Family Dinners - dpxdc
"Holy shit, you're Bruce Wayne!" Danny gaped, jabbing a finger at the man sitting at the head of the table.
The bustling dining room goes silent as everyone turns to look at him.
"Danny, who did you think was going to be here?" Tim asks, disbelief plain in his voice and Danny feels his face flush red.
"Sorry, I, uh, I guess I just never put it together. Tim Drake-Wayne. Wayne Manor. It, uh, makes sense now." He laughs sheepishly and scrubs at his neck before slumping back down into his chair.
"Well," Tim says with an indulgent sigh, "at least I know you're not just friends with me for my connections."
"Yeah, I'm really sorry, I just never thought about it, I guess."
Danny sinks lower as everyone around him laughs. Come to dinner, he said, the food is the best, he said, ignore the family, he said. Danny really wishes he'd listened to Tim and just ignored them—almost as much as he's regretting accepting the offer in the first place—but... he's having dinner with Batman.
Ancients, that's so weird!
The last time he saw Batman was in the future and, suffice it to say, it was not going well. There hadn't really been time for family dinners there.
Wait. Family dinners?
He peers around the table, openly gawking at everyone as it all clicks into place.
"Everything alright, Danny? Now realising who everyone else is?" Tim asks with a roll of his eyes.
"Uh... something like that..." Danny mumbles as everyone laughs again.
From further down the table, the smallest Wayne scoffs and clicks his tongue.
"I thought you said he was smart, Drake?"
"So, you all do it, too, then?" he asks, ignoring the jibe. Danny's only a little bit jealous as he thinks of how much easier they must have it, how much easier it'd be if his family had been on his side, too. "You all work together?"
"Nah," Dick says from across the table with a brilliant grin. "Tim's the only one that works with Bruce, we all have different jobs. I'm a police officer in Bludhaven."
"Disgusting." Danny blurts out without thinking—because seriously, what kind of self-respecting vigilante would also be a police officer?—before clapping a hand over his mouth. "Sorry."
The whole table laughs again, the loudest being the blonde girl a few spaces down from Dick. Look, Danny wasn't really paying attention to names when they were all paraded in front of him. Dick only gets remembered because his name is a joke.
Come on, Danny, recover!
"That's, uh, not what I meant, though."
"Oh?" Dick asks, cocking his head slightly to the side. Is it Danny's imagination or does his smile tense slightly?
"Yeah, I mean like, you know, in costume. It must make it so much easier to have everyone together like this."
"Costume? What do you mean?"
Yeah, Danny's not imagining it, everyone tenses up at that. It's really only now that he's realising that this probably isn't how he should bring up that he knows about their... night time activities. In fact, he probably shouldn't be bringing it up at all.
"Uuhhh..." Danny looks wildly around the table as he continues making his stupid noise. Think, think, think! There must be a way out of this!
"Danny?" Tim asks, looking concerned.
"Oh, Ancients, this isn't how I wanted it to go at all," he mutters, slipping even further into his chair. He's almost on the floor now and he so, so wishes it could just swallow him up.
His real first meeting with Batman was meant to be cool! He had planned to be Phantom, maybe save them from a tight spot, prove his worth as a mysterious and powerful ally as thanks for the help Batman gave him in the future.
"Danny, what are you talking about?" Tim starts tugging on his sleeve in an attempt to pull him back up from his pit of despair.
Eventually, Danny relents and sits up straighter, hiding his face in his hands and whining all the while.
"I'm sorry, I just didn't expect him to be here and it threw me off so now I look stupid and it's so embarrassing!" he wails, flailing his arms wide. "Why wouldn't you warn me that Batman was your adopted dad, Tim? Couldn't you have let me know?"
"I'm sorry, what? Danny are you alright? There's no way Bruce can be Batman, look at him!"
"Yeah," the blonde girl laughs from the bottom of the table, "look at him! That's a wet noodle of a man! Batman can actually do things, B is incapable of pretty much everything."
"Thank you, Stephanie," Bruce sighs, massaging his forehead.
It's... Those are the first words Danny's heard Batman say since everything went down and it's enough to knock him out of his embarrassment.
It's really good to hear his voice again. Especially now, when it's strong and healthy and full of personality—even if that personality is little more than a tired father right now—far better than how it had been, at the end.
Danny sits up, back straight, and grins. He's got this. He remembers it perfectly. Some people count sheep to fall asleep, Danny repeats his mantra to be certain that he'll never forget it.
"Gamma alpha upsilon tau iota mu epsilon, 42, 63, 28, 1 colon 65 dash 9."
Once again, the whole table falls into silence.
"Holy shit..." breathes the other D name (Duke? Danny's pretty sure he's Signal) from opposite Stephanie. "Isn't that...?"
"The time travelling code." The littlest Wayne says stiffly. "We have met in the future?"
"That's not just the time travelling code, Dami." Dick says, looking between Danny and Bruce. "That's the family time travelling code."
Danny's grin freezes in place.
"I'm sorry, what?"
"1 colon 65 dash 9." Dick explains, still flicking between him and Bruce. "It means you've been adopted into the family and we should all treat you as such, no questions asked."
"Tell you what, I'm about to ask a question." Danny says, dumbstruck. "You just told me it was a code to identify time travellers, not anything about being adopted! What the hell, B?"
Bruce looks about as shellshocked as Danny feels.
"We must have been close," he says finally, after opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water a few times.
"No! Not that close!" Danny reels back, taking a deep breath ready to refute it all, but... "Well, I mean, you found me when I first got stuck, and you helped me get better despite being... And then we fought together against the, uh, bad guy, before he, um, he... before you couldn't."
An uncomfortable beat passes while they all pick up on what Danny tried so hard not to say.
"So, you're not from the future, then, you travelled there and came back?" Tim asks, breaking the tension and leaning forward with a glint in his eye.
"Yeah, it was a whole end of the world thing, but don't worry about it," Danny says with a hand wave, "It's all kosher now, won't ever happen."
"What did happen?"
"Seriously, don't worry about it, we cool."
"How long in the future was it?"
"About ten years? You were pretty spry for an old man, B," Danny laughs, wishing they'd get off the topic of what happened and get back to the adoption bit.
Everyone shares degrees of a cautious smile as they relax out of the shock, and Dick—whose grin is the biggest—says, "No wonder you got the family code, you're already riffing on him like one of us. How long were you there for?"
"A week, before I managed to get back to my present and stop him then."
"A week? Jeez, B, that has to set some kind of record, seriously."
"Oh!" Danny says, sitting bolt upright and blinking in surprise before pointing at Dick and bouncing in his seat. "You're Nightwing!"
"What?"
"That's exactly what Nightwing said when Batman told me the code! Makes so much more sense now."
Dick laughs and claps his hands, delighted.
"You were not formally adopted?" The grumpy small one—Dami?—asks, his face pinched.
"I didn't even know I was informally adopted."
"And your parents? Are they alive or dead?"
"Damian, stop—"
"They were dead in the future, but they're alive now." Danny says, looking down. He fiddles with the tablecloth, twisting the fabric around his fingers as he fights down the pang of sadness that he always feels when he thinks of them now. He forces a bright smile on his face and hopes it doesn’t look too strained. "I just, uh, can't talk to them much, anymore."
"Damian," Dick warns, "1 colon 65 dash 9. Treat them as family, no questions asked."
"This is Damian treating him as family, the little turd has no manners." Tim scoffs, rolling his eyes, but he gently bumps shoulders with Danny to knock him out of his funk. Danny can't help but send him a watery smile.
"I have the most exemplary manners, Drake, unlike some people." Damian spits, crossing his arms with a pout. "I was merely ascertaining his status to see how he could possibly fit into the family."
"I know this is all a bit sudden, Danny," Bruce smiles, ignoring Damian and reaching out to lay a warm hand on his arm, "for all of us. But if I felt strongly enough to give you that code after spending a week with you in the future, then you are more than welcome in this family, if you so choose it. I think I can speak for all of us when I say we'd like to get to know you a bit more."
"I know a threat when I hear it, Bruce." Danny snorts. "But, yeah, I get it. I'm sorry this is all so weird, it really wasn't how I wanted to find you again, but... I'm glad I did."
"So are we, Danny." Dick says, with a warm smile. "And formally or not, 1 colon 65 dash 9 means you're family. Welcome to the fun house! No take backs or refunds, sorry. You're stuck with us."
6K notes
·
View notes
you seem to have a good read on HQ and your takes are great, so i have a question...and if you'd rather not go there, please ignore this! but i see oikawa get called "arrogant" quite often and i'm curious, would you say he is? what is it that makes people think that?
imo he has a plenty of flaws, but i truly don't think arrogance is one of them. self-centered, sure, but not arrogant i think. i'm open to being wrong, i'm just legit so confused by that particular criticism, it makes me doubting my reading comprehension. i feel like that one post that's like "free my man, he didn't do that. he did a lot of other stuff tho" LOL. if you do answer this, then thanks for your time!
oh, dear anon. this is a very very big question and i'm honored you think i am capable of providing an answer that does it justice!! i don't consider myself an oikawa expert by far, but i'll do my best because he's still very beloved to me, and i hope whatever i say helps!
(but also - maybe take what i say with a grain of salt LMAO)
anyways, to get the main point out of the way: i completely agree that oikawa isn't arrogant! i actually haven't seen any commentary about that myself (bless!!!), so i can't say for sure why some people might think that, but my guess is that they think his pridefulness = arrogance — they think that the confidence he has in himself and seijoh contributes nothing to their actual power and is utterly meaningless if they don't win, especially in the face of ushijima. which, like, come on. what kind of captain would he be if he wasn't confident in himself and his teammates? is he supposed to tell them that they're going to lose??? is he supposed to discourage their hard work and effort???
or maybe it's because oikawa acts like he's all that, but doesn't have anything to show for it. who does he think he is? what does he think his pride is worth? what right does he have to go around making grand declarations when he has nothing to his name?
(which isn't entirely true, either, but we'll get into that, promise.)
now, do i think that he can, occasionally, be flippant, shallow, and/or petty? yeah, sure. he's got one hell of a personality about it. even iwaizumi says as much. oikawa is great at being a little shit. it's one of my favorite things about him!
but is oikawa genuinely arrogant, or self-centered? well . . . i don't think so.
see, here's the thing about oikawa: he knows he's good, but he doesn't think he's good enough. i think it'd be easiest to really explain what that meant if we broke this down into two separate parts, so let's give it a go, shall we?
(buckle up, friends, because it's about to get LONG. also: TIMESKIP SPOILERS!! and there's a tldr at the start of the tags because. WOW.)
so, first things first: if people are calling oikawa arrogant, then i'm like 99% sure that they don't actually know what the word "arrogant" means.
"arrogant" is used to describe someone full of themselves. it's used to describe someone conceited and pompous. it's used to describe someone so assured of and invested in their self-importance that they don't care for other people, and if it seems like they do, then it's usually wildly off the mark and still serves to inflate their own egos.
oikawa has never once been like that. he's been pretty much the exact opposite, in fact.
and yeah, sure, by his third year of high school, he knows he's good at volleyball, and that's fine! it's perfectly all right to claim you're good at something if you have the skills/experience to back it up. confidence is healthy as long as it isn't in overabundance, and we actually see a lot of this throughout the series!
(not to mention that this was where ushijima fell short. he was overflowing with confidence. he did not believe, for even a single second, that hinata shouyou and his meager, scrappy little flock of crows could beat him.
but oikawa? he knew. he knew what it looked like to make something bloom.)
the key to oikawa's confidence that made him better was that he could pinpoint others' strengths and weaknesses just as well as he could with his own. and (bear with me, please, i might get kind of boring here bc it's nothing that hasn't been said in the manga before) i don't mean it in the way we see the coaches or more analytical players do, as observations to be taken advantage of by everyone else; i mean that in the sense of how vital it is to his position as a setter. that was always the biggest difference between oikawa and kageyama: no matter how much more raw talent kageyama had, no matter how much better oikawa believed him to be, kageyama, especially in the beginning, struggled to do what oikawa could with a team. kageyama struggled to bring out the best in each player. and it wasn't because he didn't know how -- oikawa freely admitted that kageyama had the skill for it, that kageyama, once he got his shit together, could win against him -- it was because kageyama didn't have that same confidence in himself.
(not until much later, anyways. but that's another story, for another time.)
so, oikawa's confident. he knows he's good. he can bring out the best in each player. he's got a killer serve (and a killer smile!), a mind for tactics that borders on machievallianism, and cherishes the trust he is given like it's something precious. his coaches let him lead without leaning on them. his team has the utmost respect and admiration for him. he has a reputation. from karasuno to shiratorizawa to the whole of miyagi -- there is not a single character who knows oikawa tooru and would believe that he is, in any way, bad at volleyball.
but it's not enough. despite all of that, oikawa still doesn't think he's good enough. and that, friends, brings us to the second point.
oikawa tooru is nothing if not passionate.
so were the others, of course. kageyama kept going after his grandfather's death. hinata kept going while being a nobody from nowhere with no one to back him up. atsumu kept going while osamu didn't. it's not even about just those who went pro -- kenma, kuroo, noya, and everyone else found things that they were passionate about and kept going with it. the entire story revolves around loving what you do and trying to keep that love alive, and, sometimes, that can be really, really difficult when it seems like it doesn't love you back.
oikawa was so insecure over kageyama to the point where he nearly decked the poor kid. oikawa got crushed by ushijima-- who kept telling him that his team was not good enough, that his choices were not good enough, that there was nothing good enough to be proud of -- for years in a row. oikawa was taught that there would always be someone better than him no matter how skilled he was, but if he let that stop him then he didn't fucking belong on the court in the first place.
oikawa tooru is intimately acquainted with not being good enough, but he keeps trying to be. he keeps going. he tries to keep the love alive even if he's not loved back. he pushes and practices and takes a plane far from home to become even better. even if he doesn't have the skill, even if he doesn't have the talent, even if he doesn't have the love -- he still has his pride. and what does that mean, in the end? how far does that take him?
in the end, oikawa tooru walks across a world stage and sees people who believed in him on the other side and calls it a family reunion. in the end, he gets to play the volleyball that reminds him of why he loves it and how it gives him so much love back. in the end, his pride is unyielding and unbreakable, a product of the forge. he molded it with his own two hands. he will not let it falter so easily.
arrogance would not have taken oikawa tooru this far. i hope this has proven that he is anything but.
remember: instinct is something you polish. talent is something you make bloom. and never, ever let anyone else tell you what your pride is worth.
50 notes
·
View notes