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[writerseven]

“I talked to Ives and he’s, uh, free tomorrow,” Tim says, clasping his cape on before patrol, “so I though we might try to...hang out?”

The ending takes on much more of a questioning lilt than he intended, but he’s still not expecting it when Bruce says, “No.”

He hasn’t looked up from pulling on his own boots. There’s no way Tim misheard him, across two feet of space in the empty cave, but, “What?”

“I said no.” Bruce does look up then, but maybe only because he’s done with the boots. “Tell him you’re busy.”

“But I’m...” Not. Tim swallows the word. Bruce lifts an eyebrow, like he heard it anyway.

“I need you here,” he says simply.

Tim knew, in the back of his mind, that Bruce might be—upset, maybe, about him leaving half the day. But Tim so rarely gets a free weekend in Gotham, and he hardly sees his civilian friends outside of school anymore. Ives texting has been a welcome distraction all evening, especially considering none of the Titans have checked in about his last-minute absence.

(Which is a good thing, he knows. Because Tim hasn’t learned the excuse, and wouldn’t know what to say, and it means Bruce has already done a perfect job of explaining it away. It just would have been nice, is all, to hear from them.)

But he didn’t really consider that Bruce would just refuse. Like Tim said he wanted to give Ives a guided tour of the Batcave.

“Need me for what?” says Tim. Bruce gives him a flat look, but the spark has been lit. “I mean, I’d be back for patrol. What does it matter if we hang out in the afternoon? I’m usually not here on Sunday anyway.”

“Being Robin takes dedication and responsibility,” Bruce says, strapping his gloves on. “I thought you understood that.”

He strides away.

“I do,” Tim says. He barely remembers to grab his own gloves in the rush to follow Bruce out of the changing area. “But I—”

“Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised after your recent behavior,” Bruce says over him, cape sweeping dramatically behind him.

Tim feels like a kid, having to jog two steps to keep up with one of his. “What recent behavior?”

“You’re barely here,” Bruce says.

“I’m here plenty!”

“Argumentative.” Bruce cuts him a look. Tim’s mouth snaps shut. “Ill-tempted. Volatile moods. Rushing in just before patrol starts, or leaving as soon as it ends. Training half as much.”

Tim wrings the gloves in his hand. That’s not true. That’s—mostly not true. His ears burn. At least there are no witnesses as Bruce lists off his failings, not slowing through the central terminal and towards the cars.

“If you were a normal boy, I’d say problems at home. Or drugs.”

“Bruce.” Tim would never do drugs.

Bruce pauses at the top of the ramp to the cars to incline his head in acknowledgment. “But obviously you’re not a normal boy. You’re better than that.” He fixes Tim under his gaze. “And I expect better of you.”

Part 15 of the props series

[writerseven]

Rating: Mature Archive Warnings: Rape/Non-Con

Tim feels for the hand, but it’s gone. He can’t remember, in sleep, why the hand is important, but its absence is enough to pull him awake.

Bruce’s bed. Bruce’s sheets. Bruce’s window, off ahead of him.

Only then does he start to notice soft voices from the bathroom, the whirling fan, the recollection of someone retching. The recollection of everything else.

It...could be a dream. Tim’s body hurts, but it’s hurt like this before. He wakes up in this bed regularly. He’s sticky and sweaty and gross like this all the time. Jason grumbles, waking up behind him, but that’s no longer abnormal either. Tim stares out the window: washed-out sunlight over ocher leaves, tiniest glimpse of the city past the molting trees. It looks like the kind of morning that would happen on a normal day, after Tim had a bad dream, and not...

Not...

“You’ll feel better after a shower,” Bruce says to someone who isn’t Tim or Jason.

No, Tim thinks, stares harder at the normal morning, like it’s a tangible thing he can reel closer.

The someone exhales heavily. Shuffles towards Bruce in the corner of Tim’s vision. Jason is still in the bed behind him, shifting the mattress as he stretches and sits. On the floor, in Tim’s peripheral vision where he won’t look, lays more discarded clothing than usual.

No, Tim thinks. He didn’t—he didn’t do this. He didn’t mess this up. Not that badly. He didn’t.

The light pouring out the bathroom dims as someone steps in front of it, shuffles away. He’s leaving, shoots through Tim’s brain. His eyes snap down.

Dick vanishes behind the bathroom door without looking back.

Part 15 of the props series

[writerseven]

Rating: Mature Archive Warnings: Rape/Non-Con

Dick wakes up in a blur of color and nausea. He’s halfway to the bathroom before he’s aware of standing, reaches the toilet just in time to be violently sick.

For a few long, awful minutes, he just crumples by the toilet and retches. His stomach strains like he’s been sucker punched. The dry heaves pull at his chest, carve out his throat—but there's relief in the overwhelming physical sensation. All Dick can do is wait it out.

It’s when he stops dry heaving that he has to think. He hovers over the toilet a minute longer to delay.

The bathroom light has turned on. The overhead fan putters above, dispersing the smell. Under the sharp florescence and roiling nausea, he can almost pretend it’s an ordinary sick day. Pretend this is the cramped, tacky bathroom in his apartment, and his biggest worry is trying to get to work.

But he didn’t hit the light switch.

Dick pulls the handle to flush and drops back against the opposite wall, wincing at the flare of pain below his tailbone. The shiny black floor tiles reflect a shadowed figure in the doorway. He doesn’t look, but he knows Bruce’s large form and inimitable stance even in the corner of his eye.

Part 15 of the props series

[writerseven]

Can i politely request a little snippet of props? No problem if not! I hope you're doing well!

I have been offline and have no idea when you sent this, but you absolutely may ♥

It goes like this:

He has clothes on but he doesn’t remember dressing, and his body aches but he doesn’t mind it so much. Bruce wraps him under an arm, and walks him down, and sits him at the kitchen counter, and Catalina drags him down the fire escape to his bike and has him drive until she finds a B&B. Alfred serves breakfast. Cat helps him wash the blood off. Bruce ruffles his hair. She took him out to a bar. He doesn’t like drinking, doesn’t do it a lot. He’s a lightweight, and it’s as incautious as it is embarrassing. He drank the shots she put in his hand anyway. He eats the food on his plate and doesn’t taste it. Tim sits kitty-corner him, three hundred miles away. The kitchen is sunny. It’s late. She wants to get married so they go to a courthouse. Dick really hates Atlantic City. He wishes she would stop calling him Richard. He’s not even considering Ricardo or baby. Or son. He sits across from a thing that looks like his brother but isn’t, more certain than ever Jason is dead.

When he went to therapy, back when Jason was Robin and then Jason was dead, he mostly talked about Bruce and the Titans and the self-hatred of unshakable inferiority. They talked about trauma a little bit too though. Touched on his parents briefly. He talked about Two-Face in one session, the judge and the baseball bat, and how he blacked out and can’t remember the end of it, and his therapist talked about brains protecting themselves.

When he didn’t go to therapy after he got Cat arrested and failed to get himself locked up too, he imagined himself back in Dr. Parker’s office. Tried to mimic how she would help him work through it. Trauma and not being a person and brains protecting themselves. It was nice to have an explanation. It is nice to have an explanation. And no drive to examine it further.

(He really should have gone back to therapy, and not just in his own head. That would have been a smart idea.)

It goes like this: Alfred gushes at the family all together, and Bruce glows, and Dick feels nothing. Bruce speaks and directs and puppets, and they all watch movies together, like Dick is twelve again and they don’t just love but still like each other. The carpet is different from the one Bruce fucked him on but reminds him of it anyway. Tim is an orbiting ache on the side of his ribs. He lost control and beat someone to death, and he let Blockbuster die, and he let Tim get hurt, and he deserves this. He tries to focus on the movie. He doesn’t want to look at the thing that looks like Jason.

He beat someone to death, he beat the Joker to death for it, and it doesn't matter. He irreparably stained his soul and it doesn’t matter. Bruce didn’t want his son to be a murderer. The thing that looks like Jason doesn’t even care.

Maybe it cracked open Dick’s skull and picked apart his motivations, and realized he didn’t do it for a dead boy after all. That he just did it because he’s broken and awful and lost control. This is a place for broken and awful people.

And Tim. Tim’s not awful, but he’s here too. Dick’s stomach twists. But his brain shies away from the thought and he lets it slip off like oil on water.

Dick has no idea what they watch, but he does get to focus on the incredibly soft blanket Bruce puts over him. Faux-fur. Meaning microfiber. It’s probably polyester or maybe polyamide, though he doesn’t know which. Maybe a combination. Strands thinner than a hair, thinner than silk. There’s microfiber in his suit, too, made to be tough and durable and protective, and there’s microfiber in this, made to be soft and warm and comforting. The most synthetic cloth there is, made to look like the most natural. It’s a fascinating breadth of usage. He should have studied chemical engineering instead of making a cursory pass at the business degree Bruce wanted him to get. He could have identified the carpet his father raped him on.

[writerseven]

💚💚💚

🥺🙏💚

[writerseven]

i just want to say thank u for ur damitim fics they make me. hhh. so satisfied i reread them obsessively esp retrieval bc holy shit smth abt the slow, dark overstimulation and humiliated submission... Exquisite

thank you so much!! I regularly see damitim and think eh not for me, and then remember that I have actually written multiple pieces for it myself so oops. There's a lot of potential for horrible darkfic in their dynamic!

[writerseven]

props update for the tumblr crowd: a whole lot is written, but I am forced to hold it hostage so I can write multiple chapters together and verify the next one actually works and won’t contradict anything. Please believe this upsets me at least as much as it upsets you. I do not respect the value of delayed gratification at all times want cömmint now

[writerseven]

Do you have any batcest (or just darkfic involving any batfam member, doesn’t have to be batcest) recs that fit the same indulgent but not romanticized vibe of props? I hate reading darkfic where everything is perfect and romantic and there’s not even any hints that the victim (or sometimes perpetrator) knows it’s bad, it kinda defeats the purpose 😂

Obvs it’s different if the victim has been like trained to not think it’s wrong but like in those fics the author rarely pretends what’s happening is good

I know exactly what you mean! I make many exceptions for turn-your-brain-off smut, but if I'm really getting into a story, I need the darkfic to be dark. I gotta steer clear of the romantic stuff.

A lot of the reason props was written was that I couldn't find anything quite like what I was imagining, but I got some in the ~genre~ to cite. I'm sure I have forgotten loads of fics I loved (and anyone who wants to add on, feel free!), but some recs for you:

long fic/series

Vow - Probably the biggest inspiration for props. Unfortunately, it's almost certainly abandoned at this point (though if it was complete I might never have started writing).

Eating Away at What is Good - WIP, but likely to be returned to. Almost 200k. Not batcest, but Dick/Roman (Black Mask), with a lot of wonderfully painful coercion--and a thread I wasn't expecting that gives a really excellent examination of Bruce's canonical bad parenting.

Feel Like A Brand New Person - 32k. Tim gets really deep into his undercover personas, and Bruce takes advantage to sleep with him, and it's all just very messed up.

(And if you are open to non-bats: Out of Sync - 64k, ft both hurt and comfort. Ollie/Roy, broke and fixed my heart.)

dark & explicit oneshots

A Secret For Another Soul - 8k. Jason, clearly under the influence of something and not in control, attacks Dick.

Finding and Keeping - 8k. Fucked up Slade/Jason/Tim.

&you'll never be pure again - 1k. Dick/Slade. Ahhhh it's messed up.

Good Accounting Makes Good Friends - 5k. Recently returned Jason finds out Tim is a party favor for Bruce.

i will be your father figure (put your tiny hand in mine) - 3k. Bruce/Tim, shortly after Tim becomes Robin, with very heavy references to precious Bruce/Jason.

Replacement - 3k. Jason takes unrequited feelings for Dick out on Tim.

Gift - 13k. No batcest; instead jumps off directly from a scene in Knightfall for some Bane/Bruce and Bane/Tim.

Catching birds - 2k. Bruce abuses Robins.

no sex

Bristol Kids - 17k. Maybe less of the indulgent vibe you're going for, but pretty sure this one made me cry. No batcest, but instead covers the aftermath of Dick, Jason, and Tim being taken in by a nice Bruce after sexual abuse in their previous family.

Loud Silence - 5k. Dick is kept as an inanimate art piece by Roman.

tethered and bound - 8k; unfinished series with three complete installments. Not batcest; platonic. Circumstances accidentally lead to Damian having magically control over Tim, and no one is happy about the situation.

[writerseven]

I hope this doesn’t sound rude but do you know when you’re gonna update props?

nw! I was correct in my last chapter notes to say this one would take more time. The combination of sorting out this particular stage of the story and needing a bit of a break from writing as I juggle some irl things has very much delayed it. I'm actually hoping to get a lot of writing done this next week now that I finally have free time again, but it will still probably be a while before I have a chapter fit for posting. (Ideally, I'd like to give myself a buffer with future chapters for once. I know this gap will be long, but my goal is to make it so I can post the rest of the series at a consistent pace with no more big gaps.)

I'm guessing another month or two tbh, but I have high hopes of returning to a better schedule after that.

[writerseven]

Going off a different ask you answered: Would you ever write Tim/Jack? Or do you have ideas about them? Its so messed up and hot and yet so little fics out there

Yesss. I actually have half a fic written that I've really been meaning to go finish up one of these days! It's a little bit of "you look just like your mother," a large bit of Tim coping poorly, and ultimately a hurt/comfort piece.

I got a wonderful gift fic last year that is primarily Bruce/Tim, but includes references to Jack/Tim that just really set Tim up to be further fucked over by this new father figure, and that is a banger of a concept. And I ALSO love the reverse take where Bruce is a good person who's horrified by the whole thing, and extra distraught that he never realized this was happening to his Robin all those years.

Ideassss. I think the fanon idea that Tim's parents were super cold and always negligent can be fun to read, but I want to try to tap into Jack's canon personality and their relationship here.

Jack who preys on Tim very young, back when Tim's parents were still traveling all the time, and Tim is just happy for the attention.

Jack who only starts preying on Tim after Janet dies and he decides to stay home more, and Tim is caught between desperately wanting that promise of his dad sticking around and simultaneously wishing, for the first time, he would go away.

Jack leveraging Tim's secrets and disappearances from the time he was Robin to keep laying on the guilt and disappointment and "if you really loved me, you would at least do this for me," and all that shitty manipulation.

Or Jack and his anger issues snapping and regularly turning the abuse more violent, physically hurting or threatening Tim. Tim who is Robin, and has dealt with way scary guys than that without breaking a sweat, but can't conceive of fighting his dad.

Jack's dislike and lowkey jealousy of Bruce combining with some heavy projection to make him certain Bruce is also fucking his son/trying to, whether or not that's remotely true. Possessiveness.

(I cannot come up with an in-character way for either of them to share, but Bruce being like yeah I am fucking your son, and there's nothing you can do about it. He likes me better. I'm going to prove it by fucking him in front of you.)

Tim's abuse being fully contained at home, and him leaning even harder into the Robin/Tim Drake separation that he already does, because his Robin life is great and wonderful and without these problems! That span of time when Jack forces him to quit being the worst time ever.

Steph and Tim bonding over their shitty dads and csa ;-;

Alternately, Tim always being there to listen to her and offer support, and never mentioning his own problems, and when it finally comes out he's like "??? why would that be relevant. it's completely different. my dad is not a supervillain and therefore everything's fine."

Jack not dating Dana now because Tim is the only wife-figure he needs :)

Or Jack still dating and marrying Dana, and Tim is just the dirty little secret.

I believe in Dana Winters as the best parent Tim has ever had despite not actually being his parent, and just you wait I will turn this into a sweet healing and bonding opportunity for them. Tim Wayne is out, Tim Winters is in.

uhhh something something dirty dadson fic

[writerseven]

way more people have reached out to ask about props’ ending after this chapter than the last time I offered, and i WISH i had the metrics to know if that’s because i have more readers now, because people are more tense about the story now, or just because more people have twitter to send dms.

i mean, it’s pure curiosity, but i am curious

[writerseven]

I stole this from Twitter but I’m Curious

[writerseven]

Rating: Explicit

Archive Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage

Dick whimpers. It’s the kind of sound Bruce has only heard him make for injuries, emergency procedures where anesthesia was unavailable, fear toxin—the worst of feelings. (Tomorrow; he’ll fix it all tomorrow. Or, should the impossible happen and tomorrow fail, if tonight is his only chance anyway...) Yet Dick is also being uncharacteristically docile, what Bruce might even describe as concerningly so. The part of his mind that never stops analyzing pinpoints a older trauma behind that—but he can feel a separate idea infecting him instead: that Dick might, somewhere deep down, want this too.

He could fight if he really wanted to. Any of them could. Jason could walk out the door. Could have run away a million times as a boy. Tim, unbound by legal relation, could return to his own father and never cross the manor’s threshold again. Dick could fight out of the ropes. He never had to come home and make a deal in the first place.

But they want Bruce more than that. They want this. Until it is arousing to know otherwise, and then they don’t.

part 14 of the props series

[writerseven]

love when i get very close to the end of a fic, or finish and go into editing mode, and i somehow find myself checking ao3 anyway like oh have i gotten comments for this fic i haven’t posted yet???

[writerseven]

also i broke and made a twitter. downside: gotta learn a new site. upside: now i can look at people’s likes.

[writerseven]

chapter end snuck up on me again. euphoria of realizing you are done writing before you expected. maybe...a second chapter this june??

[writerseven]

i hope you write, i hope we both write