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simp-for-the-batfam · 5 months

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It is a rare day when the Batfamily has a declared day and night off (usually instituted by Alfred when everyone is injured). They decided to spend the day watching a movie together. Only, Bruce is fed up with the Batkids spending too much time arguing over what movie they should watch and turns it to a random channel that happened to be playing Phineas and Ferb. He states that 'if you act like children, you watch childish things'. Little did Bruce know how much of a pain it would cause him.

First off, Damian has never seen the show, but now that he has, the OWCA agents, especially Agent P, are his favorites. He is already compiling a list of measurements as to give Alfred to make custom fedoras for Titus, Alfred the Cat, Batcow, and any other pet the Wayne's own. Alfred already has the sewing machine out. Damian even commissioned one for Hailey that Dick can't wait to put on her. And on a completely unrelated note, an animal smuggling ring that Damian busted last week happened to have an abused platypus that Damian has now decided would be better fit in the Wayne Manner than taken care of in some wildlife preserve.

Dick remembers trying to recreate do everything Phineas and Ferb's summer as a kid, and is now determined to do it again. While everyone is distracted by the show, he calling is order and favors, determined to make things and contacting anyone who could help. He already has the Teen Titans on his side. He even ordered roller coaster parts that should come tomorrow and who knows what else. While he might not be able to personally build everything, he knows people who could. But for some reason, the parts never arrive at the manor.

Jason is hardcore identifying with Candace. While he is not the oldest, he knows what it is like to have the perfect sibling that never gets caught for their wrongdoing (*cough*cough* Dick). He already had to go through Dick's crazy summer plans before when he was Robin, trying to stop Dick from getting himself killed, and he doesn't want to do it again. Throughout the show, he is trying to bust Dick whenever he leaves to make a suspicious phone call, but Dick always says he is ordering takeout. Jason is pulling his hair out wondering how come no one has questioned the amount of times Dick has left to order food and how none of it has arrived yet. When he gets a chance, he sings E.V.I.L. B.O.Y.Z. directed toward Dick, who sits up front looking completely innocent.

The minute Phineas and Ferb is mentioned, Stephanie quicky fled the room only to roll back in full Duckie Momo apparel. She has on a Duckie Momo onesie, Duckie Momo slippers, and Duckie Momo glasses. In fact, the whole floor has become a Duckie Momo nest, complet with blankets and pillows. She even had a matching onesie for Cass. She also came in knowing all of the songs word for word and had so much fun recreating the "Squirrels in my pants" dance.

When Cass isn't in the Duckie Momo nest with Steph, cuddling a Duckie Momo plushie, she is copying fight scenes from the show. It started off as Steph asking if she could do a move Agent P did, only for her to recreate the whole scene. Now everyone is wanting Cass to copy any of the animals fighting moves, but she declined until she also got a fedora. Damian quickly got her one and declared her an honorary OWCA Agent. Dick tried to join in, but failed. Jason about died laughing about how a platypus could beat Dick in a fight, only for Damian to yell, "Agent P is a worthy opponent, Todd!" with Cass nodding in agreement. Either way, Dick has mainly been pouting ever since.

Tim has been up for about a week before he got dragged into family time. Now, he is just staring numbly at the TV, saying 'mood' whenever Doofenshmirtz talks about his awful childhood backstories (like the one where his parents didn't show up for his birth), giving Bruce an aneurysm each time. Tim is already on the edge, and Bruce just hopes he doesn't gain any motivation to copy Doof's 'take over the Tri-state area' schemes. Bruce especially worries whenever Tim spots a machine and says 'I could build that'.

Unbeknownst to Bruce, Barbara already has the schematics for all of Doof's machines as well as Phineas and Ferb's. What started as a bored interest during summer as a child grew over time, especially with all resources she gained by being Batgirl and Oracle. The information on both are kept in separate secret heavily protected files to keep Tim away from Doof's and Dick away from Phineas and Ferb's. She even has a warning system in place if either of them get close to making one of the machines, either on accident or on purpose, and diverts them away from completing it. The system also includes orders to return any shipments made solely for the purpose of recreating a machine and deleting any records of the order in the first place (hence why Dick's shipment never came). But Babs is content with letting Bruce worry and continues to watch the show with a Duckie Momo blanket spread over her lap (courtesy of Steph).

Since Duke was still working day shift (he wasn't as injured as the others and wanted to flee before there was bloodshed over choosing the movie), he comes back home and happens to conveniently be listening to a playlist of Phineas and Ferb's greatest hits. Upon seeing everyone, Duke takes an earbud out and asks, "Whatcha doin'?" The only answer he got was Steph throwing another Duckie Momo onesie in his face.

An hour later, Jason and Steph are singing BUSTED on top of a table, Jason as a warning to Dick and Steph just for the heck of it. Meanwhile, Cass and Duke acts as Duckie Momo backup dancers with full choreography. Dick wanted to join in as well, but Jason forced him to sit down and watch, hoping the message will sink through, but Dick thinks it is because they don't like his dancing so now he is pouting again. Tim is waving his cellphone light as if this is the most meaningful part of the night, while Damian is about to wrestle the fedora onto Alfred the Cat, as the cat keeps batting it away. All the while, Babs is recording everything.

Bruce is reminded that this is why you should never watch daytime television and turns the channel, despite the cries of anguish. Only to be horrified when Alfred reminds him and the children that show is can be viewed on Disney + and can be streamed at anytime. He runs back to his room as the beginning notes to the intro fill the air and all his children sing along.

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instantstarlightcreator · 6 months

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*SPOILERS*

Some comments/thoughts/questions on ACFTL:

I did like the 3rd book but I think it was lacking a bit and it felt like there was so much missing or left unanswered.

First of all, I don’t understand why Stephanie didn’t use Luc for the plot! Evangeline met Luc before her father died, so she would have remembered and recognized him.

Since I read the sample with the first 4 chapters, I always imagined that Luc would be arrested for his crimes and put in chains and paraded in the throne room with all the nobles present. Apollo would have ordered the guards to throw him into the dungeon to await his trial. But Evangeline, recognizing Luc, would clearly object it. I think that would have created a great dynamic for the plot because it would have aroused or deepened the distrust of some nobles towards her. Some had thought that she was the one who killed Apollo and there is also the Protectorate, who wanted to kill her because of the prophecy. The question would be: if she knew Luc, why didn’t she tell anyone in the council that he was not really an Acardian and no real heir to the throne? Evangeline would also start to question herself, realizing that for some reason she told no one about it and maybe would have started to doubt Apollo/the nobles, because she would have had a reason to keep Luc’s real identity hidden. Nonetheless, she would know that she would not be able to let Luc die. So Luc locked up in the dungeon/awaiting his trial would have also created the perfect reason for her to go and search for Jacks and to ask for help or make some kind of new deal, as she clearly had worked with him before.

—> I get that a lot of what I just wrote came from my imagination, but I‘m really sad that Stephanie didn‘t use Luc for the plot at all.

So next thing:

What happened to the Protectorate? To Tiberius??? They wouldn’t know that The Valley arch was opened…and why did Castor kill the people of house fortuna? Was it because they were part of the Protectorate?

Next, LaLa broke the engagement with Robin Slaughterwood. I thought he might step into Venegance Slaughterwoods footsteps and intend to take some sort of revenge against LaLa and the Valors. I would have liked Stephanie to draw a parallel between Robin's actions and Venegance's. I think that would have been really cool and is a missed opportunity in my opinion. And what about LaLa now? Is she still a Fate? Her love for Dane was literally the reason she became one:

LaLa did realize that she changed and that she doesn’t really love him anymore, so wouldn’t that mean she lost her powers? Or was her ’love‘ for Dane just the scapegoat (couldn’t think of the right word) and the real reason of her being the unwed bride is that she has some form of commitment issues?

Another thing that no one talks about: who is Nicodemus?? The librarian who showed Evangeline the Valory arch???

And what about Marisol? Stephanie has hinted before that she/Evangeline's mother doesn't believe that a story truly ends with a happily ever after, but that the happy couple probably will have to face other obstacles in their future.

If that's what Stephanie intends, I don't think it was a good decision on Stephanie's part to not mention Marisol at all. She doesn't necessarily have to write a whole paragraph about it, but I think if Evangeline had come across a scandal sheet from the Meridian Empire in the epilogue that said “the Cursed Bride had returned from the North“, or something similar, that would have been enough to let the reader know that Marisol is still present in the story and could still put some obstacles in EvaJacks way in the future. We wouldn't have to experience it ourselves , but it would have been a hint that the story wasn't quite over there yet. That would have been much better in my eyes, because you're hinting at something, but not mentioning Marisol at all feels more like Stephanie forgot about her…

And lastly, I think it’s quite common in YA to have a female lead with no living/not present parents or siblings. Family never seems to play a big role in YA. I think it would have been nice for Evangeline, upon realizing that she is in the Magnificent North, to have the desire to look for possible relatives from her maternal side. I think that would be quite a normal reaction to be curious about possible family members, especially if you are an orphan, or even just being curious about your mothers birth place/town if there are no relatives.

Edit:

another thing I just remembered: How did Jacks know Petra? He didn’t knew her in TBONA? How did he know that she was Belleflower‘s lover. That didn’t make sense, or did he found out about it after Petra‘s death? And how did Belleflower know that Evangeline was the one to kill Petra in the first place???

#a curse for true love #acftl #jacks x evangeline #evajacks #tbona #prince of hearts #the ballad of never after

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cleromancy · 4 months

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i absolutely do not vibe at all with any red hood steph concept ive ever seen because fucking nobody engages with it in any depth its just 🤔🤔 steph is basically the same as jason right? people who dont like jason online say so so it must be true~

like i need you first of all to walk back several steps and understand two major things about utrh and stephanie brown here. the first is that steph got into crime fighting in the first place bc she wanted to ~spoil~ the crimes of her c-list supervillain father. the second is that the core of the tragedy of the red hood is that batman is supposed to be his fucking dad.

so if you do want to do a red hood stephie concept here which. to be clear is not something i am INHERENTLY opposed to. you have a couple options to make it potentially coherent but you need to actually be deliberate and clear about what youre trying to do with that concept. you need to step away from jasons tragedy and look at hers and figure out where exactly her anger and hurt are coming from and who exactly theyre directed at, as well as what specifically in your au concept it would be so different than the canon one where when she comes back she wants to do pretty much the opposite of what jason wanted when *he* came back.

and. crucially. if the difference is the relationship she has to bruce being different you actually do need to show not tell that dude. im sorry but if you just *tell* me that in your universe that steph has a more deep and meaningful relationship to bruce i 100% always am like "ill believe it when i fucking see it". like, she has parents of her own and while that doesnt preclude having a more signficant relationship with bruce (see: timmy)... you really do have to do the legwork or it looks like youre just writing them out and asking us to take your word for it that Of Course steph wants bruce to adopt her, hes batman! gag, retch, spew. do notdo this.

FRANKLY in a reverse robins concept i vibe way more with steph as red robin than anything specifically her getting the dumpster costume from whoever you do put in the red hood role. (frankly x2 i still think if they really truly had to do the storyline they did in canon where shes still trying to do bruces dirty work for him and hires assassins to kill tim to ~make him better~ lmao she should have been the one who wore the Bad Robin uniform before tim got it instead of fuckin ulysses i just think it would have been more coherent and also funner for me personally)

anyway if you link me a red hood steph concept here and it sucks or does any of the things i Just finished critiquing i will be very irritated and i will not be polite to you about it. just as a fair warning.

#still kind of mad about this one time the topic came up and someone linked me a rh steph bc 'shes so sexy in it'#i was like bestie does the term gay man mean anything to you. and they were like #'oh sorry im asexual so i forgot that when some people say sexy it means they want to Fuck them'#...#like can you walk me through any of your logic here. why sexy was the adjective you used in the first place instead of like #'interesting'. 'compelling.' 'charismatic' even #why are you acting like im the weird one for assuming you meant attractive or swoonworthy being the main draw of the character.#why am i supposdly the one who made it about whether or not *either of us* wants to fuckthe fictional character. i wasnt even thinking that!#i truly madly deeply did not assume anything more than that you meant attractive when you said attractive #lmfao.#this wasnt even the only time that shit has happened to me. please do not do this.#i would love to say with confidence 'you wouldnt say shit like that to a lesbian about sexy men' but frankly i do have a sinking feeling+#that they would #whatever. none of that was the fucking point #the point is jasons evil era doesnt work if u just copypaste it on steph shes a totally different character the context is totally different #text #dc

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cinnamunspice · 10 months

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THE STATS:

physical appearance

5' 8", 175lbs, she has muscle definition in her arms and legs, but is very curvy and healthy looking in her overall appearance. Medium blonde, wavy hair that is sometimes ironed straight. She looks like she gives great hugs. Has multiple healed/faded gun wounds, knife markings, and what appears to be burnt skin areas (either by fire or electricity). Also still visible (but faded) stretch marks across her belly and thighs that can be visible if wearing a crop top/short shorts!

gender / sexuality/ birthday /age

✨️girl.✨️ bisexual. august 11th. she is played usually around 21 years old on this blog.

✨️ click for: spoiler!tag

✨️click for: batgirl!tag

FOR THE RECORD:

(credits to DC Comics Encyclopedia All-New Edition - 2016)

Before the Flashpoint event, Stephanie Brown was the only character to serve as both Robin and Batgirl. She debuted in the pages of Detective Comics, but soon became romantically involved with Tim Drake in his Robin title.

Having had a tumultuous life, including giving her baby up for adoption and troubles with her single mom, Spoiler eventually worked her way into Batman's good graces, briefly replacing Tim as Robin. Fired by the Dark Knight for not following his directions, she continued her crime-fighting career - with Barbara Gordon's blessing - adopting the name and costume of Batgirl.

Hero by Proxy: As Batgirl, Stephanie fought crime on her college campus at Gotham University with the help of her own Oracle of sorts - computer expert Proxy. Thanks to a grant from Batman, Inc., Batgirl set up shop in her own Batcave-like hideout she called Firewall.

AN ORIGIN STORY

(credits going to essential batman encyclopedia - 2008)

Stephanie Brown was the daughter of Arthur Brown, the costumed criminal known as Cluemaster. He and his wife, Crystal, enjoyed a middle-class life until Arthur's television series was canceled. They then spiraled toward poverty until he adopted a costume and gimmicks to begin a crime spree to provide for his family. He was not very successful and was repeatedly imprisoned, leaving Crystal to raise their daughter Stephanie mostly on her own. (Detective Comics #647, August 1992)

She came to resent her loser of a father and his constant return to crime when it was clearly not something he was good at. In her mind the only way to stop him was through an intervention - although the approach she chose was unique. She designed and wore a purple cloaked outfit and showed up to interfere with his crimes as the Spoiler. With clues she left for the police, it was easy for Batman and Robin to apprehend him one more time, although Spoiler joined in the process.

A curious thing happened, though: Stephanie came to enjoy the life of a costumed adventurer. Soon she was donning her outfit regularly to run the Gotham City rooftops alongside Robin (Timothy Drake), on whom she developed a crush. Her nascent crime-fighting career got derailed when she discovered she was pregnant, carrying the child she'd conceived with a fellow teen whose family had abandoned Gotham after its devastating earthquake. When she chose to carry the child to term and then give it up for adoption, Robin supported her, going so far as to create the civilian guise of Alvin Draper so he could take her to Lamaze classes. (Robin [second series] #65, June 1999)

Their time together ignited a romance that survived his being sent to study for a year at the nearby Brentwood Academy. As with most teen romances, they had their ups and downs, misunderstandings, and rounds of jealousy. It was all complicated by their crime-fighting careers, with Robin splitting his time at school with Batman, the Teen Titans, and finally with her. (Robin [second series] #98, March 2002) Stephanie, though, was an untrained fighter who had more spirit than skill and no other friends in costume, until she and Batgirl (Cassandra Cain) began spending time together. Batgirl liked Stephanie a lot but protected her by frequently giving her a mild concussion to prevent her from endangering herself in critical situations.

At one point, while Robin was out of town, Batman - who normally kept his distance from her - surprised Spoiler with an invitation to train together. He went farther, revealing Robin's real name to her, something Tim Drake had kept to himself. She also received training for a time from Black Canary as a favor to Oracle, a fellow Bird of Prey. That all came to an end when the Dark Knight determined that Spoiler did not have what it took for their dangerous careers and asked the Birds to end their help.

Cluemaster never did give up his criminal ways. While he was in jail, he accepted a mission with the Suicide Squad, hoping to survive and earn parole. Instead, he was thought dead on the mission. Spoiler was angered upon learning the news. She distanced herself from Robin and went out into the city, seeking someone to hit. As a result, she brought down the Riddler and eventually reconciled with Tim.

Stephanie continued to show more heart than skill, getting injured more than once, breaking her leg during a fight against Johnny Warlock. Undaunted, when she learned that Tim had hung up his cape at his father's insistence, she crafted her own Robin outfit and accessed the Batcave. She begged the Caped Crusader for a chance to be the fourth Teen Wonder. He agreed to train her and see if she could improve but warned her that if she disobeyed an order even once, she was through.

For seventy-one days she trained hard and patrolled with Batman, absorbing more than she thought possible. In addition to her successes, she also did as he expected, saving his life by disobeying an order. When the mission was done, she was fired and banned from the Batcave. (Robin [second series] #126-128 , July-September 2004)

In shock and desperate to show what she was capable of, Stephanie accessed the Batcomputer, found one of Batman's myriad War Games plans, and activated it. The plan, though, hinged on Matches Malone being available to fill a power vacuum in Gotham's underworld. Stephanie was unaware at the time that Malone was an alias for Batman, so the plan pretty quickly derailed. During the gang war her actions ignited, she sought out Orpheus, the man Batman tapped to fill the gap created by Malone's absence. She was present when the agent was killed by Black Mask, who then captured and tortured Stephanie, Despite her pain, she wouldn't tell him anything and was eventually rescued by Catwoman. The feline took the dying girl to Dr. Leslie Thompkins for treatment but her injuries were too severe and she died, the Dark Knight at her side. (Batman #633, December 2004)

||| SLIGHT ALTERATION FROM CANON AHEAD: |||

Or so it was believed. Stephanie had died for a few minutes, that was true: but her 'death' was the story they pushed, orchestrated by Dr. Leslie Thompkins to allow Stephanie the time she desperately needed to heal from her wounds. She’d since been living under an alias in Africa, but was unable to fight the urge to return to being a full-time Super Hero. She returned to Gotham to take up the mantle of Spoiler.

(the following is credited by DC Universe Encyclopedia Entry - 2018)

Following the massive shake-up in the wake of Bruce Wayne’s “death” (FINAL CRISIS, 2008-2009) and the resulting BATTLE FOR THE COWL(2009), Stephanie found herself taking on a new role in Gotham City. When the second Batgirl, Cassandra Cain, gave up her mantle, Stephanie stepped in and became the third Batgirl.

She worked closely with Barbara Gordon, the original Batgirl. She maintained her new role until the events of FLASHPOINT(2011) rebooted the continuity of the DC universe-- into the "NEW 52".

IMPORTANT EVENTS

( written by the amazing wikia writer: Nevermore999 at the stephanie brown wiki )

Stopping her fathers first heist as Spoiler (Detective Comics 647--649)

Stopping her fathers second heist and receiving a kiss from Robin (Robin 3-5)

Becoming Tim's girlfriend (Robin (56))

First team up with Batgirl (Batgirl(20))

Discovering her pregnancy (Robin (57))

Having her baby and giving it up for adoption (Robin (65))

Meeting Dinah Lance and becoming her apprentice (Robin 80 Page Giant)

Training with Batgirl (Batgirl (28))

Discovering Tim's true identity and becoming apprentice to Batman (Robin (84))

Becoming Robin in an alternate reality in "World Without Young Justice" (Robin (102))

Her father's "death" (Robin (109))

Batman tells her to stop being Spoiler (Gotham Knights (37))

Becoming Robin IV (Robin (126))

Teaming up with Batgirl as Robin (Batgirl (53))

Fired by Batman (Robin (128))

Her death (War Games-Batman (633))

Saves Batgirl's life as a ghost (Batgirl (62))

More near death experiences with Steph for Cass! (Batgirl 72-73)

Person dressed in a Spoiler costume makes an appearance after Stephanie's death (Gotham Underground (2))

Tim is reminded of Stephanie when he meets rogue vigilante "Violet" in her purple costume, mentions Stephanie's lack of memorial, and believes he sees Stephanie in the hall at his high school (Robin (170))

Spoiler unmasks and reveals herself to be Stephanie (Robin (172))

Spoiler finally talks to Tim to warn him he's been led into a trap. Enraged and believing her to be an impersonator of his dead loved one, he attacks her, only letting up slightly when she says his real name. Before she can reveal who she is though, they are interrupted by Sin Fang. (Robin (173))

Spoiler reveals herself to both Robin and Batman as Stephanie Brown, and is welcomed back into the Bat Family. She has apparently also finally learned Batman's true identity as Bruce Wayne. She reunites with her mother as well. Robin (174)

Spoiler teams up with Tim again for the first time since her absence, and a story about her time in Africa is told. (Robin/Spoiler Special)

Stephanie accompanies Tim to Titans Tower, and gets to interact with several of the Titans. (Teen Titans (third series)(66)

Stephanie decides to keep being Spoiler, despite the fact Tim wishes her not to. The two of them reach an agreement, and Stephanie reveals she has managed to procure technology that lets her turn invisible when she wants to. (GOTHAM GAZETTE: BATMAN ALIVE?)

Stephanie becomes Batgirl (Batgirl (third series) (1))

Stephanie receives Barbara's vow of support and guidance in her new role as Batgirl and gets her own Batgirl costume. (Batgirl (third series) (3))

Stephanie has her first team up with Supergirl and the two become friends. (World's Finest (3))

Stephanie saves Batman and is accepted as Batgirl by Batman and Robin. (Batgirl (third series) (7))

Stephanie teams up and reconciles with Tim. He tells her he's proud of her and they go to save those she loves. (Batgirl (third series) (8) - Red Robin (10))

Stephanie teams up with Wonder Woman and several other superheroines to rescue a senator! (Wonder Woman (600)

Stephanie saves the city and rescues her mentor Barbara from the Calculator Batgirl (third series) (12)

Stephanie passes a test thrust upon her by a recently-returned Bruce. When she finds out, she tells Bruce off for always manipulating her and treating her like a tool, and even slaps him in the face. Bruce gives his approval for Steph being Batgirl, and even say privately that he thinks she's grown into a capable crimefighter. Bruce Wayne: The Road Home: Batgirl (1)

#›› PINNED POST .#›› STEPHANIE . ❝ all I got is these broken clocks. ❞#updated 4/11/24

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klbwriting · 1 year

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The Jason Todd Anomaly

Chapter 13: They’re a Little Pretentious

Pairing: Jason Todd x female!Reader

Warnings: none for this one

Summary: The fundraiser for the GCPD leads to a new plan from the randomest of places

All Other Chapters

The night of the fundraiser came around just as Jason and Y/N were recovering fully from their injuries at the hands of the court, almost like it was planned that way. The Robins were doing as much research on the court as they could, asking around to anyone they could about them. Y/N and Jason were mostly training, trying to get back into fighting shape and now Y/N could sometimes best Jason even when he wasn't letting her win.

The night of the party it was decided that Y/N would not come with the other Robins. Even if the court knew who all the Robins were no one else at the party would and they didn't want to involve her in case there were spies around. The Robins arrived, all wearing masks of their brothers, currently Jason was in Tim's red and green mask. They would trade as the night went on, hoping to keep the court at least doing double takes to figure out who was who. Stephanie was patrolling the perimeter of the hotel, keeping out of sight as she sent updates to the boys through their comms.

About an hour into the party Y/N showed up, just as planned. She entered in a black dress ending mid-thigh with cutouts at her sides. They were covered by white lace and as much as Jason wanted to ignore her for the moment he caught himself staring. She was curvy and that dress hugged her so well. He would have to thank her cousin for getting married. He hung back, letting Damian approach her first. He seemed less than pleased to be taking her arm, but he was in the matching mask at the moment so it was his duty.

Y/N had felt Jason's eyes on her as she entered and it made her smile, which made dealing with Damian easier. He was sulking as he walked with her to get a drink. She took the glass of champagne and they stood by one of the small bar tables set up.

"This is killing you isn't it?" she asked. Damian looked at her as if really noticing her, before nodding. "Is it wearing the suit or just being at this stuffy party?"

"Both. This suit is annoying as are the people here. Using privilege to keep the status quo, knowing the city is in ruin but not really doing anything to change it. My mother is appalled," he said. Y/N looked at him confused. "My mother is a leader in the League of Assassins, and she has been talking lately about how she cannot get the league in the city, some kind of corruption inside the league itself. Apparently this court has had a deal with the league for many years."

"Who are these court fuckers? How is it possible that they have been under the radar for so long?" Y/N asked. Damian shrugged and looked around, seeing the signal from Dick and nodded. Dick approached the table and they walked away together before Dick came back, Jason's mask on his face now. "O yay, you."

"Look, I know our last conversation was a little...combative..." he said.

"You were going to hit me for disliking your dad," she said. He nodded slowly. "Look, we can disagree on this all day or we can put it aside for now and work on this case, so we good Dick?" He nodded again. "I've noticed that several people here are wearing masks with that specific fake feather in them." She pointed out three separate guests with a distinctive feather in the mask.

"I am guessing they are already members of the court, just need to get confirmed IDs and maybe we can get someone to talk, find out exactly what the plan is," Dick said as he moved around the table to stand closer to her and see the guests better. He leaned close to her. "Don't pull back even though I know you want too, I want you to know, I took something from Jason's tower a few days ago before he found it." He slid her an envelope. She opened it and read the card inside.

We understand you want to keep the girl safe If you decide to join our cause we will keep her safe Let us know your decision at the fundraiser Midnight in the penthouse suite

"Alright, so they are giving Jason another offer," she said. "And you didn't show him this why?"

"Because he may take them up on it, in fact I want you to get him to take them up on it," he said. Her eyes snapped to his, confused and angry. "Listen before you start throwing fists at me, if we can get someone on the inside we might be able to destroy them from the inside out." She nodded slowly. "Talk to him, see what you can do."

"I didn't agree to this insane idea of yours," she said. He shrugged but looked like he knew she would do it. She couldn't believe she was considering this, but what if they needed someone on the inside to get information? Maybe Dick was right. Shit. Jason came over then, disappearing with Dick and switching masks. She stood silent as Jason settled next to her with another drink.

"You look annoyed," he said. He subtly brushed his hand against hers as he handed her the glass of water.

"I am, Dick may be right, and he's trying to use me," she said. She could feel the annoyance radiating from Jason. She turned just a little more to face him, sliding the card Dick had given her over to him. Jason read it quickly and growled a little.

"What? He thinks I should take them up on their offer?" He asked, thinking he was kidding. When Y/N didn't answer he looked to her. "You can't be serious."

"He thinks we need someone on the inside, and I can't lie, I kind of agree. I hate this whole thing, but what if you joined them and you were able to sabotage them?" she asked. "Even if just enough that whatever their ultimate goal is for Gotham you could put a serious wrench in the plans and get information in the meantime?" she said. Jason mulled this over in his mind. Fuck, that almost made sense. He didn't like it but it would keep her safe for a time and he might be able to glean something, anything from them.

"Fine, I'll do it," he said finally. She put a hand on his arm, gently rubbing it.

"You don't even have to be happy about it, they'll know you're only doing it for me," she said. "Its almost midnight, I'll go to the suite with you." Jason sighed and nodded, heading towards the elevator. They entered and started their ascent.

"You look beautiful" Jason said. Y/N smiled. "You know, I brought an overnight bag."

"You want to go home with me?" she asked. He hadn't slept over since that first night and she couldn't lie, she wanted to see his suit on her floor.

"Maybe you could go home with me," he said. "You have a bag right?" The elevator door opened and they didn't get to finish the conversation. In the entrance hall stood masked guards who led them into the living room. Five members of the court were in the room. They motioned for Y/N to enter the bedroom of the suite and she went inside. They locked the door. Jason tensed, wanting to start shooting people, or at least start throwing hands.

"Well Mr. Todd, are you prepared to accept our offer?" the leader of the court said, stepping forward. Jason flexed his hands, trying to not make a fist.

"Will you leave Y/N alone? She will not be harmed in any way?" he asked. The leader nodded. "I want to hear you say it." There was a sigh, the court was clearly exasperated by his antics.

"Yes Mr. Todd, Ms. Y/L/N will be safe, no member of the court will lay a hand on her," he said.

"And neither will your creatures."

"The Talons will keep to themselves."

"Fine, I'm in."

In one movement the five owls removed their masks. Jason kept himself contained. The leader who spoke to him was Jacob Kane, on either side of him were Joseph and Maria Powers, and finally Clarissa Cobblepot and John Wycliffe. Jason nodded slowly.

"Rich and powerful families of Gotham, of course," he muttered. "So am I the first Wayne in the court or was my father also a member?"

"O Bruce was not a friend of the court, he tried very hard to avoid all this, until his death of course," Kane said. "Then we saw an opportunity. You see, your brothers are rather, pretentious for our tastes..."

"Says the guy wearing a 10,000 dollar suit," Jason muttered. Cobblepot cleared her throat, clearly annoyed. At least he understood why Penguin had been the first arrested. It was clear that his mother was disappointed that he still was doing criminal dealings, losing money trying to keep his territory.

"Your brothers wouldn't understand our methods nor our reasons. You however, you see what it means to run at least a piece of this city. Your Red Hood territory is thriving and we believe you can use your skills to keep the peace in the city," he said. Jason nodded again. He swallowed the bad taste in his mouth.

"I can do that, what do you need me to do to start?" he asked.

"First we need you to start taking over the territory your friend Ms. Waters opened up. With Harley Quinn dead Dent and Fries have been trying to take more territory. We can't have that, so please, take care of that," Kane said. "We will explain to the Commissioner about what is going on so that he doesn't deem you a criminal again." Jason nodded but felt himself dying a little inside. So Gordon was in their pocket. He should have kept up better with him, helped him more, then he might have not have fallen this way. He found himself wishing Bruce were here, he would know how to fix this without compromising himself more.

"Fine, I have my instructions, can I please take Y/N home now?" he asked. Kane nodded.

"If you would like you can ask her to help you, but if she shows any signs of being in league with the Robins we will kill her without question," he said. Jason's mouth went dry so all he could do was nod. The court put their masks back on and Y/N was let out of the bedroom. She looked less than pleased but just took Jason's hand as they were escorted back to the elevator.

"So they will kill me if we seem like we're not loyal," she said. Jason nodded as they left the elevator at the parking garage.

"Then we will be careful, no one is going to let you get hurt Y/N, especially not Jason," Tim's voice said in their comms.

"Thank you guys, hanging up now," Y/N said as Jason opened the door to the car he had arrived in. She got in and he joined her, taking his comm out of his ear. "Let's go to your place." Jason nodded silently and drove, already planning how to kill every court member one by one.

#Jason Todd #jason todd x plus size reader #jason todd x reader #jasontoddanomaly #red hood #red hood x reader #red hood x plus size reader

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ayamari-no-goshi · 2 years

Text

Chasing Shadows (6)

AO3 -> first, last, next

Fandoms: Danny Phantom (DP) / DC universe

Summary: THIS IS A CROSSOVER. As Bruce Wayne begins to slowly recover from the loss of his son, two separate mysteries open up old wounds. Who is the unknown leaving clues hinting at a return to Gotham, and who is the phantom pretending to be his lost son? Is it just a coincidence they’re active in Gotham at the same time? Or are they connected?

Warnings: rated T for violence, mentions of death, and questionable mental health

Parings: none

Notes: originally uploaded to AO3. Cross-posted to tumblr

Stephanie was not going to cry. She wasn’t. Well, maybe she would after she was out of her current predicament and away from the prying eyes of the asshole known as Batman. Seriously, why was she trying to prove her worth to the man? Wait, it’s because he was freaking Batman, that’s why.

She just wanted to set up a situation that would show him her competence and that she was just as capable as Tim, or Dick, or Cass. It was never her intention to cause a city-wide gang war that threatened to take everyone and thing with it. That’s what she got for deciding to use one of Batman’s own contingency plans. For someone who made plans for everything, he liked leaving out important details like that the so-called crime boss Matches Malone, who was super important to making this plan work, was just one of his aliases. So now, there was a massive power vacuum in the city during to most of the organized crime losing their heads and some of the lieutenants because she enacted that plan.

Even though Batman didn’t want to see her back on the streets, she had to do something. It was her fault this happened, and she needed to do something to help get things back under control. Sure, Batman, Nightwing, and Batgirl were doing their best. Catwoman and some other acquaintances were assisting too. Even Tim had been forced out of retirement and had taken up the Robin mantle again. Surprisingly, Phantom hadn’t shown himself to any of them, but they did have reports he was trying to keep the fighting away from some of the hospitals.

That didn’t matter right now. What did matter was finding Orpheus.

Orpheus was a newer vigilante in Gotham. Bruce did something to help get him trusted by the various gangs in the city, and since they couldn’t use the Matches Malone persona to get things under control, they were going to attempt to use Orpheus as a figurehead for the gangs instead. If all went well, it would stop the gang war. But, he’d gone worryingly dark, and Steph had made it her mission to find him. It was the least she could do to help fix things.

And that’s how she found her way into a trap. She managed to find Orpheus in one of his few safe houses (conveniently supplied by Bruce). For a brief moment, she thought everything would be okay as she began explaining what he needed to do. But something caught his attention, and she barely had time to respond when her world went temporarily black.

Coming to with a pounding headache, she found herself restrained on a chair with the villain known as Black Mask paced in front of her. With the exception of occasionally dealing with his organization, the False Face Society, she hadn’t personally met him before, but his appearance was unmistakable. Due to a fire he set when he first came on the scene, his face now looked like a blackened skull mask. He’d been slowly regaining power in the organized crime world of Gotham since his escape from Arkham. He was known to be ruthless with a penchant for torture which wouldn’t make her situation better.

“Ah, you’re awake. Good. I need to have a little chat with you, Girly.” He moved closer so she was forced to look at him. His putrid breath made her eyes water. “I know the Bat has some sort of plan to get this godforsaken mess under control. I was gonna ask that associate of yours, but he put up too much resistance.” His gaze moved to the side where Orpheus laid unmoving on the floor in a pool of blood. The ashy color to his skin suggested he was already dead.

This was all her fault. Not only did she set up the meeting that led to this war, now the guy they needed for being able to stop the needless bloodshed was gone.

What was she going to tell Bruce?

Why was she even thinking about that? She was currently bound to a chair by a madman and escaping intact needed to be her priority. Taking stock of her surroundings, she noticed that there was one door with light filtering underneath it. Moving shadows suggested there were people guarding the door. There was one window large enough for her to escape out of. Thankfully, it just looked closed as opposed to boarded shut. If needed, she could just break through it. Good. Now she just needed to get out of the restraints which thankfully just seemed to be rope.

Let’s see. Did he remove the hidden blade she kept in her gloves for this very reason? No? Good. Now, she just needed to grab it and cut the ropes while not cluing him into what she was doing. Easy enough.

Moving to the lone table in the room, Black Mask placed a briefcase that had been leaning against it on top of it. With a rather loud click, it popped open, and he began removing things such as a revolver, a hammer, a white mask, and what appeared to be an electric screwdriver. That one made her a little nervous.

“Nice, aren’t they?” Mask had noticed her watching him. “Just like you Bats, I like to be prepared when I ply my trade. You never know what you might need when you need to make someone talk.”

“Funny, that’s just what I was thinking.” The new mechanical voice seemed to come from the shadows.

Mask grabbed the revolver off the table and pointed it towards where he thought the voice came from. “I don’t know who you are, but I don’t particularly like being interrupted. So, I’ll give you the count of five to show yourself. One… Five.” He fired and put a hole in the wall, but there was no sign he hit anyone.

“Put that down before you hurt yourself with it.” The voice warned as someone emerged from the darkness in the same place where Mask shot. His red helmet glinted dangerously in the dim light: the Red Hood.

This situation just went from bad to worse. They had some reports he’d been dispatching any gang members who dared approach Crime Alley during the war. Once the gangs got the message to avoid the area, they started getting reports of him appearing in other areas of Gotham and doing the same thing. They even suspected he may have been the sniper who assisted Bruce and Cass during the assault on Tim’s school that caused him to come out of retirement. He seemed to have strict morals regarding who he would and wouldn’t attack as he only seemed to kill people who were known killers, traffickers, or high-ranking drug dealers. If they didn’t have those crimes, he tended to just knock out or incapacitate them. He was especially lenient with kids and teens.

Hopefully, that meant that he would help her escape. But with his unknown issues with Batman being enough that he harmed Tim, she wasn’t sure if he’d help Black Mask or not.

“And just who might you be?” Mask snapped as he pointed the gun at Hood. “Oh wait, I don’t really care.”

Hood made a noise which almost sounded like a scoff as he seemed to vanish back into the shadows. Panicked, Mask fired a few more shots without hitting anything.

“Enough of that.” Mask froze as Hood wrapped his arm around his neck from behind and held an unusual blade up to his throat. Was it a kris? Steph noted that Hood’s sleeves were rolled up and didn’t seem to have those strange markings Nightwing’s video of him showed. Had that been a temporary thing? Or was there something more to it? “I’m going to give you one warning. Go after Bats all you want, but the kids are off limit.”

“And just why should I listen to a nobody like you?” Mask hissed at him. “I can have dozens of men in here in an instant to kill you.”

“Go ahead and try.” Even through the helmet, Hood seemed amused. “You’ll find that they’re currently indisposed. But even if you decide I’m bluffing, do you really want to be caught in the crosshairs?” When Mask stopped struggling, Hood snickered. “That’s what I thought. As part of our little deal…”

“What deal?”

Hood pushed the knife a little more into Mask’s throat. “You leave the kids alone, and I don’t brutally murder you. That kind of deal.” Hood’s shoulders shook as if he was silently laughing. “Anyways, maybe I should give you some info about Batman as a show of good faith. I mean, Hush seemed to appreciate some of the information I provided him.”

“You’re the informant the Riddle mentioned?” The words slipped out before she could stop herself. They had no idea how much he knew about Bruce’s operations as Batman and personal life, but it seemed to be extensive. This was bad. Just how much damage could this man simply by selling that?

Hood glanced at her. Well, at least he seemed to. God, she wished he’d take off the damn helmet.

“I almost forgot we had an audience. Dove, can you get her to safety?” he seemed to ask the air.

“Can you seriously stop calling me that?” The sound of the disembodied voice made her jump. She briefly noted the air around her seemed to chill before it felt as if she was doused in ice water. The next thing she knew she was on the ground outside with Phantom worriedly floating beside her.

…

Bruce had been in the middle of reviewing the current situation on the streets with Dick, Tim, and Cass while Barbara chimed in from the comms when Stephanie hesitantly walked into the cave. Bruises covered her face, but other than those and the exhaustion seen in her shoulders, she seemed otherwise okay. She carried a paper bag which appeared to have something substantial within it.

“Steph, what happened?” Tim questioned as he and the others went to go help her. After Dick gently took the bag from her, double checked what it was, and placed it on one of the work benches, Tim and Cass supported her as they led her to the Med Bay.

“Black Mask happened. Batman,” she directly looked at him as her voice wavered with emotion, “he killed Orpheus.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded. “Slit throat. Mask confirmed it, and I saw the body when I came to.”

Anger and frustration momentarily filled Bruce’s mind. He needed Orpheus to be able to stop this mess, and now that he was dead, everything they could do to help salvage the situation fell to pieces. Why was she even there with him? Was she the one who led Mask to Orpheus? But at the same time, he was glad she appeared to be okay. Sure, she wasn’t his, but he did care for her, even if he didn’t think she was currently good enough to be on the streets.

“When you came to? What happened?” Dick asked her while Alfred appeared and ran a diagnostic on her to check for hidden injuries before treating her.

Her lip quivered for a moment before she explained how Black Mask tied her up in hopes of getting information out of her. That was concerning. Sionis was well known for torturing people, but she didn’t appear to be severely injured. That was explained as she revealed that Red Hood appeared from the shadows and kept him at bay while Phantom helped her escape.

“I don’t understand, why would Red Hood help you?” Dick tilted his head in confusion. His own interaction with the man had greatly troubled him.

“Hood warned Mask not to harm me or any of the other kids,” she huffed in insult at the word, “helping Batman. When I demanded answers from Phantom about why he was working with that man, he said something strange. I don’t know if it was a slip or not. He said that ‘Hood would rather die again then let another teen hero die.’”

His eldest shared a look with Tim. Odd. Bruce knew they were investigating something on their own regarding Hood, even after Tim temporarily stepped down from the Robin mantle. That look must have something to do with their research. “Phantom joked with him not to die again when I eavesdropped on their conversation,” he explained slowly. “I hate to say it, but maybe both of them did have at least a brush with death.”

“It just doesn’t make sense. He clearly had an issue with Tim, but he came to my rescue?”

“I think he has more of an issue with Bruce than me,” Tim explained while tapping his arm as Alfred gently tended to Stephanie’s wounds. “Whatever it is, it’s bad enough for him to ignore his own morals.”

“Perhaps.” Bruce wasn’t so sure of that, but at least the man helped save one of their own this time around. It also continued to surprise him that Phantom would continue to willingly work with him. There was just something about their relationship they were missing. “Did you get anything else from Hood or Phantom.”

She shook her head. “Other than Hood confirmed he was Hush’s informant, no.”

“That man has a lot of information he shouldn’t have,” Babs murmured from over the coms. “I haven’t found any evidence of tampering in our systems. Bruce, I know it’s unlikely, but with Phantom being able to pass through walls, is it possible he managed to get into the cave?”

“I have considered that,” Bruce acknowledged. “However, I haven’t received any notifications on our security regarding Phantom’s unusual heat signature or anyone appearing from a place they shouldn’t. It doesn’t rule out the possibility, but it does seem unlikely at this point.”

A quiet rustling sound interrupted them. All of them glanced over to find Cass peeking inside the bag Stephanie brought in. “Plants? From Red Hood?”

“I almost forgot about that. Phantom told me to take it.” Stephanie made a face. “It’s pretty hefty, and I briefly thought it was a severed head. Phantom seemed offended by the idea. Though I’m not sure if that’s because I thought he’d give me a severed head or that Hood would have done that.”

“We might as well take a look,” Dick suggested. “It’s not like we’re making any breakthroughs with the current situation.”

As much as he didn’t like it, his son made a point. Besides, the temporary distraction might give him the needed break to be able to look at the war with fresh eyes once he returned to it.

Moving to the table, the others crowded around as he opened the bag and placed the contents on the table. What he found was an unusual plant with single stalk and large bulb that had six vines of another plant wrapped around it. The vines appeared to be morning glory, but he wasn’t sure of what the other one was. A piece of paper was tucked in between the vines which had written in typed letters, “Looks like you’re trapped between a rock and a hard place.”

Hood’s sense of humor wasn’t appreciated.

“I haven’t seen one of those in a long time,” Dick murmured before gesturing to the plant with the bulb. “I haven’t really seen them in the US, but they’re common in parts of the Mediterranean. It’s a Sea Squirt.”

Bruce hummed for a moment. The note most likely referenced the part in “The Odyssey” where Odysseus had to sail between the monsters Scylla and Charybdis, but these plants were more puzzling to him. After a few minutes of research, he found his answer.

Morning Glories were also sometimes referred to as a Messina Creeper, and the Strait of Messina has been put forth as the historical location of where the monsters lived due to a known whirlpool in the area. Hood must have decided its vines would nicely reference Scylla especially because the plant was also sometimes considered a symbol of life, death, and mortality.

The other plant, the Sea Squirt, almost made him chuckle. One of its many names was Charybdis Maritima which explained why he would have chosen it. But Bruce was surprised to find that the plant was sometimes used as a ward for evil spirits.

There was one other surprise waiting for them. When Bruce gently lifted the plants to double check if Hood might have made a mistake and left some sort of trace clue on it, he found another piece of paper gently tucked into the vines of the Morning Glory. Unfurling it, he found it was a note addressed to his alter ego of Matches Malone:

“Malone, will tell Mask Orpheus was your lynch pin. Will try to convince him to impersonate Orpheus and rally the gangs. Use it to end this. Too many innocents involved.”

Was it just a coincidence? Or did Hood know what Bruce’s plans were supposed to be? There was a good chance the latter was true. However, there was also a chance he was lying to Mask to gain a bit of rapport with him for the moment. Bruce was going to have to not only up the security on his systems, but also review all security for any signs they might have missed.

“Stephanie, are you absolutely certain Orpheus was killed?” he turned to see the teen nervously standing behind Cass. When she nodded, he ran a hand over his face. “For now, keep an ear out for any reports of him. If Hood’s note is truthful, there’s a chance we can use that to turn this around.”

“Wait, you’re not going to just believe this guy?”

Bruce understood Barbara’s outrage. This man had been playing with them for months and had a growing body count. However, between the amicable relationship between the helpful Phantom and his almost desperate attempts to keep Crime Alley safe from more destructive crime, it wasn’t a stretch to think he did indeed want the war to end as quickly as possible.

“But if he’s being honest, this might give us the edge we need.” Dick seemed to choose his words carefully.

“Agreed. For now, we will work under the assumption things will continue the way they currently are. Keep your eyes and ears open for anything we might be able to use to get things under control,” Bruce instructed as he watched his kids and Stephanie interact. He’d been lucky today. As much as he hated to admit it, he owed Red Hood for keeping Stephanie safe.

…

It turned out, Red Hood had seemingly held up his promise. Someone posing as a very convincing Orpheus approached Bruce in the following days. However, thanks to Stephanie’s information, he knew to be vigilant for any signs it could be an imposter, and there were a couple very slight but telling slips. This was exactly what they needed to finally finish the war that ravaged Gotham.

After telling the imposter he was planning on getting what was let of the gangs into Robinson Park and place Orpheus at the led, he left the man and contacted the GCPD to start herding the groups in that direction. Even knowing that Black Mask was setting up a trap, the situation was still risky. He would need an extraction, so everyone would be on standby to make sure things went smoothly.

At the appointed time, he met up with the imposter. Through the coms, he knew everyone, including the GCPD, were in place to end this. Before there was a chance for him to get surrounded, Bruce sprung the trap and revealed it truly was Black Mask under the guise. As predicted, he tried to get the gangs to rally and attack him, but Dick did his part and managed to race in on one of his cycles and extract him before the GCPD started pelting the gangs with rubber bullets.

He had hoped that the GCPD would just stick to the rubber bullets, but at the urging of one of the captains, some switched to real ones, killing several of the criminals. It hurt. This was done specifically to try to end the bloodshed, but he should have known better. However, some of the better funded gangs started fighting back and managed to break through the police blockade. He knew that would happen and instructed the others, including Selena, who had offered to help, to take a couple of the different neighborhoods and capture the ones the police could not.

For the first time in days, Bruce believed there was hope on the horizon. At the same time, he couldn’t help feel as if this war wouldn’t end without at least one more damaging blow.

=====================

Notes:

Trying to work with the War Games arc in the comics is a pain. And I actually didn't know this until I was doing research, but Black Mask is a master of disguise. I mean... his family did own a cosmetic company... which he burned down. He had a habit of doing that.

With that out of the way, here's the Odyssey clue for stop 10: Scylla and Charybdis

Scylla is a monster with 6 heads who was once a beautiful woman - transformed by a jealous Circe into a monster. She lives in the rocks overlooking where Charybdis lived, chained to the bottom of the sea sucking in water and everything else while awake creating a massive whirlpool. This area, believed to be the Strait of Messina, is lined with rocky cliffs and to pass through the area either you lost everything if you strayed too near to Charybdis or lost 6 men to Scylla.

Why didn't they just go around? Well, the other way was to go through the Clashing Rocks (Symplegades) and Wandering/Roving Rocks (Planctae) which had only ever been passed successfully through once, and that was by Jason and the Argonauts, and their ship, the Argo, was still damaged in the process.

Anyways... this section of the Odyssey is believed to be a possible origin for the phrase "between a rock and a hard place." There is debate that this might have actually originated with a mine dispute in the southwestern USA, but semantics.

For the plants, firstly, the morning glory is sometimes also called the Messina Creeper. And, as we know, since it's a vine, it can have multiple arms which I'm using to represent the heads of Scylla here. Also, the plant can represent life, death, mortality, and love in vain which continues the life/death/undeath trend with the plants I've chosen.

The sea squill is a fun plant with a huge freaking bulb. It has a few scientific names, including Charybdis Maritima. How could I not use it? They do grow in Greece and interestingly, it's been used as a ward for evil spirits as well as a rat poison

#Chasing Shadows #Danny Phantom #DP #DPxDC #dp x dc #dp x dc crossover #DP crossover #DP au #Odyssey AU #danny phantom crossover

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redjaybathood · 1 year

Note

Do it Right This Time:

Bruce Wayne was in his study, glaring balefully at his desk as if it was somehow the source of his woes. In truth they were of his own making, his own miscalculations.

Because Batman did not have the luxury of making mistakes.

It was to do with Stephanie Brown, the self proclaimed Spoiler who had almost murdered her own father, been kidnapped and was now living under his roof.

He'd seen her, not a day after the kidnapping was resolved making a mess of things in the Bowery, beating up protection rackets and the like.

He had dragged her home, realized her mother was in rehab and something in him ached.

So he took her to child services, one of the one's he was sure was reliable and not a front. Stephanie had escaped in under three minutes and it took him two days to track her down again.

The solution seemed clear at the time.

He would have Bruce Wayne foster her, only temporarily, until her mother was out of the rehab center he moved her too, only until he stopped her obsession with vigilantism.

It made sense after all, his manor was far from the city, with advanced security and he knew, he knew now not to let such a child embrace this life, he could stop it.

He even tried to... Correct, passed miscalculation's, informing Dick of the situation for instance and Tim and even Barbara.

Barbara thought he was making a wise decision, convinced the girl would find an early grave if she continued.

Dick had even come by in his full Rich boy persona to chat amicably with Stephanie and help her settle in.

It all seemed fine.

Except that was where the success ended.

Because after helping Stephanie settle in and leaving again Dick had bee, standoffish, not believing Bruce's intent, not trusting him to make rational decisions.

'You may think you know what's best, and that's half your problem B!'

Tim had come by at his recommendation to meet the girl as a civilian, but apparently Stephanie's fondness for Robin didn't translate well to the Drake heir and the two were not on speaking terms.

Alfred for whatever reason didn't even like the girl and was not shy about that fact. Bruce didn't know why, he had adored J-

Alfred was always a welcoming presence, and on the surface he was and he and Stephanie had been amicable for... About twenty four hours.

Then she had evidently been spying on them because at the next meal she alluded to some of Alfred's salient critique of her presence.

The fact he somehow hadn't noticed her listening in was a problem in of itself, but nothing compared to the next.

'Why do I even bother with security systems at this point?' A part of him wondered.

Stephanie had snuck out, she had bypassed his entire security network, slipped into Gotham proper and spent four hours assaulting muggers and local pit bosses before he caught her.

Which was when the final miscalulation came into play because when he moved to take her to the manor she said.

"So are you going to park in your normal garage or show me the Batcave finally?"

She knew, within two damned days she knew.

Sighing, Bruce slapped his palms to his desk and stood up, something like a script solidly memorized he moved to find Stephanie with a quick flick through the manor security.

'She hasn't escaped again, yet,' he thought, seeing her waiting until Alfred was several rooms away from the kitchen before making her way there.

Resolving himself to do this right, this time, he marched down to the kitchen.

_________________________________________

"We need to talk," he intoned, slipping into the kitchen.

Stephanie rolled her shoulders, doffing off her purple- Eggplant -Hoodie on the bench and rooting around in the draws. "Is this about letting me in the Batcave at last or another lecture on the dangers of vigilantism, ETC."

He takes in a breath and steels himself, "The latter."

Stephanie's glare is only half directed at him as she pulls a knife from the draw, "Fine, but I didn't know you were crazy B-man." She says it like a joke, he only arches his brow.

"Come on, cos repeating the same action expecting a different result equals madness, you must have heard that one right?"

He had, countless times, "Repetition can equal practice, which can lead to perfection."

She smirks, "Gee sure wish there was a suped up cave where I could practice my vigilantly skills till they were up to your standards."

'They never will be, because his weren't.'

He stops himself, taking a moment to orient his mind as Stephanie snatches an apple from the fridge.

"Stephanie Brown... I don't say this because of your background, or your gender, or even your intellect, those are immaterial or well proven." She's giving him a look now, this is a new strategy for him after all.

"But this idea, you can be a vigilant, should be a vigilante has to end. You cannot succeed in this life, and you will throw away a bright future for nothing."

She leans against the bench, knife spinning lazily between her fingers with practiced ease, "Didn't know you were a psychic, do you do lotto numbers too?"

He wants to laugh, to scream to send her away, he can't face this.

He returns to his script.

"You lack the temperament, the mentality to succeed in this line of work."

She begins peeling the apple, the cut is slim and smooth as she says, "Ah but two different rich boys do have what it takes? Didn't take you for a classist B." She says it jokingly, but there's hurt behind her eyes, but also a flash of anger in her posture, he's assailing her pride, she won't back down.

"Your background has nothing to do with this, I said that that much."

"Then, assuming you're right," she says with a tone indicating she would sooner believe the sky was green and it rained upwards. "Why can't you teach me?"

"Because you won't learn you won't change, you won't listen," he stressed. "You will continue to treat this like some kind of game, blind to the dangers, consumed by your passion and it will be the death of you, Stephanie!"

She doesn't shy away, she doesn't even shout back, she laughs.

"Are you for real!?" She nearly doubles over before falling back against the bench, the knife rolling through her fingers again.

"it takes more than some detective work and skill with a knife to operate at this level, Stephanie."

She arched her brow at that, the spinning coming to a stop. "You like my knife work?"

"That isn't what I said."

"Wanna know who taught me?"

She doesn't wait for an answer.

"It was my old man, plus some neighbors and friends and working girls over the years, but it started with him. Same for guns," she holds up her hands, "I stopped carrying after I found out you don't use-em, but I could hit a target before I was five, stung like a mother fucker though."

She pushes off the bench and he murmurs, "Why would Artur-" he shouldn't get caught up in her wave, letting Jason do that was why-

"Cos he didn't want people touching his stuff obviously," she snorted. "See, dad always wanted to be a big player so he never joined a gang, or even accepted protection and when he was around he and his buddies were the only one's we had to be afraid of. When he wasn't around, his buddies and everyone else is what we had to be afraid of."

She tosses the knife up in the air, a lazy, familiar juggle as she wandered tot he other side of the room and let it loose.

It lads perfectly in the apple's center.

"I just said-"

"I heard ya B, but you aren't hearing me," she pressed on. "Tell me, you're a detective, how many kids are in my class?"

"Fourteen," he answers, confused as to where this is going.

"We started out with thirty," her shrug is careless but there's an aching tiredness to it that is all too familiar. "Some died, some got snatched, some joined gangs and died," she pulled the knife out of the apple, her expression darkening.

"See that's the thing... Where I'm from, everybody dies all the time. I saw my first dead body when I was three and some gangsters left a guy with a caved in skull in our bushes. The cops didn't even bother coming."

The knife is straining in her grasp now, "There were plenty more, all kinds of people in all kinds of ways, gun shots, overdosing, crashes, beatings, suicides and," she waved the knife at him. "And if you don't have protection, you're even worse off, that means your a target B."

She spins around walking in dizzying cycles, "If you're in a gang you only have to worry about them touching you, only have to worry about being shot or shanked if you step too far outside your territory. Its hell for girls, sure, but hey at least its predictable, at least not everyone is going to see you as something to be taken and sold on the market."

The knife slashes out, cleaving the apple in half.

"So you do what you do to survive, you get the right protection, you stick with the right people, you make the right compromises to protect yourself from worse people... And it means nothing."

She turns to face him, her town all too sweet.

"Cos maybe one day you're a little slow, maybe another you're a little late. Hell, maybe you did everything right and it still doesn't work cos some asshole misfired, or you got backstabbed, or you just weren't good enough."

She sucks in a breath, "I knew people who played it safe and died, I now people who fought it and died, I know I've had to do things, sacrifice things just to stay alive sometimes and every other time I've had to fight like hell for it!"

The knife snaps in her hand.

"I'm not ignorant to the dangers Batman, I'm not some pissed off kid just looking to get even with daddy. What I am is someone who knows damn well I'm not likely to make it to eighteen anyway. What I am is someone who's been carrying switch blades since I was a kid."

She steps up to him, not remotely intimidated by his greater size, by who he is.

"What I am is always in fucking danger, being Spoiler isn't different, its safer cos I'm the one making it happen and if it goes wrong? Well shit, them's the breaks man, but that's no different than what I'm already dealing with!"

She taps his chest, "But while I'm out there, I'm making the world a little better for kids who sat on their roofs at night praying Batman would save them."

His mind feels like molasses, his script feels worthless and he can only murmur, "You shouldn't have to..."

She chuckles, "No one should have to, but that's the way it is, and I'm going to keep doing it no matter what you say or do. You can either help make me as ready as I can be and accept that it might not be enough, not for me, or for you or for anyone cos it never can be enough."

"Or you can keep trying and failing to stop me." She leans against the counter apple in slice in hand, clearly confident she's wonder this debate.

"You're wrong," he whispers his voice is hoarse as he turns and stalks away, "You're wrong to think it can ever be out of your hands." His nails are digging into his palms, "One who understands that can be a vigilante, can succeed despite any odds, because they were prepared. The fact you think otherwise, proves you will never be enough for this work."

"You can't believe that."

'I have to.'

He turns and leaves, not saying another word.

___________________________________________

They don't discuss it again and two days later his words are put to the test.

Arthur Brown heard where his daughter staying and wants her to rob him dry.

He's ensured Crystal has been taken hostage to ensure Stephanie's cooperation.

The plan fails, she has a direct line to Batman after all and Bruce Wayne owns the rehab center. For once Stephanie listens and stays home, aware she's too invested to not lose her temper.

He sets out, Robin at his side and Oracle in their ears.

They do everything right.

It is not enough.

Crystal Brown dies by a stray bullet, a ricochet that randomly rebounded off the glass and into her heart.

They can't save her in time and once again Bruce Wayne finds himself standing over a mother, her blood on his hands.

Stephanie doesn't even blame him for it as she should, as he does and will do forever more.

Oh she grieves, she howls and rages and has to be pulled off Arthur Brown by no less than five police with tazers.

But she never blames him, it was just chance after all, something completely out of his control.

'You showed me the file B... I know you did everything you could.'

Instead she just breaks into the cave and he doesn't have the heart to chase her away.

She's out of his control.

NOTES:

I feel so bad for Crystal here but I swear it was necessary for the themes, it was thematic! Also a little unsure how to end it or the long term consequences but yeah, I felt that worked, I hope it worked.

It worked, boy oh boy did it work. I kinda started tearing up from the words "We started at thirty".

I love how you used this dialogue, here, and hate that Stephanie was proven right. I would blame Bruce tbh. I do. 😭

#fic recs #stephanie brown #bruce wayne

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butwhyduh · 3 years

Text

Getting tall

Summary: Damian finally hits his growth spurts and the fam have opinions. Some damijon, timkon, jaytemis, and dickori mentioned.

Damian was an adorable tiny murder baby when he first showed up at the manor. Like a feral kitten. Short end of normal growth at 10 years old and thin too, Dr Leslie found. Make sure he eats 3 square meals and snacks when he wants and he’ll be just fine. Alfred had made it his mission, as he had done for both Jason and Tim, to put weight on Damian.

The first family member he outgrew was Cass. She reached over to ruffle his hair only to reach up above her head rather than below it. She didn’t mind. 5’4 isn’t very tall. She’d just have to remember that the next time they spar. Height wasn’t an important factor to her.

It was a few months later that Damian hit a massive growth spurt and grew 4 inches. He passed by 5’6 Stephanie.

“Hey little dude. What are they puttin in your food, miracle grow?” She asked when she noted how tall he was and how big his feet had gotten. Damian was a bit like the giant puppies all gangly. Alfred was adjusting the Robin costume monthly after Damian rushed to put it on for patrol one day and every time he raised his arms he felt his stomach show. Clothes were constantly being bought that met his newest height increase. The Kents were very appreciative of the barely worn clothing Jon got as Damian went through another pair.

“I’m perfectly normal in growth,” he said pulling on the hem of his shirt that was growing shorter by the day. Stephanie eyed him but left it. Tim hated the height jokes they would make when everyone started passing him in height. Nowadays Tim just rolled his eyes and deferred all short jokes to Bart who Damian was now taller than. Bart didn’t care at all because he was short but he was also at least top 3 faster people ever so who cares right?

For a very short time, Damian was taller than Jon. He liked that. Jon thought it was pretty funny.

“D, I’m going to be taller. My dad and mom are both taller than yours. I’ll be taller in the end,” Jon said with a grin before Damian pushed him off the roof. Jon giggled and stared at Damian with obvious heart eyes. The kid was definitely smitten.

Tim was half an inch taller. He didn’t acknowledge it in any way. But it wasn’t surprising. His mother was tiny, his father lower end of average, and Tim probably skipped too many meals with working during an important growth phase while he was becoming Robin. 5’8.5 is a perfectly normal height for a man. He had an easier time with stealth.

Bruce watched as his son grew more handsome and taller everyday. He recognized things he hadn’t taken the time to see with Dick or Jason and had missed completely with Tim. Aftershave, cologne, and deodorant budget went up exponentially and Damian was barred from bringing any of his shoes in the house and his Robin uniform had to double washed occasionally. He spent far longer in the bathroom doing his hair and agonizing over any spot on his face.

Bruce even once caught Damian do the lean on the doorframe while talking to someone they like when Jon visited once. He had to give the worst birds and bees talk of all time. Bruce also noted how Damian had Talia’s nose and his lip curled the same way hers did when he smiled. He stretched when walking to the breakfast table the same way Dick did.

Damian didn’t get another true growth spurt for 2 years. There was plenty of jokes that he jumped up to his height and didn’t move again. Jon was once again taller than Damian. Alfred was ready this time with the massive amount of food the 15 year old could put away and panels in his costume for easier adjustments.

Talia smiled proudly at her son as he grew taller than her. He was turning out handsome like his father but kept her feature and in her mind, that was the perfect combo. She never told Damian because she didn’t him to grow arrogant.

Dick didn’t notice it right away. He was so busy with Bludhaven and the Titans that he didn’t notice Damian had gotten a full inch taller than him. He only realized when him and Damian practiced a complex move that required a taller and shorter partner while training. They paired up as they always did and the maneuver completely fell apart. Dick was mentally putting together why it failed when Damian walked over and it clicked. Little D was not so little anymore.

“You’re taller than me,” he said brightly. Damian immediately grinned.

“So now you’re little D,” Damian said back. Dick laughed at that one.

“Don’t let it go to your head. I can throw you around like a tilt-a-whirl,” Dick warned. Of course, that’s exactly what happened the next time they sparred when Damian tried to use his height advantage.

“I can beat Jason so don’t think you can beat me just by being bigger,” Dick said standing over Damian who rolled his eyes.

Dick had no problem with Damian getting taller. It was his own height he had a complicated relationship with. See, Dick grew up as an acrobat. Being tall is a disadvantage. More weight to swing, more body to move. And his father had told him growing up that almost every Grayson man has been 5’8. It’s a legacy as strong as flying above the circus crowd.

And so when at 15, Dick was very distraught with the fact that he hadn’t stopped growing at 5’8. It felt like a part of his history and family legacy had died. He wasn’t one of the 5’8 Grayson men. He never told anyone beside Kori, late at night where she told him she loved him tall or small. She had already far outpaced Dick and was on her way to being 6’4.

Duke and Alfred and Damian were the same height for a short while. Duke would joke that he could just wear the Robin’s costume since they were the same size. Damian would threaten to disembowel him if he touched it and that made Duke laugh even more.

When he grew taller Duke once again joked with Damian calling him a not so jolly green giant and Alfred considered his nutrition attempt a complete success. Damian went from a tiny kid to a tall strong young man.

Damian and Jon were practically the same size for a while. Jon barely bent his neck to rest his chin on Damian’s shoulder as his partner worked on a complex mechanical part. Then Jon hit another growth spurt to end in his final height of 6’2, same as Bruce and his father. Damian enjoyed having a taller boyfriend for a while but would never say anything. High school dances were nice.

Bruce could see Damian getting taller and stronger and was practically grown. Dr Leslie warned Bruce that growth could continue until Damian was in his early 20s and he could end up a quite tall young man or stop tomorrow.

Jason liked being the tallest and biggest in the family. He had an entire inch in height on Bruce and was at least 20 lbs heavier. He was built like tank. When Jason had died at 15, he was terrifyingly thin. Alfred had tried his best but Jason had suffered malnutrition and hunger from practically birth. He was short and thin and Dr Leslie had told Bruce he probably always would be. And so when Jason came back to life a giant 6’3 and over 200 lbs, it was a shock. It took him forever to accept his size as anything more than an amour to create fear in his enemies. The first time he had accidentally scared a woman walking in the street at night, Jason had hated that he was so big. But within his family, it had become a source of pride. He was certainly taller than Dick and Alfred and even Bruce.

So when he visited Cass’s birthday party and Jason stood next to Damian and realized that the kid was taller than him, he was a little shocked. Damian had reached his final height of 6’4.

“When the hell did you get so big?” Jason asked while cake was being served. Dick nosed in the conversation.

“Little D is taller than you now,” he said with a teasing grin at Jason.

“And yet you insist on calling me Little D,” Damian said with an eye roll.

“I call him Big D,” Jon said with a smile. Dick blanched and Jason coughed out an awkward laugh.

“Good for you, bro,” he said patting Damian on the back. Jon blushed at the sudden understanding.

“No! I mean- he’s taller than me. I didn’t mean- uh,” Jon stuttered. Damian grabbed him by the shoulder and dragged him away from his brothers who were laughing.

“It’s weird you know,” Jason admitted, scratching the back of his neck.

“The fact that he is dating Jon?”

“No, they’ve been together forever. That he’s taller than me,” Jason said.

“Are you- does it bother you that you aren’t the tallest?” Dick asked with a gleeful smile.

“No,” Jason said abruptly.

“It could be like how I learned my little brother was bigger than me,” Dick teased. “All of a sudden you were just massive. My tiny little brother was this big dude. Good thing I’m comfortable with my masculinity.”

“Your girlfriend is like 6 inches taller than you. If that isn’t emasculating then there’s nothing I could do,” Jason answered.

“Yeah, she’s always been taller than me,” Dick said with a fond smile. “You can’t talk with the Amazon you’ve been hanging with.” He pushed Jason’s shoulder with a grin.

“We’re just friends-I guess,” Jason said uncomfortable. “That’s not the same-“

“Well at least Tim will always be our little brother,” Dick changed the subject but mentally noted Jason’s reaction to the mention of Artemis.

“Yeah, he’ll always be a shrimp,” Jason agreed.

“Honestly fuck you both,” Tim said from across the room. With Kon standing next to him he certainly looked tiny.

“Hey, it’s my birthday and I am the shortest and I can still kick all of your butts,” Cassandra reminded them both and they laughed but neither corrected her because they knew she was right.

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mischiefandspirits · 3 years

Text

Bernard Figures It Out

Was reading through all the comments on @frostbittenbucky's post and all I could think of was that it was Bernard talking to Tim. Then I got to thinking...

"I've connected the two dots."

"You didn't connect shit."

"I've connected them."

Bernard figures out Tim's a superhero... sort of.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tim fidgetted nervously as he waited on the front porch of his boyfriend’s house. Bernard had sounded so serious when he’d called during Tim’s lunch to ask him to come over after work so they could talk about something.

Which Tim had done, after spending an entire board meeting just going over the past week trying to figure out what he’d done.

The only thing he could think of was that he’d ducked out halfway through their lunch date on Wednesday to give Duke some backup, but Bernard had seemed understanding when Tim explained there was an emergency at GRC Labs. It couldn’t have been a tipping point, either, since Tim had managed to only flake on three other dates over the past few months they’d been dating. Kate had been happy to cover for him as often as she could “out of queer solidarity” when she found out Tim was dating a boy for the first time and Tim had managed to trick Bruce into covering a few actual Wayne Enterprises emergencies for him when they came up.

There had to be a reason Bernard was breaking up with him, though. Had he missed something? He definitely wasn’t forgetting an important day. He was good with days and Tam was even better, so she would have reminded him on the off chance that he had forgotten.

What was he missing?

Bernard was smiling when he opened the door, but there was a nervous energy to it that had Tim’s stomach sinking. “Hey, Tim.”

“Hey.” Tim gave his own nervous smile then slipped inside.

They went into the living room and sat down on the couch.

Tim frowned when Bernard grabbed a manila folder off the coffee table. Crud, had he screwed up enough that Bernard had had to make a list? He knew he was new to dating a guy, but he hadn’t thought he’d done that bad. He’d really been trying, especially with how his and Stephanie’s relationship had fallen apart at the end. “What -”

“Just let me speak, Tim,” Bernard said, waiting for Tim’s nod. “Okay, so you know Clark Kent, right?”

Tim blinked as Bernard opened the folder to show a picture of Clark. It looked like one of the employee pictures from the Planet’s website, with his dorky “I’m just a humble country boy” smile and the golden globe from their roof photoshopped in as the background. “Uh, yeah? I think so. He works for the Daily Planet, right? I think he’s worked at a few of Bruce’s events. Not a lot of outside reporters are willing to come to Gotham.”

“Exactly!” Bernard said, snapping his fingers and pointing at Tim.

“What?”

He pulled out the picture to show the next page was an article titled, “DAILY PLANET REPORTER… BATMAN!?”

A wave of relief washed over Tim and he placed his face in his hands. “Were you up all night on the hero conspiracy boards again?”

“No. I mean, I found this on a board and was up all night thinking about it, but I found it reasonably early.”

“One in the morning isn’t reasonable, Bernard.”

“Says the guy who’s always wide awake when I call to infodump.”

“Touché.” Tim leaned against Bernard and gave him a smile. “So tell me, why is some reporter from Metropolis from all places Batman.”

“First of all, living in Metropolis is the perfect cover. Everyone assumes Batman would live in Gotham, no one would consider he could be from anywhere else. Metropolis is outside the GMA, but close enough that the commute is still possible.”

“But it’s Metropolis.”

“And who would think Gotham’s Dark Knight lives in the sunshine capital? Plus, I hear he disappears a lot on the job. There’s gotta be a reason for it!”

Tim made a note to let Clark know he needs to cut back on the disappearing act some since people are catching on.

“And have you seen the guy? He is swol AF, babe.”

“Please don’t call me babe while you’re talking about how hot another guy is.” Especially Tim’s honorary uncle.

“You know I prefer twinks.”

“BERNARD!”

“I’m just saying,” he continued, ignoring Tim’s shout. “The guy is definitely hiding something! Besides, Kent is an investigative reporter. He’s gotta know a lot about cases and the underground and detective work.”

Not as much as he likes people to think, but more than he likes people to know Superman does, Tim mused. “But what about the other vigilantes?”

“Well, Kent has a cousin…” Bernard flipped through a folder and pulled out a picture of Kara. It looked like a screenshot of her interviewing Lena for CatCo. “She’s obviously the latest Batgirl. Look at her hair. And the first Batgirl and the current Batwoman were obviously Lois Lane, the red hair is just a wig. Did you see how she kicked butt at that last event she went to? She’s not as subtle as Kent. That means their son is the latest Robin. He’s exactly the right size.”

Oh, Damian better not hear about this, Tim cackled internally. His youngest brother hated being reminded that Jon was the same height as him despite their two years age difference. Damian definitely took after Talia when it came to body type, no matter what he said.

“And Kent also has a brother.” This time he pulled out a picture of Kon. The clone must have been caught by a reporter out shopping with Ma since he was carrying some paper bags and glaring at whoever was behind the camera. “At least, he’s supposedly Kent’s brother, but he was a teenager when he first showed up with the Kents. A lot of people think he’s actually Kent’s son, that Kent got a girl pregnant when they were teenagers and something happened to the mom so Kent had to take him in. Now the Kents are trying to hide it by saying the two are brothers.”

That was… scarily accurate actually. Especially given Luthor and Clark were close friends at the time that Kon would have theoretically been born.

“And that beef would explain why the younger Kent brother went all crime lord on Gotham for a while before reconnecting with the family.”

“Wait, what?”

“Yeah, Kent Jr.’s got the perfect build for Red Hood.”

Tim bit back a comment on how Kon was shorter than Jason by a good foot. Timothy Drake-Wayne should not know that. Add Jason to the list of people who can’t hear this theory.

“And then there’s this girl,” Bernard picked up a picture of Lois, Jon, and Natasha Irons walking down the street together. “No one’s sure exactly who she is, but she’s been spotted with the Kents a few times. I think the cover story is that she’s Jon’s babysitter.”

“And the actual story?”

“She’s Black Bat, obviously. That’s why she wears a mask that fully covers her face. She doesn’t want to stand out as the only African American Bat.”

“Isn’t Signal also Black?”

“Yeah, but he works in the daytime so he’s already a standout.”

“And who is Signal in this? And what about Nightwing and Red Robin?”

“Well, Nightwing’s just a Blüd who came to Gotham. He doesn’t count.”

Ouch. Sorry, Dick.

“And Red Robin is obviously an older Robin, the one who was Robin when we were kids. Kent wanted to keep him on, and I don’t blame him. As for Signal, he’s got the same backstory as all the other Robins Kent picked up, he just went the Signal route because he didn’t fit the usual Robin mold.”

“Because the female Robin fit the mold,” Tim snorted. Robin Mold, as if he and his brothers were even the same ethnicity. Or even had the same hair color. Jason dyes his hair, Dick’s is brown-black, Tim’s is pure black, and Damian’s is more a dark brown and it’s only getting lighter as he gets older.

“She didn’t, that’s the point. Kent tried to give breaking the Robin mold a chance by letting his cousin have a go at it, but he realized it just didn’t work so she went back to being Spoiler and he got a new Robin.”

Not touching that with a ten-foot pole. “Right, and where does he get the usual Robins? Please tell me you’re not back on the secret government orphanages theory.”

“No, no, no. Kent travels sometimes for his job, right? And a lot of the time he’s going to places that have been hit by disasters or major crimes. So he’ll take in some of the displaced children to train as his robins.”

Tim pressed his face back into his hands.

“You see it, right?”

Honestly, Tim was just wondering how his boyfriend could be so close, and yet so far off. “How would Kent even afford taking care of a bunch of secret -- possibly illegally acquired -- children without anyone noticing?”

“Simple. Bruce Wayne is funding him.”

“Bernard, I love you, but what the heck?” Tim blushed and looked up as he realized what he’d said, but Bernard didn’t seem to notice as he steamrolled ahead.

“It’d also explain how he can afford all the gear and how he’d be able to travel to Gotham or anywhere else Batman goes without anyone noticing. He probably has a secret Batplane or something.”

“Why would Bruce do that?”

“Because Wayne cares about Gotham, everyone knows that, and this way he can make sure someone’s taking care of the city without anyone putting two and two together.”

“And two plus two is?”

Bernard gave him a hard look. “I’m not stupid, Tim. Bruce Wayne is obviously Superman. His face is right there.”

Oh, the others are going to love this! Too bad I can’t tell Damian or Jason. Jason especially would have loved this. “Right. Bruce is Superman.”

“He is. Superman is known for being nice and Bruce Wayne’s basically all that’s keeping the city running at this point. That’s nice as hell.”

Oh my god.

“And Wayne does charity for the victims of cataclysms, doesn't he? I bet he first saves people from them as Superman and then builds them new homes for free.”

Oh my god! Why am I not recording this!?

“And the Wayne’s were rich enough to hide the fact they adopted an alien baby.”

Tim raised an eyebrow. “If you’re about to tell me this is why Bruce’s parents got killed, you might want to stop while you’re ahead.”

“It’d make sense. There’re all sorts of unanswered questions about their deaths,” Bernard muttered under his breath, flipping through the folder. He pulled out another picture of Kara. This time she was in full Supergirl attire with a bus held overhead. “So if Wayne is Superman, then that’d mean your ex-girlfriend could be Supergirl. They look a lot alike and it’d explain how she got involved with you all.”

“Bernard, she has a human dad. You know, Cluemaster. The supervillain.”

“Yeah, her dad. But we don’t know anything about her mom!”

“Let me guess…”

Bernard pulled out a picture of Karen. She and Helena were suited up and talking to a group of cops, two goons held over each of Karen’s shoulders. “Her mom could be Power Girl! Some makeup and a wig and she could look just like Crystal Brown! And Damian Wayne is obviously the new Superboy! That’s why his background is such a mystery, right? He had to stay a secret until he could control his alien superpowers. That’s why he’s always so mean. It’s a cover since everyone knows Superboy is super sweet!”

Sure, when he’s not helping Damian pull pranks or using his adorable powers to put the blame on Kon and I. “No, Bernard. Damian and Steph are just very human hellspawn. And Bruce and Crystal are human too. I can’t believe you called me over here just to tell me you think Superman is both Batman’s sugar daddy and my adoptive dad.”

“Well, that’s not exactly why I called you over,” Bernard admitted, the nervous energy coming back. He grabbed Tim’s hands. “Tim -”

Tim’s stomach sank. “You are breaking up with me!”

“What? No! I don’t want to break up!”

“Why are you acting all nervous and serious then!?” Tim asked, pulling his hands away to throw them up in the air.

Bernard shook the folder. “Because I’m trying to tell you I figured out you’re Superboy!”

Tim’s brain blue-screened and his hands slowly dropped. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I know you’re Superboy. The older one, obviously. By the way, you and Damian really need to figure out separate names.”

Forget Jason and Damian, Kon can never find out about this. He’d never let me live it down. “Bernard, you called me a twink five minutes ago. Su-” Shoot, I can not risk getting Kon’s attention! “The older one might not be as big as Superman, but he’s not a twink.”

“Well, yeah, that’s the shapeshifting at work.”

“The what?”

“Obviously you Kryptonians can shapeshift. Why else would you look so much like humans?”

… Why do Kryptonians look so much like humans? Was there some - Wait, no! Break into the Fortress of Solitude for research later! Reassure your boyfriend that you’re not an alien now! “Bernard -”

“And that explains why your step-mom was so hot.”

“Gross.”

“She and your dad were actors hired by Luthor so you could have a normal life! But now Bruce has custody so he adopted you.”

“No.”

“That’s why you and your dad were so weird with each other when I met him.”

“We were weird because he’d just gotten out of a coma not long before to find that his wife was dead so he decided to actually be a dad for once in his life, but overcompensated and became a helicopter parent to a kid who was mostly on his own for his entire life!” Tim blurted out. “I am not an alien, Bernard!”

“Well, not technically since you were cloned from Superman on Earth.”

“Oh my god! You were just talking about Steph being Supergirl! Why would I date my dad’s cousin?”

Bernard blinked. “Supergirl and Superman are cousins?”

Right, Timothy Drake-Wayne wasn’t supposed to know that. “I thought they’d said something like that before, yeah. Are people seriously saying I’m Superboy on the internet?”

“NO! No, I swear I would have led with that if I thought your identity was compromised. A few people have mentioned Wayne and Damian, but not you or Steph or Jason.”

“Wh-Jason!? You think Jason was an alien too!”

“No, not exactly, but a few times when I’ve visited I swear I’ve seen a guy in the manor who looks like Jason. It’s just been out of the corner of my eye and he’s gone whenever I look so I’ve always thought it was just Dick or Bruce or some picture of Jason that my mind was playing tricks with, but it makes sense now that I know Wayne is Superman. He must have been able to heal Jason with alien tech, but couldn’t say anything because that would give away that he’s Superman.”

Damn it Jason! And damn it Bernard! I’m dating the smartest moron in the world! “Bruce did not bring Jason back with alien technology and none of us are aliens!”

“It’s okay, Tim. I won’t tell anyone.”

Tim grabbed Bernard by the jacket and pulled him into a kiss. When he started to feel lightheaded, he pulled back, “Could someone whose skin is as solid as stone kiss like that?”

Bernard blinked dazedly at him for a moment. “How do you know what Superboy’s skin feels like?”

Tim screamed internally. “He’s saved me from a kidnapping before.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I can get you the police report if you want.”

“Huh… And the others?”

“Not Supers. I can stab Damian the next time we’re at the manor if that’ll prove none of us are aliens.” He’d rather stab Jason, but that would probably only confirm to Bernard that Bruce used alien technology to bring him back.

“You probably shouldn’t stab your brother if he isn’t an alien.”

Tim rolled his eyes. “I won’t stab him anywhere deadly.”

“That’s not the point,” Bernard said slowly.

“He’ll be fine.”

“If you say so.”

“So do you believe I’m not an alien now?” Tim huffed, letting go of Bernard’s jacket.

The blond’s eyes dipped down to Tim’s lips. “If I say no, will you kiss me like that again?”

“You’re ridiculous,” Tim said, but he kissed him anyway.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Okay, but I still say Clark Kent is definitely Batman.”

“Sure, Bernard.”

#Tim Drake #robin #red robin #bernard dowd #timber #fanfiction

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fatwithoutkatsudon · 2 years

Note

pls spare some red hood steph hcs

Alright here are some more Red Hood Stephanie hcs:

- Weirdly got along ok with Damian before she died, despite how much Damian hated Tim

- Unfortunately never got the chance to be Batgirl like in canon

- Doesn’t mind that she was replaced as Robin, she expected it even, especially if it was Tim taking up the mantle again

- Buuuuut, she *hates* how Bruce is with Jason. She sees so much of herself in him but Bruce doesn’t reject him like he did her.

- Also really Bruce? One street smart lower class wrong-side-of-Gotham kid with a criminal dad wasn’t enough?

- So she still beats Jason up, sorry Jason.

- Tim. TIM! Can you imagine all the drama?? His ex girlfriend died and came back to life and blames his dad for her death?? Also like Bruce might actually be a little to blame, and Tim would realize that. *chef’s kiss*

- Tim is very happy she is not dead but also does not agree with her methods

- She lashes out at Tim every time she sees him because she feels a little betrayed that he’s still loyal to Bruce but also more honestly it’s just easier than trying to deal with her feelings

- Her “Under the Hood” is very similar to Jason’s canon one, except for y’know the Joker parts. So basically just messing with Black Mask and Batman until a confrontation happens. I’m not sure if she wants Bruce to kill him or if she wants to kill him or what her goal is but a big part of it is just venting her frustration

- Eventually she realizes how much she and Jason has in common and he keeps reaching out to her on cases because he really appreciates what she’s trying to do in the lowest parts of Gotham, he doesn’t want to kill people personally but he’s gotta admit her ways are efficient

- Ra’s and Talia definitely give her the Lazarus Pit bath as a way of fucking with Bruce, there’s no thoughts that he might be happy to see her when they do it

- Bruce is happy to see her though, until he realizes what she’s doing

- Bruce tried to put up a memorial with the Robin uniform she died in but Tim wouldn’t let him. Instead they have a case with her Spoiler uniform, since that meant more to her and isn’t as grotesque.

- Working with Jason is mostly what gets her to chill out/stop killing because she starts to worry she is giving him ideas

- After working with Jason so much she start to mend things with Tim. Despite their on again off again romantic relationship being so chaotic he always will be someone she loves and her best friend. It’s a rough start, she still wants to hold him at a distance and lash out, but eventually they have a big screaming match where they lay everything out on the table and despite it sounding angry they actually listen and afterwards it is ok

- Once she and Tim have made amends and Jason is regularly working with her Damian is just like, “Are you working with us again, Brown?” And once she confirms it he asks, “and you’re done with the lethal force?” Which gets another confirmation so he says, “acceptable” and that’s that.

- She and Bruce probably never fully trust one another and they only work together when it’s all hands on deck, but they get to the point where they tolerate each other and she gets Cave access again

- She avoids the manor like the plague until Dick gets adopted, then she’s a sucker for those puppy dog eyes and she is one of exactly two (2) people in this entire family who is capable of showing even a single emotion or physical affection (Jason being the other), so she says it’s good for his development if she hangs around

- I still really like Orpheus as her back from the dead vigilante name (As mentioned previously Red Hood doesn’t really make sense since The Joker wasn’t involved)

And, of course, everything from my original Reverse Robins post here

Other’s Red Hood Stephanie hcs are definitely welcome. I’d love to hear other people’s.

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bigskydreaming · 3 years

Text

Brain topic du jour is reflecting on the frankly weird as fuck pattern in Dick’s life where....he barely ever experiences losses one at a time. Most of the loss he’s experienced in his life is compounded by him losing multiple people and other elements of stability all at the exact same time.

1) When his parents died, in some continuities this is coupled with him losing his extended family of his aunt and cousin as well, with his uncle left comatose and on life support for years before he eventually died as well. Even in continuities without Richard, Karla and John, the loss of Dick’s parents is compounded by the additional loss of his circus family in the sense that he was taken away from them by the state and their constant reassuring presences in his life were no longer comforts he was able to rely on.

2) When Jason died, Dick didn’t just lose his brother, as the tragedy was compounded by Bruce’s reaction. I’ll never be able to gloss over the effects of NTT #55, personally, because I think its too key to Dick’s entire characterization and the specific direction his character took in the years that followed this, to like....disregard that Bruce however unintentionally, while lost in his own grief, added to Dick’s own sense of loss for Jason in probably the worst way possible. As by kicking Dick out and telling him to leave his keys, Dick - having no way to know or guess that they’d ever reconcile, just like he never actually went back to the circus being a regular presence for him - to Dick, this was in essence the equivalent of his childhood tragedy all over again. Losing not just one family member, but his whole family in one sweep, and all the comforts and stability offered by a home he was forced to leave. Even Dick’s contact with Alfred was minimal for awhile, because why would the guy who basically JUST saw history repeat itself and was like, well I know how THIS tends to play out.....why would he think that if Alfred felt forced to actually choose between his loyalties to Bruce and Dick respectively, that Alfred would pick Dick over the man he’d known and raised from childhood himself?

3) Titans Hunt. I know I harp on this one a lot, but you can’t deny that it fits the pattern. Dick didn’t just lose one friend and teammate.....he lost Joey, he lost a good four or five lesser known Titans who nevertheless were people he viewed as directly HIS responsibility to keep safe. With these tragedies compounded by the fact that though comics played out a lot more slowburn and extended stories over years back then, like.....the aftermath of Titans Hunt was still everpresent and directly died into Dick’s reactions and emotions during the Mirage storyline and everything that happened with the failed wedding and his breakup with Kory AND the fact that he was literally forced off the team he’d basically founded, by the government agency that took over the team and appointed Roy as its leader in his stead.

3) Graduation Day. The second time the Titans disbanded it was again not due to a singular loss, because Dick didn’t just lose Donna at this point, but also Lilith died in the exact same story and though Lilith is criminally underused, like, she’s also one of Dick’s oldest friends. She was literally the first Titan to join after the original five. This then led into the Outsiders era, where Dick was shown to still be reeling from the losses of this story for an extended period of time, and in a fun parallel to the Titans Hunt aftermath, Dick was also ousted from his leadership of THIS team by essentially a vote of no confidence by his teammates (and uh, Bruce too, literally).

4) The Blockbuster arc. Where Dick’s emotional state was due to a continued string of multiple losses. He lost his apartment building and almost every one of the neighbors he’d built a community out of, as we’d been shown him actively involving himself in their lives and vice versa for YEARS before this point. Then he lost his circus, his childhood home, burned to the ground and with dozens of deaths - both spectators and actual performers Dick had known and loved as a child. Then he lost his relationship with Barbara, his sense of self-security and autonomy to Tarantula, he lost another teen vigilante who died in his colors, the mantle HE’D created, when Stephanie was believed dead in War Games, and it all culminated in losing the city he’d invested himself in as his CHOSEN home, the place he dedicated himself to protecting, when Chemo blew it up.

Oh just for the record - my nonexistent passport to the magical kingdom of Narnia for a fic that raises the point when bringing up Tim’s losses in the Red Robin era, that like.....ALL of the above happened at literally the EXACT SAME TIME as all Tim’s referenced losses occurred. Obviously Steph meant more to Tim than Dick on a personal level, but I also included her largely as an anchor point to the timeline, to show how that death, and not long after that Jack Drake’s and then Superboy’s.... occurred right smack in the middle of one of the absolute WORST periods of Dick’s life. To be clear, I don’t intend this to suggest that no actually, Dick had it harder than Tim - nah.

No thank you. Hard pass. I hate that sort of thing even in support of my own faves over other characters. No, instead the thing I’d love to see explored more is just in light of the SPECIFIC angle fics take here - that Dick’s actions while Bruce was lost in time showed an obliviousness to everything Tim had lost lately - for literally ANYONE to bring up or introduce into the timeline here an awareness of everything Dick had lost AT THE EXACT SAME TIME PERIOD. To establish that actually, Dick didn’t just ‘not understand what it was like’ - rather, its more accurate to say that nobody in universe around this time ever shows an awareness of Dick’s own losses and says oh wait, that doesn’t track then.

Because obviously, with this stuff put in proper perspective, Dick understands VERY VERY WELL the exact thing we’re accusing him of not understanding by being oblivious to Tim’s losses that he’s not actually oblivious to because he tries to talk to Tim about them all the time, while meanwhile its everyone else who has absolutely mum to say about the fact that Dick’s emotional state is compromised to hell and back at this point, not JUST because of losing Bruce, but also because *gestures wildly* literally ALL OF THE ABOVE in the exact same time frame Tim’s extended losses happened in.

And okay I am going to indulge in slight tiny itty bitty pettiness and point out my ire that so many fics set during this time tend to recite listicles of Tim’s losses, with Steph, Kon and Jack Drake at the very top of said list....while paying no attention whatsoever to the fact that STEPH WAS LITERALLY BACK BY THE TIME THE RED ROBIN SERIES HAPPENED. She’s LITERALLY a person Dick sends to check up on Tim after Tim turns Dick away when he tries himself. How are you gonna stress the impact Steph’s loss has on Tim when you’re not even acknowledging STEPH’S RIGHT HERE IN THE EXACT SPECIFIC CANON STORY YOU’RE CITING??? I just. afhioskhflafhlafhklfahlfa.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but you know who ELSE was also back at the same time? CONNOR. Superboy LITERALLY was already back to life by the time the Red Robin series even began. Like, the issue where a resurrected Kon and Cassie (Wonder Girl) have a heart to heart about the fact that Tim and Cassie ‘connected’ during his absence and Connor stresses that this doesn’t bother him or make him feel negatively towards either of them at all, because hello, he was literally dead at the time, why would he mind that two of the people he loves most in the world sought comfort in each other? Yeah, that issue? Literally came out BEFORE Tim even became Red Robin.

I MEAN. I’m just saying, when people constantly take shots at Dick’s choices during this period because of how much Tim had lost before Bruce already, in order to shift focus away from the fact that Dick lost Bruce every bit as much as Tim did......and you repeatedly emphasize the SAME three names as the focal point of Tim’s losses while paying no acknowledgment whatsoever to everything Dick lost at the exact same time Tim lost these three.....it quickly becomes kiiiiiiinda relevant in my opinion THAT TWO OF THE THREE NAMES CONSTANTLY MENTIONED AS BEING TIM’S LOSSES ARE NO LONGER EVEN LOST BY THE TIME THE SUBJECT COMES UP. Again, I’m just saying! Pettily, mind you! I am aware of the pettiness, I just beg awareness of like *again gesticulates wildly at all of the above* ALL THAT!

LOL.

But I digress.

5) When Bruce was believed dead while he was lost in the timestream. Again, Dick didn’t just lose the father who had been the only parent in his life for almost TWICE as long as his first parents......this was coupled with the loss of numerous other sources of stability in Dick’s life. There’s the matter of his personal sense of identity and self-expression....Dick FOUGHT against becoming Batman, trying to handle Gotham in Bruce’s absence as Nightwing for as long as he could, because he knew being Batman was very much NOT going to be good for him. He put so much of himself into building his identity as Nightwing, establishing himself in that role, that self-image, that yes, I maintain it was an actual LOSS for Dick, to feel like he had no choice but to give that up and everything it meant to him and his own life, in order to essentially live Bruce’s life for him in his absence.

Because it wasn’t just being Batman that Dick was struggling with at this time....he also had to act as the patriarch to the Wayne family, essentially raise Bruce’s ten year old son, step into Bruce’s old role in Wayne Enterprises, all while getting no acknowledgment for any of this, for literally LIVING his father’s life instead of the life Dick had worked so hard to build for HIMSELF....because of course Dick’s actions and struggles couldn’t even be advertised beyond the family and close friends, because the whole point of him doing all this was so that nobody else even realized that Bruce wasn’t really there anymore. Dick didn’t just assume Bruce’s responsibilities. Dick assumed Bruce’s life, so thoroughly that most people didn’t even put together that Bruce was ‘dead,’ between Dick handling Bruce’s actual roles and responsibilities while Hush made public appearances as him.

Like, when you’re living someone else’s life so completely that nobody can tell they’re even gone....how on earth does that leave any time or space for you to have ANY kind of life of your OWN, y’know? Not to mention the fact that like in so many times previously....all this meant that Dick couldn’t even afford to let his grief for his own losses show, because he wasn’t supposed to be grieving any losses in the first place, that was the whole point of the con!

Additionally, couple this with the fact that throughout this time period, Dick didn’t have Tim to lean on at all, because it was never that Dick kicked Tim out or neglected him or didn’t care....he’d actively stressed how much he needed Tim, because the partner Tim was convinced Dick chose ‘over’ him - Dick was the first one to admit back then that he DIDN’T trust Damian yet, couldn’t afford to, because he was all too aware that Damian didn’t give a fuck about him yet and couldn’t be guaranteed to step in to have Dick’s back - because that required mutual trust that Dick literally just hadn’t had time to build yet. And add to THAT the fact that during this time, Jason was actively antagonizing the family and Dick in particular at every turn, trying to bring them all down and basically write over what all of them saw as Bruce’s legacy with Jason’s own version of what he thought that should look like.

Also also, take into account that unlike how often we see fanon depict Dick as just too stubborn or proud to ask for help, there’s the fact that he actually had very few avenues TO ask for help! As already established, he DID ask Tim for help. Not like Jason was an option at this time, and Dick’s friends weren’t actually just sitting waiting in the wings and groaning about the fact that Dick was trying to do all of this solo....nah, they kinda had their own problems, which Dick was all too aware of?

Like the fact that in the wake of Final Crisis, it wasn’t just Bruce that was believed lost. Many other key Leaguers like Martian Manhunter were dead or lost, with others struggling to fill the gaps left in their absence. Cry For Justice happened right after Final Crisis too....that story where Lian was murdered? So it wasn’t like Dick was remotely going to try leaning on Roy when Roy had just lost his freaking DAUGHTER and very much wasn’t handling it well (and not to overshadow Roy’s loss at ALL, but please let’s not act like Dick - who had literally been the person to put a baby Lian in Roy’s arms for the first time and had known that girl for pretty much her entire life - like, it shouldn’t be used to detract from Roy’s loss at all, but it shouldn’t have to, to just acknowledge that Lian’s loss right at this exact time was painful as fuck to Dick, who’d loved his niece like crazy.)

The pattern of compounding, concurrent losses in Dick’s life. I’m just saying. Its there.

And it extends into the New 52 as well, where Forever Evil came right on the heels of Dick losing his circus in THIS continuity to the Joker, just as a way to hurt him in Death of A Family. And with the aftermath of Forever Evil and Dick’s own literal death, being like....the complete loss of Dick’s entire life, even though he was revived quickly. That didn’t mean he got to live HIS life though, since Dick Grayson was believed dead and he was told had to remain so, so its like fuck whatever he actually wanted to do as he went about on the Spyral mission aka something that pinched his own sense of morality and personal agenda at every turn and was kinda the last thing a therapist would recommend for a trauma recovery period, lol. And like, for all the focus that was paid to how Dick’s family were hurt because they believed they’d lost him when he was actually alive, let’s not forget that for all intents and purposes, Dick DID lose his family in the wake of his resurrection because he was flat out told over and over that due to what ‘he’d LET happen to him’ he was an ACTIVE danger to them, and thus wasn’t allowed by Bruce to contact any of them or lean on them to any degree, until Bruce got amnesia and stopped blocking Dick’s pleas to return home by just not being there to pick up the secret phone line at all.

(And omg, the obliviousness that just EMANATES off the hot takes that Dick had a ‘choice’ in all this and he still CHOSE to do what Bruce told him....like. LOLOL, stop being pissy about me bringing up the term abuse apologism when its literal victim blaming to paint the guy who had to be beaten into ‘agreeing’ to the Spyral mission in the immediate wake of the trauma of DYING, all while his father vocally blamed him for his own suffering and the ‘threat’ he now posed to his family, keying directly into the guilt complex Bruce knows damn well is at the core of most of Dick’s motivations.....fucking please. There’s no choice in all that. That’s active emotional, mental and physical abuse aimed at directly manipulating Dick’s actions, delivered by the guy who knows Dick best in the world and whose approval - particularly when Dick is at absolute rock bottom aka Current Location - matters more to Dick than just about anything because his sense of self-worth has more in common with dog shit than actual dog shit does. Or something. Idk. That analogy got away from me. But like. You get it.)

BUT. I. DIE. GRESS. (I guess).

Aaaaaaanyway, so yeah! That repeating pattern throughout Dick’s life of ‘loss? What loss (singular)? My losses only come in groups, lolol, fuuuuuun’ - mmmm. Yeah. So that’s what’s on MY brain right now. Thoughts?

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fantastic-nonsense · 3 years

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If you ask me, I don’t think we’d have Cassandra Cain without Barbara becoming Oracle, or at least not Cassandra as Batgirl. Before Oracle, Batgirl wasn’t a big deal; as you said, she had already been phased out and she wasn’t very prominent to begin with. Barbara becoming Oracle and going on to become such a huge deal in the superhero community and as a character is what allowed Batgirl as a concept to remain relevant and lead to it becoming a legacy. This is just my opinion though

I mean, we'd have gotten another Batgirl eventually (given the inevitable dynamics of Batman comics/editorial and the constant introduction of new and potential Robins), but I agree in that I don't think it would have been Cass (or anything like her).

The reasons why Cass was introduced had far less to do with Barbara becoming Oracle and more to do with Mike Carlin being a righteously pushy bastard about introducing more female Bat heroes (which...good for him! I'd like him to come back for a hot second and talk some sense into the current Bat Office editorial group!). The pushback in the Bat Office was very focused on "Barbara is Batgirl and if she can't be Batgirl, we don't want another Batgirl" rather than "Batgirl is an irrelevant character":

But Batgirl? That chapter was closed. For one thing, as already discussed, there was simply no way we were going to "cure” Babs and put her back in the costume. And having someone else take her place just felt…well, it felt wrong. It felt disrespectful to Barbara.......Even in the offices, our feelings were misconstrued. A lot of the people thought I, in particular, hated Batgirl, because I was the one who most often said that we’d never have a Batgirl again.....

......But the thing is, I was insane about Batgirl. I’ve often said Yvonne Craig is the first woman I ever loved, and I remember being so happy whenever she’d be in an episode of the Adam West show. I loved when Batgirl and Dick Grayson Robin teamed up back in the late 70s. I loved, loved, loved her. I loved being able to feature her in The Batman Adventures. I loved forcing a grumbling Kelley Puckett to write Batgirl stories in The Batman Adventures, and I loved making him admit, afterwards, that he’d loved writing her. Even so–no, ESPECIALLY because of all that–we were of one mind: no Batgirl in the Batman books.

But an edict is an edict. For years, Mike Carlin was politely, gently suggesting every few months that we should think about a new Batgirl. Eventually, he laid down the law–there WOULD be a new Batgirl. We could create it, in which case we could decide her backstory, her character, her motivations, her strengths and weaknesses. Or he would, in which case we’d be stuck with whatever he wanted. -Scott Peterson, on creating Cassandra Cain's Batgirl

My guess is that if Babs hadn't been shot and had continued to be Batgirl, Scott Peterson would have led a quiet revival of "Babs as Batgirl" stories in the 90s and Mike Carlin's pushiness would have ended up with another female character being created. It's possible this might have taken the form of Babs becoming Batwoman and a new Batgirl being created, or it might have pushed Stephanie Brown into the spotlight a bit sooner (she was regularly showing up in Tim's Robin book at the time), or it might have ended up with a completely new character with a unique mantle being introduced. We'll never know.

What we do know is that Cassandra Cain only exists because Mike Carlin was pushy as hell about making a new Batgirl, Scott Peterson came up with an idea to ensure he wouldn't have to write whatever Carlin came up with, and then made Kelley Puckett figure out how the hell that idea would work in reality:

And then somewhere on the way back to my office I had this crazy vision of a new Batgirl. She was young–late teens, I thought–and Asian, because, well, at the time we had an awful lotta white faces in the DCU, and I thought, if we’re creating a brand new character in the DCU, why on earth would we make her white when other races are under-represented? And in my vision, she was cheerful and chipper and always up and good-natured and she had a complete and total death wish. This did not seem like a good idea. In fact, it didn’t seem to even make any sense. But it wouldn’t go away. So I called Kelley Puckett. And I said, “Hey, new Batgirl. Young–late teens, I think–and Asian. And cheerful and chipper and always up and good natured and she has a complete and total death wish.” “But,” he replied reasonably, “that doesn’t even make any sense.” “I know.” “That’s completely contradictory.” “I know.” “How…how is that supposed to work?” “Got me,” I said. “And it’s not my problem anymore. It’s yours. Go!” I’m pretty sure I could hear him, after we hung up, clear on the other side of the continent, still saying how stupid this idea in particular, and editors in general, were. The next day he called. “I know how to do it,” he said. And as we all know, he did. -Scott Peterson

So, imo...you're right in that I don't think Cassandra Cain would have existed if not for Oracle. But less because "Batgirl was irrelevant" and more because "DC writers who grew up during the Silver/Bronze Age consistently have a frankly insane attachment to Babs as Batgirl and wouldn't have put someone else in that role without something drastic (like...Barbara getting shot and paralyzed) forcing them to."

#barbara gordon #cassandra cain #batgirl #dc comics #batman meta #dc meta #long post #asks #cassandra cain meta #barbara gordon meta

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lily-drake · 3 years

Text

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO TIMOTHY JACKSON DRAKE-WAYNE, THE BEST BAT BOY OF THEM ALL!!! YOU CAN’T CHANGE MY MIND!!!!!!

Happy Birthday Tim

Tim never really cared for his birthday, afterall nobody ever remembered it, and he doubted that Bruce would care. He had never shown much of an interest in him, which was fine since he wasn’t supposed to get close to him. His entire job as Robin was to make sure Batman didn’t go crazy, he wasn’t supposed to get attached. So he didn’t, at least that’s what he told himself. It was around 10:45 PM when Tim went upstairs at Alfred’s request. Timidly the 14 year old walked into the kitchen only to be met with a small white cake. Upon closer inspection the cake had red and green letting that spelled out in neat scroll, “Happy Birthday Timothy” with perfectly cut strawberries decorating the sides. Tim stared at the cake in awe, he’d never been given a birthday cake before, except at galas; but that didn’t count as he wasn’t really aloud to eat any.

“Good to see you up here Master Timothy. Happy birthday young sir. I apologize for the others absence, but I’m afraid that they are ‘busy’.”

Tim swiftlet lifted up his arms in a placating manner,

“Oh no, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it, I wouldn’t want to bother anyone.”

Alfred gave him a small smile and nodded.

“Well, I believe that it is time for a bit of cake.”

Alfred walked around the counter and pulled out a plate, for, and knife before he cut a large piece and plated it. Tim held back tears as he took his first bite of the cake. This was the best cake he had ever had, and this was definitely his favorite birthday.

*******

Tim stared at the computer screen in front of him trying to figure out what he was missing. He was tired, he hadn’t slept in a few days, and he was on his 8th cup of coffee from that hour alone.

“Tim, come with me!”

Dick said, suddenly on his right side. Out of habit he turned and threw a punch at him. Dick quickly ducked and laughed.

“Your getting faster baby bird.”

Tim sighed and rolled his eyes turning back to the computer.

“What do you need, Dick?”

He asked typing something onto the screen and scrunching his brow in frustration at the facts in front of him. Dick rolled his eyes and sighed before he grabbed Tim and pulled him from the computer chair and onto his feet. Tim groaned and tried to pull away in protest, but Dick overpowered him and he was dragged up the stairs. Tim looked around to see where he was so he could make a quick escape if necessary. When he looked forward again he saw he was being dragged to one of the main room doors. He was thinking and going through all of the things he could have missed or forgotten, but nothing came to mind. When the door opened the lights were off until they suddenly turned on and loud voices screamed,

“Happy birthday!”

From all around the room. Tim blinked a few times everything catching up to him as he looked around and saw his family; Bruce, Alfred, Barbara, Stephanie, Cass, and Dick all around him. The room was covered in decorations and on the table sat a decent sized 3 tier cake, just like the one he had had when turned fourteen, but bigger. Tim ran through his memory and tried to recall what the date was and froze. Oh, it was his 16th birthday, he had forgotten all about it. He was pulled out of his stooped by Steph grabbing his arm and pulling him towards the table were 16 candles lined the rim of the cake and in the center it said, “Happy 16th Birthday Tim!” in the neatest cursive with a robin made of frosting right below it. There was also neatly plated and perfectly made sushi on another table near them. Tim smiled as everyone began to sing happy birthday to him and when he was done he blew out the candles happy and content with his day. There was so much warmth that spread through his chest as he talked and ate cake with his family. So much joy that surrounded the manor, he even saw Bruce smile. Tim didn’t need to wish for anything, he was happy, and that’s all he could ever wish for.

*******

Tim looked at his watch and frowned. He was now officially 19, but it didn’t matter, nothing mattered much now. He was alone in Paris training with Lady Shiva, and his family didn’t care. They were the ones who kicked him out afterall, he wasn’t wanted. He sat under a shady tree bench in the park and watched as people talked and interacted with eachother. It was peaceful, but that didn’t fill the hollowness he felt in his chest. As he stood and began to walk away he felt someone crash into him and fell foreword, someone landing on his back. Quickly the person got up and began to call out apologies obviously embarrassed. Tim got up and turned around and came face to face with a girl about his age with dark black hair that tinted blue in the light and show startlingly bright bluebell eyes. The girl was still talking and he wasn’t sure if she had even breathed yet.

“Hey, it’s ok. Don’t worry about it.”

The girl immediately bit her lip and bowed her head as she tried to hide her face. Tim smiled at the girl who was slightly shorter than him.

“I’m Tim.”

He said casually as he held out his hand. The girl gave an awkward smile before excepting his hand and giving it a firm shake.

“Marinette. Sorry again.”

“It’s nice to meet you Marinette. Do you know where any good coffee shops are, I haven’t slept in a while and I really need a pick me up to finish my things.”

Marinette lit up and nodded.

“I totally understand. I design and commissions keep me up all night half the time. I live in a bakery and have concocted the best wake up coffee. My friends say it’s very dangerous and I’m going to kill myself with it one day, but all well. Why sleep when you can get things done?!”

Tim smiled at the girl as she began to walk and talk. She was cute and was very dramatic in the way she spoke and expressed herself. They walked across the street to a small bakery, the one Marinette must live in, and walked to the front where a short Asian woman stood near the register. When the woman saw Marinette her smile grew as she welcomed them.

“I’m gonna make one of my specials for him!”

Marinette called out as she went to the back and started making some kind of coffee concoction. The woman rolled her eyes, but she still held an amused smile.

“Hello, I’m Sabine. Please choose a sweet, you’ll need it if you’re going to drink her “Miracle Cure”, as the college students like to call it.”

“Thank miss. Please, call me Tim.”

He said giving her a small smile back as he browsed the selection. In the display he noticed lots of animal themed treats and smiled. There were many ladybug and cat themed ones as well as an orange fox, a turtle, a bee, a blue snake, a monkey, and a red dragon. It was an interesting choice of animals and he wondered if they were important in some way here. He found a small tarte aux fruits with an assortment of fruits that formed the red dragon. When he looked up he saw the woman waiting for him still wearing her friendly smile.

“Could I please have the Tarte aux fruits du dragon please?”

“Of course dear.”

Carefully she opened the door to the refrigerated case and grabbed one of the fruit tarts and carefully put it in a small box. Tim went to the register right as Marinette had finished and placed the large drink in front of him. He pulled out his wallet but was stopped by Marinette’s hand.

“Nope, on the house. An apology for earlier.”

She said with a bright smile. Tim was shocked and felt a warmth he hadn’t felt in years begin to bloom once again. He gently took the coffee from her hands and carefully picked up the small box with a plastic fork atop it.

“Thank you, Marinette. That’s very kind of you.”

Her smile brightened and before Tim could stop or even think of what he was saying the words had already left his mouth,

“If you’re free, do you want to walk around Paris with me?”

Marinette blinked for a moment shocked, but then smiled again and nodded.

“Sure, that sounds nice!”

She took off the apron she had been wearing while making the coffee and hung it up on a wrack before walking out from behind the counter snd grabbing his arm and almost dragging him out the door. When she realized what she was doing she quickly dropped it slightly blushing and scratched the back of her neck in embarrassment.

“S-sorry. I should have asked first.”

Tim snickered a little, she was adorable.

“No it’s fine, so where to first?”

Tim asked as he gently placed the tart in his satchel and sipped the coffee. When he did he felt his mind begin to clear and he felt more awake than he had in a long time. He understood why it was called Miracle Cure now, this stuff was amazing!

“Well, where were you thinking of?”

“I was thinking of going to the Arc de Triomphe then head towards the Effiel Tower.”

Marinette beamed and nodded and began to walk towards the Arc de Triomphe. She knew the path by heart as she often went there for inspiration. The two talked the whole way there and bonded over their love of coffee and insomniac tendencies. As they arrived at their first destination the sat on the steps and watched people pass them. Tim pulled out the small tart and began to slowly eat it and smiled. It tasted like Alfred’s cooking, though he didn’t want to admit that this might just be a bit better. He glanced over at Marinette and noticed that she now had a sketchbook out and was drawing something. He didn’t want to disturb her as he didn’t like being interrupted when he was really into something and let her draw as he watched the people. Suddenly there was a loud crash. He looked up and was shocked to see a giant child walking around smashing and destroying buildings. He looked over and saw that Marinette had disappeared and he began to panic.

He stood up and began to move so he could get a better place to watch and analyze what was happening so that he could see if he needed to interfere. He watched silently from a roof and saw a bunch of people begin to surround the child all with the same theme. His mind flashed to the animals in the bakery and connected the dots as he glanced at all of the different people in animal costumes. He watched as the Ladybug ordered everyone on the plan and on what to do which lead him to believe that she was the leader of this group. It only took a few minutes and he watched the cat hero completely destroy a toy car from the giant child’s hand and a purple feather and butterfly flew out. The ladybug hero quickly caught them and released them into the air. She threw the object she had summoned into the air and he watched in amazement as thousands, maybe millions, of small ladybugs flew around the damage done and repaired all of it, including the bodies that had not been moving moments ago.

Tim ran back to the Arc de Triomphe and waited there to see if Marinette would come back. It took a few minutes and then he saw her figure running towards him with panic and worry.

“Tim, I’m so sorry! Are you ok? I shouldn’t have left like that, I’m so sorry.”

Tim gave her an awkward smile and nodded.

“It’s fine, you came back afterall.”

She smiled at him and he lifted his arm out for her to take,

“Shall we continue our walk Mademoiselle?”

Tim asked with a slight bow. Marinette giggled and gave a small curtsy before she placed her hand atop of his.

“Why of course Monsieur.”

They both laughed as they walked. They enjoyed the silence for a bit before Tim asked what had happened.

Marinette gave him a sad sigh and explained the situation that had been happening in Paris for about 4 years now. Tim was shocked that this hadn’t made it to the Justuce League, especially if it had been happening for four entire years. Tim asked a few more questions that Marinette happily answered and they felt happy and content in the warm companionable silence. Tim thought of all of his past birthdays, and he knew that this one was on the top 5 best list of his favorite birthdays.

#HAPPY BIRTHDAY TIMOTHY JACKSON DRAKE-WAYNE!!!!!!!!!#Tim Drake #Dick Grayson #Maribat #marinette dupen chang #dc x mlb #mlb x dc #mlb x batman #timinette #timari #romantic timinette #Bruce Wayne #alfred pennyworth #Tim is best robin #Fight me

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robinofgothamcity · 3 years

Text

♡ prompt: “i thought you were dead? for years, i thought you were dead! and i hate that i still love you and never moved on!”

♡ pairing: tim drake (red robin) x fem! reader

♡ lyric inspiration: “you’re riding high in April, shot down in May but I know I’m going to change that tune when I’m back on top in June. I said that’s life and as funny as that may seem, some people get their kicks stomping on a dream.”

♡ note: not checked for grammar or spelling mistakes / please check the pinned tweet please! since i’m very low on inspiration.

Tim Drake stared at you, mouth wide open, not knowing what to say or do. he felt like he saw a ghost. you were standing across the room, talking amongst others as they instantly crowded around you. everyone had thought the same thing Tim did and only a selective few knew about your whereabouts.

you were giving Dick a hug, whispering in his ear about how much you missed him as Damian stood there dumbfounded. Jason was not in the room or else you knew that he would be giving you an earful about the entire situation. Jason always did think of you as a sister when you first started dating Tim.

“what the fuck happened to you?” Damian screamed, finally coming into the realization of the situation, “you were dead! we saw you die! all of us did!” he continued. you bent down, giving him a hug as he didn’t bother to try and deny it.

“it’s a long story. i was under secrecy for a long time and couldn’t tell or say anything without me getting caught,” you told him. you looked to Dick who still couldn’t believe what was going on, “it must’ve been a monumental mission if you were technically dead for three years and I couldn’t know about it,” he replied.

you nodded, whispering to him that you’d tell them the details later, “is...he around?” you asked, referencing Tim. Dick moved a bit to the left, revealing the man you were still madly in love with. you felt yourself gulp, scared on his reaction, “oh god, I never realized how bad this is,” Dick whispered to himself, sensing the tension immediately.

you swinging around the Batcave, Batman clearly annoyed with your antics as you finally plopped down next to him, “aww c’mon Bruce! live a little! this Batcave is so depressing and need I say, dark?” you said, hearing the door jingle open.

“great, the boys are here,” he murmured, realizing that introductions had to happen between you and his sons. Bruce had taken you in a few months ago, under the guise that you needed a better mentor, “you haven’t met them, right?” he asked.

you shook your head no, “course I haven’t! it’s my first week in Gotham!” you exclaimed happily. you did hero work out of the west coast and happened to finally land in Gotham for the first time ever, “although I did run into Damian earlier in the week so I think he’ll recognize me!”

Tim and Dick were the ones who walked in, conversing about some Gotham football game. you smiled at the two boys as they stopped dead in their tracks, “uh....Bruce, who is this?” Dick asked, pointing at you. you stood up, shaking their hands, “I’m ( your name )! Bruce’s new apprentice!” you explained.

the two sighed, Dick’s first thought being if Alfred knew about you. Tim on the other hand didn’t exactly respond as quick. you were oddly excitable, not exactly the personality that ran rampant across the ‘family’, “apprentice or daughter?” Dick asked, a bit playfully.

“she’s an apprentice. no need to adopt someone who’s already an adult,” he replied as he stood up himself, “she came from the west coast so she doesn’t exactly know her way around here. it’d be helpful if one of you showed her around. I don’t trust Jason or Damian enough,” he said, walking to another one of the computers.

“Stephanie isn’t around?” Damian asked, walking inside of the cave, “she’s already acquainted with her and she isn’t available to do it right now so it’s up to Dick or you Tim,” Bruce repeated. Dick looked to his brother with his eyebrow lifted up, “well?” he asked Tim.

the two of them went to look at you who was already not paying attention to what was going on. you were nose deep into a computer with music blaring inside of your headphones, “I swear that girl has ADHD or something,” Damian murmured to his brothers, “but I think Drake should do it! you just love getting to know people, don’t you?” Damian pressured.

Bruce nodded in agreement, “it’s settled, you’re showing her around!” Tim stared at Damian, ready to attack the gremlin with his bare hands, “appreciate it Tim!” you yelled from your seat, surprising the three who thought you couldn’t hear what they were saying.

it was already a few months into your internship with the Batfamily. you had gotten closer with Jason, Stephanie, and because of your relationship with Dick, you befriended Starfire as well. even though your work was constantly surrounding you around Tim, you weren’t around him much unless it had to do with work.

“where you heading off too?” Jason asked, seeing you all dressed up, “Star, Barbara, and Steph wanted to go out for the night since we aren’t on duty so we’re going to get drinks up the street,” you told him. he nodded, looking to Tim and seeing the way he was checking you out, “why do you go with them, Tim?” he asked.

Tim looked at Jason with a bewildered expression, “why would I be the only guy in the group?” he asked sarcastically. you on the other hand jumped up in joy, “you should!” you exclaimed, “come on! it would be amazing! you know you want too!” you poked Tim’s side in anticipation.

he sighed, slipping a bit on the couch, “fine,” he muttered, making you excited all over again. you gave him a few minutes to get himself together, “you know he likes you, right?” Jason told you. you laughed out of genuine shock, “who? Tim? yeah right!” you let out another laugh, not believing he was lying to your face, “fine, don’t believe me but it’s pretty obvious.”

you couldn’t say much else as Tim walked out, hair restyled and threw on a different jacket, “ready?” he asked, hands deep in his pockets. you nodded, throwing Jason a scrap piece of paper before heading out the door as Dick walked inside, “meeting the girls?” he asked.

“yeah and I’m taking your brother as a hostage,” Dick was surprised, “did you finally?” he started to ask before Tim screamed at him to shut up, “how about we leave,” Tim told you, discreetly hitting Dick on the back of his leg as retaliation.

the two of you walked out as you told Tim that the place you usually went out with the girls was in walking distance, “I think they’re going to be surprised you even decided to leave your apartment,” you joked as he rolled his eyes playfully, “I don’t think they’ll mind. at least Stephanie can stop saying that I never go out,” he said.

you laughed softly, “yeah you might be going out with a bunch of girls but it sure beats being stuck inside playing video games or doing work,” you replied, “yeah, guess your right,” you two walked inside of the restaurant, already seeing Steph, Starfire, and Barbara sitting at the usual table.

the three girls had their mouth hanging as they saw you walking in with Tim, “he actually came out?” Barbara screamed, not believing Tim was actually out, “yeah, figured it was better than staying in for the night!” you said excitedly.

“I couldn’t even get him to come out with me at times and I dated him,” Steph murmured under her breath to Star. she laughed as you pulled chairs for you and Tim, “I’m getting first round of shots!” you told the group excitedly. Star and Barbara had followed you to the bar, leaving Steph and Tim in a small awkward silence

“you like her don’t you?” she asked. Tim nodded, figuring it was better to just tell the truth than to lie, “that’s cute! she’s a great girl. I’m happy you finally found someone else but I will say one thing, I think you better get a move on with your feels with her because I know a few others who have an interest in her and one might be on your team,” she said, not so subtly hinting at Connor.

Tim was taken back by what Stephanie was telling her but remained silent, “and I think she’d say yes on Connor so you better be quick,” she laughed, seeing Tim’s slightly jealous eyes. you returned to the table, giving everyone their glass as you raised yours in the air, “to Tim! for actually leaving his house for once!” you screamed as they all raised their glass and took the shot down.

throughout the night, Tim saw the way you were singing and dancing with Steph and Star, your terrible drunk singing voice getting louder as they played ‘poker face’ by lady gaga towards the end of the night.

you stared at Riddler, seeing that he was ready to attack Tim with full intentions to kill him. you debated for a moment, saving a few civilians from getting mildly hurt or seeing your boyfriend get killed? you chose the latter and ran to Tim who was not paying attention in the slightest at what Riddler was doing.

“Red!” you screamed, your feet moving as fast as they could and pushing him out of the way. you felt the slice of the knife into your stomach as you had successfully pushed Tim to safety, “fuck,” you whispered, seeing the blood already pooling underneath you.

although you getting hurt was already pre-planned, you had no intentions of getting hurt this badly, “fuck, fuck, fuck,” you continued, trying to grab your cape to stop the bleeding, Tim stared down at you, seeing the blood gushing at a rate too dangerous for his liking, “hold on, please hold on!” he screamed, moving you out of harms way.

Bruce had saw you giving him the signal, weakly but you still gave it to him. it was your only chance for your pre-planned mission to actually succeed and the start of that plan was to make you die in front of everyone. Bruce had swung down from the stairs, seeing the way your eyes closed.

“she needs to go to the hospital,” he told Tim, making him rush you to the hospital himself. he knew this was the only time he would be able to say his goodbyes to you and he need to make it count, “go now!” he yelled.

Tim dragged your almost lifeless body to the nearest hospital, screaming at the staff that you needed help immediately. the nurses grabbed your body, hauling it to the OR as Tim sat there, blood all over his uniform as he watched you get wheeled into the hallway.

it felt like hours by the time they gave an update to all of them. Bruce, Tim, Dick, Jason, Steph, Barbara, and Damian, were sitting in the waiting area, munching on food nervously as the nurse came out of the hallway, eyes bleary with tears.

“she didn’t make it out of surgery. she passed.”

all of them (for the exception of Bruce), immediately bursted into tears. Tim more than anyone had fell to the ground, having no control of his body as he screamed that it couldn’t be true and that you weren’t actually gone. a part of Bruce’s heart broke seeing his son having a mental breakdown but he knew for their safety and yours, he couldn’t say a word.

the following days were left to plan your funeral as the nurses who relied your wishes stated that you wanted a closed casket for no one, not even Tim, to see your dead body. Tim hadn’t spoken a word to anyone as he only spoke up when it came for him to plan your arrangements.

they buried your casket with your uniform laying on top of it as they all saw your casket get lower and lower to the ground. Tim was by this point sobbing as he couldn’t have cared who saw and who didn’t.

Dick grabbed Damian, moving themselves to another part of the room as you walked slowly to Tim. he had yet to say anything but as soon as you locked eyes with him, you both let out sobs to each other. Tim grabbed you by the arms, bringing you into a hug as he sobbed into your shoulders.

“what the fuck is going on?” he yelled, not knowing what to say, “I’m alive Timmy. I didn’t die that night,” you practically sobbed back to him. he released you, now anger and sadness crossing over him, “what the fuck do you mean you didn’t die?” he screamed, scaring Dick and Damian in the process.

you sat on the ground, trying to compose yourself, “I went on an undercover mission for league. I had to die in order to protect not only myself but all of you and the entire league. which explains why I look different,” you murmured the last part.

“I thought you were dead. for years, I thought you were dead! and I hate that I still love you and never moved on!” he exclaimed, seeing the way you stared at him heartbrokenly, “you think I wanted this to happen? it was for the betterment of the league if I took on this mission. I never wanted to leave you or Steph, hell I didn’t want to leave any of you but I had too! it broke my heart knowing what I had to do!” you yelled back.

Tim bent down, taking you into his arms, “what the hell are we going to do?” he whispered in your ear, not knowing how to respond to any of this rationally. you shrugged as the two of you tried to calm yourselves down from the hysterics you both were throwing, “I just need you here with me,” you whispered back.

Tim nodded, not releasing you from the hug you were giving him. “I won’t. I won’t let you go! not anymore!” he replied. you laughed through your tears as you heard someone else walk into the room.

“what the fuck.....” you heard Steph and Jason’s voice scream through the Batcave, “what the FUCK is going on?” they screamed in panic.

hehehe a cliffhanger

#DC comics #DC imagines #dc x reader #dc imagine #dc #Tim Drake #tim drake imagine #tim drake x reader #Tim Drake x Y/n #Red Robin #red robin x reader #comics #red robin imagine #red robin x y/n

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