grew up as rich bored white Gotham elites who picked archaeology as their field of study because its not like they actually needed to work and they’d watched Indiana Jones so often, they were like, yes, excellent, I will model my life adventures and career path after this movie and its depiction of archaeology....

Like, so clearly, they’re the dumbass kind of archaeologists who have no actual respect for the artifacts they dig up and just like how they look in their home or behind glass museum cases with plaques about who donated them.

Tim however, is not dumb, way better than his parents, and has a lot of free time and a hobby of researching EVERYTHING. So eventually he discovers the real origins of a lot of artifacts his parents have around the house, and determines that a) they really shouldn’t be here, and b) some of these have spiritual and even mystical reputations and power and are possibly very dangerous in the wrong hands or even just from being removed from their resting places or lands/cultures of origin, so they REALLY shouldn’t be here.

So the next time the Zataras’ magic show comes to Gotham, he (carefully) stuffs his backpack full of as many as he can carry, and sneaks out to go watch the show. And then he follows them back to where they’re staying, introduces himself and says he knows who they are and could they please help him return all these artifacts to where they belong and also hurry because some of them might blow up the world if they’re gone too much longer and that’s not WHY he wants to return them, like they should just because its the right thing to do, but he thought he should mention it because it seems like its an important factor. He’d do it himself, but he’s not allowed to go on a plane by himself, but he did write apology notes to go with each artifact for taking them without asking, and also could he have their autographs?

Dick blinks cartoonishly large eyes, sweeps the ten year old off his feet into a giant hug and announces, “We’re keeping him.”

Zatanna tries to do this in an orderly fashion, of course. “Tim, where are your parents? Do they know you’re here?”

Dick sniffs. “Irrelevant. We’re keeping him. Look how adorable he is, is there really anyone who could possibly appreciate his adorableness more than us? No. Ergo. We’re keeping him.”

Jason rolls his eyes. “He’s not a pet, asshole. And adorableness isn’t a word, stop making up words, I will punch you I swear. But also yeah, we’re keeping him.”

Tim’s heart is having a full on meltdown at the thought that two of his heroes want him to stay, but he’s a Drake and Drakes are very big on Proper and protocols and decorum, and he’s pretty sure this isn’t how things work. “I’m not actually supposed to be out by myself, so I definitely should be home before nine cuz that’s my bedtime...”

Dick takes him into his bedroom, drops him on his bed and says: “There you go. You’re in bed and its not even eight o’clock yet. Problem solved.”

“...I think it only counts if I’m in bed in my bed?”

Dick snaps his fingers and the headboard is mystically inscribed with “Tim” in a flourish of colorful sparks. “See? Its your bed now, it has your name on it and everything. This can be your new room and I’ll bunk with Jay. We can’t have you share a room with him, he snores and you’re too adorable to inflict that on. Growing boys need at least eight hours of RESTFUL sleep.”

Tim chews his lip. He’s not entirely sure the older boy’s logic is sound, but when laid out in that fashion, it doesn’t sound completely unreasonable, right? He makes one last token attempt to get up. Jason sits on him. Gently, but still.

“Oh no, we’re holding him against his will. We’ve officially kidnapped him at this point,” Jason says cheerfully. “Mom, you better go find his parents and tell them their son is missing and being held hostage and won’t be released until they can explain to the police why their son’s kidnappers had to notify them that their son was missing and had wandered all the way through Gotham at night alone.”

Tim protests. “Its not a big deal. I do that all the time!”

Jason and Dick look at him. Look at each other. Look at Zatanna. Arch their eyebrows expectantly.

Zatanna sighs. As ridiculous as her boys are being, this has played out about how she expected it would the second she realized the ten year old was completely on his own and used to it. And let’s face it. They’re only like this because she’s like this. She regrets everything except also she regrets nothing. Not that she’ll tell them that right now. They both look a little too smug in her opinion. Let ‘em sweat for at least a few hours. “I’ll go see what the situation is and figure out what to do next. Stay here and don’t let him eat too much sugar. And if you watch TV, nothing R-rated.”

Dick rolls his eyes. “We know. We’re not gonna scar the kid in like, the few hours you’re gone.”

“You made your brother watch The Babadook when he was eleven.”

“Well that’s different. He was being an ass. Timmy’s being adorable. Completely unrelated situations,” Dick says in the tone of someone who thinks they’re being reasonable. Jason scowls.

“Wow, are you seriously victim blaming me for the nightmares I got from that shit? Way to make fun of my psychological trauma, asshole.”

“Hey, I didn’t MAKE you watch that movie. I TOLD you to go to bed.” Dick idly examines his nails. "You’re the one who said you were too old to have a bed time and you could stay up as late as I could and anything I could watch you could watch too.”

“Oh please. That’s basic reverse psychology. You knew exactly what you were doing.”

“But Jay-jay, I thought you were too smart to ever fall for my tricks the way all my dumbass friends always do! Are you saying that’s not true? Did I actually manipulate my brilliant little brother who has always been much too clever and much too observant to ever be tricked into doing exactly what I wanted him to do? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Hey good news, Tim, neither of us will have to share a room after I murder this assface in his sleep.”

“Don’t worry Timmy, that’s just Jason for I love you.”

Zatanna sighs again and leaves before they can see her grinning. She enables their antics far too much as it is.

Within a week, the Zataras officially have custody of Timothy Jackson Drake. The boys are pretty sure that’s way too quickly for it to have happened legally, and there might have been a spell or two speeding up the process. But they don’t actually care, so. Yeah.

Unlike his brothers, Tim is the only one to fully embrace the titles of magician or sorcerer. His mind is his strength, research is his specialty, and its just inefficient in his opinion to waste time with acrobatics and brawling that comes naturally to them but would need to be acquired skills for him. Instead he just devotes all his learning to the mystic arts, learning from teachers of all kinds of specialties, but also just as much from his research of old texts and his theorizing on the natures of various forms of magic and how they interact. He happily spends hours poring over a dozen different translations and scribbling notes as he goes, distilling complex rituals into new forms that allow for the substitution of more commonplace ingredients and thus greatly widen the scope of his repertoire. He has a talent for doing all the legwork on a dozen different spells of incredible complexity and then leaving them ‘hanging’, with just the last bits incomplete, easily stored in his eidetic memory for him to call upon and trigger in mere moments as he finishes the last bit of any given spell with just a few words, thus doing in the heat of battle what other sorcerers would require hours to replicate.

All three end up gravitating to different superhero teams as they grow older, but all of them have their reputations with the hero community at large. Its generally expected that if you have a problem that needs a magical solution, and you’ve got enough time for preparation and planning - you call Tim. If you need to blow shit up and in a hurry - you call Jason. And if you’re just plain fucked and need a Hail Mary - you call Dick.

You’re usually gonna get all three anyway though, so whatever.

At some point when Tim's around fifteen or so himself, the Court of Owls ends up trying to get their Talons on Dick, because they suck and are terrible and entitled and their only real possible value comes from being a wasted potential metaphor for how often everyone seems to have their own ideas or expectations for what Dick should be doing or saying or feeling at any given time, with most of the things others get pissed about him for in the comics essentially boiling down to Dick doing or saying or feeling things that don't match up to their expectations or presumptions, and that people wouldn't bat an eye about anyone else doing or saying or feeling, its just Dick's supposed to be different, he's doing (x) wrong, ugh he can't even be traumatized properly without him usually ending up apologizing to other people for the fact that he was the one who was just screwed over, weird, its almost like these things are connected. I mean whoops, this is story time, not meta about all the thoughts and feels I, the dastardly fourth wall breaking narrator, have whilst butthurt on behalf of Dick. My badness.

Ahem.

Yes, when last we left our intrepid heroes, rich entitled bastards with a pervy penchant for nursery rhymes and child assassins had set their sights on claiming Dick and turning him into their mindless zombie bird-themed killing machine.

In all fairness, they did lead with the extremely persuasive argument of 'look we totally called dibs before he was even born, so.....step off??'

Then they kidnapped him and attempted to turn him into their mindless zombie bird-themed killing machine.

Compelling argument though that may be, Dick's brothers are not impressed. They are, however, magical, hyper-competent and extremely petty slash vindictive.

All of which is to say, Tim turns the Court into a bunch of actual owls. And then Jason summons a giant murderous hawk-demon from another dimension that eats all the owls.

And then they wait for Dick to wake up from all the drugs the Court pumped him full of in preparation for The Ritual of Zombie Assassin Making. And Tim just has to ruin it, that asshole.

"You know, hawks aren't naturally the enemies of owls," Tim says out of nowhere. Well. Not out of nowhere so much as out of concern, because Tim's natural physiological response to being worried is to get pedantic.

"What," says Jason flatly. Which is his natural physiological response to Tim being. Y'know. Tim.

Tim shrugs, his eyes intent on their older brother, who is still making like Sleeping Beauty and sooooo gonna get razzed by them for that later, once the Worry and Anxiety have all exited stage right. "It just felt like you were going for a theme. Which is fine, I'm just saying, owls don't actually have natural predators. One might occasionally get killed by a hawk, but usually that's more of a territorial dispute and still pretty much an outlier in terms of statistics."

"Why would you even say that to me right now," says Jason flatly. Not asking, because its a rhetorical question and he's currently glaring the answer to it straight at Tim's back, and that answer is ugh you are such an annoying little shit sometimes.

Which is why when Dick groggily starts to come to, he's greeted by a soundtrack of:

"God, I'm so sorry, I'm just the worst for giving you information that you didn't know before, since clearly if you had you wouldn't have gone with a hawk!"

"Well what the fuck should I have gone with, a demonic taxidermist? Like excuse me for being in such a rush to heap vengeance on the pretentious shits who kidnapped our brother, I didn't have time to go to wikipedia and figure out the most appropriate dramatic irony!"

"First off, why would you ever go to wikipedia as a source, we have literally had this exact argument several dozen times - "

"First off, are you seriously giving me bullet points right now. Seriously. Bullet points. Right now. That's a thing that's happening."

"You are such an infant. How are you older than me? I make one little critique and you bite my freaking head off - "

"What's happening?" Dick croaks out into one of the few synchronized pauses for breath. "Where are we?"

"The secret underground lair of an evil society of ornithologists who kidnapped you because your milkshake brings all the weirdos to the yard," Jason says crankily, still glaring at Tim.

Not that fuzzy, barely conscious but always guilt-prone Dick could possibly know that its not actually him Jason's ticked at. Tim face palms at his middle brother because what are bedside manners, clearly.

"A bird-themed cult calling themselves the Court of Owls pre-selected you to be turned into the general of their elite zombie assassin army," Tim recites quickly, predicting Dick's likely request for further information.

"Well that's rude," Dick frowns. He cracks open one eye experimentally, winces when even the dim lighting is enough to give his pounding headache a booster shot. Tries the other eye. Nope. Both eyes are in agreement. Light is the enemy of all that is good right now. Ugh. Definitely rude. He likes light. How dare someone incite this unforgivable betrayal from his BFF, light? "I don't think I care for their recruitment strategy. Although at least they wanted me to be the Boss Zombie Assassin I guess."

"Yes," Tim replies dolefully. "That does appear to be the silver lining here."

Despite their antagonism of thirty seconds ago, Jason snickers. They're nuanced like that.

"Well his usual priorities seem to be in place, so I think its safe to say we got to him before they could do any actual brainwashing," Jason says. "All in favor of blowing this popsicle stand?"

"Wait, there are popsicles?"

"No, there aren't popsicles in the evil cult's secret underground murder lair. Its a figure of speech, dumbass."

"Hey," Dick pouts. He coughs once, weakly, but Jason's eyes narrow in sudden suspicion of Milking It Syndrome. "Be nice to me. I was just kidnapped and almost made an Elite Zombie Assassin Boss and my head hurts and is all fuzzy and you know how I feel about popsicles. You shouldn't joke about them if you don't have any, that's just mean. But uh, should we be rushing? If the bad guys are coming back soon I do vote for the not being here option, like, just in case turning me into the Zombie Apocalypse is still on the evil cult agenda."

He would manage to latch onto the Elite and Boss part of that info dump, wouldn't he, Jason muses. What's the timeline for how long you have to express sympathy for your almost-brainwashed brother before you can yell at him for being insufferable about it? Is half an hour long enough?

"No, its fine," Tim assures their brother. "We uh....were slightly miffed about the whole kidnapping you thing, and so we were.....efficient? I guess you could say? About making sure they wouldn't do it again. I turned them all into owls."

"And then I summoned a hawk demon that ate them. You're welcome," Jason adds, not about to be left out. Even if he's going to have words later about being characterized as 'miffed.' The walking almanac knows more words in more languages than anyone in human history, pretty much, and he goes with miffed. The fuck, Timmy. The actual fuck.

"Aww, you guys, that's so sweet." Dick beams at them. Albeit at somewhat lower than his usual wattage. Then his forehead wrinkles slightly in confusion. "Why a hawk demon? Do owls not like hawks or something?"

Tim smirks at Jason viciously.

"I hate you with the searing intensity of a thousand suns," Jason tells his brat of a younger brother. "Also, gonorrhea."

Zatanna then teleports into the middle of the room with a flash of light and a hurried rush to the side of her lying-on-the-ground, suddenly flailing eldest son.

"Gah, evil light is evil! Curse your betrayal!" Dick wails dramatically, flinging an arm across his face despite the visible effort movement is still taking. Because he really is just that invested in keeping his Melodrama Game on point, willing to play through the pain if necessary. Jason rolls his eyes. If nothing else, he can at least respect his older brother's ability to commit.

"What happened here?" Zatanna wastes no time before asking, even as she begins running her hands lightly over Dick and muttering chants to divine for unseen injuries or influencing substances. Tim catches her up to speed with another dry recitation of the day's events. It doesn't sound any less ridiculous the second time around.

"And you two decided to just rush right into the heart of a criminal organization's secret headquarters with no plan, no way of knowing what you were jumping headfirst into and no back up?" Zatanna snaps out in a biting tone that's 70% Frantic Motherly OMG I Could've Lost All Three Of You I Don't Know What I Would've Done and 30% How Are You Seriously This Dumb, No, I Really Want To Know, You Boys Share Zero Genetics So It Can't Possibly Be Mutually Inherited Dumbness And Yet Here You All Are Being This Dumb, How, Why, I Strenuously Object.

At least, Jason's pretty sure its 70/30.

Eh. Maybe 60/40.

He looks at Tim and they both shrug. "We left a note," Jason offers lamely.

Their mightily miffed mother - and Jason totally gets it now, good call on that one actually, Timbo, Miffed can totally be intimidating, turns out - is not even slightly appeased.

"Yes, I did see your note," Zatanna says, slow and dangerous, an ominous cold front that's frosty enough to reverse global warming. Jason shivers. "The one that read 'Dick kidnapped by crazy bird freaks. Went to go get him. Somewhere in Gotham's sewers. Ugh why is it always sewers, I fucking hate sewers. Be back later. Love, Jason and Tim.' That note?"

Jason's honestly not sure what the problem is. All the relevant information was there. Tim glares at him.

"I knew I should have written the note," he hisses like an angry cat. Jason rolls his eyes again, because really, what other weapon does he have against his brothers' Drama?

"We had time for me to write a note, Tim. We didn't have time for you to write an essay with fully annotated footnotes all properly accredited according to MLA approved guidelines."

"I can be brief!"

"Name one time that you have ever been brief about anything. Ever."

Tim hesitates.

"Just because I can't think of anything right this second doesn't mean it didn't happen! You're just putting me on the spot," he sulks.

"Whatever. I'm not going to apologize for being in a rush. We had an older brother to save from evil brainwashing birdwatchers, remember? Would everyone prefer we took our sweet time and got here and found Zombie Dick instead?"

Tim wilts. Their mother thaws. Jason savors the moment. He so rarely gets to enjoy the moral high ground. Its nice, really. He can kinda see the appeal from up here, actually.

"That's Elite General Zombie Dick to you, peon," Dick chooses that moment to interject. Jason inhales through his nose. Five seconds. Five whole seconds that lasted.

"Seriously?" He asks his older brother. Dick blinks innocently.

"I am very traumatized by my near undeath experience," he explains. "That's just my coping mechanism."

Jason's eye twitches.

Later still, Jason somehow winds up getting into it with the Joker of all people, in Ethiopia of all places. Seriously, what, he still doesn't understand how or why any of that happened. His life, man. So fucking random.

But that's a story for another day. It doesn't end all that badly, all things considered, not nearly as bad as it could've. The moral of the story is essentially that six out of seven days, Jason is still the brother best avoided in dark alleys, but on the seventh day....Dick and Timmy are perhaps best avoided as well.

And later still, some jackass with a Wizard of Oz fetish decides that Tim-napping isn't just the worst colossally bad fucking idea any misfiring synapses have ever conceived. In this AU though, we stan brothers who check, double check and triple check before calling a time of death, because like the saying goes, fool us once, shame on you, fool us thirty seven times in just any single given decade, then yeah, that's probably on us at that point....

But non-brother approved Tim Tormenting is highly frowned upon in this universe, so Dick and Jason make like the Brothers Grimm, sharpen their spells and go questing down a literal yellow brick road that Dick conjures to lead them straight to the mysterious Mister Oz. And one of these days, Jason would really like to know where Dick gets some of his spells, he really would. Because. Yeah. Never mind, that's best unpacked another day, he figures.

Truthfully, that's all a story for another day as well, as Dick and Jason and Tim probably need to compare notes first and clear up a few things among themselves. None of them are entirely sure they even get what all of that was even about at all. It all seemed very strange and unnecessary, the standard villain monologues were a lot less explanatory than usual, nobody ever really satisfactorily explained Why You So Creepily Interested In Our Baby Bro, Bee Tee Dubs, and the deeper down the rabbit hole they all went, the more every reveal seemed to lead to an increasingly smaller Russian nesting doll hidden inside in the previous one.

And maybe the bad guy was Superman's dead dad from Krypton, which...okay, weird, whatever. And maybe he was just a patsy and the real monster all along was this giant glowing blue guy who seemed to have every power imaginable except for the power to put on a freaking pair of pants? I mean, everyone needs a gimmick, I guess. And then behind that funhouse mirror they found maybe the real villain all along was some rando in a toga who called himself Ozymandias and claimed to have been a hero, and nope, nuh uh, Jason isn't buying that for a second, he says you named yourself in reference to a line that literally says Look Upon My Works O Ye Mighty And Despair and you're saying everyone just went yup, that checks out, we've got ourselves a hero here, pure intentions through and through? Nope, sorry, not buying it.

And Ozy's face got as purple as the costume that would've gotten him in the door to any frat party but not much else, and honestly, as much as it flaps in a firm breeze its not even a step up from Dr. Moons Over Manhattan's permanent residency at a nude ranch he takes with him everywhere he goes, more of a lateral move really....

And he opened his mouth to say something suitably villainous and to do something no doubt dastardly, but that's when Dick cut him off with a yawn and a "Oh my god I have never been this bored in my life, I honestly don't care. Literally nobody asked." And he conjured up his yellow brick road again, told them he had no idea which of them needed the brain, which the heart and which the courage, but like...discuss among yourselves, and then he and Jason punted all three losers off to see the Wizard except Dick shrugged after shutting down the spell and said that guy died, like, five years ago. Its just no one else there has figured that out yet. Whoops. Oh well.

Look, its as clear and understandable a resolution to that particular adventure as anyone else might have doled out over an unnecessarily padded number of weeks until the patience of everyone involved was stretched well past the point of reason, so....whatever. That's what happened, the end.

And then Jason blows some shit up until he feels better about how obnoxiously pointless all that was and there's lots of yelling about worst bad guys ever, is there no vetting process anymore, are the inmates running the asylum, has the whole universe gone mad. Which somehow segues into Tim yelling about is Jason seriously upstaging him at his own Dramatic Rescue, how is this about him, oh my god, can't I even get five whole minutes to angst without you carjacking the family Waah-mobile.

Meanwhile Dick leans back contentedly against the one wall still standing as a convenient backdrop, and watches the baby bros go. And Mom says they don't have any family traditions.

He actually really enjoys these moments. At least the ones where nobody's yelling at him.

But again, as I said....really all that's a tale for another day. On this day, what remains of significance is the universal truism that no matter the universe, the timeline, the place or the time or the people.....

If there be a Bruce, then that Bruce is gonna Bruce.

And we all know what that looks like.

That is to say:

Meanwhile, back in Gotham, events unfold in strangely familiar ways. Even if some of their usual players are currently preoccupied sojourning their way back across the dimensions before they're late for dinner and Momma Zatara has their heads. Adopted though her kids may be, Zatanna is still an Italian mother. And you do not fuck with an Italian mother's family dinner plans.

That's how people die.

But fractionally less dramatically than Zatanna sits awaiting her boys' late arrival to dinner with a A Damn Good Explanation For That If They Know What’s Good For Them, Bruce meets Cassandra Cain and rescues her from her father.

He’s still Bruce Wayne, even if events played out differently for his first three canon kids. So he does what any Bruce would do and adopts her.

And then Cass brings Stephanie home and says she’s a runaway and her dad was a villain and well, what’s Bruce gonna do, not adopt her? Don't be absurd.

And then Talia shows up on Bruce’s doorstep and shoves a ten year old Damian at him and says "Congratulations, its a boy. Please take care of him while I go and try and kill my father and sister without getting killed by them first. I’m not sure how long that will take but my father has managed to last six centuries despite countless betrayals so I suspect it might be awhile."

I imagine these events all happen roughly in the span of a month, because there is no such thing as a world where Bruce knows how to pace himself.

There’s also no such thing as a world where Bruce knows how to gracefully ask for help. But even at his most stubborn he’s capable of recognizing when things fall outside his skillset and his best move is to seek advice from experts in fields outside his expertise. Like parenting.

And his old friend Zatanna has raised three boys who are well loved and respected by the entire hero community, so she must know what she’s doing. Yes, absolutely, his frazzled mind decides. Zatanna will have all the answers. His logic is sound. He's double checked his math and everything. Yes, he has equations for this sort of thing. No, they're not scientifically or empirically accurate, but just because one has arbitrarily assigned numeric values to various events, decisions and possible outcomes in order to justify to oneself that one's intended course of action is Endorsed By Data and Scientifically Derived Conclusions, like....that doesn't mean those values are all arbitrary and the conclusions and data that derive from them are fictitious and meaningless.

Shhh, shhh, don't question that last sentence, just nod and smile and accept that you're just not quite brilliant enough to understand the genius that is Brucenometry, and that's totally understandable and the real reason Bruce hasn't shared the math system he invented with the rest of the world. We just wouldn't get it, you see?

(And yes, he absolutely calls it Brucenometry in his head, because despite what the Batmen of other universes would have us believe, all the eight year old incarnations of Dick Grayson are naught but a scapegoat for the emotionally stunted manchild who absolutely devised the labeling system of 'what if I put Bat in front of every word tho and that's how you knew it was mine, yes, good, this is obviously the most logical and efficient taxonomy possible, its practically the Occam's Bat-Razor of nomenclatures, huzzah I am the smartest in all the land, eat my Batshit I mean guano I mean crazy I mean shut up no you're dumb.' And if you don't think Bruce sounds like that in his head you're just drinking the Kool-Aid, dear reader. Pick up any issue where Bruce is having an emotional fight with someone and skip to where he insists on having the last word before sweeping dramatically into the darkness, and substitute that last word with 'nuh uh, your face'. It reads practically the same, I swear.

Anyway, thus Brucenometry is only Brucenometry instead of Batnometry because he came up with the math first. The math is literally how he calculated that combining crime fighting with his fursona was by far the most expedient route for building a better, brighter Gotham? Duh? Like if you don't get it, he really can't explain it any more clearly than that, and this is possibly one of the reasons he doesn't let the Martian Manhunter in his head. Well, that and all the equally Scientific Ponderings on how accurate a label 'Buns of Steel' is for Superman's butt, and how might this best be tested. Y'know. For Science.)

It's possible I've gotten off track here. I blame Bruce. Bruce blames Clark's ass. Its this whole thing.

Ahem.

So Bruce decides Zatanna has all the answers to all his questions, clearly. Because you see, Bruce knows practically everything that's worth knowing, so anyone who knows something Bruce doesn't already know, ergo, ipso facto, must therefor in conclusion be smarter than Bruce. And if they're smarter than Bruce, as smart as Bruce already is and knowing as much as Bruce already knows, well then, they must know literally everything.

Bam. You've just been Bat Logic-ed.

Bruce sends a message. He waits. He's expecting something along the lines of a call back, but one minute he blinks and the next minute Zatanna's in the middle of the disaster his new brood of three have made of his living room, hands on her hips, shaking her head as she looks around.

“What did you do?” She asks, exasperatedly.

He really doesn't understand why so many people take that particular tone with him. All of his choices are excellent and backed by Brucenometry. He can show his work and everything.

Bruce would respond, but he’s distracted by the three unknown variables. He admittedly had not expected her to bring all three of her boys along with her. Then again, they're magicians and magic always messes up his calculations. Its the worst. Stupid magic. He keeps himself from glaring at the teenager, practically still a teenager, and fully grown man chugging down a Pixie stick while playing what sounds like Candy Crush on his phone with his free hand.

Zee just shakes her head at him when Bruce tries to turn her question back on her with a pointed look.

“They were with me when I got your message and they wanted to come. Given how non-informative and vague the information you gave me was, it seemed plausible they might have a helpful perspective. Don’t change the subject. What did you do.”

“In all fairness, I should clarify that we were mostly just bored,” Tim says dryly.

“Also, this sounded amazing,” Jason adds, smirking.

Dick bounces up and down. “I’m very excited to be here for this! By the way, what is this, what's happening, what's going on? I was not totally paying complete attention, maybe. Oooh, does this place have an indoor pool? I bet it has an indoor pool. God, I love how completely unnecessary old rich people houses are, its amazing.”

That’s when a ten year old mini-Bruce wanders in, parentage apparent in every premature scowl line on his face. “Father, who are these people?”

Dick emits a gleeful sound that lends credence to his spirit friends’ theory he’s not entirely human and just appears right next to Damian, sweeping him up into a hug. His brothers blink, unsure if he had a teleport spell they didn’t know about, or if his natural ability to seek out anyone in need of a hug like a heat-seeking missile could actually allow him to move faster than the eye can see. Could go either way, to be honest.

“Oh my god, he’s like a tiny baby bat, he’s adorable,” Dick says, words rushing out at a speed normally achievable only by speedsters.

Damian has frozen at the unexpectedness of his behavior, but the outrage swiftly sets in. “What did you just call me?”

“A tiny baby bat!”

“Not that, the other thing.”

“Adorable!”

“How dare you!” The ten year old produces a knife from somewhere and attempts a stabbing that results in said knife being transmuted into a Twizzler. Dick twists in that unnatural way only his body is capable of and somehow mid-hug still manages to eat the Twizzler, because why not, apparently.

“I’m keeping him,” Dick declares, right on schedule. "He is my new brother and also now my weekend favorite, sorry not sorry. Jason is now my Monday and Friday favorite and Timmy is my Tuesday and Thursday favorite. Wednesdays can be my me time."

"But Dick," Tim deadpans in a lifeless monotone, now absorbed in doing something with his own phone. "How can I not be your Wednesday favorite? On Wednesdays we wear pink."

Jason rocks back on his heels, rolls his head back on his neck and stares up at the room's high, vaulted ceiling despairingly. "I hate that I get that reference. I hate that so much. I just don't know if I hate Tim for saying it, Dick for being the reason he said it, or me for hearing it and getting it. Quick, somebody tell me who to punch, I can't make this decision, its too hard."

Zatanna pinches the bridge of her nose and exhales. Cass and Steph lurk in the doorway and stare at the scene, bemused. Bruce is statue still. It’s possible his complete inability to process anything that’s happening right now has computer-crashed his every system. See kids, this is what comes of spending too much time trying to emulate a robot. Don't do drugs. Stay in school. Emote.

“Dick, I know that worked out for you the last two times you tried that, but its not going to fly here. This child actually has an emotionally invested parent capable of providing for him, and I don’t believe the Batman is likely to relinquish his claim without a fight,” Zatanna says, her exasperation now redirected at her eldest.

Dick remains unphased; merely diverts his attention from Damian to the boy’s father, raking his eyes up and down Bruce as the older man reenacts the pose of Rodin's lesser known work: The Oh God, What Was I Thinking.

He sniffs. Once. Pointedly unimpressed. “I am willing to work out a shared custody agreement,” Dick says regally.

Bruce gradually twitches his way back into the realm of actual human activity and motion.

“What?” He shakes himself all over, a bit like a dog. Then he seems to reboot his higher cognitive functions as he draws up to his full height and towers over the younger man. “I’m not sure what you think you’re playing at here, but this is not why I called your mother and I do not need some boy barely out of his teens to tell me -"

Dick cuts him off, rolling his eyes even as Bruce, Steph, Cass and Alfred’s eyes all widen at the sheer novelty of that. Even Damian goes silent and still, no longer fighting Dick’s octopus like limbs as he’s too busy flicking his attention back and forth between Dick and Bruce like he’s a spectator at a tennis match, watching it unfold.

Jason and Tim just smirk knowingly. Zatanna regrets everything.

“Yes, yes, we’re aware the Batman has a million contingency plans for any given scenario. We’re all very impressed. Your IQ is huge,” Dick says flatly. “Quick question though, how many of those contingency plans involve hugging?”

Bruce blinks. “What?”

“That’s what I thought,” Dick continues smugly. “Now, in your history as a crime fighter and a benefactor of numerous children’s charities, do you dispute that all children at certain times need to be hugged?”

“No?” Bruce answers uncertainly. He…has no precedence for this. What is happening right now.

“Mmm,” Dick hums, nodding. “And in your personal self-assessment and in light of all your established behavior to date, would you say with confidence that you are capable of always recognizing when a child is in need of a hug, as well as being able and willing to provide that child with said hug yourself?”

Bruce frowns. Everyone in the room takes that as a no. Seals in Antarctica look up and take that as a no, without any idea why they just did that or what it even is they just did. Also, what the hell is a no, they have no clue. They still somehow know the answer to that question was no.

“Exactly,” Dick says. “So, to sum up, we’ve established that your children need hugs, you need to be taught when and how to identify when your children need you to hug them, and until such a time as you’re capable of that, your children still need hugs. In conclusion, my services are direly needed and I am willing to teach you everything I know about providing adorable children with emotional support in exchange for the role of their designated Hug-Giver for the time being. Do you accept my offer?”

“I…” Still stuck on the unprecedented feeling of being at a total loss for words, Bruce is slow to answer. Not that it matters.

“Trick question!” Dick announces cheerfully. “There was no offer, its already been decided. I can start immediately. You're welcome.”

He shifts Damian to his hip with one arm and raises the other to offer the boy his hand for a shake. “Hi Damian, I’m Dick, I’m your official Hug-Giver for now. Nice to meet you!”

Damian shakes Dick’s hand, more out of confusion than anything else. Clearly, nothing in his training or experience offers him any obvious alternate response to Dick’s behavior. “Father, who is this man? What is happening? I don’t understand.”

“That makes two of us,” the goddamn Batman says helplessly. They can all see his face spasming, his muscles twitching as if periodically glitching while he tries to compute and come up with a course of action that adequately counters Dick’s….whatever the hell you describe Dick and his entire….essence, as.

Gods have tried and failed to accurately describe Dick and his whole….Dick-ness. The Batman never stood a chance.

Tim takes pity on him. He’s mostly preoccupied hacking the Manor’s wi-fi on his phone, trying to see if he can backdoor from there into the famed Batcave’s computers. No real reason, he’s just curious. But even barely paying attention, he can still tell the difference between Dick’s more generic ‘oooh a squirrel!’ ADHD reaction to all adorable children or animals in his general vicinity, and the genuine emotional attachment his brother has clearly already formed with the confused child assassin. It’s too late now. Whether he’s even realized it or not, Damian stopped trying to escape Dick’s hug practically from the word go, even if he is unconsciously using his confusion to blind himself to how he’s already started to sink into it. Not even Superman himself could pry the kid out of Dick’s arms at this point.

“You can try all you want to come up with ways to keep this from happening, but you’ll just be wasting your time and energy,” Tim advises, still intent on his phone. Two passwords down, nice. Only….ninety more to go? Jeez. Oh god, if he’s this redundant about his cyber security, he’s gonna try and be stubborn about this, isn’t he? Ugh, how inefficient.

“Look, no matter how many plans you come up with, it doesn’t matter what you throw at him or how convoluted or well-crafted it is. At a certain point Dick’s just going to say screw it and dig his heels in, and no offense, but I’ve seen him out-stubborn demons. He once got a Duke of Hell to release a claim on Jason’s soul by committing to “I know you are but what am I” until the ageless being composed of pettiness and spite got frustrated and gave up. My brother on a mission to dole out affection is an actual force of nature. Like hurricanes. Even Jason lets Dick hug him. And Jason hates everything.”

“Die screaming,” Jason says conversationally.

“See a therapist about your Cain complex,” Tim returns, equally pleasant.

“I thought I told you boys to be on your best behavior,” Zatanna says. Either exasperated again, or just still. Hard to say.

Jason cocks an eyebrow at her quizzically before looking around the room. “Umm, we are, aren’t we? I mean, we’ve been here for at least five minutes and nothing’s on fire or broken yet. You gotta admit that’s like, a record for us.”

Zatanna sputters helplessly for a moment before collapsing onto the couch with a sigh. “The bar is too low,” she mutters. "And don't think I didn't catch that bit about a Duke of Hell having a claim on Jason's soul at some point. We will be circling back to that later, at home."

"Dude," Jason hisses, glaring at his little brother. "Spoilers!"

"Sorry," Tim says distractedly, with a distinct lack of sincerity. "In my defense, we lie about a lot of stuff and I forget to keep track of it all."

"You have an eidetic memory."

"Okay, so I forget to care about keeping track of it all," Tim amends, shrugging.

"That's just because you never get in as much trouble as me and Dick. Helps to be the baby of the family," Jason grumbles.

Tim hums softly in agreement, tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth as he peers intently at his screen. "The perks are nice."

Zatanna interjects as she eyes her two younger sons, a slight edge in voice. "Exactly how much stuff am I being lied to about? Ballpark figure."

Jason glares at Tim again. "You're a goddamn menace."

"I should probably be stopped," Tim agrees.

“Nonsense!” Damian’s aggrieved voice cuts over everyone else in the room. “I am an al Ghul, and heir to the Batman. If this tournament you speak of were truly a contest of champions, I would certainly have heard of it before now.”

Dick returns his glower with his usual beaming grin. “I swear by every being of both the higher and lower planes to ever lend me power or aid. Super Mario Kart is a test of manual dexterity, hand-eye coordination and reflex agility. Any true warrior should be more than capable of defeating all competitors at it.”

Damian stays trained on his face for a good minute, searching it for any hint of deception. Finally he turns and sweeps his imperious gaze around the room, jumping back and forth between his father to Jason and Tim, though the latter is still absorbed tracking to crack the thirty-sixth password to the Batcomputer. “Is this true?”

“Technically yes,” Jason says with the smirk to end all smirks. Sometimes his older brother is a total toolbag, but sometimes it really is like watching a master at work. How to Lie Without Telling a Single Lie by Dick Grayson-Zatara.

Damian harrumphs like the eighty seven year old that he is at heart, but with a secondary affirmation and no one speaking up to offer a counter-claim, his pride seems to allow him no alternative to accepting Dick’s challenge.

“Very well,” he says grudgingly. “I will engage you in this competition of supers and carts. But when I inevitably prove victorious, as consequence for your failure you and your babbling are to be banished from my father’s estate, never to return.”

“K!” Dick grins. “But if I win, you have to initiate three hugs a day for a solid week straight, at which point you may challenge me to a rematch and reclaim your honor.”

“Preposterous! One hug a day. No more.”

“One hug a day, but after two weeks I can challenge you to a rematch at my home instead.”

“I shudder to think what you might consider an acceptable abode. No, if I must vanquish you twice before you realize the folly of challenging an al Ghul, you shall return here only for the purposes of engaging in this ‘rematch’, and only after two months have passed, so that you may reflect on the futility of such.”

“One month, final offer.”

“Tt. Your terms are acceptable,” Damian decides at last. Dick’s already brilliant smile grows impossibly more blinding, as it is wont to do. The whole defiance of physics thing he does so well. Unprepared for it, the startled boy blinks, corners of his mouth twitching ever so slightly upwards before he regains his normal stern countenance. “Now lead me to these carts at once. I wish to see you defeated before supper, so I do not have to suffer your presence through my meal.”

“You got it, lil D!” Dick chirps happily, bouncing through the doorway and down the hall, where Cass and Steph exchange glances that condense an entire conversation to thirty seconds of back and forth facial expressions. They then race down the hall after the two. Damian’s outrage drifts back behind them.

“My name is Damian al Ghul-Wayne, you buffoon! It is a name of power and significance, heavy with meaning and intent. How dare you reduce it to a simple reference to physical stature!”

“Aww, I’m sorry bud! It was meant as an endearment not an insult. I give nicknames to all my friends and family. What if I called you Dami? Is that better?”

“….I suppose if my full name is too difficult for you to manage, Dami is at least marginally more tolerable. But only if it is understood that we are hardly friends!”

“Whatever you say, Dami!”

Their voices fade into the distance after that. Jason puts his hands in his pockets and strolls casually after them.

“That was amazing. My faith in humanity has like....risen reborn from the ashes. I might even believe in Santa Claus again? Not sure yet about that last part," he muses to no one in particular. "I’m so happy right now.”

Tim shrugs and trails after him. If everyone else is going, well. No reason he can’t finish hacking the Batcomputer from wherever they end up.

Bruce watches them disappear down the hallway before staggering over to the couch and dropping down onto it next to Zatanna. He stares blankly at the wall.

“What.” He utters helplessly.

Zatanna pats his leg. “You get used to it. Eventually.”

And that’s how even when Dick’s adopted by Zatanna Zatara instead of Bruce Wayne, he, Jason, Tim, Damian, Cass, Steph and those to follow all still end up siblings in every way that matters.

[absolutely-legit]

Eat

Warnings: Mentions of blood

~*~

When Youngjae wakes up, he knows something is wrong. The smell of grass and soil and dead leaves surrounds him, clouding his senses. He scrunches his nose and shivers. When he sits up a gust of wind, cold October air caresses is naked skin and has him shiver. “Fuck.” He mutters. Which is objectively spoken the absolutely perfect summary of the situation. A big, bad ‘fuck’.

He sway his head looking around, but he sees nothing but trees and brush. Gentle sunlight peeks through the roof of leaves, golden rays falling to the ground, having the already fallen leafage shimmer in all colors of orange and yellow.

And red. Youngjae freezes dead. Not autumn red. Not foliage red. Blood red.

He stares at the dark sprinkles of blood staining the ground. No, please no, god, no. He follows the soiled ground with his eyes. The stains become thicker to where he’s sitting. Finally he looks down on himself. Not just his hands are covered in it. Also his legs and chest. He rubs his upper arm over his face and there crumbles dried blood.

He heaves, swallows. His throat aches in his attempt to hold it back, but then a desperate sob breaks out of him. His flood gates open and he starts crying pathetically, tears running down his cheeks, wetting the crusted blood and falling reddish-brown into his lap.

He can’t tear his gaze away from the mess. He can’t understand what happened, wishes he could wake up from this nightmare. Then, through the veil of tears he spots something between the blood-covered leaves, barely noticeable. His breath hitches. He holds it, rubs at his eyes to see more clearly, probably making an even bigger mess.

Something shimmers between the dark red and brown. Stained itself, but undeniably white in origin. Fuzzy little hairs. He reaches out, grabs a pile of dirt and brings it up to his face with his brown, dirt covered hand and filthy nails. There they are. Small bushes of white fur. Relief floods his senses. It certainly is fur. Now that the pounding of his heart calms down and his mind clears, as he blinks around him he can spot more of it. Scattered everywhere are pieces of an animal’s white coat. Maybe a bunny.

He throws the handful of dirt into the bushes and takes a few deep breaths. Everything is alright. Well, effectively he’s sitting stark naked in the middle of the woods. That’s not alright. But it could be worse. He could be a murderer. He looks up into the sky. He has no phone, no watch, no idea where he is. But he grew up around the forest and he’s not so easily lost.

It should be around 10 in the morning, he thinks, blinking at the sun, 11 at max. The terrain slightly falls behind him. The town is in the valley, the lowest point between the hills, so he’ll go that way. If he’s south of it, he can sneak in at home easily, otherwise he’ll have to walk all the way around the village and he wouldn’t like that very much. But it’d be doable. And once he’s home and washed, he can figure out what happened last night.

He scrambles to his feet, covered in nothing but dirt and blood and goosebumps. It’ll be a freezing walk, but he feels better with a plan and the prospect of a hot shower. It’s when he takes his first step that his eyes are drawn to the ground once more. He couldn’t see it before, probably sat on it, but now it’s blaringly visible. His heart stops dead for a moment there. His legs shake and he’s about to tumble back to the ground, can just so hold himself up on his feet. There’s a furry feeling in his stomach, a bitter taste on his tongue and it’s not exclusively from the fact that he swallowed a whole animal last night.

He slaps his hand onto his mouth to keep himself from screaming. Or from throwing up. Or both. The tears are back in an instant. He bends down and as gently as he can picks it up. Then he stumbles forward. He cries while he runs. He falls a few times, hurts his knees, scratches his skin open, rips his hair out that tangle in the brush.  He doesn’t care. He runs and runs, fist clutched tightly around it and he runs.

He chooses the path on instinct, nearing the town constantly. He approaches not from south directly, but from southeast. And that’s the worst possible place to be for him right now. When he breaks through the last line of thorned bushes he falls to the ground and hears a scream. He attempts to get back up, holding onto the fence that separates him from a herd of frightened cattle. They storm out of the way when a figure comes running square over the pasture.

“Youngjae!” He hears a gasped yell and the voice alone has him break into another fit of sobs. “Oh my God, what happened!? Youngjae-ah!” Jaebum climbs over the fence and then his strong arms wrap around his torso and pull him into a tight hug. “Oh my God, baby.” Jaebum hushes breathlessly. “What happened to you?!” Youngjae buries his face in his chest and sobs and shakes his head.

Jaebum picks him up and walks the long way around the pasture, carrying him as Youngjae clings to his shoulders. Jaebum is the best thing that ever happened to him and he ruined it. They’ve been best friends ever since they pooped their diapers together. And now they’ve been dating for barely two weeks, a big step and yet not in their relationship. Youngjae normally feels giddy in his presence ever since they shared an awkward first kiss. But there’s also no place in the world where he feels comfier and safer than in Jaebum’s hug.

Jaebum doesn’t bring him to his room but straight into the bathroom instead. “Are you alright, Youngjae?” He asks softly as he sets him down in the tub. He shakes his head in response, fist clenched so tightly his knuckles are white as snow. The hot water burns painfully on his cold and bruised skin, but he doesn’t make a sound about it. “I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t… I didn’t know. I kind of… I didn’t pay attention.” Jaebum explains, sitting down on the edge of the tub.

“I ran over to your place in the morning, because Shelly is missing. She’s just gone, I can’t find her. And then you weren’t there and I saw the shed door was burst open and I was so scared. I kind of recounted the days and I had forgotten and I remembered your family isn’t home and now I get why you didn’t accompany them to visit your brother in the city, I thought it was because of me and we’re finally gonna have sex while your parents are gone. But I forgot it’s that time of the month for you and I’m sorry I forgot, I was kind of… I don’t know. And you were gone and Shelly is missing and I was so scared and worried, what happened?”

Jaebum’s monologues can go on forever. The water is already up to Youngjae’s ribs, tainted dark with blood and soil when he finally quiets. Shelly is Jaebum’s pet goat. He’s had her for 9 years and loves her more than his parents.

Youngjae turns his tear stained face up to him and finally, carefully opens his fist. It lies flat on his palm that he holds out to him. The pink leather collar with the adorning silver charm that states her name. “I’m sorry, Hyung.” He says. “I ate her.”

~*~

Lol, I wrote an example post for sophie on what a long prompt and what a short prompt is.

Here’s the example for a prompt that’s going to be too long:

YJ and JB have been best friends since birth, but YJ has a secret, he is a werewolf and he’s trying to hide it, but JB finds out and is appalled and YJ tries to convince him that he won’t hurt him and eventually their friendship wins, but then they start dating and it becomes more complicated especially when YJ breaks free one full moon and attacks the animals on Jaebum’s parents’ farm

Here’s the example for a prompt that’s a good short:

YJ is a werewolf and accidentally eats Jaebum’s pet goat

And once I typed that down I had to write it. lol Also, werewolves AU prompt fulfilled.