#shes literally the closest to damian out of the bats after dick

[obsidianstrawberrymilk]

Okay seriously why.

[gatorbites-imagines]

Hi, I’m not sure if you still write for the batfamily but can I request them and a sick teen reader, who’s also in the batfamily and a vigilante with them and they get sick but refuse to rest

Batfam with a sick teen reader

Headcanons

I like to imagine the reader is the best and worst part of different batfam members combined into one person. Meaning he gives the family heart attacks on the regular.

You weren’t the oldest, or the youngest, member of the batfam. You were only a few months younger than Tim, making you older than Damian but younger than the others.

You were the 13th child of a great warrior who had built a group of expert warriors, think like the league of assassins but smaller and more lowkey.

Because of your tough upbringing, and your siblings always outshining you, you have always felt a deep need to show no weakness and appear stronger than you are.

This means you work extremely hard to be a great member of the batclan, going by the name Red Bat. It had started out as a joke, as you wore a helmet that appeared to have the same ears as Bruces, but was red in color. It hadn’t been on purpose, but you had come to like the name.

The family are impressed with how hard you work, though it also worries them because you work yourself to the bone sometimes, never accepting failure and punishing yourself when you don’t do good, by your own standards.

In the beginning when you joined the family, you had some struggles with Damian, Tim, and Duke, as they are the closest to your age, and you are so used to having to claw yourself into the light, to get any positive attention from a father figure or to stand out.

So, it caused some tension, but after you started settling in and you all started bonding, it went away for the most part. A small part of your soul, deeply hidden inside, still feels like you aren’t good enough and never will be, and there might be some faint jealousy of the rest of the family. It doesn’t get in the way of you loving them all though.

Bettering your relationship with the family hasn’t slowed down your excessive training though, or how roughly you treat yourself. Cass ends up having to just resort hugging you until you allow yourself to relax. Damian will train with you, but does it with the purpose of tiring you out without causing any damage. If anybody knows what it’s like, it’s Cass and Damian, so they never blame you.

Because of your extremely high standards for yourself, you never slow down, even when you are sick. You’ll go as long as possible, hiding your sickness from the family until you literally can’t anymore.

And even then, you keep pushing yourself and brushing off their concern. The only one who seemingly can pull you away from your spiral with no struggle, is Alfed, because its Alfred, and no one goes against Alfred.

The rest of the family would try different ways to make you rest.

Dick would wrap a weighted blanket around you when you are at the batcomputer, and lean against you as you work, just telling you about his day. It works sometimes, because you always feel safe around him, so if you are already exhausted and drowsy, it can put you out.

Jason hovers in the background too, maybe brings you some of your favorite food from downtown, sits nearby. If you are really sick, he will scold you in the way he does, prodding at you till you go to bed to rest. If its really bad, he will throw you over his shoulder and force you to rest.

Cass is always the first to spot when you are sick, and always gives you small, disappointed frowns when you push yourself too hard, and her reaction probably makes your heart ache the most. She pulls you from your work to watch a movie with her, making sure to wrap you in blankets and keep you close until you fall asleep.

Tim is the type to sit beside you when you work, since hes not the pinnacle of health most times too. Might use it as a “if you go rest, I will to” to force you to go, since you love your brother very much and want him to get better too. The rest of the fam regularly finds you guys passed out over a case together.

Duke hovers too, brings you medicine and will talk to you about his day to keep you distracted from whatever is keeping you awake and active. He understands pushing yourself even when you are sick, and knows that forcing you to go rest wont help, so he tries to subtly push you in that direction instead of pushing you.

Damian scowls nearby, probably gives you some speech about how being sick will make you less lethal and weaker, and then you can’t do your job as Red Bat at all. Resorts to dumping different batclan animals on you until you have no choice. You end up laying against batcow, Jerry the turkey beside you, Alfred the cat in your lap, Titus and Ace laying around you, you get the point.

Bruce looms and hovers, since he’s not the best with words. Its easy to tell he’s worried when he keeps pacing near you or keeping an eye on you. Will matter of factly tell you that you need rest, brings you a blanket or other comfort items.

If you try to run off on patrol, Barbara is quick to tell the others what you are up too. If you are really sick, they’ll whisk you back to the manor kicking and screaming if they have too, as being extremely sick can put you at risk.

If its milder, they’ll just hover nearby and keep a close eye on you and your physical state.

The first few times it happened, it caused a huge argument because of your inability to let yourself rest, and because that sick twisted part inside you was sure it was because they saw you as weak or a burden, like your first siblings did, since there was no excuse for weakness in your first family.

It results in them, and especially Bruce because he’s the one you look up to the most, having to sit down with you and explain that there’s nothing wrong with being sick or so called “weak”, and that its okay to take a rest when you need it.

It also results in the rest of the family having to lead by example, because you’ll always snip and point out how they’re not resting when they are sick, so why should you.

Alfred thanks the circumstances and that the family all love each other so much, he’s been trying to get the batfam try to take breaks and rest when sick for years, and now that they must be someone you can look up too, they’ll actually do it.

It becomes kind of a game to force the sick family members to rest, lotsa blanket burritos and the sick person always ends up with Alfred the cat curled up on their chest purring somehow. Its especially fun when its Bruce that’s sick, because you all have to hound him an extra amount for him to take care of himself.

[breadandblankets]

here's something no one asked for: bats fallout 4 au

cass: made as an institute courser and the best of the best with a perfect clear record until she was ordered to execute a traitor and she bounced, she drifts for years anywhere and everywhere, eventually ending up in goodneighbor and through Coincidences into the office of one Barbara Gordon

babs: a doctor in goodneighbor specializing in human/machine interface and neurobiology, aka railroad agent oracle she and her partner Dinah run the memory den, part therapeutic establishment part front for synth liberation activities Babs helps deprogram synths and let them lead normal lives

Jason: he was taken into bruce's vault after his parents died, he was born human but turned into a ghoul thanks to a near death experience and a radiation bath, by the time we meet him, he's a drifter blown into goodneighbor hiring out his services as a merc, steadily moving in organized crime through some maneuvering

duke: a psyker (kinda like the forecaster if you played NV), he has the ability to see into the future if he concentrates, however it leaves him with huge migraines, his parents went missing after a raider attack and he joins the minutemen (honestly what is more MM than WAR) to try and find them

steph: both she and her mom are prewar ghouls (all of the cluemaster stuff still happens but he doesn't survive the bombs in jail), they used to live in diamond city until all the ghouls got kicked out, they lived in goodneighbor for a time, with steph working at the local clinic, run by leslie, eventually they both moved north to the slog (a settlement run by ghouls in an old swimming pool) when crystal wanted to get clean, steph works there as basically the town doctor

tim: (spoilers for a ten year old game but:) kinda like synth shaun he is a permanently stuck at the age of like ten, still a tech genius but like.... litol (did I say this just cause I thought it was funny.... yes)

alfred: a fuckin mr handy

bruce: vault dweller that imprinted on said mr handy like a duckling after his parents died

dick: you can literally keep his backstory intact and he makes perfect sense, haley circus is just from new vegas, after his parents murder he joined up with lyons pride and moved east with the brotherhood of steel, when the new elder rose to power after the lyons' death dick started to see the writing on the wall of fascism and jumped ship leaving that life behind, joining up with duke's new and improved MM to protect people from people he swore brotherhood to

damian: obv still bruce and talia's kid, talia is a pre war scientist and businesswoman, keeping herself and her half siblings alive and young as long as they keep their father and his weird artifact locked up. damian grows up in the closest thing to pre war luxury the post apocalypse has to offer. Eventually he wants to go out and see the world, meet his dad, write a guide to wasteland fauna. talia hires jason to guard him so he stops trying to rush down feral ghouls with a sword.

[tailsrevane]

[movie review] injustice (2021)

i watched all the cutscenes from the video game in preparation for this, and my biggest problem with it was that even if lois died (and even if clark was responsible for it), i just can’t see him going off the deep end like this. but in the video game all of that happened in the past. the movie is all about him getting to that point, and that’s actually drastically worse because the whole time it’s happening i’m just not even slightly buying it.

you just can’t turn clark into a dictator without him being a completely different person. the things that make him him could only be changed by a drastically different nature or a drastically different nurture, and this movie doesn’t suggest either of these. it just completely uncritically buys in to joker’s “one bad day” theory from the killing joke, and there’s nothing else to it.

there are actually a few things i like about this. dick and damian’s relationship is great, and has a lot of carry over of what i liked about their relationship in some of the batman movies from the previous run. i especially loved dick calling damian “little brother.” i’m also honestly super impressed that that did strike a chord with me considering that nightwing’s ghost being called “deadwing” made me giggle inappropriately every time he appeared.

i also liked how everybody picking a side was handled in the movie quite a bit better than in the game. the people who fall in with superman are never wholly complicit with his bullshit, and the one who comes the closest to being is diana (and frankly she’s almost as out of character as clark at times), and even she is genuinely horrified when confronted with unmistakable evidence that he’s gone off the deep end. also catwoman doesn’t side with clark to keep an eye on him and try to protect bats or whatever the fuck was happening in the game to set up bats being all butthurt about it and refusing to forgive her. that was dumb.

speaking of selina, the bit where clark sent her to check on bruce after dick died was extremely good. and although i already talked about how much i appreciate this movie’s take on dick and damian’s relationship, i also really appreciate it making it obvious how fucking important dick is to bruce. seeing him literally crying over him was… a lot. and selina does such a good job of comforting him, telling him not to be batman, to just let himself be a mess just for one night. that was exceptionally good.

i was also impressed that the u.s. is portrayed fairly accurately in this, with them freaking out the second superman seems to be challenging their authority and saying the quiet part out loud when they say, “superman’s bringing down governments. fine when it’s in our interest, a mighty big problem when it’s not.” they also jump right to siccing the cops on superman’s father. so, yeah. some points there.

unfortunately there’s also some serious bullshit here given that the u.s. government isn’t literally the first one supes goes after when he decides to start unilaterally taking down governments. plus there’s some tone deaf “both sides”y shit about israel’s occupation of palestine, and a throwaway reference to north korea’s nuclear program being disarmed but no mention whatsoever of any other country’s nuclear program like, oh, i don’t know, just throwing one out at random, the fucking united states. i mean, it’s not like they’re the only country in the world that has engaged in acts of nuclear war and–wait, hold on, i’m getting new information… huh. well, hey, they probably don’t blatantly bully other countries using their nuclear arsenal as a cudgel to uh… what’s that? … all the time?

huh. well, that’s awkward.

and yeah, given that supes is obviously the bad guy here, none of that would be a huge issue except for the fact that the movie isn’t really shy about what it thinks is right and what it thinks is wrong, and it doesn’t seem to be terribly upset about either of these throwaway details? and for that matter, no one ever actually articulates a counterpoint to superman’s bullshit? no one ever says, hey clark, funny thing is, when you prevent people from using violence to resist, you allow the everyday violence that oppresses them to continue unabated just because it doesn’t bother you. no one says anything other than, basically “nuh-uh.”

okay, there is one pretty good scene where mister terrific kicks clark’s ass rhetorically while simultaneously kicking his ass at chess. but even that doesn’t actually articulate a positive ideology to contrast with supes’. it just boils down to a slippery slope argument.

but that still isn’t the biggest reason why i didn’t like this. it just circles back around to the fact that they never, at any point, sell me on superman doing any of this. i was just constantly mentally shaking my head and saying “nope.” you didn’t make it believable, guys. a switch doesn’t just go off in your head and make you a totally different person because something really bad happens to you. and the whole story just falls apart if you don’t believe that. c-rank

[flashflashhundredyarddash]

batkids and their relationships with their siblings headcanons. under read more because this got fucking LONGGG

dick

dick is the eldest so he doesnt want to bog down his younger siblings with his problems, but if he DOES, he tends to talk to jason about it

dick and cass start to really begin to bond when Cass shows up to dicks gymnastics class for 3rd-6th graders and then cass shows up all the sixth graders and they get frozen yogurt after lmao

dick and tim are Very much thick as thieves. tim is very much like bruce on the Emotional Suppression scale, so dick just really wants to make sure his little brother is safe and happy ALL the time

Duke and Damian are the only two really permanently at the manor anymore, so when dick drops by he tries to do something with both of them. duke frantically zoom calls dick every other week to help him with his his trig homework. dick shows up to dukes high school graduation with literally the BIGGEST SIGN

everyone insists damian is dicks favorite but he does actually genuinely love all his siblings equally, his relationship with damian is just Very different from the others because of the age gap and being dami's primary caretaker for a year. dick babies dami every chance he gets

jason

would sell Dick to satan for One corn chip

him and cass don't have the greatest start to their relationship because cass is very much Against Killing so it takes a while for jason to warm up to her and earn her trust. now, though, jason is competing with steph by showing cass all the classic American Teenager things she missed out on. steph is currently winning but jason is like 98% positive a crunch wrap from taco bell is going to push him over the edge

tim and jason are currently competing over who can solve the most cases in a month. tim is winning. that won't last long.

jason Loves to Big Brother duke its so embarrassing. duke will get out of school and go to his car and jason is SITTING IN THE FRONT SEAT FRANTICALLY WAVING TO GET DUKES ATTENTION. JASON THAT IS MY CAR. signal has one (1) mission with arsenal and arsenal goes hey did you ask that girl to homecoming yet and duke is like I DON'T EVEN KNOW YOU.

Damian is proof that Actually, Little Brothers are Pests. Jason fully believes that he was brought back from the dead PURELY to torment damian and he will fulfill this mission at any cost

cassandra

it actually really upset her when Dick didn't accept her at first. she knows her other siblings really adore dick so his lack of trust was really disheartening. it takes dick a while but once he Actually Accepts that cass is going to be a permanent part of their life and oh, wow, dick you really hurt her feelings he really hyperfocuses on bonding with cass for a couple of months which definitely improves their relationship

she really likes jason!! their relationship doesn't start well but because he's close with steph and tim who are cass's top two favorite people to exist ever, cass is like well i GUESS ill hang out with him more. jason is fun to talk to because he always tries his best to explain jokes and give context to what people are talking about (also tim took her to taco bell already but she didn't tell jason she just wanted to hang out)

cass LOVES tim. they just click okay. tim always seems to know when to give her space and when to push and come closer. Tim's "guest room" is just her room lets be real. tim and cass occasionally get mistaken for twins and Cass Loves it.

duke makes cass listen to metal once and cass loses. her. damn. mind. they bond over music a lot because they both Love Music to a degree the others in their family don't.

damian!! damian is her little brother!!! dami isn't As Hostile to cass at first because he is 100% aware cass has the edge in fighting and respects her. cass likes all of his instagram posts and they have a snapchat streak going

tim

tim Loves dick, dick was his first sibling!! he had Very strong hero worship when he first met dick but it mellowed out when tim got older because wow 17 is really not that cool and mature lol. tim has an open invitation to dick's apartment which he does occasionally take advantage of. tim has more than once scared the shit out of wally when wally comes over and wally is convinced they're being robbed (HA) for half a second. i mean. he's not wrong.

listen. tim understands that forgiving the guy who tried to kill you would be a Struggle for some people and it was! definitely! but also at least he can trust jason to, uh, be open about if he doesn't like tim. which is not an assurance he has with other people. so if the guy who tried to kill him tells him tim is cool now then like. maybe tim isn't that bad or annoying a person? also jason arrested a whole gang and won the cases competition but then it created a power vacuum that the whole batfam had to clean up the rest of the month. thanks, jason.

tim LOVES cass. you know how most of the time theres this empty feeling inside you and you just kind of ignore it because you don't know what will fix it or if you do, you know you can't fix it? cass makes that empty feeling feel a little less empty. they just click. tim always tries to travel with cass whenever she leaves gotham.

tim and duke. Tim is actually the sibling who duke goes to whenever he has questions he doesn't want to ask bruce or alfred about, like, life or vigilante-ing or school or college or whatever and Tim is always like yes!! i love Giving Advice and Solving Problems!! tim and duke and jason fill out their college applications together.

tim and damian. LMAO. ROUGH START THAT'S ALL ILL SAY. at some point alfred goes like fuck it. family therapy. and tim and dami are PISSED. tim and damian get along best when they have a common enemy to work against. their relationship gets much better when damian is older and they actually talk about their feelings like emotionally stunted bats. despite how bad their relationship was, tim will ALWAYS protect damian

duke

very much intimidated by dick at first. dick is so much older and has his own job and friends and life and is very much AN ADULT. dick likes to take duke out to do lots of cool stuff (paintball, lasertag, tech exhibitions, concerts, etc). also, dick PERSONALLY introduced duke to superman and is dating THE FLASH. 10/10 awesome big brother.

was intimidated by jason for 0.5 seconds before jason actually opened his mouth and started speaking. jason is literally. So Embarrassing. which is weird because nobody else really seems to feel that way about jason but duke knows he's 100% in the right here. like yeah jason is also An Adult and does Adult Stuff but he's also at the manor like every other weekend???? and he always complains about bruce but always seems to be in the same room bruce is in????? like okay jason. they bond over literature!! jason and duke and alfred will spend literal hours talking about books and duke loves it. duke is the only one who doesn't think jason is funny and jason gets so upset about it lmao.

cass has this one week where she gets really into photography and by virtue of being nearby (and also not nocturnal), duke becomes her victim subject. duke prints out all the pictures and hangs them up in his room (his favorite is one he took when he stole the camera and took a really bad selfie of them together).

tim is closest in age to duke so duke tends to hang around with him a lot. tim introduced duke to his young justice friends and duke is like yes!!! meta-friends!!!! tim really helps duke out with his powers because tim is always like wow i wonder if your powers would work if we did This? can you see farther than other people? is your visible spectrum of light different than other humans? Bruce does the same thing but bruce is boring about it lol.

damian and duke live in the same house and will be in the same room and just send each other social media posts back and forth. they follow each other on instagram and will, OCCASIONALLY, make tik toks together because they're tik tok fiends. each of his siblings have visited his parents once or twice but damian routinely comes with him.

damian

damian gets a special bullet point to say that it took him. forever to come around to the idea of having siblings. he very much believed that he was Bruce's Blood Son and everyone else were just tagalongs or allies. it took him ages to acknowledge that dick, jason, tim, and cass were his siblings, so when duke came and like a week later damian was like Ah, Yes, this is my brother Thomas everyone else was like dude wtf

listen. LISTEN. Obviously. Richard is very highly skilled. and also Father values him highly. and also Richard will listen to Damian complain about his schoolmates. and also Richard is much more patient with Damian than other members of his family. listen....,,, (all this to say damian kind of fucking adores dick lmaooooo this kid).

Todd is kind of unbearable but damian has been informed this is both a normal feeling when it comes to Todd and also big brothers. damian was an only child for ten years so yes, Father, if Todd attempts to tickle me I WILL break his fucking nose. yes i WILL put money in the swear jar but I want you to know i don't regret it. they always try to sneak up on each other but mostly fail.

DRAKE!!! but no lol once damian grows up and is like I Apologize for attempting to murder you it was wrong and you are just as much a son to Father as I am tim is like UGH i guess its cool since ur being so emotionally mature and all. also im 2 for 5 on siblings trying to murder me so im definitely going to win trauma bingo and damian is like i take it back you are insufferable. When Will My Older Siblings Stop Joking About Their Trauma.

CASS!!! listen. cass is cool. Cass Gets It. They have a special Bond. also damian really likes it whenever cass is home because 1) he gets to hang out and do something cool with cass and 2) he feels significantly safer with cass in the house because Nobody will be able to hurt any of their family if Cass is there. ALSO he tries to call her cain but everyone is like DONT DO THAT and he doesn't want to call her wayne bcus theyre ALL wayne (dick adds it on as a middle name but also Richard John Wayne West-Grayson is just. the lamest name ever so dick needs to reconsider it before his upcoming nuptials)((dick will not reconsider it except maybe whether grayson-west would work better)) and so he tries cassandra but cass is like :) call me cass and damian is like cassandra is more formal and respectful and cass is like :) and finally damian just has to give in.

Duke! him and duke actually live together so they get the Most Bonding Time and have a bunch of inside jokes as a result. (is it bad i wanted to laugh because inside jokes... joker... i'll see myself out). they're eating breakfast together (and also alfred sits with them IM NOT A MONSTER ALFIE'S LIKE 70 NOW OKAY) and duke laughs and bruce is like what are you laughing at, son? and duke is like oh damian just showed me this funny meme and then he shows the phone to bruce and bruce grabs it (both the boys groan) and after WAY TOO LONG is like "i don't get it" and so now duke and damian have to try and explain the comedic intricacy of bob's burgers

[leonicscorpio]

Batboy Headcanons because I made this for me but you all can enjoy this too if want. (May contain mild NSFW)

Dick:

Has a weird relationship with unwanted gaze and the attention he receives because of his physique. He genuinely likes the attention but he draws the line when people start getting touchy. Just because he's shirtless working out doesn't mean he gave you consent to touch him.

Has good dieting skills but he's in his mid-late 20's and his metabolism has 0 signs of slowing down. He once ate a whole xl bag of M&M's in front of Steph and Babs and both said they wanted to murder him because he won't gain a pound.

Dick has ADHD and I'm sorry if you don't think otherwise. He has hyperactive type ADHD and while he's gotten better at controlling his symptoms he still stims stretching and flexing his arms and shaking his arms.

While not so much in Gotham, Dick is very politically active and volunteers at voter registration and working with organizations with the mission of police demilitarization in Blüdhaven.

Dick is a very sexually driven individual. However, I don't think it's entirely healthy. His ADHD also comes into play with this but Dick just needs to have a release at least twice a day or he'll feel physically sick.

I don't know if you all have seen male gymnasts. But Dick, like the rest of them, has FREAKSISHLY large biceps. Everyone talks about Dick has the best ass in the bat family and while Jason may be larger and stronger, Dick has the best physique.

Dick's apartment is littered with sticky notes in places such as the fridge/in front of his computer. If it's not written down and in a place where he can't ignore it, it's not going to get done.

I'm sorry I know everyone says his birthday is in March but I have to go to the older Nightwing comics and say his Birthday is December 1st. I want you to look me in the eyes and tell me this man doesn't give off Sagittarius energy. You can't. I respect you but you can't look at that and tell me that man isn't a Sagittarius or has super heavy Sag in his birth chart.

Dick's at home doing nothing but chilling? You best believe he's gonna be shirts off, tits out, and rocking some blue flannel PJ's.

Dick is currently the only member of the family asides from Barbara who is regularly attending therapy. And he actively encourages each of his brothers and sisters to go every time.

After his Agent 37 days. He sits down with Jason and talks about having to use a gun and how hard it was. And how having to kill people has affected him. When he had to kill the KGBeast (Agent 37 days he snapped his neck) I headcanon Dick just trauma v*mit*d. Jason hugged him and just consoled him.

It's canon that Dick has anger issues but to me, it's not explored or talked about enough and not a lot of people like to talk about it. Dick is very much the 'if I ignore it it'll go away' type when it comes to his anger and he can brush most insults or harassment off fine enough. But when he breaks, he makes Jason look like a saint. I'm talking slamming you into a wall and screaming in your face angry. He'll be profusely apologetic afterward but still.

Despite popular belief, I don't think he's that bad of a cook. He's just not very experimentative. He can follow a recipe and does look at some guides. But to me, Dick Grayson just is that guy who is like Chicken veggies and rice are a meal that I can cook 4-6 times a week.

Dick has a slight fear of dentists. He doesn't have bad teeth and has good dental health. He just doesn't like the idea of a drill going in his mouth and the few times Bruce has to take him to a dentist he had a panic attack every time.

Everyone lives for the fics where Jason beats the shit out of Tim and everyone is just like lol well Bruce and Dick just forgives him. No. When Dick found out it was Jason who beat Tim to the ground, Dick was literally seething and told Jason "Pick on someone your own size or else I'll make you wish you back in that f'ing coffin."

Dick's favorite foods (some based in Canon*): Milk Chocolate*, Cereal*, Asparagus, Bananas, Banana flavored candy, Hawaiian Pizza* (suffer its canon) Rum, thanksgiving Turkey.

Jason:

He may be the self-diagnosed black sheep (rightfully so) of the family, but Jason does genuinely love spending time with his siblings. Whether it be sharing memes with them on social media or just randomly showing up where they are and abducting them to go get ice cream/coffee/snacks.

He'd probably attempt to harm you if you told him this to his face. But he is the closest acting to Bruce out of all of the family. In terms of mannerisms and inherent warmth and kindness behind a dark façade.

Has two moods: either exceptionally, almost neat-freak levels of clean, or his life is completely falling apart and Jason can't tell you for sure what color his floors are because there's so much stuff scattered about.

Despite their initial hatred of each other, Jason truly feels closest to Tim and Tim is the only person asides from maybe Barbra who he can just talk to without feeling any judgment.

Jason only smokes when he's extremely nervous about an operation or a hit. For those who don't know criminal justice cigarettes are the fastest way to get genetic material on someone. That being said he does still like to smoke occasionally.

Me, plus a lot of people give him this sort of 'Lazarus Rage' as I like to call it. When he's in the heat of a mission or if he's getting upset/angry his vision will get blurred with green, and it feeds on his anger and just gets perpetually harder to contain until he releases it. Jason has gotten much better at controlling it. But as he will tell Tim or Babs, he's "seeing green" which means they need to be careful because Jason could kill.

Everyone says Dick is the mother hen. I see you, I accept you, but let me raise you. Jason came to realize that he died because of his rash decision to go after The Joker alone. If Jason finds any of his siblings out acting alone, or even at the very least without Oracle. Jason WILL forcefully interject himself and ask them what the fuck they think their doing.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Trying to get close to Jason is hard. He will degrade you can attempt to try to get you to hate him before he lets you in (that cheeky Tsun of him)

He genuinely cares for and supports all of his siblings but has been rough on them needlessly. But if Bruce is being the distant or absent parent he is, you better believe if any of the siblings drops him a text or a call, Jason will be there in a heartbeat.

He's the most physically powerful of the whole Bat Family. You don't understand because of his time in the League, his time with the All-Caste, and having abused Venom for a time, he can snap an arm bone like it's a carrot with little effort.

Everyone in the family likes dogs and goes out of their way to gush over a dog, but Jason takes it to a whole new level. And even when he's masked up dogs just gravitate to Jason.

Can and has grown a beard in a matter of a few days. He usually likes to be clean shaven but some days he likes to wear a beard just to throw everyone off.

One time him, Steph, Tim, and Duke all went to a restaurant (Red Robin lol) and the waitress got his order wrong and his burger had raw tomatoes on it, Jason took the tomatoes off and ate it while looking absolutely miserable. Tim: Jay why did you eat that you didn't have to you know you could have asked the server to fix your burger. Jason, almost in tears: "She works really hard and she tried and I'm a scary dude I don't want to make her upset.." Duke: "... Jason you literally shot at a cop for looking at you funny the other day. But you're afraid of upsetting a waitress?!? I mean ACAB but dude.. "

Jason's happiest big brother moment™ was taking Tim and Damian to the shooting range and watching them both get their first bullseye.

You can't tell me Jason Todd was into the Emo/Screamo/Warped-Tour Scene. His favorite bands/Albums in no particular order, That's the Spirit (Literally the whole album is Jason Themed and I'm gonna die on this hill) & Sempiternal by Bring me the Horizon, Digital Renegade & Everyone's Safe in the Treehouse by I See Stars, The Resistance: Rise of the Runaways by Crown the Empire,

Jason Todd's favorite foods: (Also some based in Canon*) Burgers, Chili Dogs*, Lager-style beers, Freshly baked bread*, Neopolitan ice cream, grilled corn, and Chinese Chicken noodle soup with Duck.

Tim:

This boy *slaps car roof* gives off so much asexual energy. I know New 52 exists but I just feel like Tim is the person who really, REALLY has to trust you and like you before he's sexually active with you.

HYPERFIXATES. You also can't tell me Tim isn't on the spectrum/or has ADHD.

Is the only member of the family who regularly checks up on Jason and talks to him every day via text message. The two are memelords together and love to play pranks on the other members.

While Dick may give the most frequent hugs and Jason gives the tightest, most secure hugs, Tim's hugs are always the warmest and make you just feel good.

Tim's birthday is July 19th. Meaning he's a Cancer. Let that sink in.. no, really let that information just soak. (Note I have nothing against Cancer women, cancer men however....)

All of the bat boys really struggle with talking about their feelings. Dick will manipulate you into changing the subject via twisting it to be about you, Jason will just cut you off or will ignore you, Damian will deflect everything and harass you until you stop, Tim however, Tim is very emotional and while he's very calculated about who he's emotional with, he's not afraid to break down and cry if he trusts you.

Everyone who says he's the level headed Robin haha how's it feel to be WRONG. Tim is at best the least functional college student and at worst a lemming. 'No Tim, coffee isn't a meal I'm going to make you some food or I'm going to stick you in a room with Damian for an hour.' Richard (Dick) John Grayson.

People overblow how addicted to caffeine Tim is. But it's true. Just overblown. You can talk to him before he's had his caffeine just don't expect him to be anything but curt and blunt.

Everyone says Jason would be the worst at texting but it's Tim. He's the master of leaving you on read. While Jason may do it on purpose, Tim is just really bad at texting people and while he always will read your messages he forgets to respond unless it's really funny or really pressing.

Everyone sees Tim as this bean pole super skinny boy Robin. Tim may not be stacked like Dick or a freaking tank like Jason, but Tim is NOT super skinny. He's just as muscular and likes to work out as anyone, but he just is super lean, so he looks a lot bigger and his muscles are more defined because of how thin his skin is. He has those almost disgusting spider veins on his arm. Kind of gross to look at, but he's the dream of any nurse. This means Tim is also the king of accidentally sending/posting thirst traps.

He really is the glue of the Bat Family. Everyone kidnaps Tim for 'Tim Time'.

Dick likes to spar with and in general just hang out with Tim. Tim tried to teach Dick how to skateboard and you'd think the boy who mastered the trapeze would know how to skateboard but you'd be wrong.

Babs and Tim always hang out and talk about computer stuff and Babs knows she can vent to Tim about anything and he won't say a word.

Tim and Steph were a thing for a while and even though they're just friends now, they still are very close and the two have a very deep bond, liking to shop with each other and watch movies,

Cass just loves to be around Tim because of how calming he is but also she knows she can spar with him AND Cass can also skateboard with Tim too.

Even though him and Damian are always fighting, the two still end up being together and have this unspoken bond. They work great together on a team but other than that they still hate each other.

And while everyone still is hesitant around Jason, and despite the fact that Jason literally beat Tim to within an inch of his life, AND would still trigger Tim and taunt him about it. The two have this odd closeness that rivals even him and Steph. Tim will always be the first to bat for Jason. Jason was Tim's Robin. And despite the fact Jason literally beat it into Tim's head to "never meet your heroes." Tim will always be there for Jason should he ask. The two are just close. And it's hard to describe. Bruce has caught Tim and Jason just platonically sleeping next to each other or just doing their own things shoulder to shoulder silently, just enjoying each other's company.

Tim and Duke also have a really positive relationship with one another and the two can stay up all night just talking about anything. Their minds just mesh well together. The two also love to team up and prank the other members of the Batman Family.

Tim's favorite ASMR/Stim? Watching those Tik Toks of people cleaning computers or cleaning phones. The sound of an air duster is like music to his ears and if any of the Bats need their technology cleaned it secretly makes Tim so happy to help them.

Wear his hair up or wear his hair down? It depends! While Tim likes his long hair he also has gotten plenty of compliments for his short hair and likes to style it to suit any occasion.

My one pet-peeve with Tim is that he probably is that person who lets his privilege show from time to time. While he was essentially raised to just sit down, shut up, and be a perfect trophy son to the Drake's. The Drake's were in the same tax bracket as Bruce and Tim definitely was a rich kid. He never means to come across as spoiled, but sometimes Jason will give him harsh looks if Tim just throws away food he doesn't like or says things like Chipotle is 'poor people food'

Tim Drake's favorite foods (you know by now*) Donuts*, Shallot and Artichoke Pizza with Canadian Bacon* (odd choice but it could work) Artichokes in general are his favorite vegetable, Strawberries, and Beef Pho.

Damian:

I headcanon that he has the worst teeth of all of the Bat Boys and he actually has to use lingual braces. (Hence why you can't see his braces)

Canonically is a very good artist and while him and Tim don't get along, Tim introduced Damian to digital art and gave him a photoshop pack and a nice tablet for his birthday one year and Damian loved it so much.

Damian is a capricorn and I will die on this hill. A January capricorn too.

Now you want a good chef? You've got Damian. Having converted to veganism Damian has had to get creative whenever he goes out to eat so he tends to like to eat more home cooked foods. Damian loves all matters of mushrooms, eggplant, and bell peppers.

Damian really struggles the most with his wanting to just be a normal kid. Despite the fact he will dismiss you for it, anytime he gets to spend at Gotham Academy with Jon and the rest of the kids he's naturally the happiest.

Damian LOVES to give gifts. He loves the look on people's faces when they are shocked when they actually get something from Damian.

Despite the fact that he's been traumatized from both his times with Ra's and Talia as well as with Bruce. He just wants Bruce and Talia to be together because he loves them both equally.

While he's the least flexible and least gymnastic of the Robins do let your guard down around him. He is the fastest runner and the guy is rivaled only by Jason in terms of lethality.

So someone (Jason Todd & Duke Thomas) introduced Damian to trap music and ever since anytime his phone gets stolen people will be shocked to find he's listening to some combination of Lil' Yachty, X, Kendrick Lamar, Wiz, and Kodak.

If any random person tries to hug Damian he'll immediately push them away, he'll bitch and moan about just about anyone hugging him other than Bruce & Dick.

Damian loves to go to the beach/the ocean. He just thinks it's so vast and he loves the brineness of the air. Also being half white, quarter middle-eastern and quarter Chinese (Yes everyone forgets Talia is half Chinese) Damian gets DARK. And although he's just okay as a swimmer he still likes bogeyboarding and eventually wants to learn how to surf.

I'm genuinely afraid once Puberty is done with this kid and everyone in the family is. He has Bruce Wayne AND Talia Al-Ghouls genes and those are two SEXY human beings. Damian's gonna grow a beard one day and people aren't going to know how to act.

Damian secretly plays Fortnight and not even Jon knows. He doesn't want to get shamed. He'd rather lose a match and ruin his streaks than deal with the shame of anyone in that family finding out he plays Fortnight.

Damian Wayne's favorite foods (canon*) Cereal*, Avocados, Grilled Tempeh, his mom's Tabbouleh, Mushroom Tacos, and Vegan Sushi rolls, and grape juice.

Duke Thomas

Duke is like, freakishly good with a piano, and he picked it up naturally!

Also everyone says Tim brews the best pot of coffee in the Bat Family, cue to everyone's surprise when Tim was sick one day and couldn't make a pot. Only to find the coffee was freaking amazing. Duke didn't take any credit at first until Alfred let it slip that Duke was the one who brewed the pot.

Duke being the only Meta of the family originally thought he was the double-token because he was a Meta and a black boy. Needless to say his fears were seriously unfounded the moment he got to know everyone.

Although he somewhat fears Jason and his temper initially, he and Jason have one of the closest relationships in the family. If Tim isn't around to bat for Jason, Duke will happily take his spot. The two work on each other's bikes and grew to share the same taste in music.

Duke uses his Photokenetic powers as a force for good and for shenanigans. Jason wants to play a prank on Dick and Damian while Dick is reading Damian a story? Duke will hide Jason in the shadows and will cover up his shadow. Alfred dropped something in the dark? You better believe Duke will find it in 3 seconds or less.

Duke makes it a point to visit his parents every weekend to talk to them. Although they are making some progress in their recoveries, it's still slow going. Eventually, he starts bringing members of the family to see his parents. It started with Cass, then Jason, and the rest followed suit.

Duke loves playing video games with Damian and even helps Damian beat some tougher levels when Damian is about to rage and destroy the console.

Duke is into Magic the Gathering and you cannot tell me otherwise. Duke also is the DM for the Bat Kids annual D&D games. I can and will make a D&D Batfam Headcanons if asked.

Loves Pho just as much as Cass and Tim and they all call it a date night every now and then where they can go to a hole in the wall pho place. It's really a secret between the three of them.

DUKE THOMAS IS THE BEST SWIMMER OF THE BAT BOYS AND I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL. HE JUST THRIVES IN THE WATER.

Finding out his birth father is a supervillain was really tough for him. He went into a shell for a little bit afterwards. Cass and Steph were there to help talk him out of his funk.

Duke Thomas's favorite foods (lol what canon DC hasn't acknowleged our boy in a while..) Chicken Pho, Thai Iced Tea, Papaya, Crab Cakes, Italian Hoagies, his mom's Lemon Poundcake, mint chocolate chip ice cream.

I hope y'all enjoyed! Up next (eventually) will be the Bat Girls!

[liquid-luck-00]

My Life is One Complication After Another 3

Cursing Ahead 🤬

Ao3 *** First *** Previous *** Next

~~~~~~~~~~

Ever since Mari's classmates stopped talking with her, they also stopped asking her for favors. Along with a blocked and rotating schedule for patrols meant that she actually had a sleep schedule. Sure she didn't get nearly enough but that was what coffee is for.

That was how she found herself down in the bakery with her papa. Roy had called her and the four of them talked and it was comfortable. Mari was the one who opened and was watching the front. She was still talking with Roy, but now it was on a headset, as he was out patrolling In Starling City.

"So as I was saying before we were oh so rudely interrupted." came Roy's voice in her ear. "So Ice cream and movies?"

A soft laughter escaped her and a smile on her lips.

"Sounds gre..." the bell at the door chimed. "Hey guys come in," she greeted the Waynes.

"Let me guess the bats?" Roy supplied as Dick bounced towards the counter.

"Good morning Marinette!" Dick practically sang loud enough for even Roy to hear.

"God how the hell is he so chipper so early." she heard Roy grumble.

"God damn morning people," she grumbled. That elicited laughter from both Roy and Jason.

"Amen to that!" Tim seconded in a monotone lifting a coffee cup. "Maman I'm going to take the Waynes up." she called poking her head into the kitchen. Her Maman nodded so she picked up her phone and walked towards them.

"I'll Let you go," Roy was about to hang up.

"Wait how about we give the Bats a heart attack." she smirked changing to the ancient language of miracles.

"I like the way you think, I'll catch you later." he responded in the same tongue.

"See ya then." she smiled, switching back the language. Ending the call and removing the ear piece. “Are you guys coming or do I have to drag you guys?" she turned back already at the door. Granted most of them showed confused faces and side eyes, but she smiled. They followed her without saying a word.

Once they were in the apartment she excused herself to change into more appropriate gear. She activated Kaalki’s miraculous, who then silently portaled out.

That being said she changed into a pair of black skinny cargo pants with red combat boots. A black long sleeve shirt under a cropped red sleeveless hoodie. Her hair was half down with red and pink streaks and a mini white gold backpack with three patches in the same white gold finished her outfit. She grabbed four parcels and went down.

"So we can either do the boring ground tour or," she held up the bundles. "we can turn up the speed."

"I like the way you think Pixie Pop." Jason stood and she handed him his.

"Roy sent me you guy's sizes, so I altered and customized a few things." she smiled. "bathroom is over there and the guest room is next to it." Dick looked torn between excited and horrified when handed his stack.

Tim seemed awake, but she knew better, "go change and I'll have a fresh pot of coffee ready." He nodded robotically as he got up.

She set the last bunch next to Damian, who was looking like an angry kitten. She sat down next to him and leaned in.

"What are you.." he started but Mari whispered in his ear.

"The jacket has a hidden sling for a katana, which will be practically invisible when on." His eyes widened slightly and there was a bit of slack in his jaw now. Before turning into an amused smirk. "Use my room up the stairs and through the hatch." she finished as he headed up the stairs.

"I'm impressed he let you close without struggling," Bruce broke his silence, as she finished prepping the coffee maker.

"Well he would have if," she began as Damian practically crashed down the stairs and all but tackled Bruce before rushing out the door. The closest she had ever seen her baby brother smile, which effectively made her smile.

"Holy crap! What are you?!" Dick made himself known.

"More importantly what the fuck did you do with Demon spawn!" Jason shouted from next to Tim, who was being propped up by both Jason and Dick.

"Tt. I am right here Todd." The scowl reappearing on his features. "It is adequate Dupain-Cheng."

"I'll take it as a compliment on one condition."

"And that is?" he rose a brow.

"You call me Marinette not Dupain-Cheng. I'm your sister aren't I?"

He seemed to war with himself for a moment before stating. "That is acceptable, Marinette."

At this point all the bats in the room were playing a game of ping-pong between Marinette and Damian. They were trying to figure out what magic spell Marinette must have used, when in reality she just seemed to fall into Damian’s good graces automatically. OK so maybe Marinette being the holder of the ladybug miraculous as well as being the great guardian of the order has that affect on most people, a sense of respect and trust that seems to permeate her aura.

She was handing Tim a huge mug as the front door swung open to reveal her Maman.

"Hello Bruce," Sabine greeted.

"It is good to see you Sabine," was his response.

“Maman," Mari pulled her mother's attention from her biological father. "These are Bruce's boys and my brothers. Tim, Jason, Dick, and Damian." she motioned to each one respectively.

"It's nice to meet all of you." Sabine smiled, "why don't all of you get something from the bakery before you go."

After finishing their small breakfast in the park Mari pulled out a map and a marker.

"So what do you guys want to see?" They listed off places that she marked down. She added a few to the list to fill it out, marked the route and took a picture and sent it to Roy. "Okay so this will work." she glanced at her phone. A quick look on social media showed no one has found Andre yet. She pulled out a case of comms and added, "Also keep your eyes out for Andre."

"Who is that?" Dick asked taking the earpiece.

"Andre's Ice cream cart, the best ice cream in Paris." Marinette answered.

"Then why must we look for him?" Damian added.

"Well he changes locations daily and turns it into a game of tag of sorts."

"Alright, lead the way Pixie." with a smirk she dashed off her brothers close on her heels.

Yes this is the best way to get to see the city, but this was also a test to see how the bats did without their toys.

Getting to Notre Dame was uneventful. Dick kept up a steady conversation with her, just a step behind with Damian, Jason brought up the rear but would constantly toss in quips and questions. Damian and Tim were mostly quiet, unless they were trying to get one of their brothers to stop a particularly embarrassing story.

Getting to the Louve was even more entertaining. Now that Dick had a feel for the Parisian roofs he would do flips and vaults to make her laugh. In the Louve is another story.

They had accidentally ran into some of her classmates, quite literally. She and her brothers were taking goofy 'walk like an Egyptian' group photos on the second floor of the Egyptian exhibit, the mini Ladybug camera was reattaching to her phone charm when Tim began asking her questions about it.

"Well my best friend loves anime, and we kinda sorta binged the entire Dragon Ball series and when we saw the ladybug camera. He said it would be impossible to create and maintain the quality of the image. So I kinda sorta made it out of spite." she mumbled the end.

"Hell if you weren't my sister I would beg Bruce to adopt you," Tim stated. "Do you have the files I would love to look through them. Maybe send them to Babs or Cy!"

"Sure I think I have it on a flash drive." That was when a tall body, walking backwards slammed into her, pushing her into Jason. "oof."

"You okay." Dick was in full mama hen mode fretting over her.

"I wasn't watching where I was going." the figure spoke as he turned around. "I'm sor." the words died on his tongue, Kim.

Max, Alix, Nino, Alya, and oh kwami no Lila, who were now all snickering.

"I'm fine Dick," she smiled to reassure him. However her classmates were shocked.

Lila of course was the one who broke the silence, by beginning to cry. "I'm so sorry about her. I know she hates me but to be so rude to a complete stranger!" her sobs breaking the sentence while her lackeys went to console her, glaring daggers at Marinette.

"Seriously girl," Alya began to scold her. "Your little out burst not only made Lila cry. Your insulting someone who is just trying to be nice."

She and her brothers were now standing awkwardly being scolded by a teenager. After three minutes of trying to figure out what they were being scolded for and why the guys hadn't apparently left.

"What the fuck did she do that your yelling at her for?" Jason finally broke Alya's rant. Now it was the five Parisians and the Italian to stand there confused.

"She called him a dick," Alya sighed exasperated.

"Yes." Dick answered confusing them further.

"Dick."Tim now called.

"What?!"

"Dick!!" Damian, Marinette, Tim, and Jason all called, and immediately began laughing.

"What? Oh, oh," a sheepish smile now on his face. “Names Richard but I go by Dick,” he explained to those who weren’t laughing, smiling at them.

"Tt. this is why I call you Grayson." Damian rolled his eyes. "Besides this one still has not apologized." he jabbed a finger to Kim.

"It's not worth it Damian,” Marinette shook her head. "We should head back to the bakery anyways. Maman has probably finished scolding Bruce." she smirked.

"Damn I wish I was a fly on the wall for that conversation" Jason lamented.

"Well..." she held up the ladybug charm and flipped it over showing an empty space.

"Two!" Tim shouted.

"Anyone who beats me back gets a copy," she smiled.

"Your on." Jason nodded as he vaulted over the safety wall from the second floor. Damian and Dick sprinted in opposite directions.

"Sorry Mars your gonna loose." Tim shouted as the last to leave.

"We'll see," she shot back. "Bye," She turned to her classmates as she grabbed the railing above and flipped up and over to the third floor, running to one of the secret zip lines the miraculous team set up.

"What the fuck" was faintly heard behind her, all but Lila and Max shouted by the sounds of it, as she jumped from the window.

She made up quite a bit of distance and seemed to be on Damian's heel. She had passed Tim and Dick was a few steps behind. Jason was just out of arm reach. So with a burst of speed both she and Damian were shoulder to shoulder with Jason.

The three of them simultaneously practically crashed into the side door of the bakery.

"I won."

"In your dreams Todd."

"I beat both you and Pixie"

"Check your eyes, or do you need the camera installed in your helmet." Jason's gaze hardened at Damian's words.

"How about we call it a three way tie and you both get a copy." Mari interrupted. "We should head up." Laughing Marinette opened the door and went up.

Lunch was rambunctious, but she was coming to expect that with her brothers.

“Too bad we couldn’t find that ice cream guy Mari,” Tim spoke up once everyone had finished eating.

“Oh let’s see if anyone has posted where he’s at today!” She went to check her phone but a message ended up distracting her.

Andres in your favorite spot I’ll meet you there at 7 your time.

"Cool he’ s in my favorite spot in all of Paris which just happens to be the last spot on our list today," she announced, sending off a text, setting her phone down, screen up.

Can't wait Katniss

"Why don’t you all go and Mari can get to know Bruce," Sabine offered.

OK granted it’s a good idea, maybe I should get to know my biological father but am I ready to? Do I want to? Am I yes, yes I want to get to know my biological father, yes I want my family to grow, my brothers are such protective goofballs and I love them already.

"Sounds good," she smiled.

That was when her phone lit up from a message. She went to pick it up, but she was to slow.

Jason was the one who snacked her phone. "Message from Katniss says see ya then Peeta. So who's Katniss Pixie."

"Well..." she started but she began to blush furiously.

"That would be her boyfriend," her Maman decided to add before heading back down to the bakery with Papa.

Dick pounced asking a million and one questions, Bruce physically froze but she could tell his mind was racing because that look was much the same as hers. Jason was pensive, while Tim and Damian just seemed bored or tired.

So that was how she found herself talking about Roy, blushing furiously. While simultaneously avoiding his name and details that would tip any of them off. After about a half hour of her answering questions did Dick start telling her about his fiancée. How they were planning on setting a date for the wedding.

After that the next few hows was spent sharing stories and tidbits of themselves.

However, thanks to Dick a design was swimming in her mind. so she did the only logical thing and ran up to her room. Grabbed three drives, her tablet and pen and ran back down. She tossed the red drive to Tim, and Jason and Damian each a black drive. Plopped down and began stretching out an Italian suit with a nock lapel. A rough coloration of a midnight blue offset by a sapphire. Accents of golden thread, emerald buttons and an Osiria rose in the lapel. She signed the design 'Mira Luck' and handed Dick the tablet.

"So I couldn't help myself," she begun to fidget. "But in my defense you told a designer about a wedding and my brain wouldn't stop screaming at me until this was on something. So what do you think? I know its rough but."

"Holy Shit your Mira Luck as in M, Jagged Stones personal designer. You are M as in the designer for the Lucky Spot!!" Tim screamed lunging to take the tablet from Dick.

"That's me," a blindingly bright smile lit up her features.

"So what do you think?" she asked again.

"It's amazing we were actually hoping to talk to you about Kori’s dress." Dick smiled. "I could call her it's not too late there."

"Perhaps it would be best to discuss it in person when Marinette next goes, that way she can get to know Gotham." Bruce interjected.

"That actually might be sooner than you think," she responded.

"I was actually accepted to be an exchange student for the next semester at Gotham Academy."

"Wait you’re willing we going to Gotham to study! You ’re going to Gotham willingly. Bruce I think your daughter might be a little crazy." Jason surprisingly brought up.

"I might be but but it’s no crazier than Paris and it’s a Akumas. Besides I would love to design your fiancée’s dress and we should head over to Andre’s ice cream before the sunsets that way we can watch the lighting of the Eiffel tower." She got up and called out. "Hey Jason mind passing me my backpack."

"Yeah sure," he went around he couch to grab it and toss it to her but before he did he finally seemed to notice the patches. "Wait are these The Outlaws."

"Yeah Red Hood, Arsenal, Star Fire, and Bizarro." she was smiling.

"Why choose The Outlaws?" Tim brought up.

"Honestly it was because Roy mentioned something about Arsenal and Red Hood and I ended up liking of the logos, so I made them into the backpack," she shrugged. "Besides unless you’re looking at it close enough you can’t tell which is always fun to see if people pay attention to it, let’s go."

At that the six of them walked out of the apartment, away from the bakery towards the Palais de Chaillot.

"So what's so special about Andre's Ice cream?" B asked.

"Personally I think he is a meta. But what he does is he can either see your true reflection or that of the person best suited to you."

"So he sees souls?" Tim added.

"Not quite, more like he sees the main qualities of you or your go." she tapped her chin.

"But he is meta,” Tim tried to figure.

"That's the only explanation I can come up with but I have no idea." Marinette shrugged.

"So how does he do it." Tim was now fully invested in this.

"Well you either ask for love or self and he usually does three to four ice cream flavors and gives a short reason."

They were now at the top of the stairs at the Palais de Chaillot looking out at the Eiffel Tower. They stood there as the last of the light faded from the sky. The city was dark for a moment as the Eiffel Tower lit up and slowly the lamps lit up.

"So that's why this is your favorite spot Minnie." A voice behind her chuckled. She turned around and nearly tackled him.

"Hey speedy." she pecked his cheek.

Not a second later did Jason scream, "Roy!"

"Ready for that movie?” Roy asked her an arm around her shoulders.

"Of course," she smiled. "See you guys around."

"What the fuck are you doing in Paris Roy!?" Jason screamed.

"Um... Date night," he answered. The Waynes were now practically surrounding the couple.

"What?" Apparently it was Dick's turn to yell.

"Seriously. I thought you said the bats and birds were detectives." she spoke just loud enough for them to hear. "It's kinda hard to believe with the big bat having a heart attack over there." Sure enough Bruce was seriously hyperventilating.

"Oh mind giving this to LB?" He handed her a small nondescript red box.

"Sure," Marinette took the box, "Au Revoir."

From there they left and oh kwamii did she wish she could replay that again, oh wait I can.

Next

~~~~~~~~~~

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[abizarreyodelingincident]

Braaaaaaains...

Jason Todd is legally – and biologically – dead. His family noted his lack of pulse at three in the morning, inside the cave, his body laid out on a table with medical instruments.

No, really, tell him something he doesn't know.

What else crawls out of a grave moaning and groaning?

Or, Jason thought his family full of the world's greatest detectives was smarter than this. Apparently not.

****************************************************************

It had been an ordinary night. Calm. The stage for very little costumed crime and barely more regular, non-insane crime as well. Half the menagerie that made up Dick's loving ragtag bunch of younger siblings had even taken the night off.

Nothing should have make him arrive to silence this thick, to this faint echo of sniffling.

He sprinted after the noise.

Damian's fine, left before me. Duke didn't go out, nor did Steph. Babs spent the evening with Cass in the cave, Tim swept the bowery and said he was going to stop by Jason's place to-

He collided with a shaking, tear stained Tim right outside the medbay.

There was a body on the closest table. Others around it, crying, pacing, muttering in denial.

Dick couldn't look.

No, no, please, please no. I can't do that again. I can't!

Scarred skin, too pale – to be Duke or Cass – by death. His breath hitched. No. He. Fuck.

He knew those scars. Those arms. That chest and that fucking Y from navel to shoulders.

“Dick! Jason... he was...  I found him in his apartment. And I brought him to the cave... but... Jason doesn't have a pulse. He's... cold...”

Dick stumbled.

No.

No, no, no, that... that couldn't be real.

He caught himself on his little brother. Brought himself into a hug too tight, as painful as the arms gripping his ribs and back. A grip meant for a lifesaving light at sea. For a safeline over a ravine.

Twice. He'd lost the same brother twice. And this time, he didn't even have the excuse of inexperience and unstable situations. He... he patrolled the city whilst his brother was dead, completely oblivious to the fact. How could he? How dare he not know?!

“Shh, Tim, I'm here. I'm here.” But not for Jason, whispered a vicious part of him.

“What's all this?”

Dick's heart just about stopped.

Damian stood at the entrance to the lockers' room, uniform folded under one arm, hair slightly damp from a shower and Bat-themed pajamas worn without shame. His mild annoyance was proof he had no idea of the drama that had happened not twenty feet from him.

With reluctance, he let go of Tim, a gentle hand lingering on his shoulder, before he took a few steps toward his youngest, most vulnerable brother.

“D-Dami, I... ”   Damn it, he had to be the one to tell Damian about this. Because otherwise, the person to break the news would be Bruce, and-

Shit.

Bruce.

Oh God. How could they possibly tell him- ? After all their fights, the goddamned shattering that had broken the man he had been, and their last conversations even being more admonishment about protocols that Jason had flippantly disregarded. Bruce would never recover. That was it. The end of Batman.

...But first, God he hated himself, wanted to just curl up in a corner and forget everything, first he had a young brother he needed to talk to. One... one little brother less than just this afternoon.

“Jason... ” He swallowed, his throat tight, his heart in denial, the words so damning, but needing to be said. “Jason did not make it. He... he's dead.”

Damian stayed thoughtfully silent.

Not... not the tearful reaction he had expected, but Damian had grown up surrounded by so much death and horror that he would obviously be guarded. And oh, Dick's heart went to his baby brother, and he truly wished he could

“I do not understand. Why such theatrics for the zombie?”

Dick gasped, knowledge warring with the flash of anger.

“Damian! He's our brother!”

“Did he lose his head?” Damian demanded, and Dick's mind buckled.

“Huh, no, but that doesn't have anything to d-”

“Then, why are you acting so weirdly emotional, Richard?”

Before Dick's temper could catch up to his mouth, the longest and most painful-sounding gasp erupted from the medbay, where, to the general shock of all, Jason's gray-ish body shot upward with both his arms raised.

Electroshocks didn't make you jolt like that.

Electroshocks, in fact, remained in their kit on the other side of the medbay, unused. Because Jason had seemingly been dead long before he had been brought to the cave.

That was roughly the moment when Dick's brain caught up with the first of many hints. Latched onto it with a fool's hope.

“... Damian... When you were calling Jason a 'zombie', what did you mean?”

Damian's brows scrunched up together, a look he meant to be intimidating, but had more in common with a disgruntled kitten. “Exactly that, Richard. Do we not have files on zombies in the computer? Dead bodies walking about animated by unholy powers?”

Jason's not- Dick forced the half formed thought to a halt. For once, he rather wanted to be very, very wrong in how he perceived his family.

“What's with all the noise? Can't someone try to sleep like the dead without screaming?” Jason groused. “Should have gotten myself buried ag-OOF!”

“JASON!” screamed the hysterical teenager that had launched himself at a very lively dead body.

“Huhh? Hi, Timmy?” Jason said blearily, ruffling Tim's hair, eyebags suspiciously prominent. “... Fear gas?”

The blinking slowed, the fog of sleep drifting away as he silently begged the rest of them for an answer.

Happily provided by a still crying Tim. “I thought you were gone!”

“What is dead may never die,” Jason quipped, his mouth twisting in that cocksure grin from his Robin days.

And Dick wanted nothing more than to stop right there, pass out from the relief and joy of his little brother being alive and kicking, but...

But... 

That joke. One of many morbidly unfunny jokes and puns.

Bone-deep fatigue crushed his back. A bitter curse for whatever higher forces messing with them echoed strongly inside his skull, before he gave in to the inevitable and inhaled a few times for patience.

“Jason. We thought you were dead-dead.”

With prickly, hedgehog style affection, Jason pushed Tim back and stood up, stretching. “Come off it, Goldie. I wasn't even decapitated. I mean, if you were really worried, you could have just called a necromancer or something.” His expression hardened. “But if you ever call a necromancer on my ass, I'll shoot your perfect glutes.”

Yup, yup, yup, this is happening.

Tim finally wiped the rest of the tears away, helped by one of Stephanie's handkerchiefs, when he froze. “Wait. Your skin's still pale as a corpse.”

The flicker of amusement in Jason's eyes killed it for Dick.

God, how could they have all been this idiotic? If Wally ever learned about this – Shit, did Roy and Kory know before him?!

They were going to laugh their asses off at him.

Jason, unaware of the world recalibration happening in his poor big brother's mind, shrugged and rolled his shoulders – who creaked suspiciously loudly, more like rusty hinges than normal body parts. “Eh, I'm just a bit hungry. Nothing a meal or two won't fix and get some blood flowing back under my s-”

“You're a zombie.”

They turned toward him.

“Way to cross the finish line on time, Mister Rabbit,” Jason drawled.

Barbara, for once, looked completely unprepared. “A zombie,” she repeated, dazed.

Stephanie's nervous giggle died out when she noticed the lack of humor. “... No!”

Cassandra furiously looked down, muttering in her fist. Duke, by contrast, had the expression of a person stuck in a very awkward nightmare.

Even Jason's good-natured ribbing faded in when faced only with the distant screeched of bats. “... Hm, guys, bats, roostery, parasites and octopi? This is old news. What's with all the... ”

He vaguely gestured at their faces.

“Old news?” Tim rasped like he was being strangled.

“I came back from the dead years ago! Come on! Am I in a parallel universe? Hey, Demon Brat,” Jason called, baffled, “you knew, right? I didn't imagine that, right?!”

“Of course, Todd. Mother informed me of everything. Besides, Grandfather's interest in your state of being was of interest for a few weeks. How could I have been ignorant about your zombified state of being?”

In the corner of his eyes, Dick noticed Tim's, Barbara's and Cassandra's expressions all pinching in displeasure. In a way, Dick was reassured. He hadn't been the target of a family-wide hoax to discredit him as an attentive and loving eldest brother. No, he was just naturally blind, apparently.

“He knew?” Tim growled, like it was a personal failing of the fabric of time and space.

Damian's tone was the exact opposite. “And none of you realized...?”

Dick squirmed. “I... huh... you see...”

His baby brother eyed him, completely unimpressed, and for once after years of partnership, Dick felt he deserved every single ounce of it.

“I see... I shall reevaluate the value of this 'detective training' I've been given if this is the result then,” he said, the nearest thing to completely disavowing his older siblings without saying so.  

In other circumstances, perhaps the others would have demanded that Damian stay and explain, but he suspected the quelling look it would have deserved prevented them. Not one of them spoke until Damian had disappeared upstairs and the elevator doors had closed.

“Jason, since when have you been a zombie?”

Jason blinked, jaw hanging. Juuuust enough for some of the scar tissue on his face to stretch past normal. Why did Dick only notice that now?

“Wait, you're all serious? How could you not know? I told you guys!”

And there was Dick's pride rearing its ugly head, because no, no he had not been told and maybe his deductive skills needed a very complete overhaul, but his memory was still excellent!

“You never said that. Heck, we weren't even talking until two years ago!”

“I literally told you all that I crawled out of my grave by myself, groaning the entire time. No experiment, no Lazarus Pit, just a body waking up in its own coffin and deciding to breathe fresh air. Does that not scream 'zombie' to you?”

They cringed.

“Not the only one that returned from beyond,” Babs mumbled. He could see her pull up the mental list right there.

“I greeted you all last meeting with a 'What's up, my bat folks? It's me, your favorite zombie!'. What did you think that meant?”

“That you're an asshole with a morbid sense of humor?” Stephanie quipped, and Jason momentarily paused his indignation to high five her. Fair's fair.

“Okay, but what about that time I got shot in the chest and I told you all not to worry about it?”

“I just figured you were going to get stitched up by Leslie or yourself, you know, regular bat neuroses,” Tim confessed.

Dick made a mental note to keep a much closer eye on Tim's patrols for the next few months.

“From a bullet chest wound?” Jason asked with an incredulousness that was not at all earned, because he was a freaking zombie!

“I thought your armor had blocked it! The hole wasn't bleeding!” Tim protested, cheeks red and tone defensive.

“Well, yeah,” Jason replied. “I don't bleed. It's like some fruit pulp or something. Ain't coming out if you don't press. My heart's not pumping.”

That's a 'nevermind' on the smoothie I saved for after patrol.

“Well, I know that now,” Tim said.

“I feel like I should write it down on the plaque or something,” Jason still sounded amazed, and might have pinched his arm just to be sure he hadn't been daydreaming, “Like, 'a good soldier AND A VERY DISCRETE ZOMBIE!' in big flaming letters. With a spotlight. And a dictionary opened on 'Zombie' or 'Undead'. You know, just in case the next batbrat to come along needs a few subtle hints about my true nature. What'd you think, Dick?”

He could not have been blushing harder than he currently was. “I think shut up.”

“Of course. What about when I shoved my deadly cold toes at Tim under a blanket?”

“Cold feet.”

“Never eating around you guys?”

“Daddy issues with Bruce,” Barbara deadpanned, and got a sock thrown at her for her honesty.

However, Duke, poor kid, turned green. “Wait, so when you offered me some jellied brain... was that not a death joke?”

Dick's stomach spontaneously shrivelled.

By the grimaces and sharp inhales all around, that was a common reaction.

Then the worst possible thing happened: Jason grinned.

He strutted, all confidence and brashness, and viper-quick, snatched an arm around Duke's shoulder. “Narrows, Nightlight, my tiny bitsy bro, everything I do is a death joke. My very existence laughs at death.”

Inside the batcave, the groaning was long-suffering and shameful.

“But that was actually brains,” Duke countered.

“Yeah. Calf brains. It's a delicacy.”

Tim massaged his forehead. What a mood.

Duke narrowed his eyes. “It was purely for the joke, wasn't it?”

Jason patted him on the back so hard Duke faltered. “One tragically wasted on your obtuse mind. I prefer me some Tête fromagée instead. Less like grainy jello.”

Stone-faced, Barbara wheeled herself toward the batcomputer. There, upon a series of quick clicks, she opened up the Bats's files. “Alright, you had your fun. Do you need to eat brains or are you just the world's least funny meathead?”

“I'm the world's most misunderstood vigilante!” Jason loudly protested, milking their pain for all it was worth. And then some. “But yeah, I do. No grey matter in there” -- he tapped his belly -- “no thinking up here.” -- his skull.

“Need some better quality brains then,” Tim stage-whispered to Stephanie.

Cass pointed the finger at Jason. “No killing for brains.”

Jason's good humor flickered with a flash of green. “Ain't ever done it, never will. It's a matter of morals, not hunger, Cass.”

Dick swooped in that minefield before it exploded.

“Great! Proud of you, Jay! You're the good kind of vegetarian zombie,” he said, putting an arm around his ginormous little brother's shoulders.

Wait a minute...

“Hey, you're older than when you died! Zombies don't age.”

“No, I was thrown into a Lazarus Pit, and the evil waters cured the malnutrition-induced delay on my growth. Haven't aged a day since.”

“I just thought you had a weird babyface thing going on,” Tim said.

Jason's grin turned sardonic. “Quite the opposite, Timber.”

Dick put his head in his hands in some vain attempt to prevent his brain from leaking through his ears.  With his luck, his little brother would 'playfully' eat some of it. “There's no way you look this rugged at biologically sixteen! I refuse to believe that.”

“Can you imagine my power if I'd been allowed to reach my full potential?” Jason leered, eyebrows waggling like waves in a sea at storm. “So many heart attacks.”

Barbara and Cassandra exchanged a silent look, and, after a solemn nod, Cassandra reached up to slap Jason upside the head.

“Thank you, Cassandra,” Barbara told her. “Jason, never do such a thing again.”

The disgruntled groan that followed must have been on purpose, because Jay was indeed an asshole.

“Besides, it's not like the world will ever know,” Tim said, cutting, a smirk hiding by his hand.

Dick really thought his little brother was far too relaxed upon learning that Jason was one with the undead. Sure, they had all encountered various levels of zombies during their missions, from all sorts of oral traditions and cultures, alien viruses and hidden nanobots piloting meat puppets. It wasn't even classified as a nation-wide crisis to encounter free-roaming zombies. But since the chronically unalive individual in question was one of their own, Dick felt he was owed at least a whole evening of frazzled panic and incomprehension for once.

“Oh?” Stephanie instead asked, sensing blood.

Tim shrugged. “Well, you know, no pulse, no blood flow,” he said with an angled eyebrow nodding at Jason's crotch

Stunned silence followed, their expressions varying from disgust, horror, unholy glee and, from Jason himself, wide-eyed shock that his shrimp of a little brother had had the balls to assimilate the zombieness fast enough to mock him for him.

Dick prayed for patience. For fortitude. And for an alternate timeline where he was an only child.

Why, for all the love of cotton candy and professional uncriminal clowns, did Tim put THAT image of Jason inside their brains? What had he done, him, a loving model for all of society, to suffer like this?

Maybe if he asked nicely, Jason would eat the image out of his head. He owed Dick that much after this clusterfuck of a conversation.

“Ooooooooh,” Stephanie crooned, miming getting dunked on. With acrobatics.

Jason huffed. “Like I was ever interested in the first place. I ain't Dick.”

“Okay, no slut shaming or virgin shaming, in fact, no shaming at all, please. In this house, we accept all sexualities, but we don't give out raunchy details about any of it, I only have so much brain bleach.”

“Share?” Duke pleaded in a whisper.

Oh, I wish I could, you young innocent soul.

A few beeps turned their attention back to Barbara and the batcomputer. “Well, that's one long overdue update to Jason's files. Anyone else want to share their 'obvious' medical condition?”

“Excuse you, being dead is not a medical condition.”

“I will make you wish for the peace of the grave, Jason.”

Droplets dripped from nearby stalactites.

A few bats flew overhead.

Jason turned to them like nothing had been said.

“Right. That was fun. Best night of my month. Can't wait to tell the Outlaws.”

Dick resigned himself to a series of unflattering texts by the absolute dickheads that were his second family. He could already tell the messages would blow up his phone to the Moon. 'You didn't know your brother that came back from the dead is a zombie?!'

“Have mercy and wait tomorrow morning?”

That smile could have been great or terrible. “You're lucky I'm in a spectacularly good mood, Dick.”

He had lifted his leg over his bike's seat when Duke was struck by genuine worry.

“Wait. Does Bruce know?”

Jason barked out a laugh.

“Of course he does! God knows he's got some massive blind spots, but he's obsessive, paranoid and I find subcutaneous trackers on me every week. No way he didn't get the hint before now.”

But, as his gaze went over the rest of them, his good cheer dimmed, his grin slipping off his face as surely as a bit of decayed flesh.

“... Right?”

[butwhyduh]

I was actually just wondering how everyone else fit into the Tim first au, outside the main bat boys. Like. Steph and Cass, and Duke. You posted about babs, so we kinda know where she fits in, but what about like. Team stuff? Are Tim's YJ friends his age? Does that mean Dick's friends are younger to match up with him?

I think you said something about Jason not dying, so was it something along the lines with what happened to him in the arkham games universe, where he was tortured and kept in captivity for years?

Also, the idea of Jason having to chaperone Dick and his baby titans team around to a mall or something is so beautiful to me. Damian's hanging out with Jon instead because he would literally be anywhere else, vaguely in his own words. And Jason's like "I wish that were me" as Wally consumes an astounding amount of soft pretzels and Garth is pressed up against the glass of the pet store aquariums. Honestly, he's probably wishing Tim got stuck with watching the kids instead.

Bonus: "So, what are we getting in this store, Dickie? Actual fuckin' pants?"

*sweating as I want to answer but also don’t want to spoil anything.*

First off the name of the next fic is Rise of Batboy and Spoiler so that’s where Steph is. Still hitting people with bricks.

Babs is basically Dick and Damian’s age. Cass is close to Jason’s age and Duke near Tim’s. Tim has his YJ friends. Kon, Bart, Cassie, whatever other meta he’s adopted at the time. That’s where he goes when him and Bruce start arguing. I haven’t finalized his character after Batboy so idk if he’ll be Nightwing.

Jason’s story won’t follow Arkham Knight but I will give you a clue which is that the tags in my ao3 has a spoiler for his character. 😉 it’s also butwhyduh.

Dick will have a big group of friends because he’s super friendly and wants to go wherever he can with Bruce and Tim. So he has the fab 5. Damian is not outgoing like that and becomes friends with Jon because Clark is an over protective super dad that didn’t want his little baby involved in superheroing yet and of course that means that him and Damian sneak out all the time.

Jason being a chaperone is hilarious. 😂 Bruce makes him take the boys to the mall because Bruce finds out that Jason’s closest friend is the school librarian and Bruce having no social skills himself thinks Jason can just pick some friends up at the mall like Tim and Dick did.

“How long does it take to make friends? 10 minutes?”

Also Dick is going to wear short pants. I don’t want to spoil it but I think it’s pretty funny how he gets there 🤣.

[bonyarishitafuan]

A lot of people probably are gonna hate me for this, and if you disagree with what I’m about to say, please don't bother to respond, just ignore me completely and move on, go make yourself happy.

It’s just that I honestly don't see how this:

can be the same as this:

Personally, I don't care for Dick-lite Pre-Crisis Jason at all, because he’s never seemed to me a real character with any real personality of his own, and I just really don’t buy the idea of a teenager, with still very recently murdered parents that might as well be every bit as the same kind of loving parents and positive influences to their kid as the Flying Graysons, getting over the loss of their old parents’ and accepting someone they’ve only just met around the time their parents died as his true new parent in practically no time at all...especially when it’s happened in a world where a preteen could end up spending the rest of his adulthood fighting crimes in a bat suit after witnessing his parents being gunned down by a mugger.

The only thing Pre-Crisis/Earth 1 Jason Robin seemed to have going on was being a son to Batman/Bruce (and a son to Nocturna, because clearly if he could’ve gotten over his real dad so easily, why wouldn’t he have also gotten over his real mom and come to think of this mysterious criminal lady as his true new mom when she had wanted so much for him to be her son and they had lived together for like a week)--and I feel that if the executives at the time had really wanted Bruce to become a dad, they'd probably just let him settle down and give him a biological child as in the Golden Age, but instead they gave him a second Robin; and the way they laid themselves out to make the relationship between him and this second Robin to be exactly father-and-son despite the fact that Bruce would’ve had to be real stupid to actively endangering a young person whom he consider his own little boy by bringing him to fight crimes just never sits right with me.

It always seems to me like they’re just trying to retcon the original Batman and Robin relationship without actually retconning Bruce and Dick, who hadn’t really been Bruce’s adopted kid just then and had often regarded his mentor Bruce as more of his older brother/closest friend rather than just plain old “dad”--It’s like they’re just trying to remove every implication that there's ever anything gay/creepy in the original Batman and Robin dynamic, simply by bringing in another Robin character, one with the exact same backstory as Dick and nothing that could actually differentiate him from Dick (except him being originally blond-haired and himself outright telling people that he’s “not Dick” in one of his few featurings in the New Titans where he’s portrayed as every bit as much as a smart, decent, capable young person equipped to be a successful young hero just as Dick Robin or Tim Robin would’ve easily been portrayed), and making his relationship with Batman to be plainly, unequivocally father-and-son, then with there being no actual difference between Robin II and Robin I and the two Robins being virtually the same, sure the viewers would see that the relationship between Batman and Robin II and the relationship between Batman and Robin I are very much the same too, and no one could say if there’s any resemblance of a gay couple with a creepy age difference in the original Batman and Robin’s dynamic ever again since they’ve always been father and son.

It just feels so manipulative to me and I hate it, but that’s just how I feel and I’m not saying that it’s truly the case. I’m sorry if this offends anyone who loves Earth 1 Jason. If you love him, that’s great. There’s nothing wrong to love a wholesome Robin and his altogether wholesome relationship with Batman, nor there’s anything wrong to love Red Hood Jason but prefer his softer New52 version which would’ve certainly seemed to be a less drastic change from his Pre52 version if he’s more like his Earth 1 counterpart to begin with.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong to prefer one version of a character to another, to just say fuck canon and recreate a character you love into the way you could enjoy them most and have all the fun you want with them.

What gets to me and drives me bonkers, is when people couldn’t just be happy with their headcanon, but have to go out of their way to tell other people that it’s fact that Pre-Crsis/Earth 1 Jason and Post-Crisis/New Earth Jason are the same character, while in actuality, they weren’t even meant to be the same in the first place.

If DC had ever wanted to just keep using Pre-Crisis Jason but give him a new backstory, they would just follow up on whatever he had been doing with Bruce as his pre-crisis self while casually throwing in his new backstory at some point, just as they did with a lot of other characters such as Donna post-crisis, not give him a full reintroduction in Batman #408 and rewrite his relationship with Bruce from the ground up.

It just makes me want to scream, when people, who never seems to have a lot of problems with Under the Hood and maybe also Lost Days, have to go out and call every portrayal of Pre-52 Jason and some of the more recent Red Hood Jason that shares a resemblance to him wrong for not portraying Jason as that sweet little bookworm he really truly was, and that an entire different life experience just cannot change a character in any substantial way, and Jason being an angry kid with aggressive and violent tendencies is just something that had never been established until the more recent retcon/the OOC work of Jim Starlin, while in truth Pre-Crisis Jason with the exact same backstory as Dick just simply cannot be the same as Crime Alley Kid Jason, who doesn’t even have the same biological parents as Pre-Crisis Jason to provide him with the same gene that the Flying Todds, which were Joe and Trina Todd, had created their son with. 

If Pre-Crisis Jason and Post-Crisis Jason are one and the same, then it’d mean Dick is also very much the same as Jason is the same as Tim is the same as Damian is the same as Bruce and no one character is truly unique and special because every character ever made is just an alternate version of another character.

It had been shown most clearly since his first appearance that Post-Crisis/New Earth Jason, other than literally being a different kid with the same name, was nothing like his pre-crisis counterpart, but rather a bold, outspoken, confrontational, fully independent and proactive ghetto kid, who had got some serious stones to rob Batman’s gear, actually succeed in taking the tire off the freaking Batmobile and getting away originally, and had only run into Batman when he had come back to steal more, and called Batman a “big boob” after he had given him a good hit right in his Bat stomach.

This precious cupcake here↓

↑...that was often used as a proof that the NE Angry Robin Jason is a later retcon/ mere misconception had actually only ever existed in Detective Comics #569-573 during the earlier part of the writer Mike Barr’s run. These 5 issues from Barr are all notably 60s-ish, and while they’re published after CoIE and Batman Year one, it’s clear that they’re Earth 1 stories, seeing that they’re written with characters such as Earth 1 Catwoman. It was only in #574 that Jason’s New Earth origin was first introduced in Detective Comics, right before Batman Year Two; and although the issue was still written by Mike Barr and it did seem to have followed directly after #573, the previous issue was ended with the caption of “The New Origin of Batman”, and the tone of #574 as well as the writer’s latter issues and his portrayal of Jason Robin were no longer the same.

↑Detective Comics #574↑

It was stated by Bruce repeatedly, in both his own title and Detective Comics, that the reason he had taken in NE Jason as his new Robin was to save him from walking down the wrong path and to provide an outlet for his rage.

While no doubt Jim Starlin’s NE Jason Robin (that everyone hates) was the most aggressive and violent, it had never contradicted how the character was initially written by Max Allen Collins, the writer of Batman #408.

↑Batman #410 by Collins↑

↑ Batman #411 by Collins, after Jason had found out that Willis was murdered by Two-Face and Bruce had been hiding the information from him ↑

Although in the end of Batman #411, Jason did seem to have gotten over his anger and saved Two-Face’s life, judging by the way he’d talked about his dad Willis in his first introduction and the fact that he’d never before bothered to find out what had happened to the man the whole time while he’s in the manor where he had all the resources to acquire the information, it was doubtful that he and Willis had had a good relationship, and what he’d felt for his crook dad then could hardly be the same as what he felt later in “The Diplomat’s Son” story.

NE Jason had always been consistent in being a fearless, proactive, feisty individual with a hot temper, even in the hand of a writer with a much mellower sense of writing like Mike Barr.

↑ Jason and Bruce encountered Two-Face again in Detective Comics #580-581 by Barrs ↑

It had been established from the get-go that NE Jason Robin was the type of kid who would challenge Batman and go out handling a criminal on his own without consulting him or anyone else first, and was morally questionable with tendencies to aggression and violence, which was perfectly understandable for someone with his background--Only at the beginning it’s easy to brush these things off, because there's never any real consequence to his behavior and so Bruce was okay when he’d behaved this way at the beginning, and since Jason’d still got a lot to learn and was eager to learn from Bruce at the beginning, it would only be right that he’s more agreeable and willing to obey Bruce, but once he had completed his training and been allowed on the field, it would also only be right for him to feel like he had learnt enough and gotten the hang of the business already, and so just easily slipped into his old habit of handling things on his own, just as he had always been while he had been surviving in the Crime Alley on his own before Bruce came along.

NE Jason Robin wasn’t suddenly turned from 0-100 in The Diplomat’s Son story (though I really doubt that it’d be impossible for someone, especially someone around Jason’s age, to go from 0-100 if they have to deal with what Jason had dealt with in the story)--

↓ This didn’t happen until after the diplomat’s son was let go by the police due to his status, and on his way out of the police station where he’d been initially brought in by Jason and Bruce for raping and kidnapping an innocent woman, the mofo called his victim right in front of Jason and Bruce and threatened her on the phone, which led the woman to immediately commit suicide. 

I’ve always thought it’s a good story and a lot more tasteful than it’s usually given credit for. It wouldn’t even have been the first time a “teenage superhero” has killed in the DCU (whether it was accidental or intentional); it’s certainly not something so dark and controversial that DC wouldn’t go for it, they could’ve easily just gone for it and had Jason Robin murder a criminal then, except they never really showed that he did. The audience just naturally assumed that he did because the whole scene was shown through Bruce’s view, and Bruce could see that even if Jason didn’t really kill the rapist then, he might very well be capable of it, and it makes the whole Under the Hood storyline as well as the continuation of Red Hood Jason possible.

The concept of Under the Hood and the continuing existence of Red Hood Jason works, instead of just being a complete character assassination like One-Year-Later Cass, only with Jason being his post-crisis version with all of his very established traits and his very established problems with Bruce.

If Under the Hood Jason is indeed Earth 1 Jason or similar to him, he would really need to be under some outside influence for him to do the things he had done, for there’s just no other justification for his action.

He would really have to be driven mad by the effect of the Lazarus Pit (which has only ever been showed to exist momentarily on other characters), he would have to be incapacitated the whole time, unable to control his own action or even form any conscious decision--and it would only make it extremely possible for him to do something truly awful such as killing some innocent or other heroes or even someone in the Batfam, since he wouldn’t be able to stop himself even if he wanted to, or be able to tell if that’s wrong; that’s what being incapacitated means, that’s why people who’s committed crimes, even as bad as murders, cannot be held legally accountable when they’re proven to be mentally ill--and if that’s truly the case, then Bruce as well as Dick (who had a pretty amicable relationship with Earth 1 Jason) and everybody else who has any knowledge about the matter would all have to be some real awful persons to not lift a finger to help him, by making it a point to stop him from committing any more murder that he wouldn’t have committed if he could help it, and figuring out a way to relieve him from the influence by means of the various science and magic overflowing in their world, like they’ve repeatedly done for many others who’ve been in the similar position, and eventually getting him the hell out of this altogether traumatic crime-fighting life, so he could finally begin to heal from his extensive traumas, including being forced to kill which has always been a very common cause of PTSD for soldiers at war; and even if Jason doesn’t leave the crime-fighting life forever, he could no longer continue operating as the Red Hood; it’d just make no sense for him to keep up the identity previously belonged to his murderer, and have it constantly remind him of how he didn’t just get brutally murdered, he was also forced into becoming a murderer himself, which.he never would’ve become if he wasn’t literally out of his mind.

Moreover, there could never have been a Tim Robin (even if Tim didn’t go by Robin but something else), if the Jason who died in A Death in the Family had the same disposition as Earth 1 Jason and none of his NE traits which was the one and only justification Bruce had for taking in Tim as his third teenage partner, seeing that Tim is patient and careful and cooperative with all the qualities to become the same kind of hero like Dick, and not at all “reckless” and “rebellious” like NE Jason, and so he’s likely to turn out like Dick and not get himself killed like Jason (that’s the only true significant retcon Pre52 Jason had. Although NE Jason Robin could be rather reckless and rebellious, that’s certainly not why he had gotten killed. They just made Bruce and everyone pretend that that’s what killed him, so it wouldn’t seem so utterly horrible for Bruce to endanger another teenage kid with no superpower or any previous fighting training by bringing them in the business that had already gotten one kid killed, and also for Dick and everyone else to just let him).

It’s a complete disregard of facts and logic to call Earth 1 Jason and Red Hood Jason the same character, which doesn’t really matter as long as it’s only headcanon; but when people push it as a fact, it really just sound to me like they’re saying that it’s wrong to like Pre 52 Jason/Post-Crisis Jason Robin, which I very much do because I actually think he’s an interesting character with an interesting and more coherent story than a lot of other DC characters.

It’s like they’re saying that it’s just plain wrong and unnatural for a person to have aggressive and violent tendencies and be inclined to criminal behavior simply because they had grown up in a most crime-infested place and had to rely on themselves and learned to do what it takes to survive since before twelve, or become more and more violent simply because they’ve been made to work in an extremely violent environment and have never been provided with any kind of actual aid for their mental health the entire time.

It’s like that if a person, after being brutally murdered and then coming back to find that their mentor/guardian who was the closest thing they had to a family and was also responsible for their death in a major way just didn’t seem to be giving any shit about that at all, is filled with such murderous rage that they could very well just go out and kill a bunch of criminals, but they aren’t actually a smol whump baby with no absolutely agency of their own that must be protected at all times all along, then they’re just no good at all and don’t deserve any love or respect or understanding.

...I don’t like myself for ranting about this. I hope I could just not give any shit about this dumb thing, but it’d been driving me crazy and I’d just got to let it out.

[transrobins]

Some headcanons about the Bats’ natural capacities for empathy, and how that comes out in their work. Under the cut for length

1. Dick has a naturally high capacity for empathy and often finds himself in the role of the Wayne Family Therapist, partially because he has the easiest time understanding everyone’s feelings. He finds it easy to see things from others’ perspectives, and that makes it easier for him to problem solve. This is also why he’s so effective as Damian’s guardian/mentor. Damian inherited Bruce’s allergy to processing and expressing emotions in a healthy and constructive manner (and all the childhood trauma didn’t help either), so he needed someone who could see past all his shit and understand where he’s coming from

Dick channels his empathy into a high level of compassion, and tends to forgive people on the basis that he understands why they did the things they did. Sometimes this is good, sometimes it is Not. However, Dick’s high empathy also makes it easier to read people, and subsequently charm them. This is helpful not only in vigilante work, but in Gotham’s high society

2. Jason also has naturally high empathy, and tends to gravitate toward the role of a protector. As the Red Hood, he’s a fierce guardian of Gotham’s downtrodden. He grew up in Crime Alley, he’s been where these people are, and he can’t help but feel their pain. But it’s not just them that he can get into the heads of. He understands Bruce to a level that even Bruce himself doesn’t. He can’t stop it, even if he would prefer to never think about it at all (especially since Bruce can’t seem to understand him the same way)

Jason channels his empathy into rage. He has no problem using violence as a means of protection, because being able to feel others’ pain makes him so viscerally angry

3. Tim has naturally low empathy. He grew up incredibly isolated and has a hard time reading social cues and understanding others, but his genius-level intelligence makes him much more equipped to analyze people’s behavior and figure them out. He has little trouble distancing himself from the horrors of what he sees, and compartmentalization is second nature to him. He can distance himself from emotions well enough to create contingency plans for the people closest to him thanks Bruce, and fails to realize how that would be hurtful (Dick points this out when Tim says he didn’t think Damian would care)

However, Tim is still very compassionate, he just approaches it in a more logical way. He sought out Batman because he could see him running himself into the ground after Jason’s death, and knew that he was going to get himself killed. He couldn’t understand the pain of losing a child, but he could tell that Bruce was in pain, and went about trying to fix it the only way he knew how. Having Robin by his side made Batman better, so clearly he needs a new Robin

4. Damian has naturally low empathy, but I would say he has a higher capacity for it than Tim. He has the easiest time relating to and interacting with animals, mostly because people confuse him. This was especially hard when he was transitioning from the League of Shadows to the Bats. With the League he knew the score. He knew what was expected of him, and he knew what would happen if he failed. When he joins the Bats, he has no idea what these people want from him. His old rules don’t seem to apply anymore, and he can’t get a good enough read on them to figure out what the new rules are (enter Dick and his years of experience sorting out Wayne family emotional issues)

When he was with the League, his low capacity for empathy was capitalized on in his training. He was manipulated into believing that the reason he couldn’t figure out other people’s emotions was simply because he was better than them, just so he’d have no problem killing them. It takes a lot of work for him to unlearn that (and everything else the League taught him), and caring for his pets is a huge part of that. Since he has an easier time relating to animals, looking after them taught him about having a responsibility to other living beings and bridged the gap for him to start valuing other people as individuals

Once he’s made that progress, he operates with a logic-based compassion similar to Tim’s. He sees a person in need, knows he can help them, and then does so. He knows why it’s important, and does it because he knows these people are in pain even though he can’t feel that pain with them

5. Bruce doesn’t have particularly high or low empathy, but being raised as an isolated rich kid had a big impact on the way he relates to others. It’s not that he just naturally has a hard time getting into other people's heads, it’s that he’s so detached from everyone else. He’s detached from most of Gotham due to his privileged upbringing, but his early childhood trauma and isolation distanced him from the elites as well

This leads to his view of himself as Gotham’s guardian. He sees himself as, essential, an impartial party to all of this. It definitely impacts his relationships with his kids, since he only really understands the parts of them he sees in himself (Dick as a child who watched his parents die, Tim as an isolated rich kid, etc). This type of understanding extends to the rest of Gotham, too. He understands the people who have lost things to crime and corruption the way he lost his parents, and he understands people who are driven toward justice because of it. Like Dick, however, he doesn’t always know where to draw the line. To him, the Joker killing because he’s “clinically insane” ugh and Jason killing because he can’t handle the pain of Gotham’s people are more or less on the same level, and he tries to give them both equal opportunity to redeem themselves 

Cass canonically has extremely high empathy. She can understand people’s emotions even when she can’t process their words, and body language is literally her first language. Other people have a much harder time understanding her than she does them, simply due to the communication barrier, but her high empathy helps bridge that gap for her

When David Cain makes her kill, and she realizes what really happened, she is devastated. She essentially felt the man die. This pain drives her to escape, and eventually drives her to join the Bats. Her empathy still extends to the bad guys, and she’s had to learn how to separate herself from the (necessary) pain she inflicts. She has to tone down (or even shut off) her compassion for them in order to protect herself

[bigskydreaming]

Instead of positing that the Batkids are singular in their expressing affection for each other and thus Dick likes Damian best and Damian only likes Dick and Jason and Tim get along but not with anyone else and Cass is conjoined at the hip with Steph and Duke is like “exists” except for when he doesn’t....

WHAT IF.

INSTEAD.

I submit to the committee for their consideration, the following:

Imagine if the Batkids, ALL OF WHOM can be prickly and hot-tempered and passionate and mercurial and above all else, are ALWAYS whimsical as fucking hell (look, fandom may make fun of Dick’s costumes the most, but Jason once wore a helmet shaped like a condom, Tim’s tried to pull off WINGS, Damian thinks a hood magically adds three extra feet to his height and makes him as Intimidating as he desperately desires to be, there is just NO excuse for the gimp mask Cass wore as Black Bat, and Stephanie, I love you sweetheart, but stop trying to make eggplant happen, your Spoiler costume is purple. Deal with it. And as for Duke, yellow’s a good color for him and it makes him pop amidst his siblings’ Fifty Shades of Lurking In The Shadows, but of all the ways for him to emulate Bruce with his costume, did it really have to be the freaking BAT EARS on his helmet? Duke. Sweetie. Baby. I’m begging you. You’re better than that).

Oops, I got lost in my own post again.

Oh right! My point was, look, all the Batkids by virtue of what they do which is only by virtue of who they are, are whimsical as hell. And ADHD, if you ask me. And dramatic, if you ask anyone who is not currently being threatened to say otherwise by Damian or Jason at swordpoint or gunpoint.

Rather than insisting on each of them only ever having one sibling and one sibling only that they get along with at any given moment - what if instead we were to imagine them with an ever shifting, never predictable, occasionally inexplicable tangle of alliances and feuds among themselves. Changing direction at the speed of light so that one day Dick and Jason are as close as brothers can be and the next day its back to Blood Feud and they won’t say why to anyone else but then their reason probably would sound stupid as hell to anyone else even if admitted, so who cares, really. 

So instead Jason throws in his lot with Damian, because Damian normally is closest with Dick but hell hath no fury like a baby brother scorned, and everyone knows Damian is also on the outs with Dick right now, because the Littlest Bat doesn’t do subtle and makes sure everyone else knows that GRAYSON KNOWS WHAT HE DID even if they don’t have a clue. 

Meanwhile Tim is on the hunt for an ally, and looking to poach Steph from Cass for temporary use as a ringer in his own mini-war against Duke, who totally threw him under the bus to save his own ass with Bruce, although admittedly, this is a time-honored Batfamily tradition. “Solidarity against the Batdad...unless there’s a chance for one of us to get off scot-free,” is how the maxim goes. 

(Its been suggested there might be a flaw somewhere in that thinking, but each time it gets brought up in the rare Batkids United meeting that manages to make it at least thirty whole minutes under a flag of truce, the whole thing seems to dissolve into an every Batkid for themselves fracas that leaves them all scrambling out windows before Jason sets off a literal grenade, because “overkill” is the one concept that persists in eluding Jay’s grasp.)

Meanwhile, Cass lurks in a darkened room somewhere, sinisterly stroking Alfred the cat, which is a habit she picked up because she thinks its hilarious that nobody can decide whether to blame that on Stephanie’s repeated viewings of Austin Powers or Damian’s general Damian-ness.

Who is Cass currently gunning for and why? Nobody knows. She likes it best when they never see her coming until its too late. Mostly because that means there’s not enough time for them to express genuine remorse for whatever they did, which she’ll inevitably read their sincerity on and thus call off the hounds because its never as fun at that point.

And she does like her fun.

I’m just saying, there’s SO MUCH MORE POTENTIAL in the Batkids’ various dynamics than the traditional takes that are largely limited to being Damian + Dick, Jason + Tim, etc.

Like, just imagine the possibilities in various Batkids plotting amongst themselves in small groups of three or four against one sibling for some common reason......and then midway through Plotting, Tim realizes wait, shit, he’s actually in the wrong Plot and totally forgot he’s Currently Ticked at Dick and Steph for something and he decides to throw his lot in with the opposition instead....except he better make it quick as the second the others all realize he’s flipped, they’re off and after him because he must be neutralized before he can make it to the other siblings with his crucial Insider Information.

Somewhere, Bruce sighs. “It makes me very uncomfortable when you all so readily use terms like ‘neutralize’ about your siblings in these fights of yours.”

“Well its not like you were any happier the last time we tried to clarify what we were actually going to do when we said that,” Jason throws up his arms in exasperation. “Honestly, there’s just no pleasing you.”

[galahadwilder]

Hey! I'm following you for ML stuff, but I finally figured out you were into Batman as well, took me awhile. Do you have any advice on where to start for people who want to get into it? I just want to know which Robin is which when I read fanfiction hahaha. Thank youu

So the first thing to know is that there is no single Batman comic that will explain the entire Batfamily, because there are so many of them that the Manor must be running out of bedrooms by now. The second thing is that I’m not great at figuring out a starting place—a lot of comics are sort of aggressively mediocre and I can’t exactly tell the standout ones from the bad. Anyone who has any suggestions for anon, feel free to comment with them!

(In terms of fanfic recs: read literally anything by @unpretty. They are a wizard. Their fanfic is so good it has literally won awards.)

Now, a brief introduction to every member of the Batfamily that I can currently remember—save Alfred and Batman, who I am assuming you already know.

The Robins

Dick Grayson (Robin I, Nightwing II, and Batman IV). Richard John Grayson was a former child acrobat, member of the flying Graysons, and the first child adopted by Bruce Wayne. He is a human disaster of a Hufflepuff who makes terrible life choices, leaves his Nightwing costume on the floor of his apartment where literally anyone can see it, and doesn’t know how to cook anything but cereal. Despite his terrible lack of self-sufficiency, actually gives amazing life advice and is the heart and soul of the Batclan. There are villains who are willing to kill to protect him.

Jason Todd (Robin II, The Red Hood II, Red Robin I, Batman III). Jason Todd is the ballsiest Robin, having met Batman while attempting to steal the tire from the Batmobile, and, upon being confronted by the Goddamn Batman, decided the best course of action was to attack him with a tire iron. Jason is passionate and impulsive, but also extremely studious and intelligent. Well-liked despite his abrasiveness. He is the first Robin to die in the line of duty; when he came back, he and Bruce had a falling out over not killing the Joker, and now their relationship is rather shaky. Jason uses guns and has moonlighted as a crime boss in order to better control Gotham’s criminal element from the inside, which works mostly because he has nerves of steel and the ability to spin stunningly convincing bullshit at the drop of a hat.

Carrie Kelley (Robin II.5): See “Elseworlds and Future.”

Tim Drake (Robin III, Red Robin II, Drake I, Batman Beyond II): Tim has the greatest intellect of the Batclan; however, unlike Barbara (see “Batgirls”), Tim’s wisdom score is through the bloody floor. He figured out Batman and Robin’s identities on his own, and after Jason died he walked up to Bruce and basically told him “I know who you are and I’m Robin now,” which... worked. Tim is the least physically gifted of the Robins, but he makes up for it in detective skills and tactical intelligence. He was the only Robin to still have living parents outside of the Batfamily, though they were murdered soon into his career. He dropped out of high school and was acting CEO of Wayne Enterprises for a time. He has crippling depression and is implied to be suicidal.

Stephanie Brown (Spoiler I, Robin IV, Batgirl III): see under “Batgirls.”

Damian Wayne (Robin V): Damian is the son of Bruce Wayne and Talia al Ghul, and was raised—unbeknownst to his father—by his mother and grandfather to be an assassin, as well as to be the best at literally everything (for context: despite being a young teenager, he technically holds multiple unaccredited PHDs). However, this stunted his social development, so he is rude and abrasive almost constantly, though he has been getting better and his closest friends and family can see that he’s covering for a superiority/inferiority complex a mile deep. Damian has a constant need to prove himself and has taken up his father’s adoption habit, though he prefers animals. Animals are better than people.

Duke Thomas (Robin ??, The Signal): Duke Thomas was the first metahuman Bruce allowed into the Batfamily. Originally decided to take on The Riddler by himself at the age of... seven or so? Eventually joined a collective called “We Are Robin” and fought crime, unsanctioned. After his parents were driven mad by Joker Venom, Bruce took him in. He now fights crime in the daytime, unlike the rest of the Batfamily, using his nebulously-defined extrasensory abilities to augment his Batfamily training.

The Batgirls

Barbara Gordon (Batgirl I, Oracle I): while Tim may be the most intelligent member of the Batclan, Babs is the all-around smartest. Her intellect is damned high, and unlike most of the Batfamily, Barbara is actually capable of making good decisions. She just... decides not to, most of the time. Barbara is the daughter of Commissioner James Gordon and was the first Batgirl; she lost the use of her legs when Joker shot her in the spine, but refused to take a backseat in the Batclan’s war on crime and became Oracle, hacker extraordinaire who directs the activities of every single vigilante in Gotham from her clocktower lair. She has since regained the use of her legs and reclaimed the Batgirl mantle, turning Oracle into a living AI.

Helena Wayne (Batgirl I.5, Huntress I): see “Elseworlds and Future.”

Cassandra Cain/Wayne (Batgirl II, Black Bat I, Orphan I): Cassandra is the daughter of assassins Lady Shiva and David Cain, and had what is hands-down the worst childhood of the entire Batfamily (her father would shoot her in the leg, and if she flinched, he’d shoot her again). She was raised without spoken words, and as a result the language centers of her brain are more adapted for body language than words. This gives her a kind of combat clairvoyance where it’s nearly impossible for a human combatant to surprise her. After her first murder, she swore to never again take a life, and joined the Batclan to atone. I personally believe that she is Bruce’s favorite child and the true heir to the mantle of the Bat.

Stephanie Brown (Spoiler I, Robin IV, Batgirl III): the daughter of Arthur Brown, a criminal known as Cluemaster, Stephanie became a vigilante specifically to oppose her father and then just had a bunch of mission creep. She is brash, sarcastic, and reckless, but has oodles of passion and natural talent. DC editors hate her, so she ends up screwing up or getting pushed aside a lot, but she is much more competent than she appears and is extremely good at getting people to underestimate her.

Others

Kate Kane (Batwoman I): Kate Kane is Bruce’s cousin, dishonorably discharged from the military under “dont ask don’t tell,” though this has likely been retconned thanks to DC’s sliding timescale. She is actually specifically not connected to the Batfamily, being more of an auxiliary member by her own choice—as a military woman, she dislikes their methods and considers them sloppy. She uses guns, has her own rogues’ gallery unconnected to her cousin’s, and is extremely competent.

Jean-Paul Valley (Azrael I, Batman II): Jean-Paul believed himself to be an ordinary college student, but was in fact a genetically modified super-soldier created to punish the wicked through the use of magic and advanced technology. He eventually broke his conditioning thanks to Batman and joined the family, even taking over for Batman briefly after Bane broke his back. (This proved to be a terrible decision.) He fights using powered armor and enchanted medieval weaponry.

Harper Row (Bluebird I): I know very little about Harper except that she is openly bisexual and uses hilariously oversized sci-fi guns.

Claire Clover (Gotham Girl I): a metahuman with Superman-like abilities; however, the more she uses them, the faster her lifespan burns away. Last I checked, she was working with Bane for some reason to do bad things to Batman. Don’t know why. She’s odd.

Lonnie Machin (Anarky I, Moneyspider I): may or may not be the son of The Joker. Lonnie is a genius Anarchist, but not of the “bomb-throwing” variety—in fact, he detests bombers. Briefly acted as Tim’s Oracle, since, thanks to extensive neurological self-modification, he’s one of the few people in Gotham who is actually more intelligent than Tim is.

Helena Bertinelli (Huntress II, Batgirl briefly I think?): daughter of a crime family that got wiped out by a rival crime family. However, she didn’t know her family was mafia, and as a vigilante in Gotham ended up trying to operate under Batman’s rules. Wasn’t very good at that—she’s a bit too vicious and brutal, despite her attempts to rein herself in. Uses crossbows primarily.

Elseworlds & Future

Terry McGinnis (Batman Beyond I): the definitive future Batman. Thanks to Amanda Waller and superscience shenanigans, Terry is the biological son of Bruce Wayne. He wears a highly advanced batsuit that is closer to powered armor than a costume, which gives Iron Man a run for his money. Unlike Bruce’s obsessive preparedness, Terry’s skillset lies in improvisation.

Carrie Kelley (Robin II.5): the Robin of the dystopian timeline of The Dark Knight Returns. It’s been a while since I read DKR, so I don’t remember much about her.

Helena Wayne (Batgirl I.5, Huntress I): Bruce and Selina’s daughter from another dimension.

[our-happygirl500-fan]

If DC had used her properly Steph could have been a major character in the world of super heroes, not only with everything she went through but the fact that she manages to keep up with the Batfamily and stand on level with people who have had some of the greatest training in the world through pure will power. Not only that but DC really should have done more when showing just how integral she is to the Batfamily.

- Let's start with Tim, she's his main love interest but also she's a huge light in his life. Tim's life only really starts to spiral once Steph dies, after war games things get dark. Though there are some issues here and there between the two Steph is one of Tim's closest allies and someone he can rely on. Steph is one of the most important people in Tim's life.

- Steph is Cass's first and best friend and the two of them are an integral team to the point where it is so incredibly rare both in comics, other media and especially fandom to see one without the other they are literally always paired together not just as Batgirls trained by Barbara, but also as best friends.

- Steph is one of the most important people to Damian, pre reboot, she was the Batgirl to his Robin and she's arguably as important to Damian as Dick is. Dick taught Damian how to be a hero while Steph taught him how to be a kid. Damian and Steph are very important to each other and have a little sibling relationship going on.

- Barbara is Steph's mentor and during Steph's batgirl run they two care about each other a great deal. Before Steph had become Batgirl Barbara had been actually having a rough few events after everything that happened in war games even leaving Gotham for a bit. Steph helped Barbara regain her hope and belief in what they were doing my favourite line that Barbara says in Steph's Batgirl run is “Remember Stephanie Brown saved me”. Steph is also said to remind people of Batgirl Barbara both Commissioner Gordon says that Steph reminds him of Barbara and Dick says that Steph reminds him of Barbara “before...everything”.

- Steph and Bruce's whole relationship is so complex you could write a whole thesis on it but he does care about her shown and acknowledged multiple times and even though she's not one of his kids he's still one of his /kids/ (Bruce has 5 sons a daughter and one Stephanie Brown). Also Steph's his future daughter in law anyway because she's Tim's only even remotely good relationship that or she’s going to marry Cass, Steph’s going to marry in we all know this.

- Alfred is shown morning Steph’s death and talks about how much it affected Bruce and is incredibly happy when Steph comes back to life. He also defends Steph saying Bruce didn’t need to test her when he comes back from the dead.

- We didn't get an incredible amount of interaction between Steph and Dick due to the Dickbats era only being around two years but the stuff we did get is very good, like she parallels Jason, Steph also parallels Dick. They both have their similarities, Bruce even saying that Steph reminded him of Dick at times, however Steph was also the batgirl to Dick's batman and when Dick starts to accept her and trust her he cares a lot about her. In the Batman reborn era where Dick, Damian, Steph and Barbara were Gotham's main protectors if Steph and Damian were siblings Barbara and Dick definitely had a parents vibe going on to the point where Dick literally called Damian and Steph 'the kids' if they were allowed to interact more I think people would have portrayed a father daughter relationship between Dick and Steph just as much as Dick and Damian have a father son relationship (Being Batman comes with Big Dad energy the moment you take up the cowl you start emotionally adopting every child you come across). Not only that but in Batfamily meetings in the Dick bats era Dick, Damian and Steph are almost always shown standing together (they're batman, robin and batgirl they're a team!) and the only time Steph isn't shown with them is when she's shown standing next to Barbara. In the 2016 Nightwing comic Dick is shown to be impressed by Steph to the point where he relies on her to hack into Strange’s files. Though Dick didn't know Steph much before she dies during the period where she was dead Dick notes how much her death affected Bruce and even tries talking about Steph with him multiple times.

- Duke though he hasn't met/ interacted with Steph, Steph is already important metaphysically to his stories. You could argue that Steph was the first We Are Robin kid in the sense that she was one of the first 'normal gotham kids' to just start fighting crime and she even made herself a home made Robin costume. Also the main antagonists of the We Are Robin kids were the Talons and the Court of Owls. You know the secret society that Steph's father was able to uncover by himself and steal from and a Talon killed Arthur Brown. So Steph has the potential to be really important to Duke's story.

- You can write so much about Steph and Jason. Jason though has had little to no interaction with Steph in comics is actually an integral character to Steph not only because DC repeatedly drew parallels between Steph and Jason (and then didn't do anything with it) from criminal fathers, drug addict mothers, growing up on the poor side of gotham, to being dead robins, to Black Mask the one who killed Steph being one of Jason's primary antagonists. Heck even in the new 52 Steph has Jason parallels what with homelessness, living on the streets and being betrayed by her own mother. Bruce's regrets about Jason are even the explanation to why Bruce used to act the way he does to Steph. Their birthdays are like a week apart, I've literally seen people jokingly call Steph 'girl Jason'. I think if Jason ever met Steph properly he'd be very protective of her like how Bruce cares a lot about Dick because they have the same tragedy yet Dick turned out as such a good person someone commented that Bruce sees Dick as the good version of himself I think Jason if he was feeling particularly angsty would view Steph as the good version of himself in the same way.

Let’s also not forget that Selina has been shown to care for Steph a great deal and even helped train her, Kate gets concerned about her emotional wellbeing and helped train her and even had Steph on her team for a little bit. Steph was Harper’s room mate and Jim Gordon states that Steph reminds him of his daughter.

Also Leslie was her guardian for nearly two years while they were in Africa and Steph had already gone back to high school before she told Tim and her mom she was alive and it was long enough that she made friends and got invited to parties but you can't register for high school without a legal guardian which we all know was Leslie which means Leslie was more likely than not, legally Steph's foster mother for the two years in Africa and for the first few weeks they were back in Gotham.

So yeah Steph is a pivotal member in the Batfamily even without DC trying so imagine what it would be like if they did use her properly.

[outoftheframework]

the batfamily and their ever-growing collection of superhero merchandise

Gotham City is filled to the brim with street vendors peddling everything from Batgirl lunchboxes to Robin themed light-up sneakers. Jason knows this because he owns both. Us comic readers know about the canon gift of BatBurger, a Gotham hero (and villain!) themed fast-food joint that the kids somehow manage to drag Bruce into. But what other businesses and products have cropped up out of corporate Gotham in order to cash in on the hero trend? Well, lucky for you, I happen to have made a fanon list of just about everything in the Wayne collection of merchandise with their or the friends’ faces on them, plus the many places of businesses and services offered. 

PLACES OF BUSINESS / SERVICES

When discussing businesses that crop up in response to superhero activity, one must bring up insurance companies that offer “hero and villain related destruction and/or trauma” coverage

Gothamites try to place claims all the time (real or otherwise) and these companies have literally heard everything

‘Red Hood smashed through my window then destroyed my teacup collection as he used them as projectiles against Black Mask.”

“Spontaneous Poison Ivy plant growth removal”

“Reimbursement for therapy sessions after getting kidnapped for the fourth time”

A Rollar Derby rink with two main competing teams: The Bane Bashers and The Babe-azons

“The Puzzle-Solving Hotline” or 1800-RIDDLE-ME-THIS

A number that you can call in case you see a riddle sky-written above your place of business, or come home to see that your locks have been replaced with a series of rubix cubes

(It literally goes straight to a rotary phone set up in the batcave for the closet batfamily member to answer)

Tim: “JAY! THE RIDDLE PHONE IS RINGING!”

Jason: “I’M LITERALLY ALREADY UP THE STAIRS! STEPH WAS CLOSEST; SHE ANSWERS IT! I DON’T MAKE THE RULES!”

Tim: SHE’S NOT ALLOWED ANYMORE AFTER THE LAST MONTH’S FIASCO!”

Steph: “Okay, first of all, rude, and secondly, how many explosions render something a ‘fiasco?’-”

A service that gives you and your immediate family new identities after being kidnapped, targeted, or in any way noticed by a villain

Tour companies in every major city that bring people around in double decker buses and point out the major battles that have been fought there

T-shirts that read “SuperFAN” and “Sidekick in Training” are top-sellers among tourists

Comic Con is still a thing and the Waynes attend every year

They have worn their own costumes, other heroes’ real costumes, home sown versions of robin costumes, and of course, they’ve dressed up as the Umbrella Academy as well as the Incredibles

MERCHANDISE

Specialty plant pots that have a kill switch in case your house plant is looking a little possessed and/or venomous

Harley Quinn halloween costumes because that’s a universal constant

Fake postcards at giftshops that read “Greetings from the Wonderous Themyscira!” or “Wish You Were Here in The Lost City of Atlantis!”

Tim literally has piles of ones that read “Missing you from Planet Krypton!” that he sends to Kon almost every week

Lego sets mimicking The Hall of Justice, The Teen Titans Tower, etc.

Damian and Dick spent an entire day crafting every single set in a drawing room. They carefully constructed the familiar buildings, added their friends, changed the inaccuracies of the toys, and even built their own versions of more secret locations. The expansive set lies untouched to this day. 

A luxury makeup brand that makes palettes based off of heroes

“Red Robin” eyeshadow palette featuring a spectrum of red shades, including a deep burgundy named “heart-throb” and a metallic maroon named “bo staff”

“Brightest Day” and “Blackest Night” eyeshadow quads featuring both day and night look shades

The highly sought-after “Wonder” highlighter palette

The “nightlife” contour palette including the “batsy” bronzer and “spoiler!” highlight

The brand is named “Vigilante Cosmetics”

Stylish and trendy every-day gas masks

THINGS THAT ARE NOT ALLOWED TO BE SOLD

Scarecrows of any kind within a 50 mile radius of Gotham City

Clown halloween costumes

(you have a 100% chance to be mugged by regular Gothamites if you wear a clown costume on Halloween)

Booty shorts with the bat symbol printed on the back 

Bruce literally bought the clothing company that made these and stopped production on them after Dick bought a pair and wore them around the manor

Thanks for reading! - I can expand on any of these in their own posts if you want - feel free to add on! - check me out on youtube: https://youtu.be/OSkkMWdQo9A

[lysical-secondary]

Do you think all the kids think of each other as siblings? Pretty much none of them grew up or were in Bruce's care at significantly overlapping times, and I'm not even sure to what extent like Dick or Tim see Bruce as their father or just a paternal/authority figure

This is heavily dependent on continuity because the new 52 did frankly weird things to some of these relationships. This is mostly Post-Crisis and may mesh with Rebirth since they’re drawing on Post-Crisis a bit more. I’m not including Duke yet because I’m not sure what’s officially happening there and it’s pretty clear they’re not yet at sibling stage there yet. 

Also, for some of these guys, they didn’t really interact at all so it’s all a bunch of assumptions. 

To start with, even Damian, who has technically always had siblings, was raised by Talia for a significant period and didn’t meet them until he was older and was indoctrinated to believe he was Bruce’s only child because he’s the only blood related one, which is horseshit because in Post-Crisis Bruce had spent about 20 years calling Jason his son and mourning him (DC was happy to make Bruce explicitly a father to Jason when he was dead, it’s actually quite interesting how it all changed with his return and the new 52. Ah, DC. I hate you.) 

So, Damian started out a hard ‘no’ and has only recently explicitly referred to Dick as his father’s son. They pretty clearly have a sibling relationship (with overlapping parent-child because of how they started out) but I don’t think this extends to his other siblings necessarily, although I think his constant focus on proving himself better than all his siblings shows that on some level he acknowledges them. Despite the start, he’s most likely going to end up thinking of all of them as his siblings, but the timeline on each will probably end up different. 

Cass is hard because DC keeps sidelining her. She started out very much fostered by Babs and Bruce wasn’t really a factor for her–she thought of him only as the Bat and didn’t give two twigs about who Bruce Wayne was. By the time Bruce offered the adoption for her I think she’d mostly established her relationships with the others–bar Damian and Jason, really. I think she and Tim probably relate more as friends because they were friends before either became family to Bruce, but it might slide naturally towards siblings because who’s to say that they didn’t see that in each other when they were ‘just’ friends? Dick was never really a friend and if he was anything it was something of a big brother mentor, so he could slide into that easily for her. I think Jason and Damian might slide into the role of ‘siblings’ easier simply because that’s how she was introduced to them. Bruce took her to Jason’s grave site and Damian was introduced as Bruce’s son, and they have no pre-existing relationships to complicate matters. It’s just whether Cass goes from ‘Bruce’s sons’ to ‘my brothers’ or not. I think she would, if DC would just stop sidelining her thanks. 

Tim and Dick had a brotherly relationship long before anything legal happened. But I honestly don’t see Tim seeing Bruce as his father. He was his mentor for a long time, and he’s definitely an important father figure and paternal influence in Tim’s life, but Tim was heavily invested in that reconciliation with his dad, and it actually seemed to be going places before DC decided to make another orphan. He was also much older when Jack Drake died. When Tim thinks of ‘dad’, it’s him, for better or worse. Tim clung to Bruce as a father after Bruce’s death, having lost another one so soon, but I just don’t see him doing such a switch, considering how he consistently seemed to pick Jack. I’m not saying Jack was a good father or anything, but yeah. I also don’t think his clinging to Bruce as extending to the rest of Bruce’s kids. Dick’s his brother for sure. Cass has been a female friend for a while and might already have been something of a sister, but Jason and Damian? Way harder sell. I think if he and Damian see each other as brothers it’s not happily. Jason and Tim…I’ll get to. 

Jason is without question Bruce’s son. He was, technically speaking, Bruce’s first son, as he was fully adopted in the 80s and after his death Bruce unequivocally called him by that when he spoke of him. Whatever retcons DC wants to do to push Damian as Bruce’s only kid, it’s whatever. There’s decades of history proving that wrong. Jason thinks of Bruce as his father, and was fairly happily adopted for a time. While Jason and Dick didn’t have much in a way of a relationship, I think it was probably still framed as ‘brothers’, of a kind, for them, since both seemed to have a bit of jealousy about the other that comes across fairly typically as sibling-like. It’s certainly not a significant relationship for either, but it’s there (Dick had a lot of regrets and I’m fairly convinced Jason became Little Brother in his head due to guilt afterwards). They haven’t really significantly interacted since his return until new 52/Rebirth really, there were some things in late Post-Crisis but Morrison…Anyway, they’re still quite coded in a big brother/little brother relationship, even when it was quite antagonistic. It was definitely not close though and could be argued. Jason and Damian have had very little interaction but they also have that weird thing with Talia. There has been some recent stuff in Rebirth with them. I think the Jason who came back wasn’t prepared to consider anyone who came after him a sibling, but I think Convergence and the recent stuff in Rebirth show that those two are going to end up in a fairly typical sibling relationship. It’s not there yet. 

Jason and Cass haven’t had any significant interactions in Post-Crisis (Cass was sidelined and I’m not sure they ever met) and he probably didn’t see her as much of anything at that point. If DC wasn’t sidelining Cass I could see them clicking the fastest on Jason’s end simply because he normally responds well to women generally anyway. 

Jason and Tim is where I diverge from Fandom at large. I really don’t care what the new 52 decided to do (literally they have a panel where Tim says flat out he’s not interacted with Jason much but still sees him as closest thing to a brother? I’m still boggling), it made absolutely no sense and came with no resolution. Tim calling himself Red Robin wouldn’t do crap to stop Jason ‘Petty’ Todd from seeing him as his replacement (because that’s what Red Robin functionally was) and Tim just ‘got over’ nearly being murdered by shrugging it off? No thanks. That and the complete erasure of Tim and Dick’s long history of their really strong (and important!) brotherly relationship killed me. I can’t do it, fam. 

Like…if you’ve read Lost Days and seen Jason’s reaction to Tim…I’m sorry but there is going to be some bitter resentment for a long, long time and I just do not see a fast resolution and happy family fun times there. Tim and Damian also have a longtime rivalry and I see the ‘Damian tried to kill him’ used a lot there, and I’m not sure why that just gets dropped with Jason and Tim. Jason brutalized him. Damian was a 10 year old (I think that was his pre-retcon age at the time, it might’ve been the pre-pre-retcon 8 though) who attempted to murder him. Jason was older, bigger and could’ve done it. I’m fairly sure Tim would remember that and not leap head first into a brotherly relationship there. Or any relationship. 

Moving along, Dick. Dick sees them all as his siblings. He takes to a big brother mentor role well and he’s out and out called all of them his siblings before. I think Cass would be the only one it’s more doubtful but I’m blaming DC and saying it would extend to her. His relationship with Bruce is much more complex. I think at this point, yes, Bruce is his father. I think it did not start out that way. Both of them went into it from a different place–Dick didn’t want a replacement father, Bruce wasn’t looking for a kid. But I think it changed naturally. Probably when Dick was about 16-17 and went through puberty and started to naturally grow up and out and Bruce’s reaction was to come down hard on that and be overbearing. Their epic fights from when Dick was about 17-18 until he was in this 20s were pretty intense and I think came from them both trying to re-navigate what they were to each other. Dick wasn’t adopted until he was in his 20s and at that point it was a ‘gesture’ for what was already long established. I think they still relate on a different level than purely father and son, which is that favoritism that Jason points out, but I do think that they view each other as that, now. It was a much longer and harder road getting there. 

Anyway this is my personal opinion based on mostly Post-Crisis and it’s comics so.