#was trying to get ANY idea of babs and jasons' opinions of each other for paradoxical and i DID end up tabbing back and forth

[brawltogethernow]

In your opinion, does Dr. Midnight only have value as a member of the JSA? I would personally be interested in seeing him show up as a supporting character in Bat and/or Arrow family books, myself. What do you think?

The whole draw of DC being in a constant state of megacrossover is that you can and should kidnap anybody from wherever at any time to see how they do as someone else's supporting character. Weaving weak blorbo strings into durable blorbo mesh.

But also yeah Mid-Nite's first glance vibe has enough overlap with those that it seems like it would be amusing for them to stand next to each other. If they, in fact, have not already? What I need in life is a comic character appearances wiki designed to let you sort for issues where multiple characters appear together.

[bloomeng]

Shout out to the person who noticed Steph was the only one in heels and said Dick would totally wear heels. You didn’t know it but you were ahead of your time (it was always my plan to put discowing in heels).

Steph originally wasn’t going to get heels but then I got the idea to add the wings and I fell in love but I think the in universe reason is she wanted them for the drama and she was extrapolating design elements from Batgirl’s og outfit and Batwoman. I was going for like a gothic princess sort of vibe which turned out a bit more Fischl from gi than I intended, but I think that actually suits the vibe pretty well.

Another shoe detail: Jason’s shoes are meant to be slight platforms to match his desire to be tall and imposing.

This is a side tangent but I want to talk about it. For this au I’ve been trying to strike a balance between feminine and “would this character actually wear this?” Now the answer is mostly no. The outfits by nature are impractical as hell bc that’s how magical girl media is, so the question I’ve been asking is more “would this character feel comfortable in this outfit?” I want each look to be equally feminine which means I’m hyper conscious of not making the women more feminine than the men. Magical girl designs are hyper fem by default so my goal is to basically make everyone relatively the same amount of fem.

However, I’m also trying to take into account personality. This is where I might lose some people but hell it’s my au. So why are Jason and Cass the only ones so far with real skirts? This is totally my headcanon but I think they’re the only ones who would benefit from skirts:

Dick would be fine with wearing a skirt but I think he’s ultimately neutral about it. He would totally do it though if someone asked and would be fully aware of how nice he looked.

I don’t know if I’d say Tim would like wearing skirts so much as he doesn’t care. He’s more concerned with practicality.

Steph doesn’t have any issues with skirts but I think as a part of her uniform she would feel stifled. As as I said previously I think part of her look is based on Bats she would’ve looked up to but also partly it was secret wish fulfillment for that little girl who would’ve loved to look like a kickass mary sue demon princess from a y/a novel.

Duke in my opinion wouldn’t see the appeal. I think he’d be similar to Dick but just a little more shy about wearing one. I gave him a little ruffle though bc I thought it was cute.

Babs is fine with skirts but tends to prefer pants.

Cass is a bit different because I think wearing something frivolous is so novel to her. I wanted her outfit to be a blend of her canon design and her appreciation for dance. I tried to contrast her more practical elements (like her pants and armor) with the soft things I think she would enjoy (like a flowy skirt.) I still have ambition to go back and design a Black Bat outfit for her but I haven’t quite figured out the direction I want to take with it.

Jason on the other hand— this also very much in hc territory— I think didn’t know how much he would enjoy a skirt until he got to wear one. Stepping away from the universe for a sec; Jason is the most masculine design fundamentally which means that in order to match the vibe I would have to make him the furthest from his canon design. I’m really not trying to make a statement or subvert things by putting men in skirts bc it’s supposed to a silly au with aesthetically pleasing designs. I like feminine things and it shows in my work however I don’t see clothing as naturally gendered. That’s my little context psa back to my point. I think Jason is the most likely to wear a skirt and actually feel empowered by it. At first I think he was embarrassed by it but the outfits choose you so he just went with it out of necessity. And through that he found he really thrived in the juxtaposition between his intentional imposing figure and this unashamed femininity. He’s a drama kid at heart and fr what’s more dramatic than an ill-advised fit that serves. The skirt to him feels like a costume that helps give him the confidence to be Red Hood or ig… Red Bow. (Which is sorta how I think of the red helmet in canon but I also do believe that Jason and Cass would have the most fun wearing a skirt.)

I haven’t decided if Bruce will get a skirt or not but if he does just know that my reasoning is that his artifact was humbling him. Like you take yourself too seriously calm down with the brooding. He would use the skirt as a way to conceal more weapons.

(I think Kon would love wearing skirts but in this au because he built his own outfit I think he was trying to seem impressive and edgy and distinguish himself from Clark. I also think, despite enjoying skirts, he would have to work up the courage to wear them in public and never as Superboy because he would be too conscious of his image.)

Anyway I don’t claim to always succeed with my intentions coming through in my work but this is what is running through my head.

[geekthefreakout]

Thank you for your "we need to combat people's black and white views in media” post. It’s nice to see someone have a reasonable opinion about something. I feel like a lot of DC comic spaces have the most bizarre takes and honestly think it’s why the state of comics is so bad right now and writers are afraid to take chances or write things that are so generic.

Do you have any unpopular opinions about Babs or Jason? Or anything you would like to see in future comics? You said you enjoyed Jason as a character but what’s your ideal Jason and how do you think he should be written?

Wow, what a lovely ask, thank you Nonny!

First, cuz I know I'm gonna ramble on about the other things- yes, DC is a goddamn mess and at least 48% of the reason is that fans feel especially entitled these days, which makes writers either overly cautious or extremely defensive of anything they try. Fandom spaces can get very toxic very quickly cuz of the whole black-and-white morality thing and the aforementioned entitlement that makes people feel like they get to dictate the direction the art they consume takes. You don't get to do that, people! Stop it.

For Babs- idk if I have unpopular opinions. Like most people, I think she was wonderful and *important* as Oracle, and I wish they would do more than pay lip service to her disability. On the other side of that, I understand that DC Editorial is a mess and that if a writer ever DOES decide to follow through on that "chip in her spine won't work forever" thing, they will need to cut through a lot of red tape to get permission to do so, so I don't really get mad when writers have her as Batgirl still, or have her bounce between Batgirl and Oracle. If she ever does become a full time wheelchair user again, I hope it's done in a respectful way that supports her agency, rather than how TKJ did her. The Young Justice show had an interesting take on that which I didn't mind.

My unpopular Jason opinion is probably that I liked the All-Caste stuff from RHATO N52 and I think letting Jason have a niche as a Bat that deals with mystical stuff and with the nitty-gritty of the criminal underground is a good way to set him apart and give him his own stuff to do outside of Bat Events. Also Generation Outlaw was a cool concept and I enjoy the idea of Jason reluctantly inheriting Bruce's tendency towards "Debatably Accidental Child Acquisition."

That said, my ideal Jason functions as a foil to Batman. I don't want them to be enemies, but I do want them to push each other and challenge each other. I want Jason to poke holes in Bruce's crime fighting philosophy, but to also still have a good relationship with his family. I want Jason to struggle with his own philosophy, as he did in Zdarsky's "Cheer" story, because the way he does things IS riskier than how Bruce does things and sometimes the ends don't justify the means.

I think Jason (like Damian, but Jason is more mature) works wonderfully in stories about redemption and self-discovery as well. Task Force Z had appeal for me in that sense, because I also think that Two-Face (who Jason has history with in his first post-crisis story) ALSO works well in story lines like that.

In the future... Well, my opinion is that there are just too many Bat books and Bat Events. I want DC to let their other characters breathe. My ideal set up would be Batman as a solo series and Tec as a team book, like it was when Tynion wrote it. Then Urban Legends for miscellaneous Bat stories. Nightwing of course with his solo (and please, PLEASE, let that boy stay in Bludhaven and take care of business, stop dragging him back to Gotham every time a rogue sneezes, he has his own shit to worry about). The rest of the Batfam can pop up in Tec and Urban Legends and then be with their respective teams. Titans, YJ, Outlaws, Outsiders, etc. (ETA BoP to this potential team book list of course!)

And then pls no huge Bat Events for at least a year and a half. Let them BREATHE, for fuck's sake!!!!

So... Yeah! Thanks Nonny!

[ac-liveblogs]

Gotham Knights is... well, it’s a janky game that naturally draws comparison to the much sleeker Arkham series, and it was always going to. The writing though. It’s not like. Bad. It’s just boring. I get the sense the game is always taking the easiest and least controversial way out. I think I’m about halfway through and I don’t expect that to change.

The plot is... boring. It has elements of Battle for the Cowl and Batman Reborn mashed in with the Court of Owls, which sounds like a winning combination, but all the messiness of the reset status quo in Batman Reborn has been traded in for... I don’t know, wholesome familial bonding?

And sure, if you’re into that, whatever, but personally the idea of Dick, Jason, Tim & Babs taking it in turns to play therapist to another member of the party for 1 minute at a time while all interpersonal conflict is shallow and resolves in about half that time is boring as sin. Bruce died, where’s the drama? You really want me to like that Jason had his whole character arc off-screen? The same character arc the damn comics also put off-panel until Urban Legends fucked it up??? 

The same character arc that flies in the face of what makes him an interesting character in the first place??

I liked the new status quo in Batman Reborn, Jason’s......................... um, writing choices aside. And it would’ve been cool to revisit here! Gotham as a battleground for Dick & Jason’s warring ideo- and methodologies, their unresolved issues with Bruce taken out on each other by proxy, and the two needing to resolve their differences in the face of a new, more dangerous villain - one Bruce couldn’t even discover, let alone defeat - sounds fucking cool. Assuming one cuts Jason loose from. Again. Morrison’s questionable writing choices. If he’s going to be here, and he has to be part of the main cast, you... might as well leverage the characterisation that makes him unique? 

Babs as Batgirl is a downgrade and Tim is unfortunately once again suffering from off-screen boyfriend syndrome. And. You know. It’s so great to see him coping with loss so well, he’s historically been so great at that. I don’t love the way the game frames Batman as a mentor figure that still has wisdom to impart to Nightwing, Batgirl & Red Hood when at this point in their careers they have well outgrown him - especially a Dick in Bludhaven, or a Barbara post-Oracle. That said, this game is expecting to net the Arkham crowd, so what do you expect.

Having the character routes essentially be the same events in a slightly different font depending on which character you pick is not to this game’s benefit. No-one feels like they bring any unique skills, connections or opinions to the table, so I think I probably would’ve preferred a Nightwing-centric story that got to delve into his psyche a little more.

The Court of Owls is not handled as well as in the comics - I’ve never felt intimidated by them in-game the way the comics could, and it doesn’t help that the League of Assassins shows up to make them look like chumps well before the first speaking, intelligent and mildly challenging Talon shows up. I feel they weren’t leveraged to their full potential, to say nothing of the entire can of worms that comes with making Jacob Kane, a Jewish man, the leader of the secret cabal of elites running Gotham from the shadows.

I understand the pragmatic need to streamline the Court’s membership - William Cobb and Lincoln March are also absent - to keep things simpler, things got a bit.... lol in the comics but given Batwoman isn’t even in this game it’s an extremely bad call. I wonder if they’d wanted to link the Court to the existing cast if Tim’s parents trying to get in the Court’s good graces wouldn’t have been a good entry point for him?

I like Talia so far. I assume Bruce is alive or soon will be given the emphasis on Lazarus Pits so far, especially via Jason, and Ra’s will certainly return. I like the email chains. There’s some funny stuff in there. 

I can live with the janky gameplay, though stealth doesn’t feel as viable an option as it did in Arkham (enemies are considerably less dangerous as a trade-off) and platforming can be a problem. I don’t appreciate bosses that required strategy in Arkham, like Mr Freeze, turning into slogs just to whittle down HP - that’s not fun. My main point of ire is that I’m forced into Tim’s route because he’s the only character I have no control issues with. Jason is damn near unplayable (setting aside why they made him a goddamn tank? What about any of his fights made anyone think he was a slow and mostly landlocked? I get wanting to make the bats unique, but... come on, he had a blueprint in Arkham Knight), Nightwing has ups and downs and Babs is... okay? Tim is the only one that feels slightly polished. 

The game looks fine and the basics are there, it just... feels like it was released too early. Tale as old as videogames. So I’m not marking it down toooo much. I can be lenient! Sometimes. 

So far this game is a solid. Like. 5/10. We’ll see if that improves. 

[awhitehead17]

Batfam Alphabet: I - Injuries

Summary: When an offhand comment gets made about who receives the most injuries a big debate takes place to discuss this. Unable to agree on anything, the Bats decide to keep score of who gets the most injuries over the next 12 months. The results may surprise you. 

Enjoy! :D

The blissful silence within his apartment is rudely interrupted by the shrill of his phone suddenly ringing inside his pocket. Jason groans. Five minutes. Why couldn’t he just get five minutes of peace? Was that so much to ask for?

Cursing every god imaginable, Jason digs through his pocket until he finds and receives the device before scowling upon seeing the caller ID. Answering the call, he brings it up to his ear and doesn’t hesitate to snap a greeting, making it clear he isn’t pleased about being disturbed. “What do you want?”

“So there’s been a situation…” a hesitant voice speaks up on the other side of the phone.

Jason reaches up and pinches the bridge of his nose. That sentence alone is enough to start giving him a headache.

“How the fuck is there a situation? I left you guys not even fifteen minutes ago! I thought you were heading back to the cave?”

“Yeah, we were, but on the way back we heard gun shots and we found a gang fight happening. We intervened but while fighting Nightwing unfortunately got stabbed.”

Being told his brother has been stabbed makes Jason pause. There’s a remark on the end of his tongue that desperately wants to slip out but he doesn’t know if this is the right time for it. The tone of voice on the other side of the line makes it difficult to determine how serious the situation is.

“How bad is it?”

“Oh not that bad!” Tim chirps, Jason could now hear the amusement lacing his tone. “It’s just a stab wound on the thigh, more of a scratch than anything. Won’t need stitches or nothing. I figured I’d ring you to let you know because this now changes the board.”

Jason breathes out a long sigh and feels the tension leave his body. At least it’s not life threatening. This fucking family, he swears to God, if he hadn’t already been sent to an early grave he certainly would be now.

“So it’s enough to warrant a mark on the board?” Jason questions eagerly, already knowing what impact the answer will have. Now he knows it’s not serious he can think about other things.

“Oh yeah definitely.” Tim claims and Jason could easily hear the smile in his voice. “Even when it happened he muttered a curse and mentioned how it’s unfair because that now puts you ahead of him.”

At that Jason cackles. He bids his brother a goodbye before hanging up. Still laughing Jason moves through his apartment to his kitchen, digging through one of the draws he pulls out a large whiteboard and makes the needed changes to it.

This is something they all came up with at the start of the year from an offhand comment about who gets the most/least injuries out of their family. The comment triggered off a big debate and the result of it was to keep score of who gets the most injuries in the next 12 months.

They do not count life threatening injuries, because believe it or not they are not assholes and it wouldn’t be fair or even funny. Any minor injury can count (or at least minor for them). Any injuries done outside of the costume also count.

There are only a couple months left of the year but it’s currently pretty tight between most of them. Surprisingly Steph is winning with the least number of injuries so far. Following her, again surprisingly, is Damian. After him is Harper, Duke, Tim and then Jason. With his new injury today that puts Dick in last place, officially making Jason second to last. They hadn’t included Cass because firstly she didn’t want to be involved and secondly anytime she does get injured, which is extremely rare, it’s usually serious, so they collectively decided to not have Cass participate. Babs wasn’t interested and made it very clear on what her opinions of the competition was.

Before the new injury, Jason and Dick were in joint last place. His older brother now sustaining a new non-life-threatening injury changes the board. Jason couldn’t be happier, now he just has to make sure to not get injured at all in the next couple of months.

That in itself will be a challenge, but one not to be beaten easily Jason is up for it. He doesn’t care where he comes on the board, just as long as he beats Dick that’s all that matters.

---------

Like most of the year, the last few months fly by and before Jason knows it, it’s New Year’s Eve and he’s attending a party with all of his friends and family.

While the party is being hosted at Wayne Manor, so somewhere familiar, there’s tension in the air which can be felt no matter where you go. To most it’s probably the anticipation of midnight approaching, that excitement that comes along with the clock striking twelve and the supposedly start of something new.

To Jason, however, it’s a count down until the results are revealed.

Jason has a vague idea of what the final results are going to be, after all he kept track of everything himself. Then again, it’s vague because he’s been away on a mission for the last three weeks only having gotten back two days ago. He hasn’t yet had a chance to catch up with everything that may have happened in those weeks he had been gone. For all he knows the board may have changed significantly and he wouldn’t have a clue.

Not long before midnight, Jason soon finds himself in the library with his siblings and friends. They’re scattered around the room sitting on the sofas and the floor with the news on in the background.

Cass stands front and center with a white board in hand ready to announce the results of who has sustained the least and the greatest number of injuries in the past year. They asked Cass to announce it as she hadn’t taken part, that way it’s fair and not biased.

Looking around the room Jason could see a variety of facial expression on his siblings faces. Some wearing smirks, like they know exactly what the results are, while other’s wear an expression of anticipation, clearly unsure on where they’ve come on the board.

Cass announces the names in ascending order, starting with last place first. To Jason’s absolute delight, Dick is in last place. He’s so happy to hear that he had beaten his brother in getting less injuries than him in a year. Dick simply sends Cass a tight smile and nod, obviously knowing he had lost before anything was declared.

After Dick is Jason. If he’s being honest, Jason is actually happier about that than the principle of being second to last, he beat Dick and that’s all that mattered. He certainly made sure Dick was aware of his delight.

After Jason is Duke, followed by Steph which was a surprise considering she had been in first for a really long time. Apparently she had a bad couple of months, reckless behaviour and stupid mistakes eventually added to her total therefore dropping her down the leader board.

Taking third place is Damian. Jason looks over at where he’s sat and he finds the kid fuming, clearly unhappy with his final position. In second place is Tim, which seems to surprise almost everyone, including Tim himself. The teenager sits on the sofa looking completely baffled but thrilled at the news. That finally leaves Harper taking first place as the person to have the least number of injuries in the past year. She jumps up to her feet yelling with joy and dancing around the room excitedly.

After the scores are announced Cass gives out little awards just as something extra which makes it all the more entertaining.

The most out-of-costume injuries award goes to Tim, who instantly claims that most of his injuries are because his best friends are meta’s and because he skateboards. No one believes the excuses however they don’t call him out on it.

The most ridiculous injury goes to Dick, who then explains how he got said injury. Apparently he miscalculated a jump when chasing someone and ended up scraping his side on a metal bin. Everyone stares at him after that story, wondering how such an experienced vigilante and acrobat even does that.

The most badass injury goes to Steph. She had gotten into a fist fight in the middle of the mall after some guys started shouting out vulgar language. Not taking any of their shit Steph beat them all to a pulp but not without taking some collateral damage herself. That award felt well deserved though it could have gone to someone else.

After wrapping up their competition they all decide to stay in the library and chill. They cheer for the new year when the clock strikes twelve and all exchange “happy new year’s.” They don’t go adventuring out to the party again which inevitably leads to Bruce hunting for them, out of worry or suspicion Jason’s not sure but when his adoptive father eventually walks into the library he’s met with a loud chorus of greetings

Bruce studies the group with narrowed eyes in suspicion. He meets each of their gazes before straightening up and leveling them all a glare.

“What’s going on? I haven’t seen any of you in a few hours only to find you all gathered in here, not fighting may I add. What have you done?”

Dick’s the first to respond. Being the oldest of the group he probably feels inclined to, especially when no one else offers up an explanation. “Wow Bruce, give us a benefit of the doubt would you, we’re simply enjoying being with one another for a change. New year and all that. Who knows, this may the start of something new.”

Bruce’s disbelieving expression conveys perfectly what he thinks of that explanation.

The room falls silent as they all stare at one another. Gestures and nods are shared between them as they try to get someone else to speak up but everyone stays silent, no one saying a peep. They never told Bruce about the competition; they really don’t know how the man would take the news but they’re all certain it wouldn’t be taken well. He definitely wouldn’t see the funny side of the whole thing, even if they explain the rules to it and how they’re not actually assholes and wouldn’t include life threatening wounds to the count.

In the end it doesn’t matter because eventually Bruce puts his hands up and shakes his head. “You know what, I don’t want to know. Whatever it is just keep it to yourselves and if you make a mess, clean it up. The less I know the better.”

With no more words Bruce turns around and leaves the room. For several moments after the man’s sudden departure they each exchange baffled looks, silently questioning what just happened. It stays like that for a while until several members of the family simultaneously shrug. The action causes an eruption of laughter and all of them end up cackling until they couldn’t breathe and had tears running down their faces.

[bigskydreaming]

Tom is already rehashing some things, like too many homages to the nineties run, Zucco's daughter plot point, Beatrice had ideas for societal reform he's taking that and giving it to Dick. It'll probably be half hearted, but it stings that Beatrice left just a few issues ago and she's already completely forgotten for the sake of DickBabs or a love triangle.

Like the thing about the nineties runs is I mean, as much flack as we give various elements of them, there’s so much from that time period that was good? Great, even! Just....myself and the writers seem to have very different opinions on what the most interesting elements of the nineties comics were, oh well.

And omgggggg I’m still so mad about Bea, and its literally Shawn Tsang all over again. The writers keep introducing new, interesting characters, investing just enough time and focus into them to have us interested in them and wanting to see more.....and then they toss them aside to go back to drawing from the same well as always.

And the thing is, this isn’t even about me not really being a Dick/Babs shipper, because honestly, I’m not enjoying the Dick/Kory stuff in what I’ve seen of Titans Academy either, and for the exact same reason:

When they create new characters like Shawn and Bea, they KNOW they’re starting from scratch and need to build interest in those characters from the ground up. So they’re forced to put their best foot forward. There’s no short cut there, if you want people to care about a brand new character you have to give them REASONS to care. You have to make those characters likable, you have to make people WANT to root for them, you have to hook them with intriguing backstories that don’t feel formulaic and new angles that don’t feel just derivative of older characters, and that’s how we got stuff like Shawn’s history as a former sidekick to a villain and now running a support group for rogues trying to turn their lives around, and Bea’s work in societal reform.

But then the second they stop having the patience to build the new characters up enough that the interest in them can actually start to reach the levels that lets older characters last and grants longevity....they just toss them aside and move on....except they never really move on, just backwards. Because the problem with so MANY superhero couples, far from just Dick and Babs or Dick and Kory, is just....how lazy it seems to make so many canon writers. They just fall back on rehashing the same old tropes and just updating popular moments that resonated with fans in the past, now just recreated with a slightly more modern twist but without ever really being anything new. 

Even with ships that I’ve never really been sold on in the past like Dick/Babs, I’ve always said, there’s usually nothing stopping me from GAINING interest in them.....its just....the writers have to GIVE ME A REASON TO. And so many of DC’s writers just aren’t even trying. They’re just moving parts around and pushing characters together in various arrangements like everyone’s just a puzzle piece that you can mix and match however you want......and then just basically expecting readers to be interested purely because of who the characters are, or because it hinges on a nice moment that they then milk the hell out of without ever expanding that into building actual STORY around these moments but rather just squeezing each one til they get everything they possibly can out of it and moving on to the next as though its all just about chasing the next soundbite...because it is! LOL.

And honestly, this problem extends far beyond just the Nightwing title or the Batfam or Taylor’s run or writing in particular.....its a company wide issue right now. In fact I would bet just about anything that its a matter of editorial edict, that even before Taylor started his run DC said okay here’s the approach we want everyone taking with their stories right now:

And that’s like.....its all about banking on nostalgia and the comfort of the familiar right now. I think Taylor is drawing all these elements straight from the 90s Nightwing comics, like Blockbuster and Dick having been a cop, etc, because these are the elements of past Nightwing stories that are so well known. Its the same reasoning behind why they put Tim back as Robin and so many of their new characters are just new spins on old faves like Punchline and Harley Quinn, and why they’re pushing all these older ships that haven’t been together in ages and why specific team lineups are reappearing....its because nostalgia is the name of the game for DC right now, and all their writers are just pulling together threads of classic stories that have stood the test of time, figuring anything that landed particularly well with fans in the past will sell with people here and now, and weaving these threads together and brushing over them with a modern social issues veneer. 

As an approach, its basically all just about repackaging previously successful story moments and elements with just enough changes or in just new enough a configuration that readers aren’t likely to complain en masse that like “hey we literally already read all this. We’ve already BOUGHT these issues. When we were kids.” Its minimizing creative risk while maximizing monetary profit. Spend as little creative capital as possible outside of anything that’s already been successful in the past and as such is a relatively proven quantity, instead of testing new material that’s an unknown and runs the risk of falling flat and thus not being profitable.

And see, I’d almost guarantee that all THAT, that whole line-wide approach to DC’s storytelling, is because the powers that be looked at the last several years of stories and how many of THEM fell flat with readers, and decided that the problem was they’d BEEN trying too much new stuff and readers just didn’t like it. Because they WERE concentrating on presenting totally new stories and building up new ideas throughout their books.....but readers have been pretty vocal for years now about being disenchanted with most of DC’s major stories. And so DC I think looked at that and came to the conclusion that okay, people just don’t want new right now, they want the familiar.

But like.....DC’s problem IMO was never that they were trying new stuff? The reason so much of their new and original storylines weren’t gaining traction or bringing in readers and kept shedding old readers had absolutely NOTHING to do with them being new and previously unseen storylines, which makes falling back on nostalgia very much a non-solution to entirely the wrong problem.

No, DC’s problem for years has been that they’ve been all about spectacle instead of story. There’s ZERO emotional pay-off to any of their biggest plot twists or character beats, and emotion is LITERALLY what people read stories for. Its all about racing to the climactic action packed finish of every storyline and then immediately resetting everyone back to square one and jumping straight into the next big story, without ever giving the events of any of their stories time or reason to MATTER to the characters.....and if they don’t matter to the characters, our proxies that we’re viewing these stories through, then why should any of it matter to us? Why should any of it linger, dig in roots, resonate with us as moments that left an impact and that we accordingly want more of?

And again, like because I’m a Dick Grayson focused blog I’ve obviously largely been focused on how much I dislike the SPECIFIC reactions or non-reactions to so many of the major beats in his stories.....but it was spread throughout their entire line.

Bruce and Selina almost got married....but why should anyone care outside of Tom King’s title when nobody else seems to, no other characters feel anything about this, and Bruce in none of his other appearances seems the same as ever without any reminder that he just almost got married but then didn’t.....and if the characters don’t ever seem to be affected by or feeling a need to revisit or reflect on recent stories, why should we bother remembering them either? 

Jason was dramatically and fucked-upily (yes its a word, I totally looked it up and everything) exiled from Gotham....and then all of that is undone in a single issue with one low-stakes awkward conversation between him and Bruce. Damian quits as Robin and goes off the map and everyone in his family is like “hey don’t we have a littler brother, I feel like we did maybe” for one panel per story arc, and that’s it. Roy’s back from the dead and everybody’s like oh hey cool instead of the kind of return we used to get like when Donna came back and everyone was like oh shit, this MATTERS, because we MISSED you....just like Dick’s death never mattered to anyone but fans of his character because much like I was just saying earlier with them not really giving me a reason TO emotionally invest in Dick and Babs’ relationship if I wasn’t already, same thing with the aftermath of Forever Evil. They didn’t give anyone else reason to emotionally invest in that as something that HAPPENED to Dick and that he was AFFECTED by....because the writers didn’t bother writing him as all that affected by it and it was just like oh he’s a spy now, all that was last year’s content, we’ve moved on, keep up.

And on and on it goes. Ric Grayson was the same problem all over again. Rinse and repeat down the line with everyone from Wally to Donna and etc etc etc.

THAT’S why DC’s stories have been falling flat. It has nothing to do with people not being interested in new ideas, characters or directions, its that’s ALL they were giving us, but it was like just reading wiki summaries of events just alongside pretty art, but no real emotional weight or substance to anything we were reading....and thus, literally nothing that we couldn’t get much the same outcome from if we just...stuck to reading wiki summaries after the stories were over, with no real need to follow along with them. For years most fans have basically just been about keeping up to date with changes in the characters’ lives, but without feeling any real need to watch those changes unfold and play out.

And so honestly I worry we’re just gonna be subjected to a company wide rehashing of old and familiar storylines, directions and character beats, but repackaged and delivered in the exact same way DC was delivering us their new stories and ideas these past years....and its basically going to have the same results, because its the same problem. They didn’t actually fix anything by switching gears, they just shuffled around the actual issue.

And DC’s just gonna be like well now wtf are we doing wrong, we were so sure this would work, everyone LOVES nostalgia right? Did we pick the wrong stories and character beats to bring back?

When really its like......it honestly doesn’t matter WHICH stories and beats they rehash, because its not about them picking the ‘right ones,’ the real keepers, the stories that everyone really WAS eager to see brought back or made new again.....

Its about like, the only reason any of those stories or beats or dynamics stood the test of time and are still familiar and well-known....is because the stories AROUND those moments and ideas gave us reason to emotionally invest in them and retain them as crucial to our view of the characters and things that would resonate and stay with us for a long time.

It was never that any of those ideas or stories were just so innately brilliant that they couldn’t help BUT linger in the overall reader consciousness...it was the fact that we CARED about what happened in those moments and stories.

*Shrugs* But I mean hey, what do I know? I’m just a dude on the internet lolol. 

[dessarious]

Broken Harmony Pt28

Inspired by @ozmav Maribat AU

Master List 1   Master List 2    Prologue   Beginning   Previous   Next

“Mlle. Bourgeous.” Chloe and Marinette stopped talking when Bruce addressed her. She straightened back up, defaulting into her original demeanor. It was a front when she felt threatened, similar to his if he was honest.

“M. Wayne.” Her tone held wariness and Damian could tell she was expecting a less than warm welcome. He wasn’t sure if that was just because it was what she was used to or because she was expecting it from Bruce specifically. Marinette rubbed the girls back soothingly and he caught the confused look that passed between her parents. 

“Would you like to join us for dinner?” No one expected that least of all Chloe. She physically recoiled and looked about ready to decline but Marinette spoke up first.

“I’d really like to catch up if you don’t have any other plans.” The poor girl looked like she’d woken up in an alternate dimension. Apparently that lost look moved Marinette’s parents enough for Sabine to go into mom mood. She walked up to Chloe and put an arm around her shoulders.

“We’d love for you to join us” Tom gave her an encouraging smile and she looked like her brain melted.

“Okay.” Before she could think about it or reconsider they were all seated in the dining room. She still looked extremely uncomfortable but didn’t appear to be ready to bolt anymore. She was situated between Sabine and Marinette and kept inching closer to the latter as if afraid Sabine might turn on her. Given what she’d said about being a bully he could understand why.

“So Marinette have you given any thought to what school you want to transfer to.” He watched his soulmate blink in surprise at the question before her cheeks turned pink.

“No actually. Between making your gifts and talking to the ‘not sisters’ there wasn’t a lot of time. Besides, I’d like to get to know Damian better first because I have a feeling he’ll go with whatever I want but I want it to be a school he actually likes too.”  The boys awed over her sweetness while Damian rolled his eyes before Dick hooked into the other thing she said.

“Wait what do you mean ‘not-sisters’?” Damian scowled before answering.

“Babs decided to hack into Marinette’s computer so she, Steph, and Cass could see her.” The boys erupted into complaints that the girls got to meet her first but Bruce just let out a sigh, running his hand down his face in annoyance. “I told them it was an unacceptable violation of privacy, and that holds for you lot as well.” He pinned each of his brothers with a glare, lingering on Tim.

“I feel insulted that you believe we would resort to such tactics.” Tim’s words were only met with another glare. Bruce stepped in before it could go further.

“Marinette is Damian’s soulmate. They will decide what safety measures to take and we will abide by them. They do not need our interference or meddling. It will also be up to Marinette to decide what she wishes to share with us.” He stared down each of the boys in turn but also lingered on Tim.

“Oh come on, you act like I’m the only one who does research. Besides you’re the one that asked me to clone her phone.”

“You did what?” Damian’s voice was soft but the other boys flinched. Bruce just gave a tired sigh.

“I figured there were things on it Marinette would want later so I had Tim clone it so we could give the actual phone to the police but she would still have everything. After what happened tonight I think we can all agree that giving them the only copy of that harassment is a bad idea.” There were nods and grumbling from around the table but Chloe turned to Marinette.

“What harassment?” His Angel’s cheeks flushed pink again.

“It’s really nothing. They were just getting out their frustration.”  Her words had the effect of a bomb going off. Denials were shouted from almost everyone present. Damian was fairly certain he heard Jason muttering about getting his guns while Sabine said something in Mandarin that almost made him blush. It was Tom that let out a piercing whistle to get everyone’s attention. His wife shot him a surprised look but the rest simply dropped their grumbling to a reasonable level.

“Sweetheart, Bruce showed us those messages before he left last night. That’s not frustration. They were threats and worse and you didn’t do anything to deserve them.”

“Can I see the messages?” Everyone seemed surprised by Chloe’s request.

“I don’t see how that could possibly be a good idea.” Bruce’s words pushed the girl back into her ‘holier than thou’ mode. Damian could practically see the superiority dripping from the girl.

“Because I know them and unlike Marinette I don’t have a romanticized view of those losers. I can tell what is out of character or not and tell you the likelihood of them acting on those threats because I’d be willing to be not all of the are idle. If I’ve learned anything about Rossi it’s that she’s capable of getting people to do things they wouldn’t otherwise. The only people she hasn’t managed to corrupt in some way are Marinette and myself. Adrien knows she’s a liar and she still somehow got into his head enough to make him think this is acceptable and that Mari is the problem.”

Marinette was frowning in thought while the boys tried to dissuade Chloe from wanting to look at the phone. Damian could tell they were just putting her back up more but didn’t see anyway to fix that so he just stayed silent.

“She’s right.” Everyone was silenced by Marinette’s soft words. She looked at Bruce and they could all see the pain in her eyes. “Chloe has both an inside and outside perspective of the situation that’s invaluable. I’m too close to the situation and you’re all too far away. Chloe’s the best bet we have to stop anyone from doing something foolish and making things worse.” 

Damian watched as his father contemplated her words. His brothers just looked at each other. He had a feeling they were trying to come up with another argument. Marinette’s parents were both oddly blank so he had no idea what could be going through their heads. Chloe was just staring at Marinette in shock. She obviously didn’t expect anyone to agree with her.

“Thank you.” The words were soft but the feeling behind them made Damian think they weren’t just meant for this one instant. 

“Tim, give her the phone.” Tim looked like he was going to argue but Bruce’s face made him think twice about it. “We can’t afford to leave resources on the table right now. If Marinette is willing to trust her then that should be good enough for the rest of us.” Tim gave an annoyed grunt but did hand over the phone.

Chloe made sure to angle herself so that Marinette couldn’t get a look at the screen, which Damian was grateful for, before unlocking it to look at the messages. The more she read the more shocked her expression became before turning sickly. He had a feeling she got to the one with the detailed suicide instructions. She handed the phone back to Tim looking a little queasy. 

“I’d say the immediate physical threats would come from Alya, Adrien, and Kim. The rest don’t seem likely to take action on their own, but it won’t stop them from ganging up on Mari or trying to intimidate her through texts and social media.”

“Why those three?” It sounded like a normal question but Damian could tell Tim was using it as a test. Chloe sighed and rubbed her temples.

“Kim used to think he was in love with me and despite my showing no interest and being a bitch actually thought he had a chance. Judging from the tone of his messages he’s transferred that infatuation to Lila and she’ll use it to her advantage in any way she can. The idea to go after Mari would come from her but it would be Kim that’s the most likely to act on it. Adrien…” She paused and looked to be holding back tears. Marinette put a comforting hand on her arm and she took a deep breath before continuing. “His messages are extremely possessive. It’s clear that he considers Mari his property and is not going to react well to her leaving or doing anything he hasn’t approved of. As for Alya, she’s the most volatile. She’s always been brash and jumped into things without thinking but with Lila there to stoke the fire and aim her negative feelings I’d say she’s the most likely to get akumatized and go after Mari beside’s Lila herself.”

Damian had to admit she made a good case and given the interaction last night with Adrien he knew she was right about at least one of them. Marinette was right, Chloe would be a good asset in this battle. Tim looked like he wanted to argue but Damian caught his eye and shook his head. None of them knew these kids well enough to contradict Chloe’s opinion.

“What do you think Angel?” Marinette started a little at his question before looking at Chloe. The two simple stared at each other for a minute before she gave a  small, tired sigh.

“I trust her judgement. I know she’s right about Adrien and as much as I don’t want to believe it of the others my judgement is compromised and I know Chloe’s head for politics makes her more observant and analytical than the average person. If that’s who she thinks is a threat then they are.”

He could tell how much it hurt her to say those words and admit that people she once considered friends were a threat. He wrapped an arm around her and she leaned into his shoulder thoroughly drained. The rest of the table was murmuring about precautions and threat levels but he just wanted to concentrate on his soulmate and offer what comfort he could. It was actually kind of peaceful. That didn’t last.

“Little M! I didn’t expect to see you here, how have you been?”

Master List 1   Master List 2    Prologue   Beginning   Previous    Next

Tag list for Broken Harmony

Thanks for all the positive responses! Here’s the tag list I’ve go so far. If I missed anyone let me know.

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[whetstonefires]

how do you think the batfam mightve progressed if jason never died?

Whaa, 4 asks at once? I’m sorry I still haven’t gotten back on the last one, I thought I was unstuck but guess what, I wrote myself into a pretty little corner by being all ‘I don’t care about what’s canon! i’m just gonna have fun!’ which is the correct approach except then you find out the thing you made up is incorrect and idk how to deal with that. being wrong. it’s a life skill i’m still working on.

So like, if the vote had gone the other way...it depends so much on the writing and editing teams, and so little on real causality, it’s hard to frame a picture?

Jason was created as an alternative to aging Dick down and taking him out of the Titans; his new character origin after the Crisis on Infinite Earths barely got out of its shakedown tour before they killed him off. We know who he was enough to spot the major character derailments, but who he might have been? It’s hard to say.

If he’d made it through the vote, the noisy fans would still have hated him, and so would the man writing his comics. I doubt Starlin would ever have convinced DC to do the HIV plotline with Robin like he reportedly tried, but I feel like Something Bad remained likely.

The 90s are known for their grimdarkness for a reason, and Jason just missed living through them. I feel like his odds of going villain were pretty high anyway, not because of him but because of the constant need for drama fuel. I mean, Alfred had a villain phase, in the 60s.

Babs became Oracle almost simultaneous with the Robin trade-off, debuted the same month Jason died (January ‘89), so that still would have happened. Tim’s influence on her was very slight.

Without Tim, there would have been no need for Steph, since she was created partly as a love interest but more importantly as a foil, and a way of getting more of that high-energy feeling traditionally associated with Robin back into the story even though so many of the fans loathed it and refused to have it in their lead.

(Not that Tim didn’t have a lot of it anyway, but it wasn’t his core feel the way it had been for Dick and Jason. Possibly of note, the ‘87 Killing Joke and ‘89 Batman movie also marked a rise in the use of Joker as Batman’s main dramatic foil rather than Robin, which coupled with the Bronze Age in general really shaped Tim’s character direction. It’s hard to say what caused what, with these trends.)

They might have introduced a girl anyway, to replace Babs. Maybe even a version of Cass. Shiva stated under interrogation during ADitF that she had no child, but in comics terms that half-guaranteed she’d get one eventually, because the concept was now out there.

I doubt Jason would have gotten his own series in the 90s, considering his screaming hatedom and the fact that it took three extremely successful mini-series to get Tim a regular title, but if DC had managed to repackage his character into something that the 90s liked and he had made a go of it, he’d probably have acquired a completely different supporting cast. He might well have continued his pattern of acquiring moms. Maybe even Talia. The whole Sheila thing would have been a half-forgotten backstory subplot by like ‘94 probably.

It occurs to me after typing all of this that you might want to hear my ideas about what in-universe causality might logically have led to, lmao. Let’s see.

Jason’s adolescence was hitting a rocky stage that I doubt this betrayal and near-death experience and technical bereavement would have ended, though it would probably have hit harder than his last few near-death experiences even assuming another improbable complete recovery.

If we up the realism dial a little, he might be forced into retirement by the severity of his wounds. He’d still have to hash out his trust issues with Bruce, probably more than ever. Being a shit communicator was not yet a key part of Bruce’s personality; they might have sorted things out.

Jason would not have dropped out of college. If he’s retired, he goes into a prestigious but helping-centered field with an understanding that he is now the son Bruce trusts to step up to keep WE on the straight and narrow after he dies; inheritance of voting shares may be structured around this expectation.

(Dick experiences that really complicated hypocritical jealousy where you specifically rejected a thing, but it spent so long being marked yours that you feel robbed anyway when someone else gets it. Not a lot of it in the disability scenario, because there’s a distinct vibe of consolation prize there, but otherwise.)

Babs would still have been Oracle. It would have been a less fraught launch, though.

Dick might not have heard about the Ethiopia thing at all, if Jason made a full recovery, considering how little communication was passing between him and Bruce at that point. Dick’s level of Batcomputer access only stated Jason as ‘location unknown’ when he was dead, so.

He and Jason got along fine, regardless of retcons since then, but he was under a lot of stress from a lot of sources, and the feeling that he couldn’t go home even when he really needed to, because he’d been replaced, was very present. That might well have blown up at some point.

I tend to think of Bruce as having changed pretty dramatically as a result of Jason’s death, disregarding a lot of retcons, but I mean, 1987 Bruce already failed to notice Dick having a mental breakdown right in front of him and put him off in favor of hero work with Jason on Dick’s birthday, he just did it cheerfully and with fairly courteous wording. There was a trend in the faildad direction starting already.

There was a lot of relationship stuff in need of fixing and in some ways Jason’s presence made that as hard for Dick with Bruce as Damian’s later did for Tim, even though there was a lot less drama and intentional emotional violence and attempted murder involved. So. That could have gone a lot of ways. Realistically, even without Tim trying to play peacemaker, Dick always gets dragged back into Bruce’s orbit, though. That’s narrative causality at work, but also psychology.

In-universe, Tim can be assumed to have already existed before Wolfman invented him. He’s mostly away at boarding school, but he’s nosy and well-intentioned and he Knows. If Jason ran away more comprehensively than the Great Mom Tour, he might approach him with an argument for why Batman needed Robin and he should go home. Or there would eventually have been a case where he knew something they didn’t and attempted to subtly pass information and got noticed.

Or Oracle’s expanding field of awareness would have eventually noticed him and his zoom-lens one summer evening while his parents were in Haiti getting dead. Idk.

He’d probably have gotten mixed up in Bat-things eventually, and if it wasn’t before the Haiti thing there’s no way Batman would have been invested enough in this random disappearance to be there in time to help, so he’d have been completely orphaned at 13. Bruce taking him in is reasonably likely, since he wasn’t exactly in a position to create himself a fake uncle at the time. On the other hand, he might have gone into foster care. His parent’s company still would have crashed without them, so he wouldn’t have inherited much, but he’d have been better off than most kids in the system because he’d have some assets.

Steph is even more guaranteed to hit the vigilante scene. Bruce would be a lot friendlier to her without Jason death issues for her to trigger, though that doesn’t mean he’d actually be friendly, and Jason would like her, and possibly communicate more effectively than Tim did about how she could not die, or possibly they’d have egged each other on into steadily more unwise behavior.

On the other hand, depending on where Jason’s character development went after surviving Ethiopia, he might at 17 find 15-year-old Steph indescribably annoying precisely because they have so much in common, and lash out at her as a proxy for his younger self, and be kind of awful.

Cataclysm breaks causality to even acknowledge anymore because they rushed on from it like massive chumps, but Jason would have been a good Robin to have for it. He’d have been pretty tall by then, and he’s got the mental tools for surviving in an unfriendly urban environment where money is useless. I think he and Cass would have gotten on well, they have compatible personalities. The only major issue I can see is if Bruce or Babs got really positive about her and triggered some kind of jealousy or possessiveness issue.

We don’t really have any specific data at all from before Jason died about how he would cope with a rival for something he felt entitled to but insecure about--he deferred very nicely to Dick as his elder, but Dick wasn’t actually a threat to anything Jason valued. Assuming later canon is applicable, jealousy would be a definite issue with any additional family members, though I assume without the risk of homicide.

Okay here is an after-midnight hour of my half-baked opinions. You asked for it! ;DDD

[forthemultiverse]

Come Back To Me - Jason Todd x Reader

So I read a post about the nickname Jaybird and got inspired. Requests are coming soon 😊

“Jaybird…” your voice was tired, and you just hoped he could still hear you.

Every Robin has their Batgirl, every Batgirl has their Robin. You didn’t make the rules, and Bruce hadn’t even noticed the pattern until Damian complained about his lack of partner’s. 

“They all have an advantage!” Damian stuck his nose in the air whilst trying to prove how he was the best Robin.

“Maybe if you were a little bit nicer, people would want to work with you.” Stephanie rolled her eyes.

“You can’t beat the first Robin, Dami.” Dick ruffled the boy’s hair and smiled.

“Um! I only had to give up the mantle because you gave it to him, and you got fired! Prooves I’m number one!” Tim pointed out.

“(Y/N)?” Damian noticed your lack of interest in the conversation. “You were Batgirl once.”

“Yeah?” you turned up from the computer and raised an eyebrow. You didn’t think this conversation should involve you. You weren’t Batgirl for long, and you’d even given up the game for a bit. 

“Who’s the best Robin?” Tim looked at what you’d been doing and corrected a few of mistakes whilst asking. You nodded your thanks but still weren’t too invested in their little competition. 

“You really want my opinion on that?” 

“You’ve worked with all of us as Robin.” Tim shrugged

“So’s Babs,”

“But she’s Grayson biased.” Dick shot Damian a look.

“Yeah, I guess I can’t be biased…”

“Jaybird, please…” Tim had hacked the Red Hood Helmet for you, knowing you might be able to get through to him.

“What do you think you’re doing!” a young you yelled out of your bedroom’s balcony door. The garden attatched to your house was large, and the balcony gave you a perfect view of the stars, your manor located just outside Gotham’s Clouds. Your parents had built the house there for that reason. They wanted the sun to always be shining on them. They didn’t bother with the night time, they work in the morning and flights abroad to catch. They didn’t know you could barely sleep in the practically empty house, or that you’d stay up all night reading with the balcony door open. “Is that man bleeding!”

Robin was just under the balcony, attempting to drag a large and cloaked man across your lawn. A large and cloaked man, who you suddenly realised was Batman.

“Oh my god, you have to let me help!” you slid on to the other side of the railing and hoped to the nearest tree. You’d snuck out enough times to know you’d be down in a minute. The years of gymnastics and self-defence you parents had put you in to give you something todo paying off in unexpected ways. 

You put yourself under one of Batman’s shoulders and helped to support his weight.

“What…?” Robin couldn’t finish the sentence and you didn’t let him.

“I can help.”

“How?”

“There’s no way you can get him wherever you’re going. This is my house, I can get you in and you can call whoever you need to.” 

You put the backdoor code in and Robin followed. You could tell he was conflicted, even if you couldn’t see much of his face, but he was definitely out of options. Whilst he phoned someone, you started to bandage up the Dark Knight as best you could. Putting pressure to stop the blood flow.

“How do you do that?” Robin asked you carefully, coughing slightly like he was trying to change his voice.

“Common knowledge?”

“That’s not common knowledge, and I’m rolling my eyes by the way.”

“Whatever, Birdboy.”

“Robin.”

“Birdboy.” if he was going to be rude, so were you.

“Jaybird, listen to my voice.” You were too far from the fight to save anyone, but you were still going to try, dragging your suit on as you spoke.

“Who’s that?” Jason asked Bruce, pointing to you as you arrived at the Wayne Gala with your parents.

“(Y/N)(Y/L/N). Her parents are in charge of international relations with the company I’ve just partnered with to support this Charity.” Bruce nodded to your parents, “Why?”

“Nothing.”

“Do you have a crush, Jason?”

“No!” Jason scowled

“Miss (Y/N) was the one who helped Jason the other night when you were bleeding out Master Bruce,” Alfred explained. Jason glared slightly, he hadn’t exactly told Bruce he’d gotten a civilian involved.

“You got a random person involved?”

“She caught me trying to get you back to the Manor and I didn’t have an option. I phoned Alfred who phoned Leslie to come and patch you up properly,” he mumbled.

“You should talk to her,” Bruce suggested.

“Why?”

“You’ll be seeing her at all of these events and she’s one of the few people your age.” 

“Jaybird, listen to my voice, stop for just a second to listen.” The gunshots were still being fired and Bruce was running out of options. Tim was already on the floor, and if Jason couldn’t hit Bruce, he’d shoot Tim. 

You caught the fist of the thug and flipped him, despite him being double your size. You were not about to hand over anything to him, and you were not going to wait for someone to save you. Placing your hand on the pressure point on the back of his neck, you lowered him carefully to the floor and took his knife. You tossed it into the trash, making sure it dropped to the very bottom. He could try and get it back, but he wasn’t going to see it anytime soon. 

“Smooth,” Robin said, dropping into the alley and examining the passed out man. 

“We have to stop meeting like this.” you joked. This was about the sixth time you’d met Robin in the past month. Ever since you’d started swim training at a later time in the evening, people kept trying to jump you whilst you waited for your taxi. He’d arrive just after you’d kicked the amateur criminals butt and sometime’s he’d even help you out.

“You need to stop putting yourself at risk.” he wasn’t saying it out of kindness, he spoke bitterly.

“Then you need to get here quicker.”

“Why don’t you just wait at the sports centre?”

“Where’s the fun in that.”

“Well, Batman wants to talk to you.”

“You don’t sound too happy about it…should I be worried Bird Wonder?”

“Robin.”

“Bird Wonder.”

“Jaybird! Stop, think about what you’re doing!” You were getting desperate. You needed to get through to him. Jason had meant so much to you before he died, and you’d thought you’d meant something to him. You’d been Batgirl and Robin. 

“I did pretty well for my first night.” You smiled, swinging to the floor in the Batgirl suit. Batgirl was a lot more fun than any other activity you’d started to give you something to do. Your parents were good parents, but they were distant and busy, and you were getting a bit sick waiting around for them every day. The company they worked for helped people, and you wanted to help people too. As Batgirl you could.

“Sure.” Robin scowled, sending you a glance as you landed int he Batcave. Batman had let the two of you go out alone for your first night. He called it teambuilding. Robin didn’t seem so onboard with the idea of you, you’d put up with it all night. Finally, you were done trying to be nice. 

“I’m not going to replace you.” you snapped, knowing exactly why he wasn’t being nice. It was written all over his face from the moment Batman said he wanted you to be Batgirl. 

“Obviously,” he growled

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m Robin!” he held out his hands in one big gesture. “You’re just some rich girl who got bored and was in the right place at the right time. From your list of other ‘clubs’, it’s obvious that you get bored and give up. You’ll get bored of this too, and go back to your balcony in your big house and I’ll still be here.”

“Whatever chip you have on your shoulder, don’t you dare take it out on me. Yeah, I am just some rich girl, but Batman wanted my help. I’m good at this, and I’m not giving up. So either get on board or get out of my way before someone gets hurt because your ego can’t take a partner. Maybe Batman wanted me because you need to learn how to work with people. I’m not replacing you, and you’re not getting rid of me. We don’t need to like each other, but we need to have each other’s back - can your attitude problems do that or am I going to have to fight alone out there, Birdie? 

“What is it with you and nicknames?”

“Their fun.” you shrugged.

“I don’t like them.”

“You will.”

“Jaybird! I know this isn’t you, and I know the real you is in their and can hear me.” Batgirl and Robin was just the brink of your relationship. Batgirl and Robin were what the public saw. You’d both been so much more than that. You’d been Jason and (Y/N). You’d drive each other crazy in just the right way. 

“You okay, Birdbrain?” You joined him on the roof of some building in Gotham. Batman wasn’t out that evening, and your parents were at a gala you definitely didn’t want to attend. Robin had become better with you after the first month together. He wasn’t an actual one hundred percent asshole. From what you could tell, he just had very big replacement anxiety and attachment problems.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be tonight?”

“Nope, why?”

“Just figured you were busy…”

“So, we know you know who I am, am I ever going to know who you and Bats are?”

No response. That hurt you a little bit. A lot actually. But it didn’t matter, you both were patrolling the city. You had better things to do, and it wasn’t like you thought Robin would tell you, take his mask off, and exchange real numbers or anything. The question was always going to be a long shot, you just wanted a face.

That entire patrol was extremely tense, not between you guys but the city. It was like it knew Batman wasn’t there and decided to go crazy. But crazy in a small way. No big name criminals trying to blow building up, just constant bank robbery attempts and thug violence on civilians. You were both tired, you were both becoming sloppy, and Robin currently had a gun shoved at the base of his head.

“Trust me?” you asked him, the criminal smiling like an idiot thinking he’d won. He nodded slowly and you threw the Batarang into his thigh. Robin shrunk down in pain and the criminal stepped back in shock. You fired two at him, using the distraction you’d caused. He was pinned to the wall and you tied him up, calling the police to his location. 

“Quick thinking…” Robin said, biting down on his lip.

“You can cry, I won’t judge.”

“I could’ve ducked.”

“Because you can duck faster than he can shot.”

“Good point.” he stood up straighter and rubbed the cut. “You didn’t throw them very hard.”

“I wasn’t actually trying to hurt you. Pain wearing off?”

“Yeah, It’ll sting for a bit.”

“But it won’t leave a scar.” You assured him. You had only thrown it hard enough to make actually reach him, nothing else. You barely ever throw a punch with the intention too truly hurt someone. Batman said you and Robin balanced each other out. You only punched as hard as you had too to get the point across, Robin punched with everything he had, he was trying to prove his point too much. Too little meant people underestimate you and too much meant Robin could go too far.

You both returned to the cave, calling it a night and hoping the police could deal with anything else that might happen.

“Jason,” Robin said when you landed in the cave

“What?”

“Jason Todd,” he took off the mask. “It’s unfair for you not to know.”

“Aer you warming up to me!”

“No!”

“Oh my god, you are! This is breakthrough!” You declared, ignoring the fact that it meant Bruce freaking Wayne was Batman. 

“Don’t make it into something.”

“But I’m going too.” You tried to ignore how cute his face was, slightly regretting seeing it now. 

“I regret this already,” he complained

“No take backs!”

“Jaybird!” you were pleading into the helmet. Swinging across the city and trying to find them. 

“It’s working.” Bruce sent a text through the comm system, not wanting Jason to know you were being used as a tool against him. “You’re messing with his head.”

That’s where you and Bruce were different, you didn’t want to be a tool, you didn’t want to mess with his head any more than it already had been. You wanted to help your Jason. 

“Jason!” you yelled, seeing him at the Gotham Academy gates. He made eye contact with you and tensed up. Two of his friends were with him but you still ran towards him. 

“(Y/N),” he looked at his friends quickly before focusing back on you.

“Pretty girl…” one of them whispered, bright red when you looked at him. 

“I saw you and thought I’d say hey.” you didn’t go to Gotham Academy. Your parents sent you to an all-girls school that worked on the idea that girls thrived without distractions. 

“Hey.” he was glaring at his friend’s awestruck faces. “What are you doing here?”

“Our school’s coming to some lecture going on here today.”

“Oh yeah, Bruce signed me up for it I think.”

“That’s cool, none of my friend’s are here, so can I sit with you?”

You motioned to the gaggle of girls behind you, a few staring at the boys like they were some foreign currency, some looked overly bored, some were just dismissive. 

“Sure.” you gasped, “Don’t look so surprised. We are friends and you asked.” you smiled at that. No way were you going to let him forget that he’d said it, you were tempted to make him say it again so you could record it and make it his Robin ringtone. 

“You are both witnesses for when he tries to claim he doesn’t like me!” the boys nodded their heads in unison, still awestruck by you. Jason snapped his fingers in their faces, neither of them reacting. He looked at you again, thinking over the pretty comment It was true, you were very pretty, and you were trying so hard with him even though he’d been so cold towards you at the start. And you were clever, and you called him annoying names, and you were his Batgirl. His. You’d had no connection to Batman before him, and you never tried to compare him to Dick. 

He did not have a crush on you. Not at all. Defintiely not. 

“See you later then…Jaybird.” you winked and disappeared, leaving him unsure of what to actually do with himself.

“Jaybird, my Jaybird. You can stop this. I’m nearly there, wait for me, I can help you the way I always did.” you were so close to Bruce’s location, so close to him. You hadn’t wanted to believe that Red Hood was Jason, that he was killing people and screaming for blood, but it made sense. Jason had loved Bruce. He’d thought of Bruce as his family. His real family until his ‘mum’ reappeared. You’d seen him as Red Hood, with the helmet off. His helmet hair looking annoyingly perfect but his eyes crazy and unfocused. Bruce had made you take a step back, he didn’t want you to be at risk. 

“Something’s different Alfred.” Bruce raised an eyebrow at you and Jason, who were out in the Garden and reading together. Your legs layered on top of each other and the occasional rant coming out about something in the story or a character. 

“World’s Best Detective.” Alfred rolled his eyes,

“But what is it…They’ve been different in the field too, making small jokes, choosing to train together, collapsing on the safe after training. They don’t even speak before doing some kind of trick. They just do it. She lept off a building yesterday. I caught them doing homework together…Kids don’t do homework.”

“Jason is exceptional at school, you know that Master Bruce. He loves it and they trust each other.”

“No, this is more than trust.”

“World’s Best Detective.” Alfred repeated, shaking his head, “You honestly need me to tell you what it is?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Yes.”

“Then what?”

“They’re, what the kids say, crushing.”

“Crushing…” he paused, “Crushing!” he spun round to stare at them again, suddenly noticing the small happy looks Jason was giving you as he tapped your leg lightly and the laugh you gave him as you swatted his knee. “

“Jaybird…” your voice was tired, and you just hoped he could still hear you.

“Jaybird?” You asked, opening your balcony door as he tapped it. You’d been sleeping, and hadn’t expected to be woken by him - at least not in normal clothes. You guys had plenty of late night talks in costume, often after Bruce had sent you both to bed he’d make sure you got home and then you’d talk for about an hour. It was a nice little thing you’d developed. 

“I’m going to my mum,” he said, rubbing his arm and pacing up and down the balcony as you leant on the railing.

“Really?” You’d heard him talk about his mum being alive, you’d seen him and Bruce arguing, you’d seen how the Dynamic Duo didn’t seem to fit together anymore.

“Yeah, I can’t deal with it anymore. I need to know, I have to go, I’m done with Bruce and his complaints and standards and comparisons. I’m done living in that stupid Manor and having the whole damn thing for literally two people, I’m done with everything and I can’t stay here.” he sounded stressed - like he was going to break down at any second.

“That’s…” you didn’t know how to respond. You didn’t want him to leave, you wanted him to stay and be your Robin. “Are you sure.”

“Everything here sucks, it isn’t me and I don’t want it to be. It can all burn,” you knew he was angry but it still hurt. He caught your eye and groaned. “I didn’t mean that at all.”

“Go, Jason, go find your mum.” you nodded slowly. You didn’t say it angrily or accusingly, he didn’t need that and you wouldn’t have your last conversation with him before he left as an argument. 

“I didn’t mean you.”

“I know…” you nodded with full sincerity. 

“You cut me too much slack.”

“No I don’t.” you sighed, “I just care about you enough to let the small things slide.”

“I care about you too,” he whispered. “I mean, I’m an idiot, I was so awful to you at the start.”

“You grew up though, grew out of it.” you pointed out.

“I grew up.” he smiled at you. A soft smile he’d only ever let you see. “I grew up and realised how awesome you were and how much I needed you in my life, even though I hate the Jaybird nickname and would rather you called me literally anything else. But it’s you, so it’s okay, because you’re perfect, and I had to do one last thing before I left, and I wouldn’t have killed myself later on if I didn’t just get up the courage to do it, I mean I’m leaving anyway so what’s there to lose.”

He stopped pacing, turning and walking straight towards you, kissing you before you had a chance to ask what his one last thing was. He kissed you softly and carefully, placing his hands on your back as yours slipped perfectly around his neck.

“Jace -” you pulled away for a second only to lean back in and continue kissing him. 

When you did finally pull away properly, he disappeared without a word. You were sad, but you understood and you didn’t blame him. He needed to find his mum, and if he stopped to talk to you, you’d end up giving his a reason to stay. So you let him go, assuming he’d come back to you eventually, once he’d done everything he had to.

The gun was pointing at Bruce, shaking slightly, but the bloodlust made it clear he wasn’t going to miss. He was about to pull the trigger when you came crashing through the door.”

“Jace!” you screamed,  it killed you so much to finally see him again. Seeing him like this. Broken and insane. He was in pain, and there wasn’t anything you could do to help him. “Come back to me, Jace!” you begged, weak and about to cry.

The gun dropped to the floor and he looked at you. He was panting, his entire body shaking, his eyes becoming clearer. He was angry, confused, and silent. He didn’t say anything, you didn’t move any closer. He left without a word. He left you. He left you again. Disappearing out of the window before you could say anything to make him stay.

[thelittleredheadedmusician]

Family Gatherings

This is pure self indulgent fluff. Also the Phone Fic that I keep bloging about. Can be found here on my ao3! Rating: PG (Mild language) Words: 5,112 Gen

Family gatherings are not words generally associated with the individuals who make up Gotham’s vigilantes. Strategy meetings, subterfuge, infighting, assassin, spy, creepy, know it all. These are terms they are well versed in. This is why the text message that Bruce sent out at 9 am on Saturday was such a surprise.

“I request that all of you come to the manor for a family gathering at 7. Alfred will be serving dinner promptly at 7:30. What the hell is that supposed to mean Tim?!” Dick could practically hear his little brother shrugging on the other end of the phone.

“I dunno. Maybe he wants to go over his will.”

“That’s not funny and you know it.”

“C'mon Dick! Like you have a better explanation?”

Dick sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “No. Do you think everyone will come?”

“I know Steph and Harper will out of pure curiosity. Everyone else,” Tim paused and took a deep breath, releasing the rest of his sentence on the exhale, “who knows.”

Dick nodded, not really caring that he couldn’t be seen as habit was habit. “Ok. Well Damian will be, Cass for sure, Babs is going to be there cause she hates being out of the loop, Jason…” Dick trailed off, looking down at his bare feet. He’d woken to find the text blinking at him from a half dead phone screen. Knowing that he’d have seen it already too Dick immediately called Tim and had been pacing around the apartment in his pajamas with the now nearly dead cell to his ear.

“Yeah,” Tim said empathically.

“Maybe he’ll come for Alfred?” Dick tried.

“You know him better than I do.”

“You’re right. And I don’t even know why he does half the things he does. I’ve gotta charge my phone. I’ll see you later?”

Tim snorted. “Of course you do. Alright, yeah. I’m meeting up with Tam soon anyway. Bye.”

“Bye,” Dick frowned at the phone. Now that the call with Tim had ended it had returned to the group chat Bruce had sent his text in. Not a single person had replied and Bruce likely didn’t expect them to. Just that they showed up. He stuck it on a charger in the living room and went to get a shower. After breakfast Dick collapsed onto the couch. Having wrapped up a case the night before he decided to reward himself with some video games.

Dick started up Call of Duty, grabbing a controller and his headset. He smiled as he saw that both Roy and Wally were currently online. He started a game with them and as soon as he slipped the headset on he could hear Roy swearing already. “What gives, it’s like 7 or something out there. How the hell are both of you awake and playing video games?” He asked once the cursing died down.

Wally snorted as his character took out a sniper on the screen. “Linda and the kids went to visit her parents. I’ve got the house to myself for the weekend and Bart and I have been playing all night. Kid passed out about 2 hours ago.”

Dick shook his head and tried to figure out how many energy drinks the speedster must’ve downed in order to still be awake. Especially taking into account his metabolism.

“How’d you get out of going with?” Roy tossed a grenade into the building on the screen, causing the whole thing to be temporarily covered in cgi flames.

“I’m the Flash. And her parents don’t know. Plus I’m on call for the League.”

“Then how was staying up all night a good idea if you were on call?” Dick punched a complicated series of buttons that Tim had shown him, taking out the three guys on the roof and the two on the ground.

“Clark’s on monitor duty. I’m just the back up. And nobody does anything in the middle of June. It’s like common knowledge.”

The other two made noncommittal sounds of agreement as they continued to play.

“Alright, Roy what’s your excuse?” Dick tried to reload as they were ambushed from above.

“Lian had a nightmare. I just got her back to sleep about a half hour ago and now I can’t sleep. Living on the West Coast has its perks when your gaming buddies don’t get up ‘til noon and live in Jersey.”

“I don’t know which part of that I should be more offended by. The fact you think I don’t get up ‘til noon or the way you said Jersey.”

“Jersey,” the others replied in unison.

Dick scoffed and pouted, not that it did any good as his friends were in Keystone and Star respectively.

“Alright, you’re chattier than usual. What gives?” Roy asked.

“What? What’s that supposed to mean?” Dick sputtered.

Wally paused the game and snorted. “Dude. You’re being nosy. Even for you. Plus you only ever play Call of Duty if stuck on a case or having personal drama. We’ve known you since you were in pixie boots, doesn’t take a detective to know your quirks by this point.”

Dick groaned and put the controller down, scrubbing his hands down his face. “Bruce texted us all this morning that he’s having a ‘family gathering’,” he knew they’d hear the implied air quotes in his tone, “and that we’re all expected to be there.”

“That’s rough,” Wally told him.

“Yeah man. D'you know why?” Roy added.

“No. And I don’t even know if everyone’s gonna bother showing up. He did it in a group chat but there still hasn’t been a response from anyone. I dunno. I honestly think I’d be less stressed if he’d said there was a mass break out at Arkham and we needed to meet for assignments.”

“Ok, that’s depressing. Also the fact that breakouts don’t even phase you anymore? Like? The hell?” Wally said, still obviously on an energy drink high.

“If we start an argument about rogues we’re gonna get so off topic and be here forever,” Dick shot back.

Grumbling could be heard from Wally but Dick was satisfied that his friend wouldn’t say anything.

“Lemme guess. You’re worried about Jason. You think cause Bruce asked you guys to come he’s not gonna bother,” Roy speculated.

“Pretty much,” Dick sighed. “Have you heard from him recently?”

“Sorry man. Last I heard he was running around with that new team of his. I think he’s still a little pissed I rejoined the Titans,” Roy replied.

“Yeah. Ok. Thanks.”

“Not a problem. Whine at us anytime, that’s what friends are for,” Dick could hear the smirk Roy was giving him.

“That and getting drunk at dive bars while listening to crappy cover bands together,” Wally chimed in.

Dick burst out laughing at that. “You can’t even get drunk!”

“So? Doesn’t mean I can’t go with!” Wally sounded wounded but Roy didn’t care about offending the other redhead and Dick knew his friend was about ready to crash and wasn’t going to remember much of this conversation anyway.

“Go to sleep West,” Roy got out between snorts.

“Seriously dude. Way too many red bulls.”

Wally grumbled and finally said, “Fine. Whatever. Text bout what happens,” before signing off.

“So do you think he’ll show?” Roy asked once he caught his breath.

“I honestly don’t know. As far as I’ve heard none of us have done anything to particularly piss him off recently. Not even Bruce. And it was a request, granted he’s going to just expect us all to be there but the text at least made it sound optional. And it said Alfred would be there which is always a plus for Jay.”

“Well good luck and keep me in the loop. I’m always willing to act as an outside opinion on your family’s drama,” Roy told him.

Dick chuckled. “That’s just because it makes your family drama look tame.”

“You bet! We made be loud and extremely dysfunctional but at least we haven’t tried to kill each other.”

“You make that sound like it happens a lot,” Dick whined.

“Dude.”

“Ok, ok. I’ll text you later.” Dick closed the game and pulled his headset off. Tossing it onto the coffee table he laid down on the couch. He was still unsure about what was going to happen later that night but he at least felt better knowing that he had friends who would let him vent afterward.

Dick swung his legs off the couch and stood in one fluid motion. He grabbed his phone, headphones, and keys and decided to go for a jog. It was a nice day, Gotham wasn’t too busy on a Saturday in the early afternoon, maybe he could have a normal jog for once. He returned to his apartment 20 minutes later after avoiding no less than six paparazzi, being cat called about ten times, and literally running into Helena. She had been out for a jog too and while he was trying to lose a particularly insistent cameraman they had both rounded the corner at the same time going in opposite directions. She had not been happy, yelling something about how he should watch where he’s going and “Dammit Grayson! That hurt!” As well as a mix of fairly creative curses in Italian.

Dick had offered to make it up to her but she just waved him off. Saying “You and Barbara are obviously both distracted. Bruce has got you ex sidekicks seriously messed up with these mind games. I’ll just send you Zinda and my next bar tab.” Dick had felt himself visibly pale at that and she had laughed and said not to worry before continuing on her way.

Dick was still pondering over her mention that Babs was distracted too. Obviously Bruce’s text was having some effect on her that Helena had mentioned it. Normally, the Birds were close knit and never talked about personal business with the rest of Gotham’s heroes. Especially not the personal business of Oracle their fearless leader.

Flopping back down on his couch Dick fished his phone out of his pocket. He tapped out a quick text to Babs and hit send, hopping something hadn’t suddenly sprung up that needed her attention. Luckily that wasn’t the case as her response was practically immediate.

~What’s up boy wonder? Helena said you ran into her and that you were super frazzled.

~I was wondering if you had heard anything about what Bruce wants us for tonight.

Her response to that took a bit longer and her words were obviously a bit more measured.

~No, I haven’t heard a thing. Why? Have you?

~No. I talked to Tim this morning and he says that he’s in the dark too. It’s obviously nothing serious but it’s been bugging me all day.

Her response to that was more relaxed. If he had to guess he’d say she had thought he knew something she didn’t, and Dick knew that she hated that.

~Me too! I can’t figure out what it is he could possibly want to talk about that we ALL need to be there. I mean, you boys and Cass yeah. Me, Steph, & Harper? Idk. Have you heard from Damian or Jason at all?

~No. I was going to head over in a bit to bug D though. Nothing on Jay.

~Yeah, same here. I kinda hope he comes at least for Alfred but…

~I was thinking the same thing Babs.

~Oh well. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. I’ll talk to ya later pixie boots.

~You’re one to talk miss go-go.

Her response was simply the eye roll emoji and Dick snorted as he slipped his phone back into his pocket. He let his head fall against the back of the couch and fell into a light doze. He woke from his brief nap and patted his shorts for his phone. There were no new messages from Babs, Bruce, Tim or anyone else. No missed calls or alien invasions either. The time told him he ought to get ready and head to the manor if he wanted to pump Damian for information. As well as just hang out with his youngest brother.

Once dressed in jeans and a clean t-shirt Dick headed to garage that occupied the basement of his apartment building. Shrugging on a leather jacket and fastening his helmet he gave the bike’s engine a good rev before driving up the ramp and onto the streets of Gotham.

Knowing that the cops would definitely try and stop Dick Grayson for speeding he made sure to restrain himself from weaving in and out of traffic, especially because Nightwing would be pushing the motorcycle through its paces soon enough. Sitting in Gotham wasn’t enjoyable but being able to fly up the manor’s long gravel drive sure made up for it. He pulled in next to Steph’s purple Mini Cooper, glad to see the Compact was holding up for her. He cut the engine and took his helmet off, giving his head a shake to undo any helmet hair.

Bounding up the steps he swung the over large front door open with a shout of “Hello? Anybody actually above ground?”

The sound of running feet could be heard coming from somewhere on the second floor as Dick put his jacket and helmet on the coat rack. He turned just as he heard a sharp “-tt-” coming from the balcony at the top of the steps. Damian stood there with his arms crossed and eyebrows furrowed, the twitch of his lips betrayed his annoyed facade. “Must you be so abhorrently loud, Grayson?”

“Must you be using SAT vocab at such a young age?” Dick shot back with a grin.

Damian rolled his eyes but his arms fell to his sides and his mouth finally turned up into a smile. “Brown and Row have coerced Cassandra into assisting in appropriating my room, the extra person on my side would be helpful.”

Dick chuckled, “Whatever you say Dami.” He ran up the stairs and followed Damian down the hall to his room. Sure enough the three girls were spread over the plush carpeting, nail polish bottles and other manicure supplies between them.

Damian crossed the room and sat himself on his bed next to Titus and Alfred the cat. The three watched the teen girls from their perch, Damian with minor annoyance, Titus with amusement, and Alfred with the type of utter nonchalance only achieved by felines. The girls glanced up at Dick who had paused in the doorway. Cass’s face immediately lit up and she fluidly rose to her feet and came over to wrap her arms around his neck. Dick returned the hug as she whispered a warm “Hi” in his ear.

“Hey Cass,” he murmured back. She let go and skipped back to the others. Harper gave him a small, two-fingered salute while Steph waved with a large smile. “How long have you been here?”

“Too long,” Damian instantly grumbled.

Harper snorted and Steph nearly doubled over in a fit of giggles. Cass quirked an eyebrow at her little brother before calmly sticking her tongue out at him. “We came for brunch with Cass as we had originally planned and just stayed since we all received the super mysterious text,” Steph told him once she had recovered from her laughter, which had doubled thanks to Cass’s antics.

Dick nodded in response and sat himself down on the floor next to them. Damian gave a short “-tt- Traitor.” He did however edge closer to the end of the bed where he could participate in their conversation.

Dick picked up a bottle of forest green polish and examined it. Cass held out her left hand to him, the fingers of which had been painted, to show him the color. He nodded and gestured that she let him do her other hand. Cass turned to face him as Dick shook the bottle. “So have you guys heard anything about tonight?”

“I wish,” Harper said with a slight huff. “He just kinda grumbled and bolted when we asked.”

“Seriously. We were having our lovely quasi weekly brunch and chatting with Alfred and chasing away this gremlin,” she waved her bright yellow nails at Damian who furrowed his brows indignantly. “All of a sudden, Mr I-am-the-night-and-cannot-properly-socialize-without-being-forced-by-my-over-energetic-ex-sidekick-or-alien-and-amazon-besties walks in-”

Dick nearly choked as a laugh burst out of his mouth, interrupting Steph.

“Can I help you?” She deadpanned with a raised brow.

“I’m good. Just, that’s a new one. Keep going.”

Steph sniffed and flipped her long blonde hair over her shoulder. “As I was saying. Bruce walks in and kinda blinks at all of us sitting in his kitchen. Using his surprise to our advantage Harper courageously seized the moment and asked him what exactly this family gathering will entail tonight. He froze, looking exactly like a cat-sized crime alley rat in the batmobile’s headlights, while Cass jumped up to block his exit. I immediately jumped to add my assistance by asking if this means that Harper, Duke, and myself are technically family too at this point. He just blinked, grabbed a muffin, said something highly unintelligible, and beat a hasty retreat.” Steph gave a sharp nod before turning back to her nails.

Dick had to stop doing Cass’s nails as he was trying too hard on not laughing to keep his hand steady. She swatted at him before rolling her eyes and turning to Damian. “Come,” she said, handing him the nail polish. Damian blinked but skootched to the floor next to Cass and diligently began painting her nails.

Dick wiped at his eyes, trying to remember why he had been so against Steph being Batgirl when the two so easily amused each other. “So we’ve got nothing?” he finally asked.

“Nope,” Cass said, admiring Damian’s handiwork.

Harper tossed a bottle of matte black at the youngest Robin and waved her hand toward Dick. Damian blinked but began shaking the bottle and moved to sit in front of Dick. With a shrug he gave his little brother his hand to be painted. “We tracked down Duke then and asked him what he knew. Nada. Honestly we were kinda hoping you’d bring some info with you,” Harper added.

“I’ve got nothing,” he told them with a shrug. “Neither do Tim or Babs.”

“Have you tried contacting Todd?” Damian looked up from Dick’s hand.

“No. He threatened to have baby ducks imprint on me if I called him again.” Damian nodded sagely at that.

“I’m sorry, what?” Harper’s head and eyebrows had shot up.

“He’s been doing that lately. Something about how ‘we all have a death wish but we’ll take care of cute baby animals’ or something,” Steph said, using a poor imitation of Jason’s voice as she acted out his threat.

“You’re kidding?” Harper obviously didn’t believe them.

Cass just shook her head gravely. “No. And baby ducks? No patrol for months.”

“Plus they’re so darn cute like how could you not want to love them?” Steph said in a rush.

“Brown is correct. Also, it is entirely within Todd’s skill set to get them to imprint on one of us.” Damian looked at Harper seriously before turning back to apply another coat to Dick’s nails.

Harper blinked at them before narrowing her eyes, “If you guys are shitting me right now I swear…”

“Scouts honor!” Dick called and held up the three-finger salute.

Damian batted at his hand. “I swear Grayson if I have to redo this,” he grumbled.

“C’mere,” Steph tugged on Damian’s arm and held up a dark shimmering blue. He nodded and allowed her to begin painting.

“So do we have any ideas at least? I know you guys aren’t the type to just let something go,” Dick watched the others.

Cass shot him a smirk. “Understatement.”

There was a knock on the door frame and they all looked up to see Tim and a rather unsure looking Duke standing there. “Alfred told us that you were all up here. Mind if we come in?”

Damian sniffed, “It’s not like my opinion matters at this point.”

“I’m going to take that as a yes…” Tim walked in and took a seat next to Steph.

She squinted at him before leaning forward to search through the pile of small glass bottles. She found whatever one she was looking for and held it up triumphantly. “Maroon?” She asked Tim, waving it just in front of his nose. Tim shrugged and let her pull his hands towards him.

Duke sat down cautiously next to Dick. “So do they always do your nails or…?”

Dick smiled at him. “We don’t really get a say in the matter. Cass just paints them when you fall asleep if you say no.” The girl in question waggled her brows and grinned.

“What about Bruce’s?” Duke asked as he watched Harper shifting through the pile, holding colors up for Cass to consider.

“Ballet Slipper. Once a month,” Cass showed Duke the light pink color. His eyes widened in disbelief and Dick couldn’t help but laugh. Finally, Harper held up a pale orange that both Cass and Dick nodded at. She crawled towards Duke and pulled his hands onto her lap.

“So ideas regarding our impending doom?” Dick asked.

“Like I told you before, I think it’s a reading of his will. He even texted Kate and with the exception of Damian she’s his only living blood relative,” Tim said, peering over the top of Steph’s head.

“Damn Timbo. Way to be morbid. Also, why would I be here if that were the case seeing a how I am legally deceased.” They all whipped their heads to see Jason leaning in the doorway, a smirk on his lips and a nasty glint in his eye. He sauntered in and plopped himself down between Steph and Cass. “Give me the most obnoxious color you have,” he challenged.

“How bout this?” Harper wiggled her own bright metallic pink at him.

Jason scrunched up his nose with a “nah.”

Dick rummaged around in the pile before pulling out a glitter gold. He threw it to Jason who caught it and beamed. “Why thank you Dickie-bird.”

“So, uh, why did you come then?” Duke asked.

Jason shrugged and began to paint his own nails. “You know what they say. Curiosity killed the cat.”

“But satisfaction brought it back,” Duke finished the expression.

Jason gave the other boy a Cheshire smile. “I knew I liked you.” He then continued to add layers of glitter. They all just stared in shock for a few seconds. Jason looked up and his eyes skipped past them as he smiled. “Hey there Barbie. This Batgirl is free for manicure giving,” he said pointing to Cass.

Dick turned to see Babs just outside the door. Her expression was amused but the set of her mouth was definitely her trying to look annoyed. With an eye roll she wheeled herself into the room. “I thought we were supposed to be here for seven. Why is it that we all managed to get here just under three hours earlier?”

Dick pushed himself back up onto the bed so that he would be eye level with Barbara as the others offered up a jumble of explanations. “Paranoia” “Fear of the unknown” “Intrigue” and “Who the hell knows” were the few Dick could make out.

He mumbled “Slow day at the office” and caused Babs to crack up.

“That it is,” she told him with a smile. Cass held up a dark purple that Babs nodded at and before she could get up Dick grabbed the bottle. He turned to Babs and motioned for her hand. They spent the rest of the time leading up to the big meeting sitting in a circle in Damian’s room with painted nails and the animals now nudging for attention.

That was exactly how Bruce and Kate found them when they went looking for them. Dick had seen them coming up the hall and gave a quick jut of his chin to acknowledge them. They had stopped short of coming in though, Kate wearing a huge smile and Bruce his more subdued but still genuine lip twitch.

They stood there for a few seconds, watching as Steph and Jason fell against each other in a fit of giggles. Cass had taken the tiny hair rubber bands and was using them to give Damian braids. Duke and Tim were engaged in a detailed discussion of Lord of the Rings and Harper was letting Babs style her short blue hair. All in all they looked like an average, happy family.

Bruce cleared his throat and they all turned to see him and Kate. Cass leapt to her feet and hopped over the legs of everyone else to go give Bruce a hug. Dick couldn’t help but smile because the hug was obviously more forceful than the one she had given him. Or Bruce hadn’t been expecting it as he had swayed slightly when she had jumped up to wrap her arms around his neck. Kate laughed and ruffled Cass’s hair.

Once Cass released him Bruce attempted to recover by smoothing out the wrinkles in his polo shirt. Dick and the others simply waited, knowing that he would speak when ready. He looked up and gave another small smile. “Thank you all for coming. Kate has… explained to me that having monthly gatherings might help you all with your stress levels and, ah, work on interpersonal relations.”

Kate rolled her eyes and give him a sharp jab in the side courtesy of her elbow. Bruce shot her a wounded look that Dick had to try very hard not to laugh at but his cousin ignored it. “What the stick in the mud is trying to say is that we’re having a game night because you all need a morale boost. Now c’mon, Alfred’s got dinner ready.”

With that Kate turned on her heel and marched back down the hall. Bruce gave a sharp nod before following her in a hasty retreat. They all looked around at each other in a stunned silence. Dick pinched himself for good measure, this wouldn’t be the weirdest dream he’d ever had but it was still good to rule out the possibility.

“What the actual, ever-loving fuck?” Jason finally said.

“What he said,” Harper pointed at Jason, eyes wide.

“Grayson, you have the most experience with Father and his moods. What could this be about?” Damian looked up at him from the carpet.

Dick shrugged and shook his head. “I’m honestly as lost as you are. Maybe we should go eat and, I don’t know, enjoy it?”

They all looked much too suspicious to actually enjoy anything but Dick dutifully herded them towards the dining room. Tim hung back until he had fallen in step with Dick. “You don’t actually think he wants us to play monopoly with him or something?” The younger man asked.

“I really don’t know Tim. Kate’s been getting him to actually be Bruce rather than Brucie or Batman lately and this is obviously all her.”

Tim snorted, “Ya think?”

Dick ruffled Tim’s hair and gained a rather interesting hand flail and cat like yowling combination in protest. Finger combing his hair back into position Tim sent him a glare. “I think we should trust Kate on this one and see what happens. Also, you either need a haircut or one of those ponytails Cass had.”

Tim’s glare turned up to full on bat and had Dick not known the kid, or been just about anyone else, he probably would’ve run in fear. As it was he could handle a few dirty looks from Tim.

Dinner was delicious, as everything Alfred made was. The conversation was semi-normal too. Steph complaining about classes, Harper talking about her work at the clinic, Dick told them about his run in with Helena that Babs then added the other half of the story to. No one made a single death threat, no food or utensils were thrown, and all insults were good natured teasing. For a second Dick thought he fell into a parallel world.

That feeling only got worse as Alfred chased them to the living room while he cleaned up. Jason stayed to help and the butler begrudgingly let him. The two joined the others soon enough and they began an intense game of Cards Against Humanity. Alfred and Babs soon took the lead, surprising everyone except maybe Alfred himself.

Bruce came in dead last, only earning that position by having a single less card than Damian. Steph and Jason tied for second and in a surprise twist Cass won. Kate was still cackling at some of the combinations that had won and Babs was telling her she could send the security footage to her later. They played well into the night and Barbara contacted the Birds to patrol as Bruce indicated that the assembled vigilantes were not leaving anytime soon. By the wee hours of the morning they had all stumbled upstairs to their respective bedrooms with the exception of Kate, Bruce, Alfred, and Dick himself.

He had stretched out on the floor watching as Kate slowly took over the sofa and Bruce was forced to go claim his recliner. Alfred chuckled from the love seat, a late-night cup of tea in hand.

“So how do you think it went, chum?” Bruce asked him once he had settled.

Dick shrugged, feeling his shoulders push against the carpet. “You had us all really worried. Tim was convinced that you were going to read us your will.”

Bruce snorted, Kate cracked up and sat up to be able to look down at Dick. “You’re kidding,” she accused.

Dick smirked, “I wish.”

They all laughed and once it had died down Alfred said, “Well you do have a tendency to have the whole family over only in the case of emergencies, Master Bruce.”

That received a small “Hnnh.”

“He’s right. I was telling Roy and Wally that I would’ve been less worried if it had been an Arkham breakout.”

Bruce shot him a wounded look before frowning at a point just above the fireplace. “I want to try and change that,” he finally said.

“If it helps I think this was a really good start. Monthly family game nights definitely are a thing normal people do. And I had fun, I think the others did too. Even Jason,” Dick told him candidly. Bruce nodded, a small smile forming. “Just next time don’t call it a family gathering. You scared the crap out of all of us.”

[redrobin-detective]

Awesome jeesh, my heart Dick... how about some Bruce headcanons on realizing/reflecting on the ways he's been a crappy dad to all his kids and the ways they act distant/resigned/distrustful towards his behaviour? Bonus on his opinions on the effect Dick has onot the family when he'said in the patriarch role vs Bruce? Extra bonus on headcanons on how Bruce would try to fix things for each kid down the road.

Like okay, I love Bruce for being a very interesting complex character. I absolutely love and hate him at the same time for being so incredibly flawed and messing up with his kids all the fucking time. It’s terrible because damn Bruce, get it together but also I like having protagonists that are far from perfect and make mistakes that have me screaming because it feels real and interesting.

So the thing about Bruce is, he knows he’s an emotional fuck-up. He knew it before he took in any kids and he knew it after he had like 15 kids in his house. But B’s problem is that he loves so intensely and so strongly that he hates to see suffering. If he didn’t love the hell out of Gotham, he wouldn’t be doing what he does at Batman. So he certainly loves the hell out of his kids but he’s terrible at expressing it and in his attempt to avoid his bursting emotions, he makes things far worse both him and his kids.

The case with Dick, Bruce had no idea what the fuck he was doing. He’s in his early 20’s, no older than 25. He’s emotionally messed up, he’s been a vigilante in a goddamn batsuit for 1-3 years now, he knows if he doesn’t shape up he could go down a dark path. So he sees this tiny circus orphan and he sees the similarities between himself and he cannot let that go into social services. He wants to do everything in his power to help that boy but… he doesn’t know how. Luckily Dick is beautiful and made of sunshine and helps Bruce along. He’s patient and open and loving and puts up with B’s emotional constipation. He heals Bruce, makes him better (which is why he’s always been and always will be Bruce’s favorite, sorry but it’s true). But over time even Dick’s legendary patience wears thin and he demands more of Bruce: more love, more respect, more independence. And Bruce still can’t get over the fact that his smol bb is all grown and refuses to help Dick grow causing his first bird to angrily fly the nest. Once Dick is full grown as Nightwing, Bruce develops a respect for Dick as an adult and a fighter. But there’s still tension but he makes a greater effort to get along with Dick because he loves that kid so fucking much.

I’ve always said, terrible as it is, that Jason was chosen so quickly after Dick left bc Bruce missed the hell out of Dick. He missed his partner and his son, so when he sees a sassy kid stealing tired with maybe a passing resemblance to Dick, Bruce thought with his heart and took him in. Now it doesn’t take long before Bruce also is in so effing deep with Jason and would do anything for him. Jay is damaged, like him, so he thinks because fighting crime helped Bruce recover (lol u wild Broose) it will help jay. Really, really bad mistake. It made things worse with Jay and, coupled with Bruce’s normal emotional incompetence, led to Jason searching for his mom and getting himself killed. Bruce was… beyond devastated. His parents’ death nearly broke him but to lose a son… that’s a special kind of agony. Bruce closes in on himself, he’d opened himself to love and been burned so he decides never again. He basically cuts off all contact with Dick and immerses himself in his mission and his misery.

 Then comes along good ole Timmy who is able to smack some sense into Bruce. He helps repair the relationship between him and Dick and gives bruce back some of his hope. But B is still angry and depressed and he makes it clear that Tim is a soldier, a partner, but never a son. Which is absolutely hilarious considering like 5 issues later Bruce is making heart eyes at Tim and nagging him to be careful and junk. So, like the others, Bruce falls hard for Tim but ignores it and absolutely will not allow himself to show affection for Tim. So on one hand, Tim and Bruce have the most stable partnership bc Tim is the compliant Robin who doesn’t demand anything from Bruce. on the other, it’s incredibly bad for both their emotional/mental health (Tim is a sad bean who needs love but can’t/won’t ask and Bruce isn’t allowing his Jason wounds to heal). But over time, Tim grows more confident and Bruce moves on little by little and things are better. BUT! B’s still a shit and he won’t let another kid die so he puts Tim through some brutal, emotional training to “make Tim better”. This shows that while Bruce does loves Tim like a son, he refuses to treat Tim as one putting Tim’s skill/safety above his mental/emotional health. We see this again and again, Tim is always the one who suffers because Bruce will shield Dick and Jay but Tim is tough and can ‘handle it’. News Flash, he can’t and you’re a dick.

Quickly on Cassie cause my fingers are hurting again. Bruce took in Cassandra, like Tim, only as a partner. She was insanely talented and he wanted her in his war on crime. But also, like with Jay, he’s thinking that punching criminals in the face will heal her like it did him (again, fucking wild man). He makes several comments like “she’s just like me, this is what she needs”. He honestly believes he’s doing right by her. But as they develop it gets complicated, Cass is trying to find life outside of fighting and Bruce is resistant at first. He wants her to be happy here, he doesn’t want her to grow beyond that. He’s also horrified to learn that Cass has killed before, not even caring she was forced to and was only like 6 at the time. He treated her like a weapon just like Cain did for awhile, it’s obvious to everyone else (including the readers) but not Cass. Babs slaps bruce around and he realizes his error. Cass is not him, she wants more from life than to be a fighter and while she may have killed, it was not her fault. From then on he tries to be better for her, not just as a teacher, but almost a father. He buys her presents, hugs her, lets her get an apartment in the city so she can really live. It’s still awkward cause it’s clear Bruce identifies so much with her and places a lot of what HE thinks SHE should do/feel onto her. Only after a bit does he begin to allow her to grow herself. 

Now Damian comes along and it’s just kind of a disaster for awhile. For one, Damian’s a shit. Two, Bruce has become complacent because self-sacrificing Tim puts up with a lot of bullshit and is super compliant as Robin (Hint: Dami is not like that). When Damian doesn’t fall into line as expected, Bruce basically doesn’t want anything to do with the kid which is terrible. No Damian isn’t easy but he’s your fucking kid and he’s been brainwashed for 10 years?? Damian goes back between the LoA and the Manor until whoops B dies. Then god BLESS Dick Grayson for stepping up to the bat for Dami when literally no one else would. And lo and behold, Dick helps him become a better person/Robin. Now Bruce is back and is all 'Hey look, that kid is slightly more tolerable now, I think I’ll try and bond now’ which is annoying as shit but Damian relishes having his dad back. Luckily, Bruce has learned about kids a teeny bit so he actually does some good work with Damian and, again, he loves the fuck out of that kid. He continues to fuck up but, like Tim, he has low expectations of Bruce being available to him but, also like Jason, he really, really needed Bruce’s love. Luckily, B is working to be that dad for Damian so he can learn after all

[obsessedauthorchan-blog]

Shakespearean - Chapter 10 - Wally

AO3 | Wattpad | FanFiction

Chapter Summary:

What happens after dinner.

Alternatively, the before-they-share-a-bed-awkwardly part of the story where tension is resolved so they don't have to share the bed awkwardly (unfortunately. maybe I'll write that another time.).

Notes:

Okay, everybody, I know it has been a forever and a half since I posted last (it hasn’t actually been a whole month yet, but I definitely wasn’t counting at all). I am super sorry about that. I had a really rough month, and it actually had nothing to do with the holidays or anything. I had a lot going on, as usual, but I also had some crazy mental stuff going on, including realizing that I actually am depressed (I’ve been in denial for a while) and mentally debating about whether or not I should come out to anybody as bisexual. Depression’s a bitch, and being a gay Christian can be super hard guys. Especially in the Bible Belt, not gunna lie. Anywho, with a new year comes new motivation, and feeling accomplished makes me feel happy, so here’s the latest update for you guys! Remember, every fifth chapter is from a perspective other than Jay’s, and this one is from Wally’s! I hope you guys like this one, because, as I remember, writing Wally’s perspective was a lot of fun for me. Enjoy, frands! (And thanks for putting up with my impromptu and un-forewarned hiatus!)

Story:

Wally West was satisfied.

He was almost always satisfied when it was Alfred doing the cooking. That man knew what he was doing in the kitchen. He was a food ninja just as much as he was a regular ninja. It was one of the reasons why Wally loved coming over to Dick's house for dinner.

The main reason, though, was Dick, himself.

Dick was so awesome. He was so funny and super smart. He was proud and he was a little shit sometimes, but Wally liked that about him, too. Dick had a genuine desire to help people, too, as shown by his desire to be a social worker. Criminal Justice is a difficult field in itself, but social justice was a particularly difficult and financially unrewarding career. Wally was actually really glad that Dick had elected to put off starting his career until he had gotten his master’s degree. It gave him more time to be free and enjoy his youth before the hard life of a social worker sucked all the energy and joy out of him.

Not to say that Wally didn't think that it was a needed job or a fulfilling career. Between being such good friends with Dick and Roy and knowing people like Bruce Wayne, it would be hard for Wally not to have a certain understanding for how hard the world could be for people without good parents, or any parents, and he had a definite appreciation for the people who sacrificed their time to help the kids who suffered at the hands of the cruel world they all lived in.

But that didn't mean he didn't wish Dick had picked something... happier.

Once everyone had finished dinner, they all dispersed. Jason had collected his stuff and left for the night, Tim driving him home, Damian had been sent to his room since he still wasn't behaving, Conner and Cassandra (the cutest couple ever, in Wally's opinion) were chilling like they usually do, Clark had gone home to get ready for more classes tomorrow, and Babs was getting advice from Bruce about the case she was working on. Meanwhile, Wally and Dick had headed up to Dick's room.

"You staying over, Walls?" Wally knew Dick well enough to know that he wanted him to stay.

"Of course. As if I could pass up on the cinnamon rolls Alfred is almost certainly making for breakfast tomorrow."

Dick chuckled, shaking his head at Wally's undying love for food. They got to Dick's room and went inside, making Dick remember something. "Shoot, Walls. Damian was being a little turd and broke the roll-away bed you usually stay on. We haven't had time to get a new one to replace it." He surveyed the room, taking in the modest desk, queen size bed, and the comfortable chair in the corner. Dick was only living with Bruce until he finished his master’s degree, then he fully intended to get his own apartment. He didn't like depending on Bruce for anything, something that Wally could sort of understand but didn't really approve of. "I'll just sleep on the floor tonight," Dick decided, his internal martyr complex making its regular appearance.

Wally rolled his eyes. "You are not sleeping on the floor in your own home, Richie Rich. I'll sleep on the floor."

Dick crossed his arms stubbornly. "No way. You're a guest."

"Oh please, Dick. I practically live here at this point. I know your mansion better than I know my own apartment."

They both stared determinedly at each other for a good thirty seconds before Dick relented, sighing. "Fine, but you still aren't sleeping on the floor. Neither of us will."

"Then I'll take the chair."

"Nobody is taking the chair, Walls." Dick shifted his weight on his feet. "It's a queen size bed. If you're going to be too stubborn to let me be a good host, then we can share it. We're both skinny enough to make it work."

Wally tried not to let his nervousness show. Wally West sharing a bed with the Dick Grayson, arguably one of the most attractive and most eligible bachelors in all of Gotham City, was not the best idea. Mostly because Wally was hella gay and he'd had a huge crush on Dick pretty much since they'd met.

Still, what was he going to say? 'Nah, Dick, I think I'll just go home instead. I'm too straight to share a bed with my best friend for one night.' Because that doesn't just scream closeted gay.

And the cinnamon rolls, though. Those are important. Those are worth it.

"Okay, Dickie. You're the boss." He gulped noisily, hoping Dick didn't notice.

The two of them went about their nightly routines, brushing their teeth and changing into sleepwear. Wally would have been happy that they had sleepwear at all, except that Dick's was only pajama pants. He slept shirtless, all that glorious, lean muscle on display for Wally to drool over and dream about.

Wally hated his life.

They didn't go to bed right away, because they never do. They stayed up for a figurative forever, actually, talking, playing games on their phones, helping each other with the subjects that they were having a hard time with, etc. Dick had a bachelors in Criminal Justice, but his masters was in Social Work. That wasn't really one of Wally's strong suits, but he was good at the science part of it. He himself was working on a master’s degree in Chemistry, so he was pretty useful.

At one point, Cassandra came in to say goodnight. Wally had been working on his sign language for years, but languages in general didn't really come easy to him. At all. Even still, his consistent practice – and help from Dick and Cassandra – was paying off because he was able to have a pretty decent conversation with Cassandra. She wasn't deaf, so she could understand perfectly fine if he spoke aloud, but she loved it when someone took the time to communicate with her in her own language.

When the two of them finished up their conversation with Cassandra and she left for her own room _ without Conner, to the relief of both boys (they were understandably protective, even with someone as trustworthy as Conner) – Wally had gone back to his textbook, wanting to get some last bit of studying in before they inevitably went to bed for the night.

Before Cassandra came in, Dick had been watching a documentary on social work for one of his classes. When Wally realized that he hadn't played it again he looked up, eyebrows wrinkled in confusion. Upon doing so, he saw Dick looking at him with an unreadable expression. It was actually just a bit unnerving for Wally, who had long ago learned to read pretty much every emotion and thought Dick had. It was a by-product of being best friends since childhood, and the thought that Wally was losing his touch worried him.

"Dick, you okay?" Wally wasn't sure he would get an answer, and he wasn't sure he really wanted one either, but after a few seconds' hesitation, Dick responded.

"You've put an awful lot of effort into learning sign language, Walls."

Wally was no less confused than before. What did that have to do with anything?

Oh god. Please, please, please don't mean that Dick thought Wally had a thing for Cassandra. Please.

"She's your sister, Dick. Might as well be mine, too, so it just makes sense to try, right?" Wally really hoped that explanation covered it, because this was getting a little weird and a lot awkward.

"Really? That's why?" Dick didn't look as though he disbelieved him, but he didn't exactly seem to think that was the whole story either.

"Yeah," Wally said slowly. "Why else would I do it?"

Dick shrugged. "I don't know. It could just be that you're really nice. I wouldn't exactly put it past you to learn a language for pretty much anyone, honestly."

Wally squinted his eyes, his confusion growing. "Okay? So what's the problem?"

Shaking his head, Dick turned his chair back to facing his desk and looked back to his computer screen. "No problem. Not a one. Nope." He popped the 'p', telling Wally that he was most definitely, without a doubt, hiding something.

Rolling his eyes, Wally put down his text book and marched over to stand in behind Dick. "No. We are not doing this." He grabbed Dick's chair and spun it around to face him, placing a hand on the back of it by Dick's shoulder and leaning down to put his face in Dick's personal space. "If you don't tell me what's up then it's going to bother me for a small eternity. So what's bothering you?"

Dick kept his mouth shut and shook his head, refusing to say a word. Wally sighed and resorted to his last measure. The puppy dog face.

Eyes wide and innocent, lips turned down in a small, pouty frown, and overall expression looking downcast and dejected, Wally knew Dick would never be able to resist. Sure enough, after only seconds of eye contact, Dick caved, spewing everything out at once. "You're just a really nice guy, Walls, and it's so sweet that you've put so much effort into learning sign language for Cassandra even though she understands you when you talk and literally nobody minds translating what she says for you, and you're always doing nice things like that, Walls, that's just who you are. You're such a great guy and I love it, that's why I love you, and I just- oh shit," Dick shrank back from Wally, refusing to look him in the eye, apparently displeased with what he'd said.

Wally couldn't imagine why Dick would be upset about what he said. Wally thought it was beautiful. Still, if Dick was going to shy away from Wally, how was he going to kiss him? He raised his free hand and poked Dick's cheek. "Hey, Dickie?"

Dick shook his head, eyes downcast and expression regretful. That just wouldn't do. Wally moved his hand down to Dick's chin, gently coaxing him to turn his head and look at him. When he had finally managed to get Dick to meet his eyes, he smiled. "What was this I heard about you loving me?" Wally asked playfully.

Dick groaned and looked away again. "I didn't mean it like that, Walls. No homo, right? I just meant kind of like a brotherly love. Like family, you know?"

Wally snorted, refusing to let his doubt and insecurity win. "Liar," he said, and then he kissed him.

Dick was unresponsive at first, but Wally was patient, for once in his life. This one thing he wouldn't rush, because if he was wrong, if he had somehow gotten all the signs wrong or misinterpreted them out of wishful thinking, then he wanted to make the best out of this kiss. Just as Dick finally let himself loosen up and enjoy it, Wally pulled away. When Dick tried to follow his lips, Wally smiled triumphantly. "Right, but you don't love me or anything. We're like brothers. No homo at all."

Dick sighed in exasperation, leaning his forehead against Wally's. "Shut up, you sarcastic asshole." Wally decided to comply, but only because Dick kissed him again.

Somehow, Wally thought, as he straddled Dick's hips and ran his hands all over those glorious muscles, he really didn't think sharing that bed tonight was going to be that big of a deal.

(He was right. It was actually totally awesome. Dick was a fantastic kisser.)

Notes:

So what did you think? Worth the wait? A horrible disappointment? Not a fan of BirdFlash (not that I would take it out anyway, but still a nice poll to throw out there)? Thank you so much for keeping with my story and for reading it and (I hope) liking it! I’m a huge fan of comments and they always pick me up after a rough day, so don’t feel shy! I will love every word and letter! Have a lovely week, guys! Until next Tuesday, -author-chan

AO3 | Wattpad | FanFiction

[bigskydreaming]

IGN’s recent Bat-focused article (Batman: What Does Red Hood Need to Do to Get A Good Story?) praises fanfic writers and also is an amazing critique of how stagnant Jason has become under recent DC management and I’m so surprised at how good it is and how well thought out the solutions were

Hmmm. I just looked it up and I mean, I’m not trying to start anything but I both agree and disagree? Like, it makes some points for sure, I mean, its not like its saying things that I haven’t said a thousand times about Dick, like.....these characters need to be allowed access to a full range of emotions, both good and bad, in order to be fully fleshed out, so I mean yes on that premise alone I absolutely agree this is as true for Jason as it is for Dick or anyone else.

Tbh my only real criticism of the piece is it thinks Jason exists in a particular predicament the other characters aren’t in as well. And that I just don’t agree with, like they kinda lost me a bit with their first paragraph:

His complexities and moral ambiguity make him a compelling and distinct character among his more strait-laced Robin-brothers. Sadly, the character has seen little growth since his rage-filled reintroduction into comics. The ‘former Robin becomes a villain’ idea was enough for DC to coast on for a while but since rejoining the heroes, Red Hood has done little else.

First off, this may just be me being pedantic but I’m ALWAYS going to go fetch a grain of salt before continuing reading anything that pits Jason against his brothers in a war of his moral ambiguity against their strait-lacedness. Because to me, that’s just a fundamentally shallow view of the Batfam that caters to the idea that they each must have their own distinct niche in order to be fully viable individual characters, when a) no, and b) they don’t fit neatly into the niches people keep trying to slot them into and it never ends well for anybody. 

Like Jason is morally ambiguous in a lot of ways too, yes, but umm, even if we assume that the writer is only speaking of Dick, Tim and Damian, we’re talking a guy who beat the Joker to death with his bare hands and has ten assassins and mercenaries on his speed dial and who co-led the Outsiders, a guy who was deeply immersed in weighing the pros and cons of getting revenge for his father by getting Captain Boomerang killed and is forever being DMed by Ra’s because he’s convinced he can get Tim to say He Has Some Points Actually, and the kid who was an assassin with a body count by age ten and who has struggled constantly ever since his debut to define his OWN personal view of morality that is not wholly predicated on what he was taught by any single individual.

And this is a big part of where I part ways with the article, because I think it falls into the same trap that a lot of people do by believing fanfic is inherently better by doing the same thing from just a different angle. Fanfic CAN be better than the canon, I absolutely believe that, I believe it is at times, but to do so, it has to like, BE BETTER. It has to do things differently, and not just paint a slightly different veneer over the same things. Like, pedantic though it might be, I outlined the above issue because its a mode of thinking the canon absolutely falls into again and again, and just like the writer of that article themselves, like....I think fandom as a whole is no different? 

Like, yes there are great stories about Jason out there, some writers have done great and interesting things with him, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a huge trend in fandom of doing the exact same thing I see here.....which is honestly a huge part of the exact same problem the article is decrying canon for......LIMITING Jason (and all the Batfam) by reducing them and their stories to finite niches as a way of spotlighting them as different from their siblings.....except they’re not that different! And that’s okay! They don’t have to be! Families can have lots in common, families DO have lots in common due to like.....shared variables during their formative years. 

I mean Jason was heavily influenced by environmental factors in how and where he grew up before he ever met Batman, but like the article goes into itself, he was no less influenced by Bruce himself as his father figure.....which is something he absolutely has in common with his siblings, thus its not hard at all to see how his siblings could have similar complexities and moral struggles that stem from trying to reconcile Bruce’s influence with the many other things and people that have influenced their childhoods.

And similarly, while the article is dead-on about Jason’s stagnancy....this is something that applies in equal measure to the rest of his family, because they’re all facing the same issues in terms of how DC views and utilizes them, and fandom as much as it likes to condemn DC for doing just that....frequently does the same thing. Like, Jason’s stuck in canon, absolutely......but Dick keeps being popped out into his own microcosm to experience a couple years of stories that essentially turn him into completely different characters isolated from every communal part of his character’s history, and then ERASE everything that’s happened at the end of each of these stories and reset him to square one.....and that’s just a different kind of stagnancy that again, still never allows for actual character progression or development. Tim has LITERALLY been regressed back to Robin, like a hard reset that’s its own kind of stagnancy and Damian has had years of character development upended just to kick him back to where he started, effectively strip away all the connections he’s developed at least in any meaningful way, etc.....and the same holds true for Babs and Cass and Steph and even Bruce himself IMO, in a lot of ways.

Its absolutely a problem, but its a problem that extends far beyond just Jason even if he is a great example of it. And its also a problem that extends into fic itself, and that’s why I don’t agree with a lot of the conclusions that article draws beyond just the fundamental “these characters need to be allowed access to a full range of emotions.”

Yes. That. That right there, THAT I think is crucial, but I think that writer needed to widen the scope a little to take in the full impact of what that actually MEANS for the characters....so as to not accidentally repeat the same problem they’re being critical of by essentially arguing for a full range of emotions for Jason....while still defining or viewing Jason through a finite lens of “the more morally ambiguous Bat character, at least as compared to his brothers.”

Because its that last part that’s so detrimental, because it seems like such a little thing at first, until you realize that essentially its just putting a ceiling, a cap on how far those full ranges of emotions can be expressed. Like the problem with Dick Grayson in canon and fanon is NOT that he can’t be written with a full range of emotions.....its that his character absolutely can encompass a wide range of opinions and viewpoints and emotional stances from “I don’t believe in killing as a first option” to “I absolutely can, will, and have beaten a damn clown to death for joking about murdering my brother”.....and he can still walk away as Dick Grayson after expressing both those things, because his character is big enough to include them both. HE’S not limited as a character, its canon writers and fandom writers that both heap artificial limitations of their OWN on him, say that his character is so defined in such a specific way that there’s no way for the latter expression of his character to actually be IN character.....and the fatal flaw here is fully fleshed out characters are never just one thing. They don’t fit in niches anymore than people do, and notice the problems we all run into when we try and pigeon hole people as being just one thing, like humans can’t be contradictory or act against their own self-interest or be hypocritical or evolve or even regress past prior viewpoints....basically, any time you try and sum up a human being in one line, no matter how accurate that description is, there’s still SOME things that are going to be left out of that picture. 

Now, these things don’t always have to matter that much, like if I look at a serial killer and say that’s a serial killer, like, I might be leaving out of the picture that once he helped an old lady across the street and didn’t kill her and he doesn’t even know why, and I for one, simply do not care that I leave that out of the picture. Its irrelevant to the big picture for me. I can acknowledge that it adds a smidgen of nuance to that particular picture and then go yeah but also I don’t care, nuance denied.

But in terms of fictional characters, these things that get left in the discard pile when we try and sum up characters as just one thing, like, they can be hugely significant, because characters unlike real people, are simply WHAT WE MAKE OF THEM. That stuff that’s been left out of the big picture look at that character because its stuff most people to DEFINE what that character looks like have deemed irrelevant....its still there, and still perfectly relevant for anyone who wants to pick that stuff up and make something of it, use it to change the overall picture or even just point to ways and places that picture can absolutely encompass and include these other elements and STILL fundamentally be that same picture, that same character.

And this isn’t to say that characters can never be written out of character, its to say that usually IMO what ACTUALLY makes the difference between something being out of character and something just being an unexpected but still valid character choice is just.....how these things are executed. The latter is when writers make the effort to JUSTIFY their character choice, to sell audiences on why and how this is absolutely something this character would do, to take them on a journey of what led the character to making this choice and let them see how those steps actually line up, that’s an actual journey that character might take. The former is when writers just don’t bother and are just like, well here’s a thing that character did, and you know it was in character because well that’s the character and that’s what I wrote them doing lol, what more do you want. No. Yawn. Next.

But the trick is if you’re going to try and make a character a SPECTRUM of emotions and choices rather than just a same datapoint recurring over and over again endlessly, a literal sticking point that never advances, never progresses, never changes......you have to actually give that character free range to utilize that spectrum of emotions and choices.....not just confine them to accessing all those possibilities but ONLY within a narrowly defined niche that is its own kind of limitation.

A character can START from a logline, absolutely. Can BEGIN in a narrative niche as a way to INTRODUCE them as seemingly different from their surroundings or their peers when they do not yet have the backstory, the evidence of past stories and character choices readers can use to interpret their actions or guess their choices.....but narrative niches, IMO, are meant to have a shelf life, an expiration date. They’re a seed for characters to grow FROM, to grow PAST, not return to over and over again.....because that’s when a niche just becomes another house that stagnancy built.

Anyway, thanks for the thoughts and the article mention.....it was an interesting exploration of thoughts for me even if I didn’t ultimately agree with a lot of what was already said....still a worthwhile read though I think and I mean hey, its cool if you still agree with it more even if I don’t, lol. This is just my take.

[awhitehead17]

Meddling Kids

Dick & Jason, Dick & Tim, Secret Agents AU, Humour, Assassins, Fights, Oblivious Dick, Jason loves bread, Sassy Tim.

Summary: With little information to go on, Dick and Jason are sent on a mission to grab some files before they fall into the wrong hands. It doesn't help that the mysterious persona 'Red Robin', is rumoured to be after the same files. What is clear is that they need to grab those files first.

A/N: This is done for ‘AU: Secret Agents’ on my Batfam Bingo 2019 Card. 

Also on AO3

Enjoy! :D

“I hate these things.”

“You hate a lot of things.”

“Well... yeah, but these monkey suits are definitely near the top of that list. They’re fucking awful.”

Dick sends Jason a glance as he puts his jacket on. He didn’t mind them as much, yeah they weren’t the comfiest things in the world but they make him look great so he’ll take that as a win. He watches as his brother puts his own jacket on and straightens it out. Dick smirks, “Well you do brush up nicely Jace, doesn’t that matter?”

Jason responds with a glare, “Oh go suck a dick.” 

The two of them go about finishing to get ready for the night ahead of them in their shared apartment. Once they were both done and everything was sorted they exit their home and make their way down to the shiny sleek black limousine waiting for them outside.

They climb in and settle at the back of the car, allowing the trusty driver to take them where they need to be without worry of interruptions.

“So what’s the plan again? And why the hell is the old man making us do this when he could easily do it himself?” Jason questions with annoyance.

Dick sighs before telling him, “To most, we’re going to the charity gala to make up for our adoptive father’s absence as he’s busy in Japan doing business. Then to the odd few, we’re actually going under cover because there are rumours of files being passed around at this very gala. Our mission is to try and infiltrate these files to stop them getting in the wrong hands.”

“Right,” Jason drawls out. “And we don’t know what’s in these files as well as not knowing whom is after them?”

Dick’s reluctant to answer because he’s knows what’s coming, knows what Jason’s reaction is going to be. “No…”

“Fucking unbelievable! This is why I question working with him, he doesn’t even trust us with the information we need to complete the mission! How the fuck are we supposed to do it huh? We don’t know what the files are, who even has the files to start with and who wants the goddamn files!”

Rubbing a hand across his head Dick sighs, “I know Jason, I know, but it is what it is. It’s a do as your told and don’t ask questions situation.”

Jason glares at him, “It’s stupid.”

Dick doesn’t comment again, knowing that his brother is right. Working as secret agents for their adoptive father is a challenge in itself, especially when they all butt heads and have different opinions on the matter. It’s especially challenging when Bruce doesn’t give them any information regarding the mission he’s sent them on, Dick can see why Jason is annoyed, however there isn’t anything he can do about it.

That’s when he remembers something else to do with this mission. “Oh also I heard that there are rumours about Red Robin being at this gala as well, even potentially after the same files we are.”

Jason’s glare turns into a surprised expression. “Oh? That’s great and all but we don’t know who Red Robin is! All we know about Red Robin is that they’ve been bugging both Bruce and Barbara for over two years, Bruce because he can’t work out who it is and Barbara because they constantly hack her network and pass all of her firewalls.”

Dick couldn’t help but snicker because he’s not wrong. This mysterious ‘Red Robin’ character appeared two years ago, at first they were completely paranoid of whoever this is because they appear to have extreme knowledge of technology, they appeared to be a brilliant detective and tactician.

Over time, while they never fully trusted Red Robin, they’ve come to accept them. It seems like they never mean any harm as they never do any damage to their systems or never seem to get up to anything along the lines of evil.

What makes the situation difficult is that they don’t know who ‘Red Robin’ is. Of course they’ve tried to work it out, tried to find out who this detective that can hack into one of the most secured systems on the planet is. That’s where he annoys Bruce, the top agent, Dick’s and Jason’s boss slash adoptive father, because Bruce couldn’t work it out. The man grows more and more frustrated each month and it was hilarious to see.

Red Robin bugs Barbara, who was their top systems and comms person, because she too couldn’t work it out and because Red keeps on getting into her systems and despite everything she tries she can’t seem to get back into theirs.

The fact that Red Robin may be at the gala, in person, was a big matter. The annoying thing was that they just didn’t know who that was so being able to identify them would be tricky.

“Who knows,” Dick starts adjusting his sleeve, “When we get the files we may find out who Red Robin is after all, wouldn’t that be a treat?”

Jason shoots him a look, “Yeah, whoopee-doo. I just want to get this mission out of the way.”

They both fall silent and don’t talk for the rest of the drive. When they finally pull up outside of the charity gala, they’re let out of the limo and put on their best smiles for the reporters surrounding the, being Bruce Wayne's sons certainly gets them a lot of coverage no matter where they are. What the press don’t know, nor will they find out, is that Bruce Wayne is the boss of the biggest secret service in the world.

Dick and Jason make their way up to the building and get into the gala with no issues. Once inside they each grab a glass of champagne that was being passed around and stand together to get an over view of the gala.

Jason leans over closely, whispering into his ear, “So how do you want to play this? Walk around until we find something or someone fishy?”

Dick scans the crowd around them, lots of people varying in ages surround them, all dressed to the nines chatting away with one another like they were having a good time. As his brother pointed out earlier in the car, they have no idea on who was involved with these files that Bruce wants them to obtain. It was going to be a hit or miss kind of situation which sucked but what could they do?

He leans towards Jason, “That’s probably best yeah, scope around see what you can find out and get talking to people. You know what to do.” Jason looks at him and nods once in confirmation. “We’ve got our comms in if anything happens, Babs is on standby if we need her.”

They start to split up then but before his brother could get too far away Dick turns back around, “And Jason, don’t eat all the bread.”

Jason narrows his eyes at him and sticks a middle finger up in response, Dick snickers and spins around to get started on his mission.

Going around and talking to people is easy for Dick, he’s been doing for many years and by now it comes all naturally. Being Bruce Wayne’s son since he was 9 years old has given him plenty of time to practice being nice and friendly to rich snobs and then there’s the added bonus of being involved in the Secret Service since he was 11. He’s had a lot of practice in his life, this part was easy.

He wonders about the gala for an hour talking to a variety of people trying to get a feel of the situation at hand. It wasn’t easy to work out who was going to be involved in the exchange of files that night as they had next to no information on the individuals, but he’s keeping an eye and an ear out for anything.

He was sipping his champagne (which was still the glass he collected when he first came in) when he was suddenly bumped from behind. Tensing up and getting ready to spring into action he spins around and is surprised to see a familiar teenager who looks guilty. Upon recognising him Dick grins, “Timmy! How’s it going buddy?”

“Oh hey Dick, sorry I didn’t mean to bump into you.”

Dick wraps an arm around the teenager’s shoulders and pulls him into a side hug. Dick’s known Tim since he was a kid, he was their neighbour and Dick often babysat him when the kid’s parents went away (which was a lot) so he’s become like a second younger brother. They all adore him, he’s pretty sure that if Tim didn’t have parents Bruce would adopt him with no hesitation.

He looks at the teenager, seeing him dressed in a navy tux that makes him look like a baby CEO and was holding a glass of what looked like soda. “What you doing here then? Are your parents back from their latest trip?”

Tim shrugs and glances around the room before looking up at him, “No they’re not back, but they requested that I make an appearance for their name sake. They would be annoyed if they find out I didn’t show up.”

Dick frowns at that, it sounds so sad that Tim has to do things like this just to try and please his parents to get their approval. He knows Tim’s had a hard upbringing and it makes him go soft for the kid. He gives him a squeeze, “Well give it another hour then make disappear.”

He feels Tim tense against him, clearly not liking the idea of leaving early. “I guess I could.” He says tightly. Dick doesn’t comment on it, choosing to let it go because it’s clear Tim doesn’t want to talk about it. He lets his arm drop from around him, “Did you know Jason’s here too. Have you seen him?”

Tim nods, smiling slightly, “Yeah I’ve seen him. He was at the food table eating bread rolls when I went over to grab a snack.”

“Of course he was,” Dick sighs. He hears Tim laugh at that, the kid knowing exactly what the other man was like. Jason and Tim have an odd relationship, at first Jason couldn’t stand him, absolutely hating his guts but then over time he seemed to have gotten used to the kid and even became protective of him. It was oddly sweet.

The only problem with having Tim around however was that Tim didn’t know about the Secret Service. They all would love to have him on board, he was crazy smart, talented, really deductive but the underlying problem was his parents. They didn’t fully know what Tim’s relationship with his parents were like, they know only what Tim wants them to know. Of course they have their suspicions but that can only take them so far.

As Dick opens his mouth to say something else to Tim, Jason’s voice buzzes in his ear. “Bingo, I found the first of our unknown associates. Just walked in through the door and of fucking course, we really should have guessed who it was.”

Dick doesn’t respond despite how much he wanted to. It’s great that Jason’s found the first one but what did he mean by they should have known? Who was it? He clears his thoughts and look down at Tim who was glancing around the gala, he feels bad but he does have a job to do at the end of the day.

He pokes the kid’s shoulder lightly to get his attention, two blue eyes stare up at him and Dick gives him an easy smile, “I gotta go as there’s someone I need to talk to because Bruce asked me to, how about we meet up some time soon, just you, me and Jay? We could go to the skate park or something?”

Tim stiffly nods, frowning slightly as he does so, “Uh sure. Sounds great.”

Dick reaches out and squeezes his shoulder, “Great, I’ll message you soon okay.”

He leaves Tim standing there as he starts making his way through the crows towards the door where Jason had said he saw the first unknown associate. Dick gets near the entrance and looks around, after turning in full circles like four times he frowns and finally responds back to Jason, “Do you still have eyes on them? I can’t see them.”

It takes a few moments but soon enough his brother’s voice was in his ear, though sounding a bit muffled like he was eating. “Yeah I can see them, they’re at your six talking to Miss Anderson, the lady in the horrid green dress.”

Dick turns around and freezes when he sees who Jason had been on about. There he was, talking to the elderly lady with a fake smile plastered on his, was none other than Lex Luthor. Dick sighs, “You’re kidding me? What is he up too now?”

“Beats me. Though I certainly wouldn’t mind throwing a punch or two at the guy after last time.”

Pinching his nose, Dick lets out a long breath, Jason wasn’t helping matters here. While he can agree with his brother’s desire to punch the man he knows it doesn’t work like that. “Right,” he says trying to get them back on track, “Just because he’s here doesn’t mean he’s involved, while it’s very likely that he is, we can’t be certain. Keep an eye out for the potential second.”

He moves away before he gets caught staring, as he moves swiftly through the crowd occasionally chatting to rich folk, he keeps an eye on Luthor at all times.

“Where are you?” Dick asks after a long period of time, despite going around the floor three times he hadn’t bumped into Jason once. It made him wonder where his brother was and what he was up to. It didn’t help that he’s also been very quiet.

“Up above. Figured it was an easy vantage point, plus I’m not surrounded by a load of rich snobs who are stuck way too far up their own asses.”

Dick glances up, looking for him, after a couple seconds he finds Jason leaning over the railing with a glass of champagne in his hand. Jason sees him looking and offers a little wave. Dick rolls his eyes and goes back to what he was doing.

It was another 15 minutes until the second person they were looking for comes into the room at long last. Dick curses under his breath once he sees him. “Found associate number two, or at least who is a suspect.”

Who Dick was watching comes strolling into the room looking like he owns the world. In his long green and gold robes that trail behind him, his head and chin turned up at everyone as he wonders into the room with no cares of the world. It was none other than Ra’s Al Ghul.

“What a fucking coincidence.” Jason’s comment obviously means he’s seeing Ra’s too.

Dick turns away before the man could see him, moving through the crowd to get out of eye sight. “What’s the chances? Two huge names coming to a puny charity gala. Something’s up.”

“Who do you think has the file? Luthor giving it Al Ghul or the other way around?”

“I have no idea. For now just keep an eye on them, I’ll watch Ra’s while you watch Luthor, if one makes a move instantly report.”

“Gotcha.”

Dick keeps an eye out for anyone else who could be a suspect but he never lets Al Ghul out of his sight. The man walks around and talk with people like he belongs there, but Dick knows better, knows that he really doesn’t belong there. To majority of the world Al Ghul was a kind man who often gives to charity and helps those in need. To Dick and a few others he was a criminal master mind, the head of an entire empire full of assassins ready to kill.

The fact he and Luthor were here at the same time was no coincidence. Both were bad men, both were always up to no good, both only doing things for their own benefits and no one else’s.

About half an hour later, Dick spies on Ra’s as he excuses himself from a conversation with a small group of elite Gothamites. The man heads out of the room heading in the direction where the toilets were. A good cover really but Dick knows better. After radioing Jason a quick message, he follows the man several feet behind, making sure to keep him insight.

As expected Ra’s goes straight past the toilets and down the corridor before turning around the corner. Dick continues to pursue him, following the man as he travels up some steps to the next level and as he travels down another corridor. Not once does he stop moving and not once does he look over his shoulder. Dick probably could guess that Ra’s knew he was being followed and was allowing it to happen, which meant nothing good for Dick but he continues forward because he needs to.

As he follows behind him, he gets a message from Jason saying how Luthor was now on the move. After that it becomes much clearer that it was these two they were after.

Ra’s keeps going until he gets to the end of the corridor and stops in front of a door. With precise movements he opens it up and steps inside the room. Dick waits a few moments before creeping forward, he plasters himself against the wall and peers into the room to find Ra’s standing there in the middle of it with his back against the door.

The room was an old fashioned study. A wooden desk with elegant patterns engraved in it was one side of the room which was placed in front of a wooden door, large open windows were opposite it, two single velvet love seats sit in the other corner of the room.

Dick sneaks inside the room as quickly and as quietly as he can and slips behind the desk and the chair parked at it. He stays in a crouch and listens intently as he watches Ra’s stand there in the middle of the room.

“I know you’re here agent. You may as well come out. It can’t do you any good being crouched like that for a long time.”

Dick curses and debates what to do. When he glances up he sees Ra’s looking in his direction despite the chair and desk hiding him. Knowing that he’s lost he stands up, squaring his shoulders and gets ready for anything. A man like Ra’s doesn’t travel alone.

“Ra’s.” Dick says coldly. This isn’t his first interaction with the man, he’s far from wanting to be polite with manners.

“I give you credit agent, for following me as you did, for waiting as long as you did but unfortunately it wasn’t enough.” He mocks Dick with an almost sneer.

“If anyone was to know what patience is all about, it would be me.” Dick comments. “Why are you here Ra’s? What’s your goal?”

The man doesn’t seem surprised at the change in subject. He stares at Dick with a cold calculating look. “You should leave the interrogation to your father Grayson. He’s much better at it than you.”

Dick scowls at the jab but doesn’t comment.

“You say you have patience, why don’t you wait and find out what I’m here for. You’ll be lovely company.”

As the words leave his mouth the door behind the desk bursts open. The action startles him and he gets into a defensive position as four assassins pour into the door. The first one launches himself at Dick and he finds himself dodging and throwing punches. The second joins in and Dick fights him off as well.

It becomes a battle of four against one and he holds his ground well. He gets the first one on the floor who doesn’t get back up. The second one gets knocks down but slowly rises back up. Unfortunately that’s where his luck ends. A well-aimed punch to the stomach winds him and he instinctively hunches over, allowing an opening for a kick to the head which knocks him down to the floor. Before he could get his bearings they were on his back and tying his hands together, he’s thoroughly tied and pinned down by the time he gets his head together.

He grunts and squirms trying to get free but his efforts are futile and he quickly gives up. He cranes his neck up and glares at Ra’s, who was watching him with a sinister smile, having clearly enjoyed their scuffle. The bastard.

Nothing was said between them and it stays silent for several minutes until commotion outside the room could be heard. Dick twists around in his binds to glance at the door. His eyes widen as he sees Jason being pushed through. His brother stumbles in before he’s forced down to his knees next to Dick by another assassin.

They share a look surprise and anger when they make eye contact. Not only had Dick been caught but Jason too. Great. This mission is going so well. When they get out of this Bruce is going to give them such a lashing for this mess, it’s not going to be pretty.

After Jason’s down on his knees another figure walks in. Crisp in an expensive, tailored suit was Lex Luthor. He casts them a disgusted look before turning his attention on Ra’s.

“Nothing was ever mentioned about the extra company Al Ghul.” He scowls. “I don’t appreciate being watched and then stalked.”

“Them being here was not my doing. I had no control over it, however as you can see, I planned ahead and figured something like this would happen. It’s been sorted.”

“You call this sorted?” Luthor walks around them, looking down scornfully, “Dick Grayson and Jason Todd, the Wayne brats. I do have to admit, what an unwelcomed surprise.”

“As if this is what I want to be doing on my Friday evening.” Jason snorts glaring at the men above them. “You’re not that special Luthor.”

Luthor stops in his tracks and looks at Jason pointedly, “And yet here we are.” He turns back to ra’s. “Enough games, I want what we discussed and then I can be gone. There’s only so much pretending I can do a night.”

As Ra’s gestures to one of his assassins still in the room, Dick squirms around on the floor until he’s sat up next to Jason. The two of them share a look, trying to work out how to get out of this mess. They can’t let Luthor leave with those files, who knows what kind of damage the man could do with them.

Jason sends him a look which Dick can interpret, it’s his brother’s look of, ‘I have a plan’. While Dick adores his brother, and he really does, Jason’s plans aren’t always the best so seeing that look does nothing to help ease his mind of their current situation.

Above them, Ra’s passes over an A4 envelope to Luthor who instantly snatches it from the man’s hand and holds it tightly. They watch as he opens it up, scans the contents on the inside before nodding approvingly. “Good. That means our business here is done.”

“A pleasure as always Luthor.”

“Hardly. Now I must be going.”

Luthor turns and starts heading towards the door but not before scowling down at the agents on the floor, “What ever you do, make sure you dispose of these thoroughly, wouldn’t want them meddling once again.” Then like that he walks out of the room.

As the man disappears from view, Dick shoots Jason an alarmed look but his brother wasn’t paying him any attention. His gaze was on the man still in front of them.

“So many ways I want to get rid of you. Both talented in your own ways but stubborn and too drastic for my liking. A shame really, I could do with people of your abilities.”

“How about I narrow down your options?” Jason comments glaring at him.

Dick raises an eyebrow in question just as Ra’s eyes him up. “Oh, what’s that then?”

A snapping sound could be heard and then Jason was suddenly springing up and launches himself against Ra’s, “This.”

Dick didn’t get the chance to be surprised by Jason’s actions or as he takes on the assassins in the room by himself because he notices a knife lying where Jason had been. Using the opportunity while everyone else was busy with Jason, Dick awkwardly shuffles along to grab the knife to cut himself free as quickly as he can.

To Jason’s credit he holds them off for a long time. Once free Dick joins in on the action, making the playing field more even. While they were both excellent fighters individually, together they become almost unstoppable. Jason’s surprise attack of course giving them the advantage they needed at the beginning.

They take out all of the ninjas and once it was just them and Ra’s left standing.

“Go find and track down Luthor.” Jason tells him getting into a defensive position against Ra’s. “I can handle him.”

When Dick doesn’t move, his brother shoots him a sharp look, “Go. I can handle it. We can’t let Luthor get away with those files.”

Dick looks between them before nodding. He was reluctant to leave Jason alone but he knew that he was right. Those files were important somehow and he couldn’t let them get away.

He runs out of the room and head back the way he came. Dick has no idea how far Luthor would have gotten by now but hopefully it wasn’t too far or else he’s going to need a way to track him. A back up would be to contact Babs, who was tech savvy and could track the man for him if it came down to it.

Dick runs down the corridor and turns the corner before continuing to run. It was as he was getting to the end that he hears familiar voices talking from around the bend. He slows down to a stop and takes a moment to listen in.

“Move out the way boy.”

“No can do Mister Luthor.”

“I am not someone you want to get on your bad side.”

“That's questionable, but I wasn’t planning on it. The only thing I want is those files.”

“I have no idea what you’re on about. You may have mistaken me for someone else.”

“I’m pretty sure I haven’t.”

“Move out of my way.”

“Afraid I can’t do that. I can’t let you go, not until I have those files.”

There’s a moment of silence between them and Dick works on not letting out any sounds at his surprise. One of the voices is Luthor’s, that’s just clear and obvious at this point. Thankfully he hadn’t gotten very far.

However that second voice Dick knew without looking. It was Tim. That was Tim’s voice and he was standing up against Luthor asking for the very files he needs to get. But how did Timmy know about the files? Why would he want the files in the first place?

“Mister Luthor, I’m giving you two options here, either you give me those files by choice and we can part ways like nothing ever happened. Or, I forcefully remove them from you and without your body guard here to help protect you, well odds aren’t exactly in your favour.”

There’s another pause and Dick finally peers around the corner to find Luthor and Tim at odds with one another. Luthor’s back was to him and he could just make out Tim’s frame beyond the man. The scene was almost comical, Tim’s tiny size compared to Luthor’s tall frame was such a contradiction, it would make anyone wonder what damage Tim could do to someone.

Dick was so confused to why Tim was standing against Luthor in the first place. What was that kid even thinking? He could get hurt!

“Oh?” Luthor’s tone was mocking, “And what is a kid like you going to do to a full grown man like me?”

“I know I may not look like much but trust me I can cause havoc when I need too. It also doesn’t help that you don’t recognise me when I’m not in front of the computer screen.”

A few beats go by as Tim’s words hang in the air. Dick could pick up the double meaning in his words but he couldn’t work out exactly what the teenager was on about. Apparently Luthor had a bit of trouble working it out also but he still got it before Dick did, “Red Robin. You’re the Red Robin.”

“The one and only.”

And wasn’t that a punch to the gut. Dick felt almost breathless. Timmy, Tiny Tim, his little brother, their next door neighbour, was the one thing that none of them could work out. Timmy was the one causing mayhem in their lives. How? How was that possible. Why?

Dick shook his head trying to get back on the scene at hand, trying to get over the fact that Tim was Red Robin and how he didn’t know about it.

“Enough games.” Luthor growls. He reaches behind him and Dick watches wide eyed as he brings out a gun and points it at Tim. “I don’t know what kind of kid you are, but I have no qualms about killing kids, especially those who are too nosey for their own good.”

He may not have a problem with it but Dick certainly does. That action alone was enough to get him to finally engage with the fight. He creeps out from around the corner and sneaks up on Luthor. Before the man could even blink Dick disarms him, without the gun going off, and subdues him so he’s on the ground in hand cuffs.

With a jab to the neck Dick knocks him unconscious before patting him down searching for the files. He finds the envelope tucked away in a secret jacket pocket. He grins happily, finally having them in his hand.

Now that was done, there was something else he needed to address. He turns around expectantly and blinks in surprise when he finds the area empty. He frowns as he looks around, looking for the kid that was there moments ago. He lets out an annoyed sigh, giving into the fact that Tim had pulled a disappearing act on him, which, fair enough but at the same time was rude.

There were so many questions Dick had for him. He wants to know how Tim became Red Robin, why he became that persona, does he know who they all are, what were the reasons behind his actions, why hasn’t he said anything before.

So many questions and so many explanations.

Dick doesn’t get the chance to think about it any further because he could hear footsteps coming from behind him. He tenses up, getting ready for a fight before he realises who it is as they turn the corner. It’s only Jason.

He holds the file up with a triumphant smile, “Got the files. Ra’s dealt with?”

His brother has a black eye forming, a nasty gash on his forehead and parts of his suit were ripped, but apart from that he looked relatively okay.

“He got away, called a retreat and I was over powered. But that’s not particularly important. You got the file that’s what matters. B will be happy at least.”

Dick hums and looks down at Luthor’s unconscious form. “I’ll let the police handle this, for now lets get heading back, B will want these files.”

After making an anonymous call to the PD, the two of them start heading towards the back exit of the gala. The last thing they need is someone questioning Jason’s new appearance.

“Did you ever see Red Robin, he was supposed to show right? I didn’t notice anyone who could be him at all.”

Dick goes stiff at the mention of the persona. He hadn’t wanted to talk about that just yet, not until he got the answers he needed. To his annoyance, his stiffness doesn’t go unnoticed by Jason. His brother reaches out and grabs his arm to stop him from walking. “Dick. You saw him, didn’t you? You know who it is?”

Dick swallows and looks away. Should he give Tim up? What if he was wrong about this and it was all a big understanding?

Jason’s grip on his arm tightens. “Don’t you dare lie to me. You don’t have to tell B but you need to at least tell me.”

Dick takes a deep breath and lets it out, he looks at Jason. “It’s Tim. Tim is Red Robin.”

Several moments go by and all Jason was doing was blinking at him. He then lets out an obnoxious laugh like Dick had just told the world’s best joke. “Yeah okay Dickie bird, good one. Tim, Tiny Tim, the little baby bird, as Red Robin. That’s gold.”

Dick wasn’t laughing. He glares at his brother until he sobers up. “I’m not joking. I saw and heard him talking to Luthor, he revealed himself and claimed to wanting these files. Luthor then drew a gun on him and of course I wasn’t about to let that happen so I got involved but by the time I went to talk to him he was gone.”

His brother blinks at him again, “You’re not joking. You seriously think Tim is Red Robin, the exact thing causing both B and Babs ulcers because they can’t work out who it is.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” Dicks says softening his expression. “I honestly don’t believe it myself but I want to get answers before taking this any more forward. I said to him that we’ll meet up soon, I plan on interrogating him then about it.”

“So we’re keeping this just between us.”

“For now yes.”

“Bruce will be pissed at us for keeping that information from him.”

“I don’t care. I want to get the facts correct before proceeding this further. Anyway, these mysterious files should keep him busy long enough for us to work it out before he catches on.”

“Alright, if this all goes down hill and then I’m blaming you.”

“Sure.”

“I mean it Dickhead, I ain’t taking the blame for your crappy decisions.”

“Whatever Jason.”

“So now what?”

Dick grins at him, “Now we have a little birdie to catch.”