#oracle babs nothing and no one will ever compare to you

[legionofzoom]

ORACLE BY LUISF47

[androxys]

2024 Writing Review

I was tagged in this by @vechter!

number of stories posted to ao3: I posted 2 works this year, which was a marked decrease from 2023's 7 fics. I guess I needed a break! The two were Hello World, It's Me Again (the first chapter) and I'd Teach My Feet to Fly (a one-shot).

word counted posted for last year: 17,163 words!

fandoms i wrote for: Oh, it was Batman. Because I'm dabbling in a few continuities for Barbara and playing it a little looser, HWIMA got an AMT tag. ITMFTF is very strictly comics-informed, though, so it got some (comics) tags for Batman, Checkmate, and Outsiders.

pairings: No ships this year! Just Sasha Bordeaux & Bruce Wayne; Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne; Sasha Bordeaux & Dick Grayson. All three were from ITMFTF.

stories with the most kudos, bookmarks and comment threads: That's Hello World. It's a bigger fic, with more for people to bite into, and with the benefit of not having been posted in the last week!

work i’m most proud of (and why): Agh, picking children! Nah. I'm more proud of Hello World. It's a bigger project, drawing on a lot of different threads and trying to be my personal love letter to one of my favorite characters of all time.

work i’m least proud of (and why): I'd Teach is one of those fics where nothing happens, and I'm like 95% okay with how it landed... but that 5% is still missing. But, part of the process is making slightly misshapen things to keep working the writing muscle.

share or describe a favorite review you received: I feel like I hold every comment I've ever received dear to my heart, but this one by @scintillyyy really touched me.

A lot of the comments addressed my central goal of this fic--working on giving Oracle's Year One a modern lift and giving Barbara space to experience more messy ups and downs of recovery--and reassured that yes, I was hitting what I wanted to. But I was fully ready for the SCI research I did to kind of slip away unnoticed, so I really appreciated having that called out too.

a time when writing was really, really hard: Most of the year lmao. 2024 was the year of higher education, which left less fic time than I would have liked. But as soon as this degree is in hand and I can go back to full time work, I've got a backlog of writing to jump on.

a scene or character you wrote that surprised you: I talked about this a little with vechter in the comments of I'd Teach, but the Bludhaven scene in I'd Teach My Feet to Fly came about kind of unexpectedly. Everything about that fic kind of took the reins from me.

a favourite excerpt of your writing:

“Details are still coming out,” Barbara says, lying like an artist. That’s all this job ever was, lying in the service of what you hope is higher meaning. “But it was overseas. Ethiopia. The funeral will be tomorrow. Mr. Wayne… Bruce… wanted to let me know. Invite me to come, since I knew him.” “That’s… God, Babs. That’s awful.” He shakes his head, unsure what to say. His hand brushes back his ever-greying hair, his other reaching for his pipe. He gets it lit and takes a few puffs, his head tilting back as the soothing smoke drifts from his mouth. “God,” he repeats. “He was young.” “Yeah.” “Are you going to go?” She doesn’t want to. She knows she will. She owes it to him.

I like this sequence because it illustrates the fic's general premise: take a canon moment, expand it a little, and then focus in a little harder on Babs.

how did you grow as a writer last year: I don't know how much I grew this year, honestly. All writing is growth, and doing it is the hardest part. I think HWIMA is some of my best prose, and it's certainly shaping up to be my longest work yet. I think I'm continuously getting more comfortable with larger projects, but I'm also trying to develop more comfort with fics that just compare scenes and have some commentary around them. One of my favorite things to do as a fan is to just hold two different moments in time together, and I have to remind myself that the literary equivalent of that is still a worthwhile fan activity.

how do you hope to grow this year: I want to keep working on different types and formats of fic! I have two fics that I've been meaning to podfic forever, and the majority of a longfic that I started podficcing and then fell way off track with. (@ididloveyou I promise I have not forgotten about you! One of these days I promise I'm going to get back 😭). Otherwise, I'm working on my Wonder Woman fic that's going to end up as a poem, which is a new frontier for me. But largely, I just want to finish some WIPs. I owe a certain dear fandom friend a certain sequel 😉

who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer, beta, cheerleader, etc.): Oh lord, all of y'all. Can I just say that? It takes a village, and I feel like so many folks in my ecosystem help influence me and my writing for the better. In no particular order, @havendance and @mintchocochipsposts and @zahri-melitor and @tevya-fandom, you've all been in my comments or my DMs or on discord, and are my subsequent MVPs of 2024. Jinx, I'm not sure where to find you but you're getting a shout-out too. Thank you for all your help and kind words over the year.

anything from your real life show up in your writing last year: Someone in the process of getting their MLS, writing about someone getting their MLS? It's more likely than you think!

any new wisdom you can share with other writers: Never be afraid to put something in a bracket and come back later! I bullet point my fics and write them from there, and sometimes I skip a bullet or describe the action (something like [Barbara looks at the mirror, isn't happy, fixes it]) and just write the next thing. Don't let something break your momentum. The other best writing wisdom I've ever received is that if you feel absolutely stuck when writing, go back about six sentences and see if the problem actually started there. I write myself into corners all the time, and have to retrace myself to solve clunky dialogue or a bad movement rather than trying to brute force my way out.

any projects you’re looking to starting (or finishing) this year: Definitely HWIMA. Ken and Barbie. The Wonder Woman poem. Those are the big three. After that, I want to get back into podfic and do that for a bit. And then we'll see where we go!

I tagged a lot of people in gratitude through this post (and all of y'all should consider this your tag to participate if you want!), but I'm also going to tag @cuephrase, @themyscirah, @sl-walker, and @clearbluewaters for my due diligence. Here's to a lovely 2025, everybody.

[getthembees]

i’ll answer the stephcass part of this, but a good way to get an understanding on their relationship is through Batgirl 2000, which is Cass’s first solo and a great comic run. some of these pictures might be ass but bear with me.

They first meet before BG2K very briefly but the first time they actually talk is after Cass breaks into her bedroom to have her read something for a mission, because Cass can’t read. Stephanie agrees, only if she gets to tag along, and afterwards Steph asks to teach her to read in exchange for training. Cass doesn’t really agree but they end up training together anyway, and this is when they start to become friends.

this picture is crunchy but it says Steph: “When my dad was mad he’d lock me in the closet. what’d yours do?”

cass: “shot me”

steph: “oh man, i can’t beat you at anything.”

this is when we first start to see cass and steph actually become friends with each other. To keep in mind, up until this point cass has been caught between Barbara wanting her to become a more normal person and pushing her into social situations far out of her comfort zone, while Bruce has been pushing her to be Batgirl and nothing else. Steph is the first friend Cass really makes on her own terms, and one where they hang out outside of missions and the like (like her and Tim). Steph doesn’t push her and they can relate with each others parental abuse in a way that isn’t heavy, but lighthearted.

more under cut because this’ll get a bit long!

Anyway, Steph and Cass become best friends with each other, and it’s a relationship that Cass wants to keep up, even after Bruce tells her not to. we see Cass get disappointed when Steph says she’s going to stop coming to their training.

And here’s Cass hanging out with her after Bruce tells her not to

Steph makes her laugh, in fact, Steph is (as far as i’m aware) the first person to make Cass laugh, and she’s done it multiple times. but of course, these are very cute moments, but don’t get into the heart of why most people ship stephcass. A lot of that comes after Stephanie dies

(these are two panels spliced together). the Top one is pretty important, especially when framing steph and cass’s relationship and how it’s explicitly not sisterly. “Stephanie was my friend. that sounds so… dumb. but i’ve never had one before. really […] But [batman and oracle] aren’t friends. more… family. Stephanie was… I, uh, I… can’t talk about her, now. Is that…normal?”

steph was her first friend!! Her first friendship outside of the family, and its important to her that its her first friendship. They aren't family in the way shes family with all of the adopted kids/bruce and babs

cass proceeds to spend the next several issues crashing out basically. and then we get hit with her life saving yuri hallucinations. i am not joking, she hallucinates Stephanie saving her life twice. once where she tenderly cradles her face and another one where Steph carries her bridal style.

Also, to keep it fair. stephanie has also hallucinated cass when she was unconscious post shiva fight

So they have a history of hallucinating each other in high stress situations to hype each other up. This basically covers a lot of BG2k (def not all of it, theres still a bunch im missing and you should read bg2k). My personal reasons for shipping stephcass at this point are that they have an obvious care for each other, but more than that I like how they navigate their own insecurities towards each other. Stephanie is good at the social aspect of things, she is a person. not a weapon. Cass is a weapon, and shes better at vigilanting than steph ever will be. They balance each other out in that way.

now, 1 2 skip a few to 2021 where we get batgirls, which is frankly queerbait central in regards to them. a lot of these are just going to be a bunch of panels because frankly they speak for themselves.

That time when cass revived steph and then kissed her on the forehead:

That time the narration compared their dance to a kiss:

forehead touch and back-hug on a motorcycle

And then of course steph's literal love letter to cass:

Anyway, again, theres way more in batgirls 2021 but i cant post all of it here because we would just be posting the entire comic, frankly.

And lets not forget the Future State comic, set in a future where vigilantes are outlawed, and steph and cass are written as ex girlfriends who rekindle things by the end.

Steph is calling her babe/gorgeous/etc this entire issue lol.

So yeah! Theyre definitely not 'sisters' --stephanie is not adopted by bruce nor would she ever want to be, she has her mother who she loves. Sorry this was long and hope it helps! I don't know a ton about the tim side of things so i cant answer that!

editing to also say i think a lot of the sister-vibes comes from fan content that just pushed stephanie into the batfamily with little understanding of her relationships with these characters. If you read the comics, it never comes off as incesty. Honestly a lot of the character relationships are not nuclear-family esque at all. For example: Cass is bruces daughter and babs daughter figure. and dick is her brother but also babs' girlfriend. etc.

Okok so, requesting some help from StephCass shippers, and maybe also TimSteph shippers/people who know decent amount of information about TimSteph’s relationship

Can you guys, StephCass shippers, explain to me the reasons why you ship them?

I don’t know nearly enough about Steph or Cass, or their relationship to each other, to make a proper judgement of the ship.

It always kind of felt weird to me, because it just felt like Batcest even though Steph isn’t actually Bruce’s kid. And then I actually started to think about why the ship makes me uncomfortable in a batcest way, before having the realisation that I simply don’t know enough about either girl or the relationship they have with each other (nor Steph’s relationship with Tim) to justify feeling that way.

I’m relatively new to the Batman fandom, so I’m still learning a lot. And this is something I feel like I need to be educated on before I can actually make a judgement of the ship.

Because I only found out today that the reason Tim and Steph broke up was apparently because Tim is bisexual?? I already knew he’s bi, I didn’t)t know that apparently that was the reason they broke up (but don’t quote me on that, and feel free to correct me).

I have started to read the comics, but there are so many comics that I just… need that shit explained to me. Tim and Steph’s relationship kind of also made me uncomfortable because Batcest, but to a bit of a lesser degree, before I had the same realisation about TimSteph that I did with StephCass; that I know basically fuck all about their relationship to each other because I’m a newbie, and very uneducated.

The way I have always perceived Steph and Cass has just been as sisters, and Steph and Tim as exes who are still close and have a very sibling-like relationship. Before realising, obviously, that I just know fuck all.

This post, and request for an explanation comes from a place of genuine confusion and curiosity, not any hate. I do just need the StephCass ship explaining to me because I genuinely don’t know very much about either girl, or their relationship to each other.

Sorry I keep repeating myself ✌️ (under the cut isn’t anything really relevant to what I’ve talked about here, it’s just an explanation of what I have seen comics-wise)

Idk if anyone is going to ask, but when it comes to the comics, I have started actively reading some currently releasing ones like Batman & Robin: Year One, and Absolute Batman. I have also bought Absolute Superman and Absolute Wonder Woman, but haven’t gotten around to reading them yet. I’m perfectly aware that the Absolute comics are basically AUs/is an AU (idk if they carry into one another), and that B&R:Y1 is of a retelling of Dick’s origins as Robin???

I have actively read the two issues of Red Hood Gotham War, and the surrounding issues in Batman and Catwoman that take place at the same time (Bruce… what the fuck… writers, what kind of mischaract-). I wouldn’t say I have “read” either RHATO, but I have skimmed through the one with Artemis and Bizarro; from when Jason is kind of… disowned-ish by Batman as a Bat, up to about when the group of kids were introduced (because I wasn’t reading it properly, I got super confused and just stopped looking). But I have read more closely the Prince of Gotham issues when looking at it a second time for a quick moment. I have also skimmed through the early issues of both RHATO comics. Jason is my favourite character, so I have kind of tended to look at official stuff more aimed around him. That is why I know pretty much fuck all about Steph and Cass.

I briefly know their backstories, I know that Steph became Robin for like 2 weeks after Tim was fired, I know that Tim and Steph were dating. But I haven’t actually read anything official with them in besides RHGW, which includes like a panel or so of Steph as Spoiler.

And yes, I have read most of WFA (I need to catch up) but I’m perfectly aware of the context it existsin; it’s not official, it’s slice of life, it’s a webtoon, and it does not properly represent the characters… even though (some of the) said characters have been so disgracefully mischaracterised by the official comics that WFA doesn’t deserve the amount of shit it gets for doing the same thing, or so I have heard.

I’m not claiming to know my shit, I think that’s pretty obvious. I trust the people on Tumblr to not treat me like shit because the community here is lovely. But I know there are going to be the odd people that might pull me up if I don’t clarify what comics I have actually read and seen. Or maybe not pull me up? More just be curious to actually know my level of knowledge from the official sources, instead of people on the internet talking about it.

[bitimdrake]

hello! my contact with with batfam stuff is mostly through fandom and i've recently seen people complaining about the whole 'tim liking coffee' stereotype, but i can't really understand why it annoys people. i know it doesn't have any real basis in canon, but is that all? or is it because of the characterisation that usually comes attached to it? or something else?

hi! Yeah, so, even compared to other fandoms, comics fandom really tends to make the characters ooc (presumably due to the number of fans who've never engaged with the source material nonetheless enjoying the fandom, with a side of all the influence from non-comic adaptations of the character). And in response, there can be a lot of annoyance (or sometimes outright anger) from those who do read comics and are desperately trying to find fan material that is...actually about those canon characters they got attached to. So that whole environment does exacerbate things to begin with.

When it comes to the "coffee addict tim" thing in particular, I think your guesses are pretty accurate. I'd basically boil it down to three things:

(1) As you say, it doesn't have any basis in canon--but it's super prevalent in fanon. And any fanon characteristic that gets popular is always going to become a hot topic, however (un)important. If the coffee thing only cropped up in sporadic fics, I don't think there would be any broad debate about it. But it appears everywhere, so strong opinions form.

(2) Sometimes (not always, but enough to be notable), "coffee addict tim"--or really any 'food obsession' fanon, or fanon in general--makes characterization super flat in fics. Like, think of the number of fics/posts/meta you have come across where Tim is coffee obsessed and sleep deprived and...that's it. Those are the only traits he gets. Tim appears in this scene? Better mention how he's exhausted and looking for coffee!

(3) Relatedly--and imo this is the big one--as you've guessed. the coffee thing has a REALLY strong likelihood to tie into this greater fanon characterization of Tim that just doesn't look anything like the comics character. For example:

Fanon Tim is dependent on his coffee habit. Canon Tim not only barely ever drinks coffee, but--like his entire family--is wildly opposed to having any kind of substance dependence or lack of control over his own body. These are contol freak health nuts, y'all.

Fanon Tim drinks coffee because he's always tired. Canon Tim just falls asleep in ridiculous places at ridiculous times, which is also OBJECTIVELY funnier and I can't believe fanon didn't latch onto that.

Fanon Tim is so constantly sleep deprived that his whole family finds it wild and shocking and is always concerned over him. Canon Tim is pretty much on par with the rest of the bats, and his canon friends and family don't find it that notable considering their own experiences.

In fact, Oracle Babs is the only bat I can think of who's regularly seen drinking coffee. And Dick is the batkid most likely to follow Bruce's bad habits and work himself to the bone without breaks.

Speaking of, Fanon Tim is sleep deprived because he does nothing but work work work all the time and refuses to take care of himself. Canon Tim misses out on sleep because he's trying to juggle vigilantism with a regular life as a high school student--and iirc, after he drops out of school and becomes Red Robin, we don't seem him having any more problems with sleep.

Red Robin Fanon Tim is also busy work work working at Wayne Enterprises. Canon Tim is the CEO in name only and I literally don't think we saw him working in the office even once. The only WE work he does is very part-time for his passion charity project, the Neon Knights.

Despite not taking care of himself and constantly appearing fragile, fanon Tim is nonsensically also the most badass and clever guy ever. Canon Tim (usually) follows so much more logic here--when he's exhausted because, say, he stayed up half the night as Robin and the other half doing homework, he ends up not operating at his best and making dumb mistakes. When he's cool and badass and executing plans perfectly, it's because he's gotten enough sleep and food to be in that top shape.

And then other little non-canon details are typically added in fanon--Tim being super pale, having constant dark circles, acting like a zombie in the morning, keeping a coffee maker in his room, etc.

Additional fun facts because I hate shutting up: Dick is canonically a capable cook, has no single favorite food established, and as far as I know has never stated any preference for sugary food. Steph loves waffles a normal human amount, and her comfort food is mashed potatoes. Tim is a little rich boy, but he learned how to make genuinely good soup from his step mom, so I have faith he can learn how to cook in general if he sets his mind to it. Bruce once burnt soup and also failed to make an edible tuna sandwich, so I have no faith in him at all.

(PS: If you are curious about getting into comics and seeing what Tim is like, but overwhelmed at the number of places to start, Robin vol 2 (1993) is gonna be your main source for Tim characterization. Alternately, Young Justice vol 1 (1999) is focused on the whole team rather than Tim specifically, but is a fun and consistent run the whole way through. And I'm always happy to give more detail!)

[dilfdoctordoom]

I've been compiling my thoughts on your response to my initial message about Babs' disability, because like you said it's a pretty complex issue(also I had no idea until now that the ask system ceased to limit one's message length!):

I've seen folks point out how it's come off as 'unrealistic' to them that Babs remained in a wheelchair pre-N52 when she lived in a universe filled with crazily advanced tech(I don't wanna include magic too since that somehow seems like more of a copout to me), with some of that actively applied to certain characters, like Cyborg. I mean, I remember the one issue of BOP where Babs gets her walking back temporarily & she's ecstatic about it, so what *is* stopping her? I've sometimes wondered why Wonder Woman doesn't lend the use of the "Purple Healing Ray" to Babs, since IIRC they were friends during her Oracle days? I've seen people suggest maybe because it could shorten human lifespans while curing ailments/injuries, though Idk if it's ever been explained that way in canon, while I also don't know for sure if Wonder Woman has shared it with Man's World for that same purpose. I gotta read more DC comics to catch up.

I don't usually ponder this side of the topic heavily because like how I just suggested, there is likely a number of valid workarounds to these sorts of questions, because what really mattered was the profound message it sent to readers seeing Babs become Oracle. Personally, the only big reason I think about this now is because I originally knew Babs best from the DCAU, so seeing the events of TKJ play out for Babs always seemed particularly rough to me =P I get that it's Moore's writing style, ala Watchmen, but jeez that's Barbara Gordon!(It's weird to think how if that comic wasn't written or at least made canon, where would Babs have ended up? She'd given up being Batgirl at that point after all) What if it was further down the in-universe timeline when Babs would get a hold of a recovery method, like the Batman Beyond period? It might be more expected that med-tech would advance enough for that, since we also get skycars and a Batsuit that can do basically anything. Would that be any different? I'm mostly just letting my thoughts wander.

Going under the cut for this.

Barbara Gordon is a fictional character. Barbara Gordon has no real autonomy; she does not have wants or desires. Any thoughts or feelings she does have are given to her by writers and artists that work on her character. It's critical to establish that first -- Babs is an excellent character, but she is still just a character.

I remember the one issue of BOP where Babs gets her walking back temporarily & she's ecstatic about it, so what *is* stopping her?

A better question: why does she need to get her walking back? We've had about a decade that proves it certainly doesn't help her character. Babs doesn't exist and when writers erase her disability 'because she's happier', the message for disabled people is this: being disabled = unhappiness. Everything done with this character has an intent behind it. There is a message to all these stories.

There was a message to Oracle. There was a message to Barbara fuckin' Gordon coming back from fridging (I've seen the debate on if TKJ was fridging -- it was, by definition. 'The killing, assault or maiming of a female character to forward a man's pain', that was what happened to Babs and the intent of the story was to fridge her). There was a message to her staying disabled and be an active, respected and beloved hero.

And like there are messages there, there are also messages in erasing that disability. Asking 'what's stopping her [from not being disabled]?' is missing the point entirely. Comparing her to Cyborg is also... very much not okay. I believe I mentioned it before in the last ask on the topic, but disabled people are not a monolith and Victor Stone is also disabled.

What's stopping her? According to DC, absolutely nothing... and we've all seen how ableist that story is. There is absolutely no reason that we can't have a disabled superhero. Out of universe reasons don't apply. That's something I want to stress: you cannot apply the reasons of a real person onto a fictional character to justify ableism.

Another important thing to note, that often gets cast aside: if it weren't for Oracle appearing in Suicide Squad, Barbara Gordon would've been forgotten. Like, let's be real -- DC's reaction to the character being shot and maimed was, verbatim, "shoot the bitch". Babs was going to fade away into obscurity. The only reason Babs didn't is that Ostrander and Co refused to let it happen. I know people love to stress how important Barbara was as Batgirl before TKJ happened... she was not important in the eyes of DC. To them, she had had her time and what happened in the TKJ, and the subsequent lapse in her appearances afterwards, were all more than acceptable.

Where would Babs have ended up? Comics limbo, if she was lucky. A cautionary tale. An eternally tragic figure. The list goes on and never goes anywhere good.

[paigeoforacle]

I’m sending you this ask because I feel like you are one of the better Oracle Barbara Gordon stans who really isn’t biased when it comes to Babs. If this ask makes you uncomfortable I apologize and feel free to ignore, personally I never felt welcomed in her fandom because I always felt like the majority (not all of course but still majority) of fans were white women who never really understood what I was trying to say when I did have some issues with the the way she was written and by extension some of the writing that does make me uncomfortable in Birds of Prey. This has just been my experience with fandom, but there was a tweet by a popular account today that did get me wondering what your opinion would be if a writer tackled Oracle’s ethics and wrote about modern technology today and how technology has been invading our privacy. She has only ever gone after criminals but it would be a new avenue imo to explore where Oracle sees something she shouldn’t have seen or something that has her having to check the actual power she has. If you have this kind of power what lengths are you willing to go to put a stop to evil online and etc.

See, this is the kinda thing that I think would make for a perfect Oracle story. She has a good head on her shoulders, but with how much tech influences our lives compared to even 5 years ago, much less ten plus years, Babs would have all new challenges to check out. And don't get me wrong, some of the writing in BOP is indeed questionable, but that comes with the territory sadly. Nothing is perfect. There have been some weird ass decisions with her writing that I personally choose to ignore (see: breaking Misfit's ankle).

She would be the perfect vessel to make commentaries on the dangers of technology in our everyday lives to this degree. Hell, I imagine she would start becoming a cybersecurity consultant for civvies, just so she can help as many as she can with stuff. Nice side gig.

Thanks for the ask, anon!

[bigskydreaming]

Making this its own post because replying to the ask got so weirdly formatted I can’t even. Oh tumblr. You work so well.

@themessofthecentury  asked:

jsksjf my tumblr notifs are bugging and i didnt see your post but!!! The patron Saint of Robins?? I am much intrigue!!

(This is from this ask game, just....gotten to late, lololol. And I still have more I’m getting to, no worries. Just had a rough couple days is all, laid me up a bit.)

Okay, so The Patron Saint of Robins is kinda like the situation at the end of Grayson, except also not at all. And actually this is one of my older WIPs, and according to Scrivener I started it in 2015 afhislfhalhfalf, so it really has nothing to do with that. Also, its Young Justice-verse, but for two specific reasons:

1) YJ-verse is my go-to for Good Dad Bruce Wayne, when I don’t want to actually tackle the issues I have with his and his kids’ dynamic in comic book canon. I don’t carry over things like the adoption issue or the Robin succession into YJ fics, as I don’t think there’s anything that suggests they’re ever a specific issue in YJ and I don’t feel a need to make them one. So pretty much anything and everything I write in YJ goes with the backstory that Dick’s already adopted by Season One, and he’s the one to grant each later Robin permission to use the mantle, with no conflict over that, and more of a pre-Crisis transition to Nightwing than the post-Crisis firing from Robin. And this fic inherently needs Good Dad Bruce Wayne to work, lol.

2) I needed Klarion the Witch-Boy. Who of course exists in comic book canon, but is muuuuuch different there, and I just needed him to be a little demonic evil shithead, who sets everything in motion to get payback on the heroes for thwarting the Light in Season One, and he targets Robin due to being the oft-cited ‘first of the baby brat heroes’ and the ‘heart of the cape community.’

You don’t really need to be familiar with YJ canon at all for this one, as it goes sharply AU from after Season One, and only faintly and vaguely references specific events from that season. And I use my own YJ-ized version of the Titans as much as the actual YJ Team.

So basically, the plot of this one is to take revenge on the heroes for spoiling his game in Season One, Klarion plays a new game, by putting a chaos curse on Robin. It essentially erases him from peoples’ memories, though he’s perfectly able to make new ones. If he re-introduces himself to someone ask Dick Grayson, for instance, they don’t suddenly remember who Dick Grayson is or was, but they don’t forget about him again from that point onward, its like they meet him for the first time as a stranger.

But the curse part of things is only Batman can break it and restore everyone’s memories of Dick and his actual history, and only by identifying him for who he really is. And Dick can’t be part of breaking his own curse or else it seals it and makes it permanent and unbreakable forever.

Which of course leaves Dick completely miserable at first, understandably, and Bruce (and everyone else Dick knows, to varying different degrees) feeling some kind of loss but with no idea what it is they think or feel that they’re missing. Dick makes some half-hearted attempts at starting a new life for himself in Gotham, and in the process befriends a street kid named Jason Todd, though Dick introduces himself to Jason with just the name Robin.

The way the curse operates is it restitches together peoples’ memories to cover up the gaps where memories of him would go. So for instance, even though Jason never knew Dick before the curse, he was familiar with Batman and Robin just as much as any Gothammite was.....but due to the curse, the name Robin, upon meeting Dick, had no special meaning to him or anyone else. As far as he knew, Batman had always operated on his own in Gotham, the first teen superhero was that Speedy kid in Star City, etc. So when Jason first meets Dick, he just thinks he’s some dude whose name happens to be Robin.

Eventually, because Dick’s been kinda torturing himself by spying on Bruce just to ‘keep an eye on him’ and still watch his back, and he’s recognized by now that Bruce is mourning his loss without even knowing that he’s missing something....so Dick, who has also kinda come to see Jason as a little brother figure due to watching out for him as well....decides to kill two birds with one stone, unfortunate pun not intended. (Jason doesn’t die in this one, lol). Basically, Dick puts in motion the chain of events that lead Jason to stealing Batman’s tires, because he doesn’t know EXACTLY what Bruce will do but he knows it’ll get his attention in a big way and Bruce will take it from there.

One thing leads to another, Jason ends up living with Bruce and when eventually he wants to be trained by Bruce so he can do what he does and protect kids like he used to be.....when asked to pick a name....Jason names himself after the guy who always looked out for him, and who led to him being found by Bruce in the first place. He doesn’t know that his friend ‘Robin’ steered him towards those tires deliberately, just to bring him and Bruce into contact, but he does credit him with making the suggestion that ‘inadvertently’ (as far as he knows) enabled his and Bruce’s introduction, and so he names himself in honor of the boy who helped him and who he tried to track down again to similarly help, after Bruce adopted him, but was never able to find again.

Over the years, Dick also ends up steering Tim, Cass, Duke and Damian to Bruce in different ways than comic book canon (Steph and Babs’ debuts remain their own, as family adjacent but not family specifically) and thus is integral to the forming of the Batfam and has a connection with them even before the curse ultimately ends up broken and he’s able to reclaim his full identity. And each of them end up Robin at least briefly, like Steph is never Robin in this AU, and sticks with Spoiler, whereas Cass IS briefly Robin before becoming Batgirl after Babs. I did this for a few different reasons...

One, I really like that Cass is never Robin in main continuity as it creates a different dynamic between her and Dick than most of their siblings have, BUT I’ve always been curious to play around what Cass-as-Robin might even be like, just for an AU. Two, part of the Black Bat and Batgirl but never Robin sequence of mantles for Cass in the comic book continuity is like.....although it doesn’t get explored nearly enough, Babs was as much a kind of mother figure for Cass as Bruce was a father figure, despite Babs’ young age. So it makes more sense for Cass to stick more to just Bat-mantles than to ever be a Robin in the comic books. But in YJ, Babs is even younger, and just way too young to have the specific kind of dynamic that leads to that in the comic books, so its not as unreasonable IMO for her to have a different dynamic in her early days in the family here, before becoming closer with Babs and taking up the Batgirl mantle after she moves on to become Oracle.

And then also, and this is also the primary reason for making Duke a Robin briefly, before Damian is old enough....I got hung up on the title and it just didn’t work as well if it was Robins + Cass and Duke, lololol. See, in addition to helping steer the family into the points of introduction that make them a family, over the years he also acts as like, a guardian angel figure to the various family members, looking out for them and interceding in times of extreme danger, like when Jason is almost killed by the Joker. He’s always in disguise, but the kids eventually compare notes and realize there’s a singular figure behind each of their introductions to Bruce and the guy swooping out of nowhere to save their behinds whenever they’re most in danger, and Jason eventually connects this back to the guy who apparently NOT so coincidentally suggested he go after the Batmobile’s tires that fateful night, and the kids end up jokingly/not-so-jokingly referring to this figure as the Patron Saint of Robins. (Shout-out to the occasional mentions/allusions of Jason’s Catholicism).

They never tell Bruce about this figure (at least before Bruce starts to put together clues on his own), because they all figured out that for whatever reason, this person despite wanting them all to meet Bruce seems to want to avoid Bruce himself, and they kinda want to respect that as a kind of payback for his help, and also like....Bruce, even a kinder, gentler Bruce, is still Bruce. And when Bruce is gonna Bruce, that means Batparanoia. And all of them for various reasons DO trust that this guy has nothing but good intentions towards them, and so they don’t want to like....ruin or tarnish the positivity they associate with his intercession in their lives with paranoia or treating him like a bad guy. Which ultimately is really just smoke and mirrors for saying that he’s kinda a ‘just for them’ secret. Its a Robin thing.

(Until its not).

Because meanwhile, Dick, in between meeting the various Batfam members and pulling strings and looking out for them from the shadows, at first travels the world looking for ways to break his curse. But when ultimately its clear that the only way to break it is the loophole built into it already, Bruce identifying him for who he really is, but without Dick doing anything to steer him towards the answer, Dick settles into a new hero identity as Nightwing, and forms the Teen Titans, a public group of young superheroes (minus Roy and Wally, unfortunately, but still with Donna, Garth, Raven, Kory, ignoring season 3 Vic and also Terra because AU redemption arc what what, etc). And the Teen Titans avoid both the Young Justice Team and the Justlce League with EXTREME measures, much to the other heroes’ confusion and aggravation, because in the early days of the Titans, in a moment of what he’d term weakness, on one of his ‘bad days,’ Dick tells them enough of his story that they’re able to put together a good sense of what happened and who he really is by reading between the lines and what he leaves unsaid....

BUT as a result, all end up extremely committed to not mixing and mingling casually with the rest of the cape community because they don’t want to risk dropping any hints about the guy under Nightwing’s mask, in case that might count as steering Batman towards clues and seal the curse for good. So I have a lot of fun with having the Titans just nope out of the scene the second the bad guys are defeated even when they have to team up with other heroes, leaving the other heroes confused as hell and trying not to be all ‘WHY DON’T YOU LIKE US??”

Anyway, so yeah, that’s the gist of this one, lol. With it of course following the eventual plot that like...the Batfam starts to Detect and put things together.

ANYWHO!

Snippet

Damian versus Klarion: Round One

“Aww, its adorable that you think you’re in my league,” the Witch-Boy cooed in an absolute mockery of sympathy. Damian bristled, but before he could do anything more than that, he was faced with a much more pressing matter as reality completely lost its mind.

The walls of the cavern fell away in an instant, only to be replaced with a whirling dervish of winds all around them, as if they now stood in the center of a cyclone that bled red and silver and black. It shrieked and wailed in a chorus of voices just on the other side of being comprehensible, a symphony of the damned that set every nerve in Damian’s body aflame with a primal instinct to get out, to find silence, to be anywhere but here.

He’d barely staggered a step backwards when the ground erupted beneath him, splitting apart into jagged obsidian shards that bobbed precariously in the sea of magma barely glimpsed through cracks now spiderwebbing their way across the floor. Spears of lightning burst upwards through them, stabbing impossibly at the heavens rather than raining down from them. They hissed and crackled as they flickered like forked serpent tongues of electric violet and black. The forks becoming branches, the pillars of sky-shattering light transforming into the trunks of great trees that grew upwards and outward, weaving a canopy overhead. One that wept violently red leaves that fell gently to the ground, only to hiss and bubble like acid once they did.

“See, normally this is when I’d hit someone with a little razzle-dazzle like this,” Klarion called out over the song of madness he’d created, as it crooned and careened wildly all around them. He snapped his fingers, and in the span of a second it all ceased. Reality reaffirmed itself, and all was right with the world once more…except now the two of them stood at the end of a hallway in Wayne Manor.

Damian stumbled, the sudden reappearance of firm ground paradoxically being the thing to challenge his balance. The demon boy standing beside him crooked his thumb and forefinger in the semblance of a gun, the smile pasted across his face one of wickedly gleeful malice.

“But you, kiddo, you’re special. Cuz there’s nothing I could do to you now that could top what I’ve already done, so why try when I can just savor the moment instead?”

“What are you babbling about?” Damian demanded roughly. In the wake of what the Witch-Boy had just conjured up with nothing more than a gesture, he was keenly aware of how flimsy a shield his bravado made. He just had absolutely no idea what else to fall back on.

Klarion only threw back his head and laughed though, skipping merrily down the hall as he did.

“I know something you don’t know,” he sing-songed and Damian lost what little grasp of his patience he’d managed to hang onto.

“You overestimate my need for an answer. Attempt to intimidate me all you wish, but I have no desire to indulge your little game any further.”

Klarion jerked to a stop and spun around, his face screwed into a childish pout. He stomped his foot, petulance personified. “I’m not intimidating you anymore, I’m gloating! Ugh, you’re so stupid! They’re completely different, how can you not tell?”

Every light in the hallway flickered and fizzed abruptly. The walls wavered, bubbled, momentarily molten as if made of wax.

Again Damian was reminded just how mercurial this being he was faced with was, and how dangerous. Perhaps, as Father would say, this was not the time to indulge his own instinctive inclinations. Or as Todd would put it, just because you’re already fucked, that’s no reason to fuck yourself over more than you have to.

Crude as his older brother was, there was occasional merit to his…pithiness. Not that he would be admitting that any time soon, of course.

“Fine. What is it you wish to gloat about then?” Damian grated out. The appeasement, such as it was, tried its best to stick in his throat before finally clawing its way free. But at least it proved worth the effort when the godling’s mood reverted back to impishness as readily as with the flip of a switch.

“Well. Its like this, you see.” Klarion said. He dragged it out as he folded both legs underneath him to sit cross-legged in the air, plopping his head into his hands. “I did a baaaaaaaaaaaaad, bad thing to your family, a loooooong time ago. And none of you have done anything about it, because you don’t even know! Isn’t that funny? Doesn’t matter how big a hero Daddy Bats is if he doesn’t even know what needs saving huh? Little Catch-22 there, you might say.”

“Yes. Quite hysterical,” Damian said dryly. “So what is it you claim to have done then?”

The Witch-Boy just sat there, regarding him with amusement, and the seconds marched on into minutes. Damian’s skin crawled. Prickling with impatience and possibly something…more. He wasn’t quite ready to name it anxiety or something as melodramatic as all that yet. In fact, he’d rather not put a name to it at all, but today did not appear to be a day for configuring things to his liking.  

Klarion’s wicked grin grew as if sensing his thoughts, though to the best of his knowledge (and Damian did quickly ransack the library of his memory just to be sure) there was no indication telepathy was included among the Chaos Lord’s many, many powers. And still that detestable smile stretched slowly wider all the same, in perfect synchronization with the rising tide of Damian’s unease. Perhaps the Witch-Boy’s file was in need of annotation.

“How many doors would you say are in this hallway?”

“What? Seven.” Damian snapped out his answer, annoyed by the non sequitur. Not to mention baffled. Was it too much to expect even a semblance of linear thought from the Chaos brat?

“Are you suuuuuuure?” The Witch-Boy stretched his query out obnoxiously. “Maybe you should count again. Just for kicks and giggles.”

Damian throttled back each and every retort attempting to spring to his lips, stuffing them back down and cramming a lid on everything he most dearly wished to say to this most vexing of…shitheads. Once again, it appeared as though nothing less than Todd’s preferred form of nomenclature would suffice. Wonderful. On top of everything else Damian had to deal with today, he seemed to be finding common ground with the man all over the place. Was there no end to the indignities he must suffer?

But marshaling his own formidable willpower, Damian took a deep breath and indulged the Chaos Lord, glancing his eyes down the length of the hallway and counting out each doorway one by one. There was his own room of course, with Cassandra’s to the right of his, and the room Brown used when staying over to the right of hers. That was three. Then there was Thomas directly across from his own room, with Drake to his right and Todd just beyond that, with Father’s room at the very end of the hall, his master suite staggered and with no direct opposite like the others. Seven.

Except all of a sudden there was a door directly opposite his father’s. For a total of eight.

Damian’s brow furrowed in consternation. The faint whispers of uncertainty already seeded throughout him bore fruit, ripening into poisonous stabbings of doubt.

“That’s not real,” he stated with as much conviction as he could muster.

The Witch-Boy’s smile only grew wider still. “Isn’t it, though?”

“There’s never been a door there before,” Damian persisted, striding confidently down the hall towards it. The Chaos Lord flitted ahead of him, inverting til he was upside down and skipping merrily once more, though this time from the ceiling.

“Or has it been there all along?” He sing-songed some more.

“I would think we might have noticed if it had been,” Damian growled.

“Yes, you’d think, wouldn’t you? You are all supposed to be a family of detectives, I thought. Makes you wonder…if you could miss this, what else might you have failed to notice?”

Damian snarled to himself and did his best to shut out the demon boy’s prattling. He quickened his strides, eating up the length of the hallway in his haste to reach its end. He wasn’t sure what opening the door would prove, let alone what bewilderment the godling had conjured on its other side, but it appeared the only end to this game of his was through it, so let there be an end to it already.

And yet, for all his certainty - or best facsimile of it - he couldn’t help but pause once he reached the door in question. His hand hovered within reach of its brass knob, but some instinct, some…caution, held him at bay. As much as he wanted to dismiss all this as just one more of the Chaos Lord’s inane charades, there was a tension in the air that felt too weighty to be the product of just magical conjuring. Something more was in play here. Real forces were at work. His father might disdain magic, but Damian had been around enough of it himself to know when true power had been raised. And the span of empty space between his hand and this hither-to-unseen doorknob held more of it than Damian had felt throughout all the mad warpings Klarion had made of reality thus far.

“Are you sure you want to do that?” Klarion asked from somewhere overhead. His voice, usually pitched to carry, was so soft for a moment Damian mistook it for his own inner doubts. “Some doors are easier to open than to close again, you know.”

Even knowing the goading for what it was couldn’t stop Damian then, and with a simple breath to fortify himself, he reached for the knob, spun it once, and shoved the door open all in a single sharp movement.

The Witch-Boy giggled up above.

The door swung wide, a forceful arc that should have revealed anything and everything within it all at once; the better to react quickly to whatever that might be. Fine in principle, perfect in execution, but thwarted by one small detail:

There was nothing on the other side.

And not in the sense of it being just an empty room, but true nothingness. A pitch-black abyss darker than the deepest night, yawning forth from the doorway in a vast, impenetrable shroud. Nor was anything hidden in the darkness, Damian knew, even if just intuitively. He could feel it, that he stood on the edge of an impossible cliff, that there was nothing beyond this threshold but an aching chasm of emptiness and loss. The surety of it hung in the air, thick and heavy, a miasma that seeped through to his side of the doorway and clung to him like the moisture of a fog beads upon the skin.

Klarion’s head suddenly popped up alongside him, hovering just over his shoulder.

Albeit still upside down.

“Well that doesn’t seem right,” he mused, tapping at his lips with a forefinger. “What do you suppose is meant to be in there?”

The last of Damian’s brittle patience shattered.

“Enough! What is the meaning of all this, demon? Speak plainly, for once in your miserable existence!”

His self-preservation instincts and the reminder of just who it was he was shouting at kicked in too little too late, but he wouldn’t take his exasperated fury back even if he could. He was who he was after all. But fortunately, that described the Witch-Boy just as accurately, and rather take offense or perceive any actual threat from Damian’s rage, the Chaos Lord just shrieked with laughter and sprung backwards. He flipped right side up, still hovering in mid-air, and clapped his hands with glee.

“Oh, I should have done this ages ago,” Klarion sang out. “Why, you’re almost as fun as he used to be. Back before he got all droll and serious, that is. He’s no fun at all anymore, nothing like this. Never wants to play, always just running back to his tower with that little bitch of a demoness.”

His face soured like he’d just sucked on a lemon. But rather than stop there, his countenance kept morphing into an increasingly savage scowl, the longer he ranted. The hallway was suddenly sweltering, baking with unseen heat that twisted the air into shimmering ribbons. The small horns sprouting from his forehead burst into scimitars of flame that cut through those ribbons and set them similarly ablaze.

“Always putting on airs like she’s some kind of royalty, just because her Daddy Dearest put the fear into a few peasants back in the day,” the Witch-Boy snarled viciously. “As if that’s enough to put her on par with the likes of me. No one is the likes of me. NO ONE!”

Reality itself quaked with the force of his shout. White-blue flames spat forth and crescendoed down the length of the corridor, splashing against its walls and searing them to a crisp. Damian braced himself for all the good it would do, keenly aware of the void still gaping hungrily behind his back, but before the fire could become an actual danger to him as well, all was quiet once more.

Silence hung in the air much like the demon boy, poised yet motionless. Suspended. Waiting.

And then Klarion simply inhaled and brushed his hands down the front of his garments, smoothing out the wrinkles as he reclaimed his calm. The corridor restored itself to its former self, curtains of vintage reality unrolling from the ceiling to the floor as though papering over the damage. Damian felt rather than saw when the portal behind him swung shut and was replaced with the expanse of ivory paint and ornate sconces he was used to seeing in its place.

“I am one of a kind, after all,” Klarion finally remarked. It was a casual drawl offered forth almost off-handedly, as if more a reminder to himself than uttered for anyone else’s sake. He used one hand to spell out letters in the air. They appeared and vanished again in bursts of fireworks and fluorescent flame. “U-N-I-Q-U-E.”

“As I, apparently, am not,” Damian said, seizing upon the Chaos Lord’s restored calm and good cheer. “Who is this ‘he’ you mentioned? If I’m to be pitted against him as entertainment in your eyes, might I at least know his name?”

“Nuh-uh-uh,” the Witch-Boy scolded. He wagged his finger at Damian. “No spoilers. That’s not how the game is played.”

Keenly aware of the boy’s power once more, Damian gritted his teeth and pressed on. “Well, if there are to be rules, shouldn’t I at least know what those are?”

Klarion sucked in a deep breath, drawing himself up along with his inhalation as though preparing for some great speech…and instead just toppling backward, flopping onto an extravagant fainting couch that suddenly appeared beneath him, though similarly floating in the air.

“I can’t recall at the moment.” His now-faint voice drifted up from where he lay buried amid a mountain of pillows. “I’ve had a terribly exhausting day. But you’re supposed to be a detective, remember? Go…I don’t know. Detect things.”

He flapped an arm at Damian dismissively, and then crooked a finger into a twirling motion that set his divan to spinning in lazy circles.

“Isn’t life grand?” Klarion sighed fondly. “With all its twists and turns, its eddies and swirls. I mean, take the two of us. Scant hours ago, we were mortal enemies, and just look at us now.”

The Witch-Boy lazily rolled his head to the side as the couch drifted to bring him face-to-face with Damian. His lips spread wide in that malevolent, wicked grin of his once again, but somehow it managed to be even wider than any he’d shown off before. His eyes blazed with a hellish inner light, and his voice, when next he spoke, dropped deep into a demonic register. A bass that boomed forth and set Damian’s very bones to rattling.

“Ain’t we got fun?”

[jinmukangwrites]

Good Deeds

Day 5 of Batfamweek2020 / Identity Reveal / @official-batfam-week

Summary: Scarecrow breaks out of Arkham again, but this time he’s not messing around.

Day late but oh well!

AO3

-o-o-o-o-

Dick’s pacing. It’s driving Tim insane, especially since he was literally shot less than a day before and shouldn’t be standing let alone pacing. But there’s nothing he can do about it. No one besides Alfred or Bruce can get Dick to sit still, and one is in England visiting his grandchildren and the other is the cause of the pacing.

It’s a Scarecrow attack. A massive one. One that has caused an all-hands-on-deck protocol. It’s almost like all the other break-outs, all the other new toxins and new tactics, was all for practice. For the first time in a long time, Scarecrow is a genuine threat and not a normal occurrence, no more unpredictable than a five day forecast. This week he’s been an unseen storm, spreading a toxin so potent and persistent that it’s victims are rendered screaming and clawing at their eyes on the floor for hours on end until their hearts stop.

Tim hasn’t found a vaccine yet, and the catch-all vaccine every hospital, bat, and first-aid kit carries is only slowing the mortality rate, placing patients in coma-like states to await the promise of an actual vaccine that actually works. Hospitals are scrambling and Tim has been doing nothing but test after test while the others all went out to find Scarecrow and his army of thugs he has somehow accumulated.

Tim snarls when once again his current attempt at a vaccine fails against the samples they have gathered and slams the beaker onto the table hard enough to wobble the other vials and glasses resting on the same surface. It feels like Scarecrow has finally perfected his formula and it’s setting every single one of Tim’s nerves on fire. 

Dick stops his pacing and then hobbles over towards Tim with a worried expression. Tim almost wants to shove him back onto the medical bed and strap him down to keep him from agitating the hole in his side even more, but his body betrays him as he leans into Dick’s sudden embrace.

“It will be fine,” Dick says, “you got this, little bird.”

Tim shakes his head and forces himself to break the embrace and return to his work. “Has B responded yet?”

Dick doesn’t reply and Tim bites his lip.

Batman went off grid hours ago. No response on the comms, no emergency signal, no signal at all. Last any of them knew, Bruce was checking out a suspected haunt for Scarecrow, but when he stopped responding and Orphan and Spoiler went to check the haunt out, they came back empty handed.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Dick says, more to himself than Tim.

And then the routine continues, Dick pacing and hovering his hand over the comms, listening to every single thing that’s said, hoping for word on Bruce, while Tim changes his formula and compares it to past formulas and tries again.

A couple hours pass, and Tim’s just finishing up his next attempt as Dick’s finally collapsed onto the chair in front of the bat-computer, simply listening to the limited amount of chatter going on from Damian, Cass, Steph, Duke, and Jason over the comms as they check possible haunts one by one and Oracle works to sift through every kind of signal going off in Gotham that’s not civilian cellular or police/bat frequencies. Most of the haunts are just traps, similar to what Dick fell into the day before, nothing there but a bunch of grunts with guns. No one has gotten hurt yet, but there’s been multiple times one of the members have had to cut off to fight a battle with a dozen or so gunmen, leaving the others in a tense silence that has Tim cutting off his comm completely, relying on Dick to update him every so often.

At least it makes the injured man feel a little helpful. Dick’s smart, but not the best choice to help Tim out with complicated science. He’s injured, so no use out on the battlefield. The most Tim can do is let Dick man the comms and update sometimes. Plus, Tim’s sure it’s relieving some of Dick’s stress as well, he hasn’t verbalized it yet but Tim’s sure he feels horrible not being out there with the others right now.

Then, suddenly, Dick jumps up from the chair and whips his hands across the keyboard of the computer, a concerned crease to his eyebrows that has Tim placing his formula down and walking near the shoulder of the first Robin.

“Jason says to check the cable,” Dick explains in a rush.

Tim’s just about ask why but Dick finally connects the computer to the satellite and Tim feels his stomach drop.

Broadcasting on live TV on every channel in Gotham is an image of a man tied to a chair, leaning forward and panting slightly. The ropes of the chair are close to the only thing holding the man up. There’s nothing else to see in the feed, the area around the man is black, and there’s no noise besides the heavy, labored breathing.

The man is Batman.

Tim quickly turns his comms back on to be met with the chaos of multiple family members all trying to talk over each other.

Jason is arguing towards a frantic Damian that he saw the feed walking past a television shop and Steph is rambling about other places they could check to find Bruce while Duke argues that they’ve already checked everywhere. Cass is silent, but Tim’s phone vibrates with the notification of a text with the simple words of he’s very hurt.

Tim ignores the arguing to look back at the feed. Cass can notice details that no one else can, and the suit and armor makes it hard to see any kind of injuries besides the sight of a purpling bruise on Bruce’s jaw. He gives off the vibe of being more hurt than that though, so he’ll take Cass’s word for it.

Suddenly, Barbara’s voice snaps for everyone to shut up. Never one to anger Barbara Gordon, the entire line goes silent.

“I’m tracking the signal as we speak,” Oracle hisses over the line, “so all of you shut up and keep looking. We’re wasting time arguing-“

Suddenly, there’s a change on the feed that has everyone silencing for a whole new reason. Batman looks up, past the camera, towards something behind it and narrows his eyes. There’s someone else there, and something is about to happen.

Tim swallows his growing fear as Scarecrow himself enters the screen, costume as freaky as ever with the noose tie and potato sack head, with a wide gaping smile cut jaggedly and held together with twine.

“Fear is often brought with the unknown,” Scarecrow says, his voice sounding raspy and light. He stops and stands behind Batman, spindly fingers laying down on the hero’s shoulders. “So I won’t spoil you all with a monologue.”

Tim and Dick share a glance.

“Babs, please tell me you can cut the feed,” Dick says into the comm piece in his ear. Barbara begins to snap that she’s working on it and Tim can only watch helplessly as Scarecrow continues.

“So I have one thing to say,” the villain brings a hand up to the top of Batman’s cowl and bunches up the fabric ever so slowly, leaving Tim to wonder how he managed to bypass the security measures that would stop any common crook from touching the mask. The grin on Scarecrow’s face seems to widen as he leans forward and Batman’s jaw pops with the man stubbornly grinding his teeth.

“Who’s afraid of the Big. Bad. Bat.”

The cowl is ripped off so quickly afterwards that it almost leaves Tim gasping. Bruce Wayne’s blue eyes glare at the camera for a moment before he growls at the wheezing-with-laughter Scarecrow as the villain begins to walk off the screen. The image of Bruce glaring off screen, refusing to say a thing, plays for a minute longer before the feed finally cuts off. Barbara gives a frustrated yell saying she’s lost the signal completely. Damian begins to practically screech for her to do better while Jason helpfully puts in that ooh Joker is not going to like this and Tim can only look at Dick as the man continues to watch the blank screen with wide eyes and a fist pressed against his mouth.

It’s not the first time one of their own has been revealed on live television. Dick’s had it happen to himself when the Crime Syndicate captured him. Tim can only imagine what’s going on inside his head.

Tim quickly backs up from the screen and turns his comms back off, doing the only thing he can do right now, and that’s figure out the anti-toxin so no more people have to be literally scared to death.

As the next fails too, he places both his hands flat against the table and sucks in a shaking breath.

Batman’s identity is revealed, which means it’s only a matter of time before each and every other bat is soon figured out. None of his vaccines are showing any kind of progress, and he’s running out of samples to test his failures on. Nightwing is injured and the other’s are all at risk of joining him the more villains and traps they run head first into.

How are they going to get out of this one?

[sqoiler]

THe Director's cut for into the spoilersverse please! and a star too!

ok i’m gonna copy-paste the fic and like. comment on sections. i guess.

so the idea for this fic came from me realizing i have a bunch of alternate stephs. someone had asked me about a black canary steph and i liked the idea but didn’t want to do a full fic with her, so i was kind of like “hey! what if the stephs met each other!” and here we are. 

Lex Luthor made a multiverse machine, in order to mine Kryptonite from other dimensions. It was kinda a good idea, except the machine was faulty, and kept dragging other stuff from the multiverse into Lex’s earth as well. 

The League was dispatched to deal with the alternate versions of themselves that were brought into their Earth. Before he left, Batman assigned everyone in Gotham to guard the city from the various monsters and Rogues who roamed the city.

Spoiler had just finished a fight with a female version of Oswald Cobblepot and was headed to Nightwing to help him deal with a pair of mischievous twins, when the air in front of her opened up and a dark shaped tumbled through. Spoiler grabbed her bo-staff and dropped into a crouch, wary.

i think the “mischievous twins” thing was supposed to be a reference to the batman beyond dee dee twins. 

The shape sat up, and Spoiler absorbed the dark cape and pointy ears, the purple flashes on the suit, and the golden curls tumbling down her back.

Spoiler met her own eyes.

“Shit,” the other girl said, and she stood, brushing off her knees. Spoiler lowered her bo-staff and straightened, looking at herself curiously. “Did you pull me here?”

“No,” Spoiler said. “Lex Luthor made a machine….”

“Say no more,” the other girl said, and Spoiler noticed a yellow bat emblazoned on her chest. Her mouth fell open.

“Batgirl?” she gasped. She vaguely recognized the suit from the images of the other timeline that she’d seen, months ago.

“Yeah,” Batgirl said. “And you’re Spoiler. I haven’t been Spoiler in years, but you make it work. I like the half-mask, it’s nice.”

“Thanks,” Spoiler said, feeling a little ridiculous. “Sorry, I’ve never met an alternate version of myself before.”

“Me neither,” Batgirl admitted. “Although you always hear about it, don’t you.”

“Yeah,” Spoiler agreed. This was seriously surreal. Seeing herself–same height, a little longer hair, but standing so confidently? Spoiler blinked and told herself not to compare. They were different, after all. “So, Batgirl, huh? How’d…how’d you land that?”

“Cass gave it to me,” Batgirl said, shrugging. “When B died. But he’s back now, don’t worry.”

“Huh,” Spoiler said, and she remembered the mentions of Cass as Batgirl, too. “So where’s Babs, then?”

“You mean Babs is still Batgirl in your universe?” Batgirl asked, eyes wide. “This universe?” She gestured around them. Spoiler nodded.

when i made this fic, i didn’t INTEND to slam dunk rebirth/new 52, but that’s what happened. i figured when i started that i needed the two “canon” stephs, and then i made a list of the other stephs i wanted to include (some of which were nightwing!steph & robin!steph) but i had to whittle it down so there’d be the same amount of characters as spider-verse. not because this is a spider-verse au, but because i figured that the gag was already there in the title/concept, and it seemed like a good amount of characters–not too many, or too little. speaking of that, every character ROUGHLY corresponds to a spider-verse one: rebirth steph = miles, preboot steph = peter b. parker, cluekid = peni, dart = spider-ham, canary = gwen, and batman steph = spider noir. 

“Yeah, nobody else has ever been Batgirl,” Spoiler said.

“That’s so fucking weird,” Batgirl said. “Babs hasn’t been Batgirl since before I started out, and that was like five years ago. You mean she didn’t get shot?”

“She did, but there was an implant,” Spoiler said. “So she’s better.”

“Wow. That’s great but–how do you survive without Oracle?” Batgirl asked. “I want my universe back.”

Spoiler agreed with her, and wondered how to put her back. Should she take her to Batman? Hm. For all the multiverse shenanigans she’d heard about, she really didn’t know how to deal with them, what the protocol was.

“Let’s go find Drake,” Spoiler said. “He just got back from a multiverse adventure.”

“Drake? Like the rapper?”

“No, like Tim. My boyfriend? It’s his new code name.”

physically painful to put steph & tim together, but it had to be done.

“Tim picked his own fucking last name? That’s so stupid,” Batgirl said, and although Spoiler agreed, she didn’t say that. Spoiler checked her trackers, and found that Drake was across the city. She got out her grapple, and Batgirl did the same.

“Wait,” Batgirl called a minute later, when they were already in the air. They landed on the roof of the next building and Spoiler turned to her expectantly. “Did you say that he’s your boyfriend?”

“Yeah,” Spoiler said. “Is he not?”

“Not since like, middle school!” Batgirl cried, and Spoiler rolled her eyes.

“We don’t live in the same universe,” she reminded her. “Our Tims are probably totally different.”

“Yeah, right,” Batgirl said, and then there was a flash of purple light and Spoiler turned to face it. Two people appeared. One of them was in a purple bodysuit with a lightning bolt emblazoned on the chest, blonde hair pulled into a messy ponytail. The other was wearing fishnet tights and a leather jacket, an armored purple unitard under the jacket and a skirt over that. Her blonde hair was long, nearly to her elbows, and free-flowing. The new pair blinked at Spoiler and Batgirl.

“Holyfuckthat’susbutBats,” the girl with the lightning bolts said, her words tipping over each other, and Spoiler said, “Before today, I’d never been involved in multiverse shenanigans, and now this!”

She gestured at the duo.

“I’m Dart,” the speedster-Steph said, holding out a hand. Spoiler shook it, dumbfounded.

i felt like dart would be accepted as the most outlandish to the other stephs. she’s a meta, she has nothing to do with batman at all, she barely remembers living in gotham, etc, which is why in my head she was equivalent to spider-ham. like i feel like rebirth steph looked around at these other versions of herself like “sure, that makes sense”, but with dart she was like “what the fuck am i looking at?”

“I’m Canary,” the other Steph said. “Violet Canary, but generally they just call me Canary.”

“Like Red and Gold Canaries,” Dart said gleefully.

“….No,” Canary said. “I don’t know who that is.”

“Black Canary’s partners,” Dart said, rolling her eyes. “Cass and Jason.”

“Cass and Jason are Bats,” Batgirl said. “Not Canaries.”

“Not in my world,” Dart said. “What, in your universe is everyone a Bat?”

however weird all the other stephs found dart, though, she found them all equally weird. all these people we’re used to seeing as bats she saw as totally different things and having them all lumped together would be surreal to her. she grew up with barry as her dad, so learning that in these other universes some stephs a) stayed with arthur as their dad, or b) had some random rich guy she kinda knows as their dad was pretty weird. 

“Dick, Jason, Tim, Cass, Damian, Babs, Duke,” Spoiler rattled off.

“Duke?” Batgirl asked.

“Yeah, none of those people are Bats in my world,” Dart said. “Dick’s a Super, Cass and Jason are Canaries, Damian’s a Lantern, Tim’s a Martian, Duke’s a Wonder, and Babs is Aquagirl. Or, well, she used to be, before the accident.”

“See?” Batgirl demanded, gesturing at Spoiler.

“I didn’t give her the implant!” Spoiler said. “It happened before I even started crime-fighting!”

“She’s not Oracle in your universe?” Canary asked, looking wildly startled. Spoiler threw her hands up.

“Sorry that you guys landed in a garbage universe, I guess,” she said, and Dart patted her shoulder.

other stephs pushing my rebirth-sucks agenda. i regret nothing. 

“So this is your place, huh? Kinda nice,” she said. “You know, I’ve never really been in Gotham before? Not since I moved away, anyway.”

“Yeah, how the fuck are you a speedster?” Canary asked. “I’m not even a meta, and my job depends on me having superpowers.”

“I was going to ask the same question,” Batgirl said.

“I mean, basically the same way everyone else did,” Dart said. “I made Wally tell me how he did it, who made Barry tell him how he did it, who made Jay tell him how he did it. And, uh, the rest is history.”

“But why were you with Wally–? Never mind,” Spoiler said. “We really need to find Drake.”

At Dart and Canary’s confused looks, Batgirl said in a loud whisper, “As in Tim. That’s his new codename. And yeah, we know it’s stupid.”

“Thank you, Batgirl,” Spoiler said loudly. “Let’s just go, yeah?”

“Won’t Batman snipe me?” Dart asked, and Canary asked Batgirl for a spare grapple.

dart in her head: what the fuckkkkkkk

other stephs: calm down lol it’s just batman

“He’s out of town,” Spoiler said. “Just follow us.”

“Sure thing,” Dart said. “Wait, what’s your codename?”

“Spoiler,” Spoiler said. “You mean you were never…?”

“I used to be Kid Flash, but never ‘Spoiler’, whoever that is,” Dart said. “Sorry.”

“Even I was Spoiler, and I’m not even a Bat,” Canary said, and Dart said, “Okay, we get it, I’m a weirdo among Stephanies. Let’s go.”

They went, and Spoiler wondered if the other Bats were also dealing with themselves. She was leading the way, which was weird, because she never led any ways. Maybe if it was just her and Tim, or something.

Below her, Spoiler caught sight of a swarm of Clayfaces, and she had to stop. She yelled to the others to help her, and they dropped into the alley below.

Fighting with only herself as backup was weird, Spoiler thought. Batgirl threw batarangs that had stuff inside them. Dart sped around confusing the Clayfaces and Spoiler brought her bo-staff down hard on one, but it just sloshed through his arm. Oops.

“Cover your ears!” Canary yelled, and she threw a little device at a Clayface. It screamed, a loud noise that was what Spoiler assumed the Canary Cry sounded like. The Clayfaces barely reacted.

From above, a dark shape descended. Spoiler could’ve cried in relief, even though she was sure it wasn’t her own Batman.

Batman threw a device at a Clayface, which sent out some sort of signal that froze all the Clayfaces that weren’t already frozen by Batgirl’s batarangs. Icearangs? Whatever.

Quick work was made of the Clayfaces, and then Batman led the Stephs back into the air.

“You saved us!” Dart said.

“Yes,” Batman said. Spoiler inspected their new friend. This Batman was shorter than Bruce, and the bat across her chest was purple. The eyes on the cowl glowed with purple light, but it was still unmistakably Batman. She had on purple lipstick, and Spoiler spotted a scar near her mouth. She knew who this was.

“Holy shit,” Spoiler breathed, and beside her, the others seemed to come to the same conclusion. “You’re me.”

this moment right here, where steph looks at batman and it’s herself…? that’s probably why i even bothered writing this fic. 

“I would argue that I’m me,” Batman said, her mouth twisting into a smirk. “But yes, I am another Stephanie Wayne.”

“Wayne?” Spoiler and Batgirl cried at the same time.

as much as i love ignoring canon, in this fic i sort of had to go along with it, and i think this moment was kind of a good one.

“Fuck,” Dart said. “If that isn’t a weird last name to think of me having.”

“It makes sense that circumstances would differ,” Canary said. “Although in my universe, I was never truly a Bat.”

“But Wayne?” Spoiler said, waving her hands.

“Bruce actually adopted you?” Batgirl asked.

“No,” Batman said. “He left a portion of the estate to me in his will, and after I took up the mantle I changed my last name.”

“What the fuck,” Spoiler said, and Batgirl seemed of the same mind.

“Why are you panicking? It’s not that weird,” Dart said. “And I mean, clearly you all aren’t Stephanie Allen.”

“Allen?” Batgirl repeated, her voice an octave higher.

“Sweet Jesus,” Batman said, and Spoiler pushed that image aside for examining at a later time. “The pair of you never shed ‘Brown’, didn’t you.”

“No!” Spoiler cried.

“I’ve never even thought that was an option!” Batgirl said, sounding distraught.  

“I’ve just been daydreaming about the day Tim proposes so I can be anything besides a Brown,” Spoiler admitted.

“That’s disgusting,” Batman said. “You and Tim, really?”

“Why not?” Spoiler demanded. “Everyone seems to be of the same mind–what’s wrong with him?”

“I mean, besides that he’s an asshole?” Batgirl asked. “Uh, two words: Super. Girl.”

“I’ve never even met Supergirl,” Spoiler said, struggling to imagine herself dating Supergirl.

“Tim’s dead,” Batman said flatly. “But I agree with Batgirl’s assessment.”

“I think Supergirl and Babs have a thing going on?” Dart said. “Maybe? But anyway I’m more of a Wonder Girl kinda gal myself.”

“Ditto,” Canary said.

“Okay, I get it, you guys are hetero-shaming me,” Spoiler said, lifting her hands up. “For the record, I am bisexual.”

the idea of every steph besides the “real” steph being gay & having a girlfriend is comedy. gold. 

“Good,” Batman said.

“Although, speaking of my lovely boyfriend, I should probably tell him about this….Stephplosion,” Spoiler said, waving her arms at them. She put her finger to her ear to comm Drake, but then the air folded in on itself on a roof within Spoiler’s line of sight and she saw a flash of a familiar color that made her blood boil.

“Shit,” she said.

“What?” Dart asked. Spoiler pointed.

“There was some….orange over there,” she said significantly.

headcanon that steph hates all orange, but the specific shade of cluemaster orange especially. 

“Jesus fucking christ,” Batgirl said. “If I have to deal with alternate Cluemasters I’m going to slaughter someone.”

“We need to check it out,” Batman said.

“I’m only agreeing since there’s five of us,” Canary said.

“I haven’t seen Arthur since I was eleven and I’m not about to start now,” Dart said, and Spoiler pushed down a surge of jealousy. Batman led the way, grabbing Dart to carry her across the gap.

They stopped at the edge of the roof and looked down at the kid–the kid!–who was sitting on the rooftop below them.

She had on an orange skirt and shirt with blue suspenders. Her tights–also orange–were ripped and she had on orange combat boots. Her bandana was pulled down from her face to rest around her neck, and her blonde hair was in tangles.

Spoiler stared her thirteen year old self in the face and thought about fainting.

“What the fuck,” Batgirl said flatly.

i feel like this moment sort of parallels/reflects the moment when spoiler first sees batman & recognizes it as herself. batman!steph is like a dream come true, and cluekid!spoiler her worst nightmare. both are the kind of dreams you didn’t know you even had until you encounter them, but yeah. holy shit that’s batman and that’s ME vs holy shit that’s cluekid and that’s ME

“Don’t hit me!” the kid cried, scrambling to her feet. She had braces, Spoiler noted dimly. “Who are you? What happened?”

“We’re in an alternate universe,” Batman said. “Something’s wrong with the multiverse.”

“Lex Luthor,” Spoiler provided, dazed. “Mining for Kryptonite. Batman–my Batman–is taking care of it.”

“Oh,” tiny, orange Steph said. “So…who are you, then?”

Batman pulled off her cowl. Her blonde hair was short and messy and her face was–old. Spoiler pegged her to be late twenties, probably. Huh. The other Stephs were all teenagers like Spoiler.

idk if you’ve read “touch the sky” but when steph first becomes batman and is a teenager she’s pretty fucked up, and i needed this batman steph to be cool & confident. she’s been batgirl for a while. again on batman & cluekid reflecting each other, the other stephs are all 17/18, and cluekid is younger while batman is older. 

“Stephanie,” Batman said, her real voice jarring after the modulated one was gone. “I’m you, okay?”

“In an alternate universe, I’m Batman?” the younger Steph whispered.

“Yes,” Batman said, her voice soft and kind of tender. Spoiler wondered what experience she had with kids. She realized that she could have a Robin. “And that’s Batgirl, and Dart, and Canary, and Spoiler. We’re all you.”

“Spoiler?” the younger Steph said, her eyes wide. “Holy fuck.”

“Language,” Batman said.

“I’m thirteen, not a child.” The younger Steph turned and pulled off her backpack. “Look!” She opened it and pulled out a homemade black bodysuit and hooded cape. “Here’s my Spoiler outfit.”

“I’m going to cry,” Batgirl said. Spoiler’s heart was doing something weird, looking at this tiny version of herself wearing Cluemaster orange.

“Oh, yeah, well. Being Spoiler is my biggest secret,” younger Steph said, putting her costume back away.

“Why are you dressed like that, then?” Dart asked.

“Well,” Steph said, drawing out the word. “I thought Dad might, like, kill me if I didn’t say yes when he asked, so I’m Cluekid by day and Spoiler at night. But, uh, I’m working on bringing down the empire from the inside.”

“Empire?” Spoiler repeated.

“Yeah, Dad’s criminal empire,” Cluekid said. “I’m taking it down.”

“Criminal empire?” Batgirl said, sounding shocked.

if all the stephs got transported to cluekid’s world instead, they’d be looking around like “THIS IS THE BAD PLACE!!!!!”

“By yourself?” Batman asked, putting her cowl back on. Cluekid pulled up her bandana.

“Yeah, it’s like…someone’s gotta do it, right?”

“Was anyone else’s Cluemaster, like, vaguely incompentent at best?” Batgirl asked, and Spoiler and Canary rose their hands. “Criminal empire, really?”

“It’s super fun that you guys weren’t Cluekid, but leave me alone about it,” Cluekid said. “My dad’s the real deal.”

“Then what’s your plan for when he finds out you betrayed him?” Batman asked. Cluekid blinked slowly.

“Well,” she said, then she stopped.

“You don’t have a plan,” Dart said knowingly. “I can relate.”

“No, she does,” Batman said, horrified.

“You’re just gonna let yourself die?” Spoiler asked. Cluekid shrugged, her arms going up past her head.

“If I have to!” she cried. “Someone’s gotta take him down and I’m the only one who can!”

cluekid is actually planning on faking her own death at this time, but she doesn’t have all the details worked out yet. 

“Dying’s no big D,” Batgirl said. “I do it all the time.”

Everyone turned to face her.

“I mean, once, but that’s like, more than most people do it,” she amended, and Spoiler shook her head.

i think batman!steph comes from a mix of preboot/rebirth, so she’s probably died as well

“Jesus christ,” she said. “I have to get you guys out of here. I’m going to call Drake, and we’re going to find out how to return you guys. Except maybe Cluekid, cause your universe sucks.”

spoiler just wants a chance to call another universe garbage, for a change.

“Yeah, well, your universe has people leaking into it, so it can’t be all that great,” Cluekid shot back, and Spoiler had to admit she had a point.

zing, now everyone’s made fun of rebirth.

While they grappled towards the other end of town, Batman carrying Cluekid and Dart running below them, Spoiler put in a call.

“Batman,” she said. “I have five alternate versions of myself with me.”

“Five Spoilers?” her own Batman asked, his voice gruff.

bruce instantly: [internal screaming]

“Five Stephanies,” she corrected. “A Batgirl, a speedster, a Canary, a kid, and, well. A Batman.”

“Interesting,” Batman said. “Luthor has been apprehended and once I turn off the machine, everyone should return to normal.”

“Okay,” Spoiler said, and Batman disconnected. Spoiler stopped grappling and the group gathered around her. “According to my Batman, you guys should just…go back soon.”

this fic was about conversations between stephanies, not action, which is why i feel like the end is sort of anti-climactic, but whatever. it needed to end, and it did

“It’s been nice getting to know you,” Canary said. “Although really weird.”

“Agreed,” Dart said. “I can’t imagine being a Bat.”

“I wish that would happen to me,” Cluekid said. “But…”

“It’ll be okay, kiddo,” Batman said.

“Hey,” Spoiler said. “Batman, do you have a Robin? You’re pretty good with kids.”

“Yeah,” Batman said, smiling. “Her name is Carrie.”

writing this fic made me think of a “touch the sky” sequel where steph works through the deaths of her siblings and takes in a new robin. we’ll see.

“Hell yeah,” Batgirl said, raising her hand for a fistbump. Batman obliged, and from the corner of her eye Spoiler saw the universe begin folding in on itself.

“Damn, this is me,” Dart said, looking at the wrinkle in the air. It was tied to her leg, so not a difficult conclusion to make. “Well, it’s been nice knowing you ladies. I wish all of you every success–especially you, Lil Steph.”

“Thanks,” Cluekid said, and Spoiler nodded at Dart before she vanished in a puff of purple lightning.

“I’m going to turn on my earplugs,” Canary said. “Who knows what’ll happen when I get back–but anyway, I’m going to be in the dark, hearing-wise.”

“Okay,” Spoiler said, a little confused, and Canary gave everyone a smile.

“It’s been real,” she said, and then she turned on her earplugs. She signed something at them–Spoiler knew only a few signs and couldn’t keep up. Batgirl nodded thoughtfully.

“What’d she say?” Spoiler asked.

“Oh, I have no clue,” Batgirl said. “Come to think of it, the signs me and Cass use aren’t strictly ‘real’ sign language.”

“She said that she turns off her hearing so it’s not damaged by the canary cry,” Batman said. Everyone looked at her. “What? My brother was mute and he had to talk somehow.”

tossed up on the “was” vs “is”, but i wanted damian to get better and i hoped that if any diehard “touch the sky” fans were reading this, they’d see that yeah, he does get better & talk again.

“Brother?” Spoiler repeated, and Batman said, “Damian.”

Damian, mute?

Damian, Steph’s brother?

“I’m leaving,” Canary said loudly, and they turned to face her. She was vanishing just like Dart, and she gave a little wave, then pointed at Batman, who was also disappearing.

“Goodbye,” Batman said, and then she and Canary were gone, leaving Spoiler with Batgirl and Cluekid.

“I’m gonna be real with you guys,” Cluekid said. “I know it’s only been like two minutes but seeing myself, older and with a place in the world….it’s pretty inspiring to think that in another universe I grow up to be Batman.”

“Maybe you still can,” Spoiler suggested, thinking that she didn’t like the idea of this tiny version of herself planning her own death.

“I don’t think so,” Cluekid said, smiling sadly.

“I’ve been through a lot of shit,” Batgirl said. “I’ve even died before. You can’t let any of that stop you, okay? You just gotta push through it.”

“Keep on coming back,” Spoiler said.

“However long it takes,” Batgirl said. Cluekid blinked, tears welling in her eyes, and then she reached for Spoiler and Batgirl, tugging them both into a hug.

i feel like “never give up” is kind of steph’s motto, and that’s universal among stephs. 

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

“No problem,” Spoiler said, ruffling her hair, and then Cluekid was gone.

“Damn,” Batgirl said. “She says she’s inspired by us, but I’m inspired by her. She’s so brave.”

“Yeah, I know,” Spoiler said, her throat sort of rough. “Geez.”

“Well, it’s my turn next,” Batgirl said. “So, uh. Bye? I guess.”

“Have fun in your universe,” Spoiler said. “With Oracle and Supergirl.”

“Oh, I absolutely will,” Batgirl said. “Have fun with….Drake. Seriously, we give you shit, but if he’s good for you–”

“He is,” Spoiler said, trying not to think of their breakups.

“Then that’s all there is to it, isn’t it,” Batgirl said. She grinned, and the air behind her began to fold. “Oh, what timing!”

“Goodbye, Batgirl,” Spoiler said.

“Bye, Spoiler,” Batgirl said. “You know, it’s nice to see that somewhere out there, we’re still in the mantle we created.”

“And it’s nice to see that we’re in a mantle given to us,” Spoiler said, and Batgirl grinned.

“Hell yeah it is,” she said, and then she was gone, and Spoiler was left alone.

She sighed, and kept moving.

spoiler & batgirl are so similar that of course they kinda got along the best….i think canary was supposed to be kind of distant like “oh that’s kinda weird” and then dart was “oh that’s SUPER weird” and then cluekid was “oh my god is she okay” and then batman more like “wow! #afraid to ask how the mantle got passed down to YOU!”

[bluboothalassophile]

Hello Blu!!! Blu, I'd like to ask you, what if exist a flashpoint like in Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox (in your mind/your point of view), for ex: What if Jason had been saved by Bruce, what would have change in this flashpoint paradox? What other things/people would have changed? What do you think of this? Sorry just a random question that came to me ^^ and i'd like to know your opinion! ^^

Hello,

In a flashpoint where Jason lives instead of dying… Alright, well, I’ve thought a lot about this. I even have a story on the parameters of if Jason had lived rather than dying, but that’s a bit closer to the Arkham Knight AU for what happened to Jay.

Anyways, B would save Jason, he wasn’t late, but Jason’s still in critical. I HC that B managed to save Jason but couldn’t save Shelia so that bitch dies in the very explosion she was meant to die in (a moment of silence as we mourn the bitch… okay back to business).

Jason is rushed into a hospital, coma, rehab, years of work to come back; because he’s not magic. Dick is now growing the fuck up and pulling his head out of his ass and trying to be a big brother to Jason as Jason struggles through PT. Alfred forces the family to see a shrink (JL or other), traumas are addressed rather than manifesting unhealthily. Alfred finally just had enough of this shit and said they would see a shrink; all because Jason’s brush with death scared decades off him, and B, and they both see the value now in maybe growing up and addressing the traumas. Also, B doesn’t blame Jay, especially not after he finds out about Sheila. 

They address Jason’s trust issues, inferiority feelings, how he felt when they isolated him and were going to take Robin away from him. Dick gets to talk about his needs to grow up, spread his wings, be himself, and address his anger issues and maybe they’ll also talk about his relationship with and his feelings about Jason and how Jason IS NOT his replacement. B never develops his god complex, because God Knows That Man Is Merely A Man! It’s fucking annoying too, B feels that.

I think that Dick and Jay work on becoming brothers through Jay’s PT, movie nights, Titans actually properly meet Jay, books, books, more books, and Jay might even get to go to that school dance he wanted to go to. Even if he’s pushed into the dance in a wheelchair. Dick’s Titans, Garth, Roy, Donna, Lilith, and Wally completely support Jason’s role as Robin now. Yes, Jason still is crushing on Donna, but she’s out of his league and she finds it sweet.

In that time, I think Tim finds the Waynes, and I think Tim and Jay bond; tight and fast, Dick’s actually stepping up to be a big brother. Tim becomes Robin, Jason focuses on PT; resentments about that situation are addressed and Jason doesn’t have that festering wound of being replaced. 

Tim is now the baby brother, and Dick and Jay adore him. They like teasing Tim, and drawing Tim out of his shell, maybe even doing normal brother shit, like beating up Tim’s bullies, rough housing with him, and even possibly formally telling Jack Drake to fuck off, Tim’s their baby brother. I think with that in mind, B legally goes about adopting Tim, and Tim is shocked at this news. They have a huge family dinner to make the announcement, and Tim cries like a baby in joy (No one will ever say anything about that, because Tim’s family).

Stephanie comes barrelling into the family (Jay’s starting to go back into the field; possibly under a different name, Red Bird, or Bluejay or something). Dick and Jason torture Tim about his crush on Stephanie, and they adore Stephanie. B tolerates her still, and maybe tries hard. Stephanie never becomes Robin, staying Spoiler, and she practically lives at the mansion. She trains with the boys, plays with them, and is never adopted because of Tim’s feelings for her, also B might like her but she’s so not his kid. Babs takes a real liking to Stephanie, and takes Steph under her wing, even presenting Batgirl to Stephanie when she’s older.

Yes, we still find Cass, or better Cass finds them, and she’s adopted by them. Babs is still Oracle. The Batfamily; whilst dysfunctional in different ways, is functioning, and they are recovering. B adores her; obviously and she’s his favorite child; the boys all know this and they adore her. The boys are also painfully aware that Cass can do no wrong in B’s eyes, and could probably get away with murder, they can never get away with anything.

Jason never clashes with Joker; and Joker is a quadriplegic, blind and mute after B is done with him. [I Know There are ways to incapacitate Joker without killing the fucker, so B can stay on his ‘No Kill’ rule and Joker is fucking gone from the depths of nightmares and on a painful trip to Hell]. Joker dwindles into nothing more than a nightmarish memory on Gotham’s psyche. 

Jay and Roy become BFFs during his PT and Roy’s recovery, and get into a shit ton of antics still. Jason never makes that first kill, but is still reckless, he even acquires the All-Blades; though no one knows how he accomplished that. Alfred is the one who teaches Jay to shoot, it’s a coping mechanism to make Jay feel some form of control and safety. No, he does not use guns on his patrols, opting to stick to B’s methods and the swords.

Jason becomes a Titan, on a team with Raven, Eddie Bloomberg, Conner Hawk, Kyle Rayner and Koriand’r on his team. Jason torments Dick about this when Kori crashes here and Dick’s tripping over his tongue and feet around her. Tim just finds it hilarious too.

Dick and Babs never work out, but they stay friends, and Dick eventually marries Kori. Babs and Kori are great friends, and have a girls weekend once a month (Babs is Mar’i and Jake’s aunt, Raven’s still their godmother and Wally their godfather).

B and Talia never get back together, instead their fall out is of epic proportions when B finds out about Damian. The Bats take Dami in without questions.

Damian still clashes violently with Tim, Jason beats Damian up though and Dick comforts Damian. Damian still bonds closest to Dick, while Tim and Jay both leave the demon spawn to Dick. Tim will never admit this but he totally slept in Jason’s room for the first year after Damian moved in; after that first night and he was violently woken up by Damian’s attempt to murder him. Jason is Tim’s favorite brother at that point.

They adopt Duke a year after Damian, Dick and Jason actually insist on this; with Cass’ help, and Duke is dragged into the lunacy of the Bats.

Cass and Stephanie are BFFs, and they work closely with Oracle, they are Orphan and Batgirl, and together all of Gotham’s criminals fear purple glitter bombs, and ass-kickings. The girls are the ones who stumble over Harper Row and her brother, Cullen, and they quickly accumulate Harper and Cullen into their little group. B has no idea what to think about this, but everyone knows he’ll never say no to Cass.

Tim becomes a Titan, on a team with Kon, Bart, Cassandra Sandsmark, Zachary Zatara, Tanya Spears.

Kate joins their ranks, but is not permitted her firearms, in fact, she is the biggest clashing force in the Bats with B. But B, and the family are firm on their No Killing policy and their No Fire Arms. In fact, this is almost a fall out for Kate and B until the Bats have to save Kate, and they kind of make it clear that if she’s in she’s all in exactly how they want. If not, she’s no Bat.

Luke joins into the Bats too, though that’s completely accidental as he’s only interested in saving his father at the time. But he kind of falls hard for Babs, and sticks around. He’s also the buffer for Tim when it comes to keeping his secret as Red Robin from Tammy, though Luke vastly disapproves of tihs. But neither of them want Tammy in the Batfamily world; it’s dangerous. Luke and Tim also save Tammy from Bane’s venom, with the aid of Stephanie when that rolls around.

B marries Cat. No heartache or heart break there, they are married, almost a year after what happened to Jason because they realize: Life Is Too Fucking Short.

Jason gets into Princeton, he’s always at the top of his class and involved with athletics and vigilant life. He’s not a lady’s man like Dick was before Kori, but he’s good with the ladies, and has a lot of girls who are his friends. He’s not Mr. Popular but the world has finally stopped comparing him to Dick. Jason’s time in Princeton is huge! The family is extremely proud of Jay and they are vocal in their pride, even being the dorky family cheering at his graduation. Jason did punch Dick for that, and caught Tim in a headlock as Stephanie glitter bombed them both for having a banner there. Cass has the photographic evidence of this. Damian just clicked his tongue in disapproval before Dick glitter  bombed him too. Duke was Cass’s perch for the glitter bombing so, he was safe from all glitter bombs. Over all though, it’s good times.

Jason later goes to Harvard to study medicine, which he’s really excelling at. He wants to be an ER doc, to help people shortly after their trauma, knowing the importance of quick actions after extensive damage.

Tim and Tammy get engaged. Tammy is furious when she finds out she engaged a Bat, but she’s mostly upset he didn’t trust her enough to say something.

Cass does become a ballerina, and still takes acting classes from Clayface.

Babs and Luke eloped; a weekend in Atlantic City neither of them really remember.

Tim and Tammy break up though when Tim moves to San Francisco to be with the Titans more.

Duke goes to Princeton after Jay, and meets Claire, they start dating.

Damian becomes a Titan, he’s on a team with Kaldur’ahm, Garfield, Wallace West, Jon Kent (for whom he is falling for almost painfully), Djinn and Emiko Queen.

Helena was born at some point, she’s adored and the center of the family’s eyes, even Damian fell for her. He’s also a sucker for Mar’i and Jake (though he’d soon eat glass than say that). 

Jason finds Terry and Matt, by accident after they lost their parents in a wreck and were at the hospital Jay. The DNA testing showed Terry and Matt were B’s kids, so he kind of brings them home. B goes off on Waller for this violation, and the using of his DNA to create the boys. 

Babs and Luke adopt Carrie Kelley and Nell Little, bringing them into the Bats when they can’t keep Carrie out of it.

Life continues on though, and they keep going. They are a family. They aren’t perfect, the Bats are far from perfect, they still have epic blow outs, and fights, also huge feuds but they are a family. They banned together after Jay’s near brush with death and didn’t travel down that morbid rabbit hole of self destruction and god complexes of inadequacy.

[sebeth]

Babs-a-thon, part 4

Warning, Spoilers Ahead…

 Part 3 of the Babs-a-thon ended with Barbara thrown brutally, pointlessly in the fridge.  

Batman Chronicles #5 - “Oracle: Year One – Born of Hope” by John Ostrander, Kim Yale, and Brian Stelfreeze.

Chuck Dixon and Gail Simone often receive the credit for the development of Barbara Gordon in the 1990s and 2000s – and rightfully so.  However, Barbara’s true rescuers were John Ostrander and and Kim Yale.  The duo engineered Barbara’s escape from the fridge and transformed her into the Oracle in the pages of the Suicide Squad.  

Oracle debuted in the Suicide Squad but I will re-cap the Batman Chronicles first as it takes place in the immediate aftermath of the Killing Joke.

Barbara’s in the hospital suffering a range of emotions, mostly regret: “I can’t believe I was such an idiot.  I’m Barbara Gordon.  My father – my adoptive father – is Commissioner Gordon of Gotham City.  I’ve lived in Gotham City most of my life. I’m no novice.  I ran one of the largest libraries on the east coast.  I was Batgirl, for crying out loud!  So one night I hear a buzz at our front door and I just go out and open it!  I don’t use the peephole to see who it is, I don’t have the chain on, I just go and open the door!  What was I thinking of?  It was the Joker and he had a gun and there was a flash and there’s blinding pain inside me and I’m falling and I hear myself screaming and my Dad shouting and…and…! I don’t remember much else, fortunately. I’m not sure what else happened except I woke up in the hospital with part of my spine shot away.”

The above quote demonstrates how utterly stupid – and out of character – it was for Barbara to simply answer the door in the Killing Joke.  Babs lives in Gotham City and is the daughter of the police commissioner – she knows better.  The Batgirl Special shows Barbara using the peephole before opening the door for Marcy so it’s a standard precaution.  Another note – Babs was living on her own in the Batgirl Special – why was she living with her father?

Barbara doesn’t mention her term as a Congresswoman so I’m assuming it’s been retconned at this point.

Batman stands vigil at Barbara’s hospital bed.  Babs regains consciousness and she is furious: “Had he been using a regular bullet, I would have been dead before I hit the floor.  And he didn’t want that, no.  He wanted me alive.  Not because I have any intrinsic worth or meaning to him, of course.  No.  Shooting me…kidnapping my dad…it was all just a way to get at you.  Do you understand how humiliating, how demeaning, that is? My life has no importance save in relation to you!  Even as Batgirl…I was perceived just as some weaker version of you!”

“I heard how you two stood there, laughing over some private joke.  Tell me – was it me?”

Batman can’t respond and leaves the hospital.

“God, I hope I’ve hurt him. It’s nothing compared to the pain I’ve felt – or will feel.”

I hate the “Batman and Joker” share a laugh – utterly loathe it.  Completely out of character.  I don’t buy and defense of it.  I’m glad Babs let him have it.  I’m not sure how Barbara heard about it – were they still laughing when the police officers arrived? If so, how can Commissioner Gordon stand to be in the same room as Batman?  The next time Jason complains Batman won’t kill the Joker Babs should respond with “At least they didn’t share a laugh over the situation”.

Babs is released from the hospital “ten weeks and three days after the Joker shot out my spine”.

The above quote gives us a nice timeline of events between the Killing Joke and A Lonely Place of Dying. Babs attended Jason’s funeral so his death was approximately three months after the Killing Joke.

Bab’s resents the media’s attention: “The press wouldn’t even have bothered if I hadn’t been your daughter, dad.  I’m a symbol. We’re big on symbols in Gotham. You refused to have police guarding our home.  Every other big city police commissioner has them.  But you wanted to symbolize how open your administration is…”

“And you got hurt because of it.  I’m sorry, Babs.”

“I am, too, Dad.  I am too…”

Barbara spends the next six months in physical and emotional therapy: “I had to accept I was never going to walk again…worst of all was the fear I felt – of being physically helpless, unable to defend myself, of having no sense of self, of feeling that I meant nothing, that my life was over.  I sat in the back bedroom of my father’s apartment for weeks, afraid to go out, afraid of the next day.  And what would happen to me if – God forbid!  Dad should die or be killed?  How would I live?  On charity?”

Barbara’s encounters with Cormorant seem to have been retconned away which is unfortunate.  The Batgirl Special has Babs finally resolving the emotional trauma from her encounters with Cormorant.  Can you imagine what it would be like to finally have closure from the Cormorant incidents only to suffer a severely more traumatizing encounter with the Joker?

Babs decides she can no longer hide away: “I was tired of being a victim.  I had skills and abilities long before I was Batgirl.  It was time to make them work for me again. It was time to stop being afraid.”

Bab’s receives a grant from the Wayne Foundation and puts together a powerful computer set-up.

“One thing I knew how to do was research…I discovered an affinity for hacking, and I started to make some money.  I got into the internet before the general public really knew what it was.  And I discovered a world there…you didn’t even have to use your real name.  You were simply who you were online.  I found enormous freedom – and complete acceptance – there.  In a strange way, I became more real to me as well.  More content, more happy.”

“Then, one night at dinner, a chain of events began that led me to where I am now.”

Jim confides to Babs: “There’s this financier, a woman by the name of Ashley Mavis Powell.  We know she’s laundering money but we don’t know how. She does stuff with computers.  I know it’s your field, honey, but I hate ‘em!”

Babs researches Ashley Mavis Powell and discovers she’s a criminal called Interface and she is a “nasty piece of work”.  Interface has a “low-level metahuman talent that lets her interact directly with computers” and “she’s also a child abuser”.

Barbara decides to go after Interface via the computer: “She was elusive but I was determined and I had nothing else to do.”

Jim insists Babs get out more: “He was right, of course, but I didn’t like it.  I was a gymnast at one time, I was a dancer.  I loved how my body moved.  Now I just felt conspicuous and clumsy.  I used to walk everywhere and the traffic never bothered me.  Now, I’d come to a busy corner and I’d feel myself start to panic.”

Barbara is at an intersection when Ashley Mavis Powell approaches her from behind and throws her into traffic.  Fortunately, the oncoming traffic stops in time.

“She made me feel like a helpless victim again – and had laughed doing it.  Ms. Powell had just made the biggest mistake of her life.”

Yeah, Babs has definite issues with laughing over someone’s misfortune.

“I need a resource and not one from my Batman or my father.  One I would find on my own.”

Babs takes to the Internet, looking for someone who can teach self-defense to a wheelchair-confined individual.

Unknown to Babs, Batman responds (under his Matches alias) and arranges a meeting in Robinson Park.

Barbara meets an apparently homeless man at the park: “I take it you’re Babs.  A friend of yours told an acquaintance of mine about you. Don’t let the appearance fool you. My name’s Richard Dragon and I’m here to help you.  Maybe. First – tell me what you want.”

If I had to guess, the “friend” is Batman and the acquaintance is either Bronze Tiger or the Question.  Richard Dragon was the Yoda of the DC Universe from the late 1980s to the early 2000s.  He mentored the Bronze Tiger, Lady Shiva, the Question, Oracle, and the Huntress.

“I don’t want to be afraid anymore.”

“Fear’s useful in moderation.  What do you really want?”

“To walk again.  Can you fix that?”

“Nope.  That’s not what you’re really seeking.”

“I want my life back!”

“That’s who you were, not who you are.  Who are you?”

“I…I don’t know.  I don’t know if I ever knew…”

“Now you’re ready to begin. That’s what you’re hear to discover. And these may help.”

Richard presents Oracle with a pair of escrima sticks.

“And so began the weeks, the months, in the park, learning from a street bum named Richard Dragon the Philipine art of stick fighting called escrima.”

I wonder if Barbara and Helena ever bonded over their mutual mentor?  Did they ever realize they had a mutual mentor?

“The physical and mental discipline honed questions of my identity.  Strangely – or perhaps not so strangely – the answer came in the form of a dream.”

Babs – dressed as Batgirl – approaches an Oracle.

Babs informs the Oracle “I’ve lost so much.  I’ve lost everything I thought I was.  Who am I now? How do I go on?

The Oracle responds: “You have lost nothing that matters.  You have everything you need.  Everything before leads up to now and now leads to what shall be.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Take away your mask and I will take away mine.  Then you will understand.

The ladies remove their masks and Babs realizes she is both Batgirl and the Oracle.

Babs awakens and realizes what she is going to do with Ashley Mavis Powell: “I realized that the Internet could be a mask as surely as any cowl.  I could assume an identity – and this time not a second-hand version of someone else.  This would be mine – my mask, my shield, my persona.”

The above quote is why I could never get behind Babs going back to the Batgirl mantle.  Even if her ability to walk had been restored in the pre-New 52, I think she either would have remained as Oracle or designed an entirely new alter ego.  Returning to Batgirl is as pointless as an adult Richard Grayson resuming the Robin mantle – you could do it but why would you?  Both Barbara and Richard are adults who have earned their adult identities – why put their training pants back on?

Oracle lures Interface into a cyber-trap that “catches her into a logic trap – endlessly repeating the same circuit over and over again at the speed of thought, unable to break free until I cut her loose.”

Oracle orders Interface to turn herself in or she’ll continue to locked in the cyber-trap.

Interface promptly turns herself in.

Babs meets with Richard Dragon in Robinson Park.  She informs Richard “I think I’ve found – well, not the answer but a start of the answer to my question.”

“Then you no longer need me. You know the forms.  Keep practicing.  Grow great, little spirit.”

“Thank you, Sensei. For everything.”

“A little over a year has passed since my old life ended, since I died and was reborn.  The shadows remain, but only to give contrast to the light. I am no longer a distaff impersonation of someone else.  I’m me – more me than I’ve ever been.  My life is my own.  I embrace it, and the light, with a deep, continuing joy.”

A great story that portrays the rage, fear, and humiliation in the immediate aftermath of Bab’s shooting and ends with her trademark determination to overcome and carve a life for herself.

Up next, it’s a Suicide Squad.

[zombiesbecrazy]

Five Times With Feeling - Part 3/5

Summary: Dick has been Batman for a week and it's been nothing but terrible.

Or four times Dick and Barbara watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer together and one time they didn’t.

Written for @batfamcontentwar​‘s #halloweencontentwar. All 5 parts will be posted during the event.

ao3  Part 1, Part 2, Part 4, Part 5

Part 3 - February 2002

“…and I can’t even turn my head in the stupid cowl!”

“Uh huh.”

Barbara smiled a little as she drank her tea and that grin made Dick even more irritated than he already was. He had been Batman for a week and he had hated every second of it. The physical weight of the cape and the psychological weight of the mantle was suffocating and one of his oldest friends wasn’t helping the situation with her barely contained laughter. He knew he was complaining and he had warned her at the beginning that it was all rhetorical and didn’t want her to interrupt, but now he was frustrated that she hadn’t said anything remotely helpful.  All she did was watch as he paced back and forth in her living room. She was probably mocking him in her head.

“You could at least pretend to care.”

“Hey. I care.” Barbara waved at him to come closer and when he did she grabbed his hands and pulled him downwards onto the couch beside her.  She outstretched her arm and Dick leaned his head onto her shoulder and she wrapped him in a loose half hug.  “Sorry. I didn’t think you were being serious. I just thought that it was a rant, that’s all. I didn’t think I was being encouraged to participate. In fact, you specifically had told me not to.” She started to run her hand through his hair and he could feel his body beginning to relax even though his mind continued to race. “This isn’t about being Batman. Not really.”

“It is.  I don’t want to do it. I know I have to because Gotham needs Batman, but I’m a fraud. I’m not him.  Bruce is dead.” He takes a shaky, deep breath and he feels Barbara’s hand still at the sound. “My dad is dead.” A tear slips out of his eye, quickly followed by another one, and he know what is about to happen but can’t do anything to stop it. “Again.” His voice cracks with the last word and it was the thing that broke whatever was left of his emotional control. Barbara pulls him into a tighter hug and begins rubbing his back softly, saying nothing, as he just started sobbing and shaking with the effort; the severity of his reaction actually surprised him which just made it even worse, and he just starts crying harder. Everything that he had been pushing down and putting aside for later came to the surface and was out of his control. He had been so busy trying to hold everything together that he hadn’t really given himself the chance to grieve yet. He and Alfred had spoken at length, but it was when everything was still so new that it didn’t feel real, and now he didn’t want to unload this on Tim or Damian who were both dealing with their own issues about it. Hell, Tim probably won’t speak to him ever again and he didn’t understand Damian at all, let alone know if Damian actually cared that Bruce was gone.  

She’s right, of course. It isn’t only about being Batman.

It had only been a matter of time until he snapped.

Of course it had happened here when he wasn’t on his guard.  When he was in the Clocktower with his ex-girlfriend; the woman that he was still in love with no matter how hard he tried to move on, because despite it all, she always made him feel safe and secure. Being with her was home away from home. The home that his heart felt the safest at.

So he just wept as she held him.

He didn’t know how long his breakdown lasted, but when he finally settled down again and was able to catch his breath he found himself to be lying down on the couch with his head resting in Barbara’s lap. One of her hands was holding his, on top of his heart, the other one was running through his hair and he could hear her singing softly, but he couldn’t place the song.  It was nice. He didn’t want to move. Not now, not ever. Not out of this quiet sanctuary away from reality.

“I can’t be Batman. I’m not Bruce.” His whispered voice now sounded low and raspy and nothing like his own. God, he was tired.

“Those things don’t necessarily have to go together.” Barbara’s tone was soothing and he felt himself calming down even more at her words and touch. She seemed to know that he didn’t really want to talk about his feelings about Bruce himself and his death right now, even though probably he needed to.  He just wanted to focus on something that he could control and fix. He wouldn’t feel so overwhelmed if he could just figure something, anything, out. “You’re right. You aren’t Bruce.  Don’t try to be because you can’t be him. Just be you. In a different suit. Be Batman.”

“With a stupid cape and no peripheral vision.”

She rolled her eyes at him, knowing how much he hated fighting in a cape and how glad he had been to get rid of it the first time. “Think of it as rebranding. You’ve done that before.”

“Creating Nightwing and taking over Batman aren’t the same thing.”

“But if you were to fix Batman, what would you do? Think of Bruce as the original, but you’re the upgrade. Debugged. Rewritten code. Batman 2.0 beta rollout.”

“You’re a nerd, Oracle.”

“That’s why you pay me the big bucks.”

“We pay you?” Barbara gave a little laugh and squeezed his hand a little tighter. “I can’t just be me though. That’s Nightwing.” Dick had no idea how to move forward as Batman because every time he thought about it, he knew everyone would immediately know that it was him in the suit; little Nightwing playing dress up in big, bad Batman’s clothes. He tried to meet Barbara’s gaze, and the corner of his lips perked up a little when he saw the faraway look in her eyes.  The look that meant that her brain was moving so fast that even if she told him what she was thinking that he wouldn’t be able to follow. He knew a lot of geniuses, but she was just on a whole other level of processing.  

After a few minutes of silence, Barbara’s fingers stopped moving through his hair. “You know what would scare me if I was a criminal who came up against Batman?”

“Most things.  Bruce was menacing, with the size and the voice and the glare… Are you planning on becoming a super villain?” He was trying to lighten the mood, but in reality, he knew that she would be a terrifying foe. She would be able to take down a small country from her laptop and disappear before they even knew there was a problem.

“That’s it though. He was predictably scary.” She finally looks back at Dick and she has a twinkle in her eye, and he knew that she had a plan. Or at least the start of a plan. “A Batman who wasn’t afraid to smile would be terrifying.”

Dick laughs, because what else can he do?  She’s being ridiculous. “What?”

“Think about it. I’m a Penguin goon and I run into Batman.  Batman looks at me, and instead of grunting at me and throwing the usual right jab to break my jaw, he just smiles. And waits. Personally, I’d be more concerned about that. Why is Batman smiling? What is he thinking about doing to me that is making him smile?” Barbara gives Dick a little half shrug, “That confusion alone would scare me at least.”

“Isn’t that a little… Jokerish?”

“Maybe, but I think its a little Dick Grayson-y as well.”

“Thank you for comparing me to that monster.”

“Not what I meant.”  Barbara sighs and swallows, apparently trying to sort out her thoughts. “Do you like being out there? Fighting the good fight?”

“What? Of course. I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t.” Sure, some times were harder than others, but he loved what he did, could do, for the city and for its people.

“Well, the Dick Grayson that I know smiles when he’s happy or having fun. He doesn’t even notice he’s doing it all the time. It’s reflex. That shouldn’t have to stop because he’s wearing a mask with stupid horns on it. Take advantage of the fact that smiling might be a little creepy when you can’t see your whole face. I don’t quippiness is a great idea but you don’t have to lose who you are completely when you’re in the suit.”

“They’re ears, not horns.”

“Whatever.” She starts moving her hand again and he closes his eyes as her fingers move in slow circles, and hears himself humming quietly with the motion.  “Not that long ago you told me to pivot. You need to take your own advice, Bat Hunk. It’s just something small that might make stepping into those big boots a little less daunting.”

Pivot. Pivoting was less daunting that starting over. Pivoting he could handle. What she was saying was making sense and it even wasn’t that hard to do. He couldn’t be Bruce, but he could be Batman. He could act the part with some changes.  Maybe he could talk to Alfred and see if they could make the cape a bit lighter, so that he didn’t feel like it was pulling him backwards. He probably could try and do less flips in the field as well and work on his offense.

Suddenly, being Batman wasn’t such a big deal. But he had another bigger problem. A 10 year old assassin type problem.  “What am I going to do about Damian? I can’t send him back to Talia and the League.”

Barbara seems surprised by his question. “You made him Robin.”

“And I’m already questioning myself.” Dick sighs and he can feel the pressure building up again in his chest and he’s getting worked up again.  This is the thing that has been stressing him out the most. He could handle training a new Robin, but this was so much more than that. “I can’t raise a kid, Babs.  And I definitely can’t raise that kid.” So reactive, arrogant and murderous. Dick had no idea what to do with Damian.  The kid would probably kill him in his sleep after some perceived slight.

“You can and you will. You already made that choice and you can’t go back on that now.” Barbara’s voice was firm and borderline angry, and Dick had the feeling that if he hadn’t just had an emotional breakdown on her couch that she would have slapped him. He probably deserved it. She paused, and must have seen something in his face, and she softened her tone. “Alfred will help you, just like he helped Bruce when he took you in. Damian needs you, Dick. More than he’s going to let you know.” He knew this, in his mind and his heart and gut.  The situation was very different, but he knew a little bit about being a kid who had everything change on him overnight and needing someone to look after him. There was no way that he would abandon Damian or send him away. He was just scared. Dick swallowed and nodded slightly, and Barbara continued, “All of us will help; you just have to ask for it when you need it. I know you aren’t good at that, but try.”

Dick started to protest, but Barbara shut him up with a quick glare. She was right, of course. She knew that more than almost anyone. “The thing that I didn’t really notice about Bruce until I was Oracle was that for a man who was always insisting that he worked alone, he has the biggest support system of people around him out of the entire League. And those same people are there for you as well. Probably more so.”

“You hate Damian.”

“I don’t know him enough to hate him. I’ll admit I don’t like him too much so far but that doesn’t matter.” She tightened his arm that was across his chest a little bit and he could tell that she was trying to press her words into him. To make them stick even if he didn’t believe them. “You’re the heart of our weird, little family, Dick. We love you. We won’t let you drown in this.”

“I’m the one who’s going to let everyone drown.” Dick finally pulls himself upright and sits beside Barbara on the couch, staring at his hands resting in his lap. “I have a hard enough time looking after myself and I’m barely able to be a fully functioning adult on a good day. It’s like I’m always running in quicksand; I keep going until eventually I find myself completely submerged without knowing it was happening to begin with.” Dick’s mind is a blur, thinking of all the times that he’s let someone down. Failed them. Disappointed them because he just wasn’t good enough or fast enough. When someone got hurt or worse because of something he had decided or done or missed and this was all just too much. He just felt empty at this point. “I’m pretty good at screwing up my own life. I can’t be responsible for another human. Or an entire city.” He finally turns and stares into Barbara’s green eyes and thinks of all the mistakes that he’s made with her. “I couldn’t even find a way to make us work and we’re perfect.”

“You and I are many things Richard Grayson, but we are not perfect. And it took the two of us to make it not work out last time.” Barbara leans forward, places her hand on his cheek and gives Dick a soft kiss that is both too long and not long enough and makes him feel unraveled all over again. He can feel how much she cares for him in such a small move, but he knows that this conversation won’t end the way he wants it to. “I love you.” Her voice sounds sad and he can hear the ‘but’ in the air even though it goes unsaid. “You have so many balls in the air. I just can’t be one of them. You have a 10 year old to mentor and raise, a city to protect and probably a lot of Wayne Enterprises things to focus on that you aren’t even thinking about. Baby steps. Pivot and prioritize. You need to focus on what matters most and right now that isn’t us.  When you need me, I’ll help you figure out that stuff first, as your friend and as Oracle. When you have all those things sorted, we’ll talk.” She reaches up and brushes her thumb against his cheek, apparently brushing away another tear that he hadn’t realized had slipped out. “Damian, Batman, Wayne Enterprises. In that order. We’re the easy part. Save it for later.”

All he could do was nod. He still felt incredibly overwhelmed, but he did feel better about it. It was weird to feel so depressed and full of hope at the same time. His brain and heart felt full. “Can we watch some TV and just ignore the world for a little bit? I’m not ready to go home.” Tomorrow. He’d start on his new plans tomorrow. Now he just needed his mind to turn off for a while and be comfortably numb.

“Of course.”

“Buffy.”

“Even though it’s not Tuesday?” Dick nodded again.  “Sure.”

He gets up, finds what he’s looking for on her shelf and pops a random season three disk into her DVD player and then makes his way into Barbara’s kitchen to make some more tea. He leans against the counter while waiting for the water to boil. He felt better than he did before, but exhausted. He can do this, and it doesn’t have to be by himself. His family can help him. Barbara will help him.

He isn’t alone.

Tea made, Dick heads back into the living room, setting the drinks down on the coffee table and he sits back down on the couch.  He pulls Barbara close against his side and gave her a kiss on the top of her head, taking in the scent of her hair, watching the beginning of the prom episode start on the screen. A good choice - it meets his current mood of sad but optimistic. She relaxes into his embrace, and Dick can’t help but smile to himself. He can do this. They can do this. They’ll all be okay.

He gives her a small squeeze and she snuggles into him further. “You still my girl?”

“Always.”

[fixations-and-infatuations]

feel free to skip, just wanted to do this for fun:

1. “Duet” from the Flash or “Mayhem of the Music Meister” from Batman the Brave and the Bold?

I haven’t caught up to that episode of Flash yet, but I also really love most of the songs from “Mayhem of the Music Meister”

2. Do you like the arrow verse? If so, what’s your favorite show?

I used to! I haven’t had the chance to keep up, but back than my favorite show was definitely Flash. I haven’t seen Black Lightning yet though, and I’ve heard it’s THE BEST amazing.

3. First comic read? 

I think “Red Hood and the Outlaws.” I got into comics from more external sources, like shows and video games, and just caught up through Wikipedia and YouTube.

4. What introduced you to the DC universe? Was it a show, comic or movie?

Oh wow, it was either Justice League or Teen Titans. Those are the shows that got me into superheroes in general. 

5. Favorite character?

Definitely Tim Drake / Red Robin, for too many reasons than I can list here, but mainly just his sense of determination and I also maybe relate to him.

6. Favorite canon ship?

Uhhhhh, probably either Dick/Babs or Dick/Kori.

7. Favorite non-canon ship?

Definitely Bruce/Clark, although I also just love their platonic friendship.

8. Pre-N52 or N52?

I didn’t read much of Pre-52 but from what I know of it, I probably would have preferred it.  

9. Rebirth or N52?

I actually am really enjoying Rebirth right now! Only complaints are the absence of Connor Kent (which I can sort of forgive because I love Jon) but mainly the ending of the BatCat wedding which was frankly ridiculous and annoying.

10. “Death in the Family” or “Death of Superman?”

“Death in the Family,” I am definitely a Batfamily fan before any other DC character.

11. Favorite live action movie?

Wonder Woman.  

12. Favorite animated movie?

Honestly! The Death of Superman (the most recent DCAU movie) is so good! Everyone should try it.

13. DCEU or DCAU?

Ummm, as of RIGHT NOW, DCAU. But I have a feeling in a year or two, DCEU (now Worlds of DC which is much better).

14. Favorite member of the trinity?

Bruce Wayne / Batman.

15. Dark trinity or trinity?

Trinity.

16. Outsiders or Titans?

Titans, all the way.

17. Teen Titans or Young Just Us?

Teen Titans.

18. Favorite animated show?

Definitely Young Justice!  

19. Favorite superhero family?

Two words: Bat. Family.

20. Young Justice (show) or Teen Titans (show)?

Wow, this one is hard. I think Young Justice solely because of the number of favorite characters. Both shows are really spectacular and I feel so blessed to be getting more Young Justice and possibly more Teen Titans.

21. Do you watch Teen Titans Go?

Sometimes, to listen to something in the background. It’s nothing in comparison to the original, but it’s a cute satirical show.

22. Favorite Robin?

Tim Drake, the one who chose to become Robin.

23. So you prefer Superman and Wonder Woman, Batman and Wonder Woman, Steve Trevor and Wonder Woman or does it even matter?

I just hate the idea of Clark/Diana. Anyone else paired with her is great, I just have an knee jerk reaction to not like SuperWonder sorry.  

24. If you had total control, what would you change?

I would make Barbara Oracle again. I hate that the N52 made her Batgirl again just to have a reboot of some kind.

25. Batgirl or Oracle?

For Barbara? Always Oracle. I enjoyed her time as Batgirl, but I think she’s a much stronger character as Oracle.

26. Who’s your favorite Batgirl?

Wow, Cassandra Cain closely followed by Stephanie Brown.

27. Batgirl and the Birds of Prey or Red Hood and the Outlaws?

Uh, probably Red Hood and the Outlaws. I love Jason’s friendships with Kori, Roy, Artemis and Bizarro.

28. Favorite comic run?

Marcus To’s “Red Robin.”

29. Favorite comic artist?

Wow, um, there’s Kevin Wada, Adam Hughes, Marcus To, Dexter Soy...

30. Favorite comic writer?

Don’t read enough comics to have one.

31. Do you like the Joker?

As a villain, sure. As a person, no. As a couple with Bruce Wayne, NO.

32. Who do you think is the most overused or overrated characters?

I don’t really think anyone is that overrated, DC has a great track record when it comes to their characters (classic and new). I really don’t think there’s any one character I dislike (as a character, not a person, because fuck the Joker).

33. Batman: TAS or Superman: TAS?

Batman: TAS is one of the best television shows ever, even compared to live action. It gave so much depth to every character (Harley Quinn, Mr. Freeze, etc.)

34. Legion of Superheros or Batman Beyond?

Batman Beyond (THE SHOW) was the best, I still love my boy Terry. The comic verse of Batman Beyond is literally the worst.

36. Justice League or Justice League Unlimited?

Love both equally.

37. The Batman or Beware the Bat?

Both were good, but I preferred The Batman a bit more.

38. Who do you think is the most overlooked or underused character?

Timothy. Jackson. Drake. Wayne. There are several others but I’m biased.

39. Do you watch Gotham?

Have to catch up!

40. Do you like Marvel?

...I like Marvel characters. I hate what the MCU has become and the characterization of characters (I could rant for a while). Also not a fan of Marvel comics, especially after their stunt with Hydra Cap.

41. Jon Kent or Damian Wayne?

Damian Wayne.

42. Renee Montoya or Vic Sage?

Renee Montoya. 

43. Kate Kane and Renee Montoya or Apollo and Midnighter?

God. Uh, Kate Kane and Renee Montoya, by a slight margin.

44. Barry Allen or Wally West?

Barry Allen.

45. Kara Zor-El, Stephanie Brown or Cassie Sandsmark?

Can’t pick and don’t want to. I love all of my girls with all of my heart. I will say that I’m most like Stephanie Brown.

46. Kord Industries, Wayne Tech or Lex Corp?

Wayne Tech, but Kord Industries is pretty good too.

47. If you could have any character’s powers who’s would you have?

Zatanna. An underrated character, especially her power set. Very powerful.

48. Favorite villain?

God, I really love all of them. Maybe Poison Ivy? Especially with her latest run.

49. “DC Bombshells,” “Injustice” or “Kingdom Come?”

Did not like “Kingdom Come.” Both “Bombshells” and “Injustice” are amazing, and I wish a lot of both of their canon became actual canon.

50. Injustice or Arkham series?

Another toughie. I think Arkham, just because of the Batfamily in the latest one.

51. Justice League or League of Assassins? 

Justice League, obviously.

52. Are you excited about the upcoming Titans show? What about Young Justice?

Very excited for both! I am not picky with my mediums, and as long as no major changes are made to canon cough Dick Grayson being the dead Robin in Worlds of DC than I’m happy. Besides, I like to stay optimistic until I personally try something.