5 Rob 1234... These exist?!? How MUCH do they exist??? What are the odds that we will eventually see them someday?
(for WIP ask game)
I've shared a few snips of them before (found HERE), and god... hopefully? I've got so many goddamn WIPs and so much less time to write than I used to during covid times, I can't promise anything and especially can't promise anything being soon.
It's a concept I love a lot - I love Five and Rob's relationship, I love Rob constantly tricking Five into cooperating with therapy until he starts doing it willingly on his own. I like the idea of Five trying to keep everything tight to his chest and aggressively keeping it there until Rob can get him to understand that he doesn't have to do that, that he doesn't have to live like that.
But it's a rarely worked on WIP (partly hence why there's multiple files of different Rob and Five conversations rather than One Set WIP), around JT and the apocalypse fic and Number vs Apocalypse Week fic and random odds and ends I play around with.
So, would I like to share it? Absolutely. Will it be any time soon? Absolutely not.
Long snip for your time, though. This is 5 Rob 3
(cw: some discussion of the implications of Five's physical vs actual age in terms of his brain and cognition, mostly from the angle of Rob being excited about brains and Five unimpressed by it)
“What are you thinking about?” Five asks after Rob doesn’t start off their session in the first minute of their meeting starting.
Rob keeps considering Five through the screen. “Your brain.”
Five blinks. “You do that to everyone?”
“More or less. When they’re my patients, definitely. And if there might be something interesting going on. Yours definitely has a lot going on.”
“Thank you?”
“You’re welcome.”
The sit and stare at each other through the screen some more. Five leans back in his seat, eyes narrowed slightly. “If I ask for specifics for what you’re thinking about in regards to my brain, will it be a long winded way of talking about something I don’t want to talk about or is this genuinely a tangent about my brain?”
Rob hums. “If I’m clever enough maybe I can loop it back to your problems but currently I’m just thinking about your brain.”
“This a hobby of yours?”
“A little bit, I guess,” he says with a laugh. “Also my job, but it is why I went psychiatrist route instead of psychologist route. If you go to medical school they let you look at more brain scans.”
“I’m sure that’s super normal,” Five deadpans.
“How would you know, with your fifty-eight-year-old consciousness in a thirteen-year-old brain?”
Five crosses his arms. “It’s almost fourteen,” he defends.
Rob thinks about that for a second. They’ve sort of talked around this before, and maybe with the birthdate coming up they should talk about it some more. He’ll poke. “Aren’t we technically still six months or so away from your physical birthday?”
That gets an exasperated huff from Five. “October 1, 1989 is my actual birthdate and I’m keeping that, it’s a constant that’s never going to change short of me fucking up so badly I’m not born, in which case I’ve got bigger problems – although not ones I’ll care about because I won’t exist.” Rob keeps a straight face. He actually loves it when Five gets on these little time-travel-insane-consequence rambles. Feels like a sci-fi movie and Sarah can’t poke holes in it like she does when they watch time-travel movies. Five also really likes to get on these tangents, so they’re really good for getting him talking on days he doesn’t want to talk – not that seems to be a problem today.
Five pauses but Rob waits. He’s not done. The pause stretches for a couple seconds before Five huffs again. “I’m not moving my birthday because I arbitrarily and accidentally changed my linear position in time. October first isn’t my actual birthday anymore, either, but the amount of effort to figure out the new date is completely not worth the effort. I could do the much easier-to-calculate physical birthday in February—” he cuts himself off with a suddenly blank expression.
Rob frowns. “Five?”
“The day’s not February tenth anymore,” he says, brow lightly furrowed.
“Why not?”
He blinks again, obviously doing math. Rob doesn’t know what it is about Five’s expression that tells him that he’s doing math, but there’s a specific sort of blankness he gets when he’s running numbers. “February tenth was my physical birthday in the apocalypse,” Five says slowly, still a bit distant. Rob subtly slides his notebook over and grabs a pen, even though Five can’t see it with how Rob has his camera angled. “It was February tenth. Now, though, assuming this body is the body I originally jumped from 2002 in…. oh, it’s still just February second. That was dumb.”
“Did you want it to be more different?”
Five shakes his head, a small frown on his lips. “No. I don’t know why I thought that was going to be a significantly different date. April 2, 2019 versus March 24, 2019 are only a week apart. I could have done that math much smarter. Christ, I’m getting stupid in my old age.”
Rob smiles. They’ve looped back to what he’d originally been thinking about. “Or your brain is thirteen. And a half,” he adds when Five gives him a flat look.
“What does my brain’s age have to do with anything?”
“A lot, actually. Maybe. What do you know about brain development?”
Five stares at him for a long moment. “Nothing.”
“Ah, lucky for us I know a lot about it. The cliff notes version of it is that there are set developmental phases for brains from ages zero to around twenty-five. Twenty-five is when science and medicine generally agree that everything is up and functioning, it hangs out there for a few years before it starts going in the other direction. Before that point, it’s building up pieces and pruning connections that allow for better logic and more complex thinking.”
“You’re saying I’m half developed. And you’re declining,” Five says dryly.
Rob shakes his head, ignoring the easy insult. “No. Maybe. See, you’re a really interesting case of the physical versus consciousness. A really fascinating case study that could be a missing key in understanding where what makes us us sits. You, yourself, are fifty-eight, assuming you haven’t been messing with me and your whole family this entire time—”
“What would the point be of doing that?”
“—which I don’t think you are, which is why I accepted you as a patient. I don’t know how you’d even go about trying to parse it out, because it’s such a messy knot. It’s why we’ve been wondering about consciousness and the self for centuries, millennia. But you have such an extreme difference between the two that we might just be able to get a hint.”
It’s quiet as Rob finishes. Five sits considering that, expression slightly pinched. Rob waits.
As Five continues to not say anything, Rob’s gut sinks a little. Maybe he got a little too excited about this, misjudged how interested Five would be about it. He did just pretty blatantly say that this man, who is already stuck looking like a thirteen-year-old, might actually be stuck in a much more real way as a thirteen-year-old.
“Five—”
“You know,” Five interrupts, “you and Sarah make a bit more sense now.”
It isn’t clear if that’s supposed to be a compliment or an insult. Maybe it’s neither. Five usually likes to rub in insults. “How do you mean?”
“You both like puzzles. You just hide your intensity better than she does.”
Rob might have gotten a little too enthusiastic about how interesting a case Five is. “I’m sorry, Five, I—”
Five waves a hand, tone still low. “Don’t apologize. You know I appreciate candor. Was this the point?”
They haven’t been here in a little bit – Five directing with questions. Rob did miscalculate this. He can let Five keep the control. “Was what my point?”
“To talk about how shit it is to be a fully grown man who looks like a child?”
“No. It’s just something I’ve been thinking about and thought you might find it interesting, too. I had planned on today being a bit lighter on Big Things after last week.”
Five nods slowly. He’s not looking at Rob. “Wow,” he says after another moment. “Bad job of doing that.”
“I’m seeing that now, yeah.”
Five forces them to sit in that. Rob glances at the clock. He has forty minutes to salvage unless Five ends the session early.
“I get the appeal,” Five says after another long minute. “I’m an enigma on a lot of levels. Most of my life doesn’t exist anymore and what it was is so statistically improbable it should be impossible and unbelievable. This isn’t what all this has been about, right?”
He slips that question in as if it’s just an unimportant end to his statement. That’s how Rob knows it’s important. Five likes to bluster, likes to misdirect to avoid feelings and hard topics. The exception is when he needs real, important information. He’s not good at direct lies and it’s obvious the tactic he figured out for learning information he needed while trying to stay under the radar is to be as casual and nonplussed as possible. If Five doesn’t seem to care about the answer, maybe the person giving it won’t care about giving it either.
“No, Five,” Rob says without hesitation. Waiting until Five looks back up at the screen, he continues, “I agreed to be your psychiatrist because I think you need the help to sort through the everything of your life and also think I’m a good fit for helping you do that. You seem to agree, since we’ve been doing this for three months now. My own, side interest of what might be going on in your head isn’t a part of it, outside of my thoughts on non-psychotherapy approaches that might help you should you ever decide you want to try some drugs or physical treatments. Today’s tangent is just that, a tangent that I think is interesting but is non-defining of you or the work we do here.”
Five nods at that with a small frown. “To help you along on that tangent, then, so we don’t have to do it again – it’s wrong.”
“Okay?”
“Your little theory has me half-developed and stupid, of which I am neither.” He waves off Rob as he opens his mouth to apologize and explain. “It’s fine, as you just explained to me your brain function is also declining due to your advancing age. It is interesting, though, that your go-to direction for me doing a simple math calculation in an indirect way was to blame it on a possibly under-developed brain rather than the fact that I’m thirteen years older than you are and am farther along on my brain slipping into mush.”
Rob swallows and waits.
“But how I know you’re wrong about my brain is because, while I don’t remember much from being thirteen, I do remember some decisions I made when I was that age. One very big, very dumb decision. With absolutely no concern for the consequences and no back-up plan. That’s the sort of thinking thirteen-year-old brains do. It was a childish and very poorly calculated mistake. And I’m not that stupid now.”
“Understood,” Rob says. That sits between them, a bit heavy which was not Rob’s goal for the day so he adds, “You’re dumb because you’re old, not because you’re young.”
A smile ghosts at the edge of Five’s mouth. “Exactly.”
“Glad we cleared this up. I’m sorry I pushed us here, I misjudged. We’re good?”
Five nods. “We’re good.”
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Reverse Robins!
But specifically Stephanie and Tim (with a little Jason added when it's relevant).
Note: I'm of the opinion that in Reverse Robin AUs they wouldn't actually use Robin as their code name, but for convince and clarity's sake I will be using it here.
Damian is gone. He left in a blaze of anger. They'd fought before, but this time came with a finality Bruce doesn't known how to handle.
Batman is spiraling. Without Damian around there's no need to be Bruce Wayne, no reason not to follow one more lead before turning in. No young eyes looking to him to be an example. Nothing to keep him from beating the bad guys into a comma.
Tim Drake has been watching Bruce Wayne for awhile. He's been watching Batman for longer. He saw the turn, the way the Wayne Foundation is slowly being corrupted without Bruce's over site, and the more extreme injuries criminals are coming in with. He looks at Bruce Wayne and Batman, and the man behind them both and thinks "Yeah, I can fix that." Maybe it's teenage nativity, maybe it's a drive to do something good, maybe it's the need to be in control of something in his life. Whatever it is, he acts on it.
Bruce doesn't want to let Tim be Robin. Damian was his son, and a trained assassin, Tim is a random kid with no formal training. But Tim is a random kid who figured out his identity and is actively blackmailing him with it, so he doesn't have many options.
Batman and Robin are back together. Bruce Wayne is back in board meetings. The criminals are getting a lot less bruises. Robin is far more impressive than Batman ever would have guessed he could be. Tim is falling asleep in math class, but he already knows it all anyway so it's barely worth mentioning.
There's a new vigilante in Gotham. One who sets a dangerous precedent. It's one thing for Batman to have allies, it's another for outside agents to start taking matters into their own hands. Especially when they're untrained teenagers who are looking for personal vengeance.
He does everything he can to get Spoiler to quit. He tells himself it's not just about his personal dislike of her, it's for the sake of every other misguided kid who might try to follow her lead.
He fails.
The Joker attacks Robin. He doesn't kill him, he has a worse fate in mind. He takes Batman's prodigy and makes him his own. Tries to prove that even the Bat's closest ally can be corrupted if he has a bad enough day. He succeeds, and for one terrifying night The Batman faces off against Joker Jr.
Tim survives, but he's not the same. It takes months for his injuries to heal, and even then he's haunted by what Joker turned him into. Terrified that he could snap again at the wrong moment. He tells Bruce he can't be in the field anymore, it's to big of a risk. He promises Batman he'll find another way to help.
Cluemaster is dead. He died on a suicide mission. No matter how Steph feels about it personally, logically she knows Gotham is safer without him around. Part of her can't help being relieved, and she doesn't hate that part of herself as much as she knows she should. There's no longer any need for The Spoiler.
There's an opening for Robin and Steph wants the job. Wants to prove she can do it. That she's just as good as Tim. That she's not her father. That she can make a father proud.
Batman doesn't want Stephanie. He wants Tim. But maybe Stephanie is a way to get there. To make Tim jealous enough to come back.
Bruce tells himself it's for Tim's own good. Stephanie's too. Tim needs the push, needs to be Robin again so he can overcome his fear about being the field. And Stephanie needs the training, and the focus now that Cluemaster is gone.
Robin tries, she really does. She does everything Batman asks of her, always. Except once. And once is all it takes. Robin is fired, but as she leaves the cave Stephanie grabs on to one last desperate chance to prove herself. Batman never intended for the file to be used, but Stephanie doesn't know that. Batman didn't tell her. He never told her anything.
The war that erupts is unlike anything Gotham has ever seen.
Damian comes home. It's not for Bruce. It's for Gotham, for the city that took him in despite everything.
Batman isn't listening to Oracle. He's cutting him off, overriding his systems, and treating him like nothing more than a glorified phone operator. Tim can't just do nothing. Not when his city is burning.
Black Mask captures Spoiler, and nobody notices.
Robin is back on the scene. He's reluctant at first, but once he starts it's like a switch flips. The moves are second nature, the danger is exhilarating. It isn't a game, but part of him can't help relishing it all the same. He can't remember why he stopped.
Spoiler manages to get free. She manages to ambush Black Mask. She manages to pin him to the ground, gun pointed at his head. But Steph can't pull the trigger. Two months ago she would have, but now Batman's voice is in her head. She can't let him down. Not again.
Stephanie hesitates, and in that moment Black Mask breaks her hold. He gets his gun back. There's no moral code running though the back of his head. He doesn't hesitate.
Gotham is safe. Batman did his job. Damian is back. Robin is in the field again. But Bruce is haunted by what happened. Damian is injured, Tim has nightmares, and Stephanie...
Jason Todd isn't new to being poor. He knows how to be hungry, how to fend for himself. But he is new to being homeless. The gang war left lots of kids in the Narrows orphaned, of course some of them were going to fall through the cracks, and Jason happens to be one of them. Maybe it's for the best. He's heard how the Gotham Foster System treats kids. Maybe he's better off on his own. He just needs to find a way to make some money.
Batman descends with all the furry he's been holding in. But instead of an overconfident car thief, he finds a twelve year old boy desperately clutching a tire iron, trying to seem angry instead of scared.
Bruce recognizes something in him that he can't fully explain. He takes Jason back to the manor. Gives him a home. Does everything he can to keep him away from the cave.
That lasts about two weeks.
Jason wants to give back to his community, to make sure kids don't have to deal with the shit he had to deal with. He wants to thank Bruce for helping him. He wants to be nothing like his dad. He wants to make his new father proud.
Damian is against it. Tim is against it. Bruce is against it. Jason is insistent. He decides to take matters into his own hands, to steal an old Robin suit and sneak out after the others have left. It doesn't go well. He thinks he's blown his chance, but to his surprise Batman relents. If he doesn't Jason will find a way to do it on his own, and he won't let another kid go out untrained.
Tim goes back to Oracle. The way he felt the night of the gang war still scares him sometimes, reminds him to much of Batman back when they first met. Guilt washes over him whenever ever he thinks about it. How happy he'd been, all well Steph...
He should have been in the Clock Tower that night. Should have been keeping better tabs on all of them. He should have known she was missing in action, should have been monitoring her suit's location or trying to reach out instead of just listening when Batman said not to involve her. So if there's a new kid running around in the suit, their suit, he's going to make sure this one is safe.
Robin is good. Really good. He's to angry, he's rash, he's impulsive. But he learns fast, and he seems to almost fly over Gotham. He fits the role in a way Tim never truly did.
Black Mask is dead, and someone else is using his name. Someone who's dismantling the Gotham underworld piece by piece.
Steph has a duty to the people she hurt, a duty Batman will never understand, and one she has to handle her way. Batman stopped the war, but he didn't stop the gangsters. He didn't stop Black Mask, or Scareface, or any of the others. It's not about what they did to her. She deserved it. It was her own fault. But so many others suffered because of them, because of her, and Batman did nothing to stop it. So she will.
Black Mask isn't planning to confront Batman. She doesn't care about him. She's done seeking his approval and following his rules. Doing that got her killed. It got other people killed. But there's another Robin running around, and someone needs to explain that. Steph knows by now that she was never really Robin, it was all just a trick to get Tim back. A trick that worked. So who the hell is this kid? Is he like Tim, someone Batman will keep safe, or is he just another pawn he'll sacrifice the second it's covenant? And when she finally gets around to asking, she lets more slip than she should have.
Batman knows the truth, but that's okay. It was only a matter of time before he did, and it doesn't change anything. Bruce tries to appeal to her, but what can he possibly say that could make a difference? That he's sorry?
He is, but it's to late for that. Stephanie knows the truth. She knows he never took her seriously. She knows he never trusted her. She knows it was all a game, and that in the end Batman got what he wanted even if not in the way he intended. And Bruce can't argue, because she's right. He created her, and he knows it.
Stephanie Brown is dead. She died in Leslie's clinic. She died because her doctor decided teaching Batman a lesson was worth more than her life. A lesson he didn't even bother to learn. She died because she listened to Batman even though he never bothered to listen to her. And she died because Batman used her as a chess piece. Because he wrote her off before she'd even properly begun.
Black Mask is not Cluemaster. She refuse to ever be her father. But she's not Batman either. He never gave her the chance to be. She's something else. Something between those two extremes. Something that's fully hers. She's going to protect the people Batman's to busy to care about, and if she has to kill a few people along the way, so be it. She's not playing by his rules anymore. She never will again.
Black Mask is Batman's greatest failure. Not because she died, but because he never took the time to teach her how to live.
Stephanie is Bruce's biggest regret. Not because she died, but because he didn't care about her until she did.
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intrigued by time travel au and laurent stabs damen (ofc he does) 👀👀👀
>:) oh you chose two of the best ones
Time Travel AU
this is pretty heavily inspired by a wip im reading now, though only as far as the setup for the plot. which is, essentially, that a modern day Laurent somehow finds himself transported to ancient Akielos, where he comes across Prince Damianos 👀
i have so many plans for this as far as like... what is the story saying, what themes and meanings the story is telling. and there are two main things: 1. no matter how much you want to, you can never change history and 2. history is written by the victors.
it's also going to be my first attempt at really writing a tragedy! it's going to have an unhappy ending! i should not be sounding so excited about that. but i kinda am. i almost never read unhappy endings. i think it will be a fun experience.
i also get to write part of the history of Akielos for it, twice, and it's such an exciting prospect to me
laurent stabs damen
>:)
>:)))))
so this is the fic that i went "oh this will be easy to turn into a silly little oneshot" and am now at 4k words and am currently expecting the story to hit around 40k-50k :')
all because i went "what would happen if Laurent showed up on the battlefield at Marlas, found Damen and Auguste's fight, and stabbed Damen to protect Auguste?" i have now looked into armistices, ceasefires, peace treaties, and friendship treaties, what they are, how long they take, as well as a few examples from history. just so i could have a timeline for a fic that i meant to make like 7k max.
BUT as i have some written, you get an excerpt of my favorite moment so far!!
“I’m trying to save his life.” Again, it was not what Laurent had expected to hear. Clearly it wasn’t what Auguste had expected either, because his jaw slackened before he covered it again with a glare. The Akielon continued, “He’s, what? Twelve?”
“Thirteen,” Auguste replied, his eyes flickering over to Laurent.
“Thirteen,” the Akielon repeated. “And how many battles has he been in?”
“None.” A hesitation. “One, now, I guess.”
“He doesn’t know the rules of engagement, then.” Auguste shook his head. That wasn’t strictly true, Laurent did know them. Mostly. But he had never actually been in a duel before. And he knew that Akielos had different rules than they had in Vere. They were all about fairness and honor. “I don’t think he would have attacked me, had he known,” the Akielon said, and he sounded so sure.
“I would have,” Laurent said from his position behind a sword. The soldier tightened his grip but didn’t press any harder into Laurent’s neck to make him be quiet, as he might have had Laurent been a soldier himself. The prince turned to look at him, his expression curious. Laurent continued, “You would have killed him.”
A hum. “I would have,” he agreed. Laurent glared at him, but the prince had turned his attention back to Auguste. “Lack of awareness doesn’t matter in Akielos, though. He still broke the rules of engagement, whether or not he knew what he was doing or the consequences.”
“So why is he still alive?” Auguste asked, the words sounding like they were being ripped out of him, rough and frustrated.
[ WIP FILE GAME ]
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