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cephalog0d · 6 months

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Batfic - "Haunted AF"

HAPPY SPOOKYWEEN here's some silly Batkids! (Shoutout to @dangerousdan-dan for motivating me to finish this even though it's very last minute XD)

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Category: Gen Characters/Relationships: Cassandra Cain & Dick Grayson & Duke Thomas & Jason Todd & Stephanie Brown & Tim Drake Additional Tags: Humor, Ghosts, Dick Grayson is a Troll, Jason Todd is a Troll, Batkids Being Batsibs

Summary:

“I mean, would you want to spend Halloween in a haunted fucking house?” Jason asked. He received a collection of blank stares and frowns for a second before anyone realized what he meant. “Jason, the Manor is not haunted,” Tim said with a truly impressive eye roll.

“Has Bruce worked out Halloween patrols yet?” Steph asked as she flopped sideways into an arm chair. “I mean I assume there’s going to be some kind of catastrophe to deal with.”

“Last I heard he was still narrowing down leads. I think I’m supposed to review some data scrapes from Babs later,” Tim said, frowning absently into his mug. Either because he was remembering the work he had to do or because he’d just realized his drink was gone, it wasn’t entirely clear.

“Ooh, fun,” Steph said with a smirk.

“Yeah, well. Failure to prepare is preparing to fail and all that.”

“What, did you swallow a motivational calendar?” Jason asked without looking up from his book.

“Too blessed to be stressed,” Tim intoned flatly.

“Hashtag blessed,” Cass corrected him with a grin. Steph made a choking noise and clapped a hand over her mouth to avoid spraying her drink all over herself while Jason shot both of them a look of outright disgust.

“Does the Manor get, like, trick or treaters and stuff?” Duke asked thoughtfully. “I mean it’s way out in the middle of nowhere.”

“I dunno, actually,” Tim said with a frown. “Nobody’s usually home on Halloween anyway, considering…” He gestured vaguely at all of them in a way that was apparently meant to indicate “being a vigilante in Gotham on Halloween”.

“I mean, would you want to spend Halloween in a haunted fucking house?” Jason asked. He received a collection of blank stares and frowns for a second before anyone realized what he meant.

“Jason, the Manor is not haunted,” Tim said with a truly impressive eye roll.

“What, are you kidding me? It’s Gotham. Gotham is hella haunted-”

“Don’t say hella.”

“-just in general and the Manor is definitely included in that. You know how old that place is? How many people used to live there before Bruce turned into the Bat Hermit? How much tragedy those walls have borne witness to?”

“‘Borne witness’?” Cass repeated softly to herself.

“There are no ghosts in Wayne Manor,” Tim said firmly. “I’ve never noticed anything strange. Or, you know, strange compared to our normal level of weird.”

“You barely lived there. I saw all sorts of weird shit when I was a kid. Stuff getting moved around even though no one was home, doors opening and closing on their own, weird shadows that shouldn’t be there moving around. That was the worst. Headed up the stairs in the dark, seeing someone lurking up ahead, assuming it’s Bruce, and then nope, he’s behind you and nobody’s there. Scared the shit out of me when I was little.”

“So a bunch of stuff that’s easily explained as a child’s imagination?” Tim asked, unimpressed.

“There’s also the mirror.”

“The mirror?” Steph repeated in a mockingly serious voice.

“One of the bathroom mirrors back in the back hall would always have handprints up in the top corner no matter how many times we cleaned it. Alfred just thought it was me and Dick messing with him. Eventually he decided it must’ve been stained somehow and just replaced the mirror, but the handprints came back pretty much immediately.”

“You are so full of shit!” Steph laughed loudly. Tim was silent but the hard stare he was directing at Jason was more than eloquent.

“I heard yelling, what’s going on?” Dick said from the hall, poking his head around the doorway.

“Just telling them about the ghosts,” Jason said evenly. Whatever reaction the others expected of Dick (probably either rolling his eyes or sternly telling Jason to knock it off), they didn’t get it. Dick just nodded, entirely unsurprised, as if that was a perfectly reasonable answer, eliciting another round of Looks between the kids as he wandered over to stand by Jason’s chair.

“Oh, yeah,” Dick said matter-of-factly. “The attic one who breaks glass at stupid o’clock in the morning or the one who leaves creepy handprints in the downstairs bathroom mirror?”

“Wait, that’s real?” Tim demanded incredulously.

“Yeah, and that thing in the tiny guest room that blows on your neck if you stay there too long.”

“Ugh, I hate that one,” Dick agreed with a shudder. “So creepy.”

The other four exchanged a complicated series of looks.

“Okay, so you’re both full of shit,” Steph said with less conviction than before.

“Believe what you want,” Jason said levelly. Dick just looked slightly confused at their skepticism.

“I...need to check something,” Tim said as he hurriedly packed up his laptop and phone.

“Oh, yeah, you want some help?” Steph offered.

“Uh, sure, I’m just gonna…” Tim did not actually finish explaining what he was going to do as he left, Steph and Cass trailing along behind him. Duke watched them go, glanced at Dick and Jason, then shrugged and went to follow.

“They’re totally going to spend all night ghost hunting,” Jason said once they were gone.

“Yup,” Dick grinned, holding out a hand in Jason’s direction. Jason rolled his eyes, but fist bumped him anyway.

“Should we make sure they find something?” he suggested with a smirk. Dick blinked at him, looking slightly confused again.

“You don’t think they will?” he asked innocently. Jason narrowed his eyes suspiciously. That was absolutely one of Dick’s “I’m full of shit” voices.

“Of course they won’t, because the Manor’s not haunted,” Jason said slowly. “That was all bullshit.”

“Oh, right! Of course,” Dick agreed with a (fake as hell) easy smile.

“Dick.”

“Do you think Bruce has finished his patrol schedules yet?” Dick asked as he headed out of the room.

“Dick! You said you made it up! Dick!”

#I'm sorry for the title I named the doc that and it stuck #Dick's siblings may be able to recognize his Full Of Shit voice/face but that doesn't stop him from using it against them #dick grayson #stephanie brown #cassandra cain #tim drake #jason todd #duke thomas #ceph writes things #Halloween

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todayisafridaynight · 9 months

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so magical that yakuza 1 and shadow the hedgehog came out the same year........ 2005 the best year for sega honestly.....

#snap chats #AND DAYS APART TOO IN JAPAN (rgg1 dec. 8 while shadow was dec. 15)#the gap is significantly wider for US releases but thats not important.....#japanese kids were winning on christmas i swear #'snap why are you bringing this up' isnt it obvious. i am playing shadow the hedgedhog #and i keep thinking about daigo playing shadow and then later down the line just talking to mine bout it cause he can be a lil sillay #i hope he had dreams where he and shadow got to be besties. and by Him And Shadow i mean he dreams himself as sonic #because obligatory Same VA Joke Is Obligatory IF WE CAN GET ONE (1) W FROM RCS VOICING DAIGO. LET IT BE THAT AT LEAST.#for me..... let it slide for me..... yes ik it was jason griffith voicing sonic (and shadow) back then but let it slide this once..#i refuse to acknowledge modern shadow. unless it's from that one uhhh fuck what was the cartoon called #its on netflix Point Is the one time shadow was actually like his old self girl i sobbed. too bad sonic was a dipshit though #a soul for a soul ig.... i think its ok just this once....#im getting so off topic but this is how i inflict my other interests upon you lot #i trap you into reading a post vaguely about rgg and then i make it about something else :)#look at my pfp you fool. i legally have to talk about shadow the hedgehog like once a month ok let me have this #while im here. like /i/ know this game is nine years long but sometimes i forget HOW long #326 endings and for what. because they love me thats why.#fym 'revenge at last' is only ending 11 that seems like the third route or so you'd take (only black doom missions)#ok ive talked long enough. anyway bye im gonna uhhhh god idk.... i keep getting distracted #i started watching kagerou while my sister was playing mysims the other day but i got too engrossed by her playing to continue #mysims was like. A White Whale of sorts in my house for a while since it was one of like five games my sis actually played #and it was her fave but one day 1.) we lost it 2.) our wii stopped working. since that day she's blamed me for losing it #WELL then i found it and i got the wii u working SO all that can stop now 👁️👁️ ok ive fr gone on too long #unfortunately i cant talk about EVERYTHING i want to lest i just turn this into a general games blog. but i wont i prommy #for now. bye fr i think my sis just got home actually LMAO

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swinging-stars-from-satellites · 1 year

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Bring Light To The Darkness

《for @magpie-trove. I don't know if fanfics are allowed as part of the @inklings-challenge, but if they are, this can probably count for my Christmas challenge offering.》

“In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.

John 1:4‭-‬9 (ESV)

The first time she walked in the creaky, rusted door of Opened Door ministries, with their name printed on a colorful, vinyl-laminated sign on the window of the storefront they were in, she was seven years old. She'd just asked her mom to cut her hair and her mom had said no, that she needs it long for the winter to keep her warm, because they don't have the money for new scarves. Walking around the corner from their apartment, which at least still has heat even if the oven is broken, makes Stephanie think that maybe her mom was right.

Mom is on the phone with the landlord. Christmas is tomorrow and they had gotten a big turkey, but now, they can't cook it. Steph, who reads all the signs on the street as the schoolbus takes her past, had slipped into her big thrift-store boots and purple coat that was a birthday present this past year and snuck out the door while Mom argued with their landlord.

"Free Christmas meal," the sign offered, in large red text. There's smaller lettering underneath it that Steph hadn't been able to make out through the frosty windows of the bus, but the boy seated next to her who she thinks is a couple grades above her and always has his nose stuck in a book had reading glasses on and told her it said "all you can eat, noon to 6pm Christmas Eve and Christmas Day". Steph sits next to that boy because he's always warm, like as in friendly but also body heat. The bus doesn't have heat. At least Steph and her mom's apartment still has that, though, and so does the building that the Christmas dinner place is in.

Steph steps, or kind of shuffles because of all her winter clothes, into the storefront (which isn't a store) at 5:58pm on Christmas Eve. There's a lot of people starting to clean up, but she got in two minutes before the doors would have been locked, so she's lucky or blessed or something. A lady takes one look at the purple and blonde poof that is Stephanie Brown and grins, a really warm kind of grin, and asks her what they can do for her.

"My mom got a turkey for Christmas," Stephanie explains, because she doesn't want these people pitying her and thinking they can't afford their own food, "But our oven broke and they can't fix it yet. So I wanted to get us a Christmas dinner and I saw your sign from the schoolbus. So. Um." She shrugs, a swishy sound because her coat rustles against itself. The lady nods understandingly.

"Does your mom know you're here, though?" Asks a younger woman from over by a table that Steph stares at for a minute, eyes wide, because it's covered in sweets.

"I left a note."

There's a murmur, maybe a bit of a laugh. "Okay then," says the first lady, the one with the warm smile. "Let's get you and your mom some Christmas dinner."

And she's led over into the room with all the food, tables piled high with turkey (light meat for Steph, dark for Mom, and lots of gravy) and potatoes (Steph likes the cheesy ones best) and vegetables (that she accepts without complaint even though she doesn't like green beans). The lady helps her fill two big grocery bags with take-boxes of food and then lets her pick out whatever desserts she wants from the table she'd seen before. Steph leaves the store that isn't a store with enough food for a week and a chorus of "God bless you, Merry Christmas" that she echoes back even though she doesn't really know what the "God bless you" part means, because she didn't sneeze or anything.

The teenager who had been there had put a little piece of paper in the bag that Steph reads once she's home and in bed, happily drowsy from turkey and a huge piece of chocolate cake.

"Opened Door chapel services:," it reads. "Saturday, 6:30pm; Sunday, 11am. Youth service Wednesday nights, 6pm. Opened Door after school program daily 3pm-5pm."

Stephanie isn't totally sure what any of that means. She's never been to church before (She's at least mostly sure that "chapel" means "church," pretty much). She doesn't think about the little church that set up in a storefront for another few years, until she's nearly eleven and her dad is out on bail (which means that the apartment's heat hasn't been paid for because her mom decided to pay to get Dad back. Even at ten and a half, Steph doesn't understand that very well) and she's sick of hearing them argue.

She climbs down the fire escape and walks around the block to where she remembers getting Christmas dinner and a smile three years ago. It's Wednesday night and she doesn't know if she's old enough to be part of the youth stuff; youth usually means kids older than her, like Jason from the bus who she hasn't seen in school for the better part of a year. She doesn't just walk in like before, she knocks, since she isn't sure she's allowed at this stuff.

"Hi," she says, when someone comes to the door. It isn't anyone she recognizes. "You have... youth stuff tonight, right?" She shoves her hands in her hoodie pockets and decides she's not going home if she's turned away here.

But the kid who opened the door (hah!) just smiles and invites her inside. "What grade are you in?" He asks. "We have different small groups for different grades."

"Sixth," she lies, because 6th grade means middle school and none of the kids in the room look younger than that.

The guy nods. "Cool," he says. "You'll be with Lynn's group, then."

Lynn is, apparently, the younger lady who'd helped Steph on Christmas Eve nearly three years ago, and she recognizes the combination of long blonde hair and purple clothes immediately. Steph sits in the circle of kids just a bit older than her and smiles as they go around the circle and introduce themselves. This is, she decides, way better than staying at home in her room while her dad tries to convince Mom that he's helping them when he really isn't. At least these people actually do help other people. At least they invited her in.

They play a game a little bit like charades, but not quite, and then Lynn hands out soft-paged Bibles with plasticky feeling blue covers and the words Holy Bible, English Standard Version printed on the front. Lynn says a lot of words that Steph doesn't understand and several kids start flipping through the thin pages. Steph tries to read over the shoulder of the person next to her, who notices and stops what she's doing. Steph pulls back, hesitating.

"Hang on, Miss Lynn," the girl says in a lightly accented voice. "I think Stephanie needs help finding the right page."

Steph wills herself not to flush or curl into herself and hide, just lets the girl — Nadia — show her how the books and chapters and verse numbers work (she doesn't understand it still, but it will start to make sense in a couple weeks). When Nadia stops thumbing through the book, it says John 1 at the top of the page in bold letters. Everything else is in tiny print that Steph has to hold close to her face to read.

"The light," Lynn says in a slightly different voice than her usual one, "Shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."

Steph likes the sound of that. She stares at the words on the page in a way that only someone still young and curious and new to all this can. When the conversation, drawn out by Lynn's leading questions, draws to a close and people start to funnel out of the store (which is definitely not a store, even if Steph got food there once), she holds the floppy, thick book with the bold word Holy and wonders if anyone would notice if she took it.

She isn't like her father, though. She isn't a criminal even if she did lie about being in middle school, and stealing doesn't sit right with her. So she walks over to Lynn, in a corner talking to one of the older kids, and waits for a break in the conversation so she can butt in.

"Uh," she says eloquently, "Can I... take this home?" She waves the Bible in question.

Lynn smiles at her, a little naturally lopsided. "Oh yeah, that's what they're here for!" she says. "You can totally take one home! I hope we'll see you here next week...?" She offers, and Steph nods. Even without the offer of free food, she thinks she likes it here.

She goes to that youth group every week from then on. It isn't like, a huge revelation, but it's fun and it gets her out of the house and they always say "come on in!" all bright and happy when she walks up, like somehow the leaders and other kids all know that Steph needs an invitation (like some kind of purple-clad vampire, or just a girl who isn't used to being welcomed). Nadia helps her find Bible verses sometimes but mostly she does it herself, but she likes sitting by a girl whose name means hope.

She learns that, about Nadia's name, a few weeks before Christmas when she's fourteen and everyone thinks she's in tenth grade instead of ninth and she still hasn't corrected them on that, even though she feels crappy for lying. "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing," reads the feather-light page that Steph maybe will always be afraid of tearing. Nadia lights up even more than she's normally bright and warm, and she tells the group of a Russian family name passed down, almost like the handing of hope from generation to generation. Steph thinks the name fits her.

The light shines in the darkness, reads the verse they'd talked about the first time Steph went to the youth meeting. That's what she wants Spoiler to be; that's what she tries to make herself. She knows the Bible verse is about the Iight of God, but she can apply it here, too, can't she? She's all eggplant-purple and golden hair and her dad is full of darkness, Batman is full of darkness, too, even though she thinks he honestly tries not to be. And if God's light can't be overcome or understood by the darkness, then it makes sense that Stephanie — Spoiler — can't be, either. She won't be.

Saturday night in late autumn, and she's sixteen and not out as Spoiler because for once, her dad is at home. Of course it's the one time the power is out, too, and Steph runs smack into her father on her way to the bathroom in the dark. He grumbles at her, something low and frustrated about how she's always in the way and she was an accident, anyway, and Steph ignores it and leans back against the closed bathroom door and tries not to cry. Mom is asleep or high, she isn't sure which, and she's too old to run to her mommy like a baby because her feelings got hurt; but she suddenly feels unwelcome even in her own house, her own life.

Her father never wanted her, her mom barely does, and Batman sure doesn't want Spoiler around. She has a wristwatch with numbers that glow in the dark and when she checks it, it's 6:30, already dark outside as it is inside and as is creeping into her heart, and. And, and, and. She's never gone to an actual chapel service at Opened Door. At least she's pretty sure she's welcome there.

She shrugs a cardigan over her plain T-shirt and leggings, feeling strangely like she needs to make herself presentable, check that her face isn't blotchy from holding back emotions. She would put on makeup, if she had enough light to do it by. Instead, she pads quietly down the hall in a worn pair of hightops and steps in exactly the right places on all the building's stairs so that they don't creak. Batman may not want her, but she hasn't learned nothing from him.

There's music coming from inside the storefront when Steph opens the door of Opened Doors, slipping inside to warm yellow light and friendly smiles of greeting even though she's ten minutes late and has been lying about her age since before she was eleven. She's heard a little of this kind of music, sometime playing in the background on a radio when she first arrives at youth group. But this is different, with a guy playing guitar on a small stage set up in the main room and a woman next to him singing and swaying. Steph stands in the doorway, transfixed.

When the song ends, another man steps onto the stage with a cordless microphone, says something about offerings, but Steph has nothing to offer. She slips into a seat in the back row and scans the room for anyone she knows, but when the people onstage start playing another song, she watches them. This is different than anything she's used to from Wednesday nights, but it's just as warm. You give life, the woman starts to sing, You are love, and Steph pays attention because talking about God is different when it's singing instead of talking. You bring light to the darkness. You give hope, restore every heart that is broken.

For the second time tonight, but for a totally different reason, Steph blinks back tears.

By Christmas, she's Robin. Basically the epitome of a light shining in darkness, in her opinion. B is definitely dark enough, and so is the Batcave. Steph, then, blonde hair and colors that are definitely not hers and maybe shouldn't be, is the counterpoint to all that. She's not here because B wanted her. She's here because she wanted to be here. Wants to. And if B's approval lights her up a little bit, then that has nothing to do with anything.

Alfred has strung some lights in a corner of the Cave. Robin colors, Steph thinks. She kind of wants to ask if there's any extras she could borrow, just for the season, since the lights on her and Mom's old plastic tree stopped working a couple years ago. Steph stares at the lights and shifts her weight from foot to foot on the training mats.

"Christmas Eve and Day are high crime days," B is saying, focused on the Batcomputer instead of her. "Police often take leave for the holiday and most people are at home; there are a lot of break-ins and robberies." He glances over his shoulder at her. "We'll need to redouble our efforts on patrol this weekend."

Steph sniffs awkwardly, gaze firmly fixed on Alfred's Christmas lights. "Actually, uh..." she squirms a little bit. "I can't patrol on Christmas Eve. I... have stuff I need to do. Commitments, ya know?" She flashes what she hopes is a bright grin to counter Batman's sudden glower.

"Family?" He asks carefully, watching her for some reaction she doesn't give. As if she wants to spend the holiday with her arch-criminal father and a drug addicted mom. As if she wants to face that.

She shakes her head. "It's a volunteering thing. Like, community service? It goes on my high school transcript. I promised I'd be there Christmas Eve, so..." she shrugs. "If that's, like... okay."

Batman stares at her a few moments longer. "I not your parent, Stephanie," he says, softer than she expected. Somehow, the words sting even though they're probably meant to be reassuring, or at least just a reminder. It isn't a rejection. "Where are you volunteering?"

Steph shrugs again. "Just a place near where I grew up. They do a Christmas dinner thing every year." She leaves out the fact that she's gone to it, and not to volunteer. B is stupid rich, she doesn't need the reminder.

He nods. "Christmas night, then?" And she nods. Light in the darkness, invitation as a counterpoint to rejection.

This year, Steph is the one doing the inviting. She grins widely at everyone who walks over Opened Doors' threshold, refills trays of food donated by church members and volunteers. It's strange, being on the other side of all this, but she's been attending Saturday night services as well as youth group every week, and they'd asked for helping hands, so. That's what she is. Seeing the light from their front window shining out into the dark of a street with broken streetlamps almost feels like coming full circle.

Steph doesn't know that in a few months she won't be Robin anymore; in a few months she'll be dead and then alive and still feeling like she's dead. Like the light in her heart has flickered out. All she knows is that it's Christmas, and she's standing in the church's kitchen (which is really just a camp stove someone brought in and a microwave they keep in the back room for popcorn at youth events; all the turkeys were cooked at people's homes and brought in this afternoon) with Lynn, who has a gold ring on the hand she keeps resting on her heavily pregnant belly, and Steph thinks things are starting over new.

"I was scared for you, at first, you know," Lynn says conversationally, nibbling at a leftover cookie. Steph is unscrewing the propane tank from the camp stove so its owner can take it home, and pauses to look over her shoulder.

"Huh?"

Lynn chuffs a soft laugh, hem of her maternity dress bouncing. "You came in here all alone that first Christmas, no parents or siblings, and I was worried for you. And then you came to youth group and I thought, she's only here because it's warm. Maybe I thought you were homeless, or didn't have good heating, since you showed up when it was cold out."

Steph checks the outlet on the propane tank, then turns around and sits cross-legged with her back to it on the kitchen floor. "I mean, you're kind of right," she admits. "I did come for the warm. But not because of why you thought. I just... I mean, you know my home life isn't the best. You guys gave me a place to come, you know?" She looks at the floor, like she'd looked at Christmas lights in a cave a couple days ago.

Lynn hums. "I never thought you'd become such a staple, though. Never thought we'd end up here." She smiles, that same smile she'd given Steph the first time they met on a Christmas Eve like this one, when Steph was tiny and Lynn had been a high schooler. "I'm glad," she adds.

Steph grins, then, too, thinking of handing lonely people a bit of warmth and welcome. "The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it," she recites, because it feels fitting. "I don't think I ever stopped thinking about that after the first time. You guys are a light in the darkness." She turns back to the stove, carefully folding it up and leaning it against the wall.

Lynn hums again, then the pitch of her voice changes in a way that activates every single one of Steph's Spoiler-and-Robin instincts. The sound of hope becomes the sound of pain, and Steph swirls into action because she's wearing red and green and even though this time it means Christmas and not necessarily Robin, B's training is admittedly really good and she's grateful for it. Please, please, please, she prays in her head, absolutely incoherent because she's never delivered a baby before, and she still hasn't by the end of the night because two other women who had been volunteering usher her out of the way (she wasn't in the way) as the sound of pain becomes the sound of hope again. Joy and peace, too.

In spring, Steph dies. She isn't really Robin even though she's wearing those colors, and she spends the whole time her life is being taken from her praying, please, God, please, just as incoherent as ever. She's never been good at the praying part, always leaves the end-of-group prayers to Nadia or whoever else wants to say it. She wonders if Nadia will miss her. If Lynn will. She doesn't think B will, even though she misses him somehow even though he's with her at the end. Please, her mind screams, because it feels like the darkness is overcoming the light even though she knows in the end of all things that can't happen.

And then she's not dead again and she doesn't know what to feel. Grateful? Yeah, she is. But she doesn't feel like the hands and feet of light in the darkness anymore. She feels a little bit like a part of the darkness, and she spends a lot of time beating it back.

The floppy, blue-covered Bible she hadn't stolen still says Holy on the front even though it's beaten up and worn and she has, in fact, accidentally torn some of the delicate pages. The slip of paper listing the service times at Opened Doors is still in it as a bookmark, the words behind it highlighted in magenta Crayola marker, the closest color to purple she could find at the time. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. But the preceding verse stands out to Stephanie now, "In Him was life, and the life was the light of men." She stares at that for a long time and can't figure out how she feels about it.

Life and light, shared from Someone other than herself. That's where the light, the one that shines in the darkness and can't be overcome, the one that she's built her entire existence up around, comes from. She can't embody it by herself; Steph knows that now. Maybe she needs to be done trying.

The first time she walks in the creaky, rusted door of Opened Door ministries after she dies and is allowed to keep living (just like Jason Todd, the Red Hood, who she knows know is the same Jason she used to sit next to on the schoolbus in winter because he was warm and didn't mind her being there. She wonders if he's still warm like that.), she's seventeen years old and still hasn't cut her hair, because now that she's older she likes it long. She's still got a big purple coat (eggplant). It's Saturday night, her father is in prison and Mom is in rehab, and she hasn't been here since spring. The light still shines out the window of the storefront and the streetlight is still broken.

"It's Your breath in our lungs," sings the lady onstage when Steph walks into the sanctuary, a few minutes late as usual, and slips into the back row like she always does. "So we pour out our praise." Steph knows this song. It means more to her now, though. "Our hearts will cry, these bones will sing," says the bridge, and maybe that's why it's okay that Steph doesn't have the words to pray. "Great are You, Lord."

She goes to Opened Doors on Wednesday night that week, knocks on the doorframe. Someone opens it and tells her it isn't locked, and she says, "I know," and smiles. Lynn walks into the room with her baby on her hip and stops short when she sees Steph, bright golden hair and purple hoodie against the world, hands in her sweatshirt pocket almost sheepish in a way she never let herself be before.

"Stephanie!" She exclaims, breaking into the light smile Steph has come to know over the course of a decade. "I thought- we haven't seen you in months!" Lynn offers a one-armed hug that Steph gladly steps into, almost trembling with the force of being welcomed back so powerfully.

"I know," she mumbles, "Some... stuff happened." Death and new life counts as stuff, she thinks. "But I'm back now, so." She shrugs, and then blurts before she can stop to think about it: "I lied."

Lynn looks her up and down and pulls her back into the room they use as a kitchen, the microwave room. "When?" She asks gently, not judging or scolding, just curious.

Steph takes a deep breath, sighs it out. "When I first came here," she replies. "I was only in fifth grade at the time, but I didn't want you guys to like, turn me away because I was too young, you know? I really wanted..." she trails off.

"Wanted what?"

"The... light, I guess. To be invited in." Steph is holding back tears, now, and she isn't totally sure why. "I didn't think you would." Nobody else did. "I'm sorry I never told the truth."

Lynn shakes her head. "It's alright, Stephie," she says gently, which makes Steph cry more because her mom usually calls her that and she hasn't heard from her mom since she started rehab. Mom and Lynn are the only two people who have ever really called her Stephie. She'd forgotten what that felt like. "Honestly, I'm glad you did." She holds out a hand, and hesitantly, Steph takes it. "Plus," Lynn adds, "That means you have another year before you age out of youth group."

Steph hadn't thought of that. She'd almost thought they wouldn't want her around when they found out she lied. "Oh."

Steph isn't Spoiler anymore. She isn't Robin, either. She's Batgirl, now, taking up another legacy of light in the darkness. At first, she doesn't think it suits her. She confesses as much to Alfred, or maybe she's more complaining than anything else, unsure about living up to what B and Babs need her to be. Thanksgiving has just passed, and Steph is helping with Christmas decorations. She never did ask about borrowing some before, but maybe since she has her own place now, she'll ask this year.

"If Master Bruce and Miss Barbara think you are not exactly what you need to be," Alfred says simply, "Then that is on them, not you. You, Miss Stephanie, have something that unfortunately, they often don't." He fixes her in a long look, and bends to plug in a string of Christmas lights. "Light."

That's the moment Steph knows that Batgirl is going to be begging off patrol again this year, that as important as what she does at night is, there are things more important, and one of them is the light in the darkness. Alfred gives her a box of twinkling lights and decorations and won't hear of it when she promises to bring them back, tells her that every young person making their way in the world, in life, needs a good set of decor, so she ducks her head and grins about it and sets the box by the door before she runs downstairs. Like, downstairs, downstairs.

Tim is seated at the computer with Bruce hovering over his shoulder, both of them casting occasional glances over at Jason, still half in his Red Hood gear but leaning casually against the wall as they discuss some case Steph isn't involved in. They've been keeping her out of gang cases, she thinks, and anything to do with Sionis. Part of her bristles at the protectiveness while the rest of her is touched by it. She nods a greeting to Jason and walks up behind B and starts poking him, which gets a smirk out of Tim and a sigh from the man himself that she knows, these days, isn't actually annoyed.

"Yes, Stephanie?" He asks, tilting his head to look down at her. To think, she'd once been intimidated by that, thought he was like, actually looking down on her (and maybe he had been back then, at first). Not anymore, though.

"I'm dipping for Christmas again this year. Volunteer stuff, all that. I was wondering," she says slyly and a little shyly, like a little girl asking if she's allowed to take home a book called Holy, "If any of you wanted to join me." They should see that light, too. She wants to show it to them.

Tim looks up from the computer. "I didn't know you do volunteer work," he says. "Where?"

"Once a year," Steph replies, then falters. "It's uh... like a community Christmas meal type thing. There's a ministry that runs it in my old neighborhood, ever since I was a kid." She leaves the rest of that unspoken, knows that they know what's implied in that and isn't actually ashamed of it anymore.

"Wait," Jason pipes up, "Opened Doors?" He's staring at her, almost squinting with thought, and Steph nods.

"The one and only." She grins.

"Huh." Jason blinks. "I didn't realize you actually went."

"I didn't realize you could grow out of needing reading glasses," Steph retorts, and he grumbles. "But yeah. I uh... never stopped going, after that. And they never stopped inviting me in, so." She shrugs. "I helped out last year, too, and it was really nice." She turns back to Tim and Bruce. "I figured I'd ask, at least."

Tim frowns. "Well, I think we're skimming over the fact that you and Jason knew each other as kids," he says slowly, looking mildly perplexed.

"Same schoolbus," they both reply in unison.

Bruce clears his throat, then, which is a very quick way to get the attention of all of his kids including Steph, who isn't exactly his but isn't not, either. "If you don't think my presence would cause too much commotion," he says, "I would love to join you."

Steph tries to pretend like she isn't dying (coming alive) inside from happiness and acceptance. "Everyone's pretty chill." She breaks into a grin. "They'll love you."

"Hn." Bruce looks like he's suppressing a smile, and looks over at Tim, who shrugs.

"I'm in," he answers.

"Am I invited, too?" Jason asks. "Or would a vigilante crime lord be too out of place in a church?" He says it sarcastically, shooting a halfhearted glare at Bruce as he does so. But Steph thinks maybe he's actually asking.

"You don't have to talk about it," Tim sighs, exasperated. "Why are you like this."

But Steph just smiles wider and thinks of warmth from a storefront window. "You're invited."

Dick tags along, too, when he gets in from Bludhaven on Christmas Eve. Steph doesn't ask who's handling patrol, because she doesn't want to ruin this by reminding anyone of their other responsibilities, and she just assumes that Bruce has that all figured out. She can trust that, now. She carries a box of Alfred's pastries over the threshold of Opened Doors, letting out warmth into the cold and light into the darkness (the nearest streetlamp is still broken. She doesn't think it's ever going to be fixed.) as the boys and Bruce trail after her.

She's still got a big purple coat, this one not from a thrift store (it was an early Christmas present from B) and her hair is frizzed out over the fur-lined hood and she's absolutely certain she still looks like a poof. She's golden and purple and she grins madly back at Lynn and Nadia, who greet her with warmth as soon as they see her.

"I brought helping hands!" she exclaims brightly, nodding over her shoulder at the family who isn't quite her family, but who keep welcoming her into theirs anyway.

She finally, finally gets how to be a light in the darkness. Because the light doesn't come from just her, or just the church lights or the brightness of a welcoming smile. It comes from Something more, Something bigger. She just has to accept the invitation to it. And then she can turn around and open the door for others, the way it was opened to her. And the darkness, whatever it may contain, can't overcome that light.

She's going to call her mom tonight, wish her a merry Christmas. Figure out what she wants to do about college. Write a Christmas card to her father, send it to the prison even though she doesn't really want to, would rather let him rot. But right now, she's offering light the way it was once and is still offered to her, and it's warming her inside and out. It's Christmas Eve, and there's life here.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

Romans 15:13

In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

John 1:4-5

#the song is Great Are You Lord by All Sons & Daughters btw #it's like... a staple in every random nondenom church I've been to in recent years #like!!! it is SO versatile?? even from a logistical perspective you can do it with one(1) instrument and one(1) voice #and it's so simple and easy to sing along to and so POWERFUL???#I've heard it so much recently that I'm almost used to it but writing this actually made me listen to it a lot and it's hitting me #really hard #along with that john 1 passage #anyways Lynn is my new favorite OC maybe. she's like everybody's big sister #and what i aspire to as a youth leader #also: this is what i was vagueing about when i made that post about ''timeline what timeline'' bc i have NO idea what's going on here #like.. jason is semi-chill with the family and yet damian and cass aren't here. sorry i just... did not want to try and fit #any more characters into this skskksskfndnwk #Lu writes #I'm gonna go a final proof on this later so if you see any typos. I'm so sorry #and on the off chance this is allowed for inklings-#inklingschristmaschallenge #theme: light #batfam #steph brown

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arabian-batboy · 2 years

Video

Voice-claims I picked for Dick, Jason, Tim and Damian from the few media that I know of.

#I really like how they're all saying things that they will probably normally say #I kinda cheated by using Jason's voice from Arkham Knight but I swear I didn't know #I wanted to use the voice-actor that Greed's voice from FMAB and he just so happen to do Jason's voice too #I'm not fond of my choice for Damian's tho #I wanted something with an accent #but I liked these lines so much they gave me major Damian's vibes #dick grayson #Jason Todd #tim drake #Damian Wayne

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dimiclaudeblaigan · 1 year

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Heroes was never really enough to go by, but Greg just reaaally isn't doing it for me with Ike with how monotone and lifeless he sounds. ;~;

#DCB Comments #I KNOW I KNOW I'M DOING IT AGAIN FKHAJGFJD #it's just that the more i hear from him the more i just hear no emotion whatsoever in ike's voice #kinda makes me rly super incredibly sad at the idea of a remake for the tellius games rather than just ports #since everything would be voiced we'd hear that way more and i also feel like his voice doesn't #fit with PoR Ike? it feels too deep for him ;~;#AND LIKE I FEEL BAD BC GREG IS A COOL DUDE AND SOMETIMES HE POPS INTO #TWITCH STREAMS OTHER VAS ARE DOING AND HE TALKS TO US IN THE CHAT #LIKE I DON'T DISLIKE HIM. IT'S NOT ABOUT HIM. JUST HIS VOICE WITH IKE SPECIFICALLY #ISN'T DOING IT FOR ME. LIKE. you know how you can have a VA you love but #they just don't fit a certain character? that's how i feel abt greg and ike #not only does he need a lighter voice imo but he needs more emotion #he deadpans a lot but he otherwise has SO much emotion sometimes #i literally canNOT imagine greg voicing the scene where ike literally flips out on sanaki #obviously we didn't hear much from jason voice over-wise bc the game wasn't voiced outside of cutscenes #but at least we did get had more emotion and fit him a lot better imo #it's not the exact voice i otherwise hear in my head bc yes i hear voices in my head #they are the voices of fire emblem characters spooky i know. but listen. i've played the games so much times #esp PoR that the entire game script has a very specific way it's ''voiced'' in my mind U KNOW???#LIKE. IT'S SOLID. AS IF IT WAS ACTUALLY VOICED. IT SOUNDS THE SAME EVERY PLAYTHROUGH #AND MY BRAIN IS NAGGING AT ME TOO LATELY TELLING ME TO GO PLAY POR #BRAIN SERIOUSLY WE JUST BEAT THAT GAME FOR THE 23RD TIME LIKE A COUPLE WEEKS AGO OR LESS #WHAT DO YOU MEAN LET'S GO PLAY POR WE SHOULD PLAY POR POR SOUNDS FUN #DCB Heroes Stuff

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astrochemstry · 2 years

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hey batman fandom whos ur favourite jason todd voice actor for scientific purposes

#i personally adore arkham knight VA troy baker #bcs troy baker has also voiced good ol joel from last of us and hes outstanding as both joel and jason #but im curious to see other people's thoguhts and preferences #jason todd #dc #red hood

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deadsetobsessions · 3 months

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“I ate paint once,” Danny nonchalantly threw out in the middle of game night.

The entire table stopped. Heads whipped towards Danny.

“Yeah, me too. Cardamom yellow was my favorite. Ugly as hell but the chemicals just tasted right.” Tim replied, using the distraction to nab some of Bruce’s money. Monopoly money, that is. Everyone’s heads snapped towards Tim, only Cass and Danny (who was part of the scheme) caught him cheating.

“Really? I think mine was those spray can blue cosmos paint. But that might have been more my thing for space than the actual taste.”

“WHY WERE YOU EATING PAINT?!” Dick asked, looking like he wanted to lunge over the table and shake Danny until he puked out paint. Bruce looked like he was about to have a heart attack.

“Yeah, what the fuck, Tim?” Jason snickered.

“In my defense,” Danny grinned. “I was left unsupervised. Also, Steph, you owe me $24 in rent.”

“Ugh! I’m almost out of money! Can’t you loan me some, Alfred?”

“I am sorry, Miss Stephanie, you are not qualified for another loan. In fact, one of your properties is about to be confiscated as per the collateral agreement.”

“Noooo!” Stephanie made dramatic dying noises.

“What was your excuse, Timothy?” Damian asked, eyes glued to the board and determined to win the game.

“Hey, I was probably less supervised than Danny was.”

“Yeah,” Danny perked up. “My parents brought us down to their lab all of the time. Taught us a lot of stuff.”

“Really? Like what?” Duke asked, casually slapping away Tim’s sneaky hands.

“Oh, like what a rocket launcher sounded like up close! And how to build a laser gun! Oh! And what human organs looked like when they’re fresh!” Danny chirped, collecting his money from a stunned Stephanie’s hands. He looked up.

“Oh, don’t worry! I at least learned what not to do when it comes to lab safety. And we wore hazmat suits to protect ourselves from the radiation.” Danny smiled in a ditzy fashion as the table fell silent in a horrified manner. Cass tapped his arm amusedly, but allowed his bullshit to stand. After all, it’s not like he lied.

“Radiation?” Duck’s voice raised a couple of octaves. Oh yeah, Danny’s going to laugh about that pitch for a long while.

“Organs?!” Jason’s hands closed around the plastic house he was holding rather forcefully.

“Do you even know what basic lab safety practices are, Danny?” Damian demanded, finally looking up with brows furrowed. He rolled the dice and grabbed a mystery card. He gets $100 from Alfred.

“How old were you??” Duke asked.

“Like… 8, when they first brought me in?”

“Eight.” Bruce rumbled, slipping into a more Batman like persona. When Danny sent him a confused look, Bruce straightened back into his Bruce persona. “Wow, they must have trusted you a lot!”

“Sure?”

“What were their names again?” Stephanie asked sweetly, Cass nodding at him.

“Jack and Maddie Fenton.” Not that they’ll find them here, considering his parents are dead and in another universe.

“Cool, cool, cool!” Stephanie blinked, beaming as her hands formed lethal fists underneath the table.

Danny blinked and tilted his head in an unassuming way, pretending like he had no idea what Stephanie was thinking of. He sneakily handed over $600 to Cass in order to complete his monopoly on his side of the board.

Danny stood up and spread his hands out, one hand clutching his new found victory.

"Well, lady and gents, you've all been floundering against the inevitable tide of capitalism. I am here, as a reminder that you can never win against the hopelessness that will be your financial ruin! I, Danny Fenton, have obtained a quarter of the board and therefore have won against even your best efforts!" He cackled, holding up his fan of properties triumphantly. He shot a mischievous grin at Cass, who held up a solemn thumbs up in support for his monetary takeover.

"... Danny, are you... planning on a career in villainy?" Bruce asked, after a brief and total wave of shocked silence. Damian looked like he was having a conniption at having been bested, unknowingly. Yeah, Danny was disarming like that.

"Yeah, that was concerning." Tim piped up, nabbing a ten from a shell-shocked Damian.

"Hey! The Riddler gives surprisingly good monologues! And he's really loud, so it's hard not to pick up on things. Duke, your turn." Danny sat back down, pouting. The villainy comment was a little too close to his fears.

"Damn it." Duke, who had rolled, landed smack middle of Danny's territory. He handed over a sheaf of bills to a grinning Danny.

"Wait a minute! You have cheated!" Damian bolted upwards from his seat, finally done running through the purchases he remembered Danny making. "You acquired that property not within the games' rules!"

"Okay, first of all, the rule book is a suggestion, like lab safety rules," Danny saw the others open their mouths to protest, but he quickly shut it down. "Second, there's totally no rules about selling and buying places from a private owner so suck on it. And thirdly? Cass sold it to me, so you all can take it up with her."

"Diabolical!" Damian muttered indignantly.

"... Dammit." Dick sighed, falling back into the chair and balancing on its two legs. He couldn't say anything, considering his current of bankruptcy.

"Danny. Danny, I'll buy a property from you." Jason said, eyeing one of Danny's other properties near his own cluster.

"What do you have that would interest me?" Danny asked, falling back into his Vlad-like imitation.

"Ew, don't do that," Steph reached over to jab him in the arm.

"Yeah, Jason, what do you have?" Duke said, the lovely subtle instigator that he is.

"Red Hood's signature."

The others blue-screen, gaping at the actual audacity Jason had to offer up something that would take him no effort. Danny, prepared with a poker face that came with lying straight to Jazz's ever perceptive eyes about whether he nabbed the last of her ice cream or not, was prepared.

"Red Hood? The condom guy working out of the... um. Upper East Side?" Danny asked, pretending to hesitate. He knows where Jason operated. That doesn't mean he couldn't simply pretend otherwise. For science, of course.

...

The table howled with laughter, Jason's indignant spluttering unable to say anything against Danny's wide eyed look of innocence. Cass leaned against the table, chuckles falling out of her mouth and eyes crinkled in mirth. Dick had fallen out of his chair, helplessly wheezing on the floor. Duke is hiding his face in his hands, mirroring Bruce's pose as they both shake from silent laughter. Damian is smirking, wicked and sharp as he smugly stared at Jason. Stephanie and Tim are leaning against each other, repeating "the CONDOM GUY" in alternating and increasingly louder voices. Alfred had a smile on his face and a tight grip on the bills in front of him that betrayed his amusement.

"He's a crime lord!" Jason exclaimed, indignant.

"Uh, okay. Well, I mean, why would I want a crime lord's signature? I don't want to be on his radar. Or echolocation or whatever. He's... a Bat, right? That's what you guys call that group, yeah?"

"How do you know the Rogues better than the vigilantes?!" Jason glared at his unhelpful family. Those assholes better prepare for a load of rubber bullets the next time they're on patrol near Crime Alley.

"Hey, it's not my fault the vigilantes here are unsociable. Maybe if they monologued more, I'd know who they are."

"Wouldn't- wouldn't that make them more villain like?" Tim asked, stuttering from his laughter.

"I dunno?" Danny replied, enjoying his the family's unabashed joy. "I mean, they're pretty legit and they help people already so I guess they don't need to be sociable... but still I swear I haven't heard anything about Batman other than that he grunts and is mean towards criminals."

Is mean towards criminals, Duke mouthed at a recovering Dick who was in the process of heaving himself back up. It sent him careening back down to the floor with restrained giggles. Cass tapped Danny, reminding him to eat some food.

"Tt. Of course not. They're efficient at their jobs and have no need to be seen as welcoming to criminals." Damian puffed up.

"Yeah, but they've gotta feel safe, right?" Danny shrugged as he plucked a cookie from the cookie platter. "The... one with the sword, what was it?"

"Robin." Damian supplied, eyes narrowed and trained on him.

"Yeah, the baby bird. The kids think his swords are cool so they trust him. But like, the others? The flippy blue one? Not so much."

"Wait," Dick said from the floor. "They don't trust Nightwing?"

"Nah, they trust him to protect them, but he has a history of bringing the kids to the police, you know?"

"What's wrong with that?"

Danny shrugged. "ACAB. But also because everybody knows that half the guys in the GCPD and CPS are child traffickers."

"Wait, what?" Jason and Tim straightened.

Bruce piped in, the emotional whiplash of amusement to concern to amusement to concern visibly making itself known on the man's baffled face. "I thought Batman and Commissioner Gordon took care of that?"

"Sure, the obvious ones." Danny hesitated. Well, he's pretty sure they think he's a meta so... "There's... a meta trafficking ring that they're a part of. That's. That's kind of what I was running from."

Danny looked up pleadingly. Cass placed a hand on his arm in comfort, not knowing that he was fibbing about running from them.

Danny was on the streets helping his own Alley metas to run from them.

Danny is as feral as she was, and that meant he could hide just as much as she could read off of him. Cass was the best and he felt kind of bad about lying to her, successfully or not.

"Uh. Some people said you know Batman, Bruce. I know- uh, that might not be the case but if you do, could you ask him to look into it?" Danny made his eyes tear up. "And maybe he wouldn't care about me much, I mean, I know he doesn't really like metas but if he helps out, I could totally like, leave the city once the kids are safe, promise."

Ooh, Danny put a little too much sincerity into that. He could practically hear the hearts breaking in the game room as everyone glared at Bruce.

"You won't have to leave."

"... Promise?" And Danny's voice was a little too desperate, too hopeful, because Bruce's eyes tugged down in sadness.

"Promise." He rumbled, all Bruce Wayne and all Batman. Danny's core warmed. Danny also saw the rest of the family's faces darken in pure agreement. And partial wrath.

"Yeah! We'll kick Batman's ass if he even thought about kicking you out!" Stephanie proclaimed.

"He's far more proficient in combat than you are, Brown." Damian immediately leapt to Batman's defense and that was that.

Well, later, as Danny was "sleeping" and Phantom was hovering in the cave, invisible and intangible, he got confirmation that his Alley meta kids were going to be safe, soon.

After all, the entire Batclan was suiting up and baying for blood, with Oracle's all encompassing presence behind them, fingers reaching for their enemies' weak points.

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frappegoddess · 1 month

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I originally said this in a reblog but, picture this

Bruce Wayne gets invited by BuzzFeed to read thirst tweets. They are all from his Justice League coworkers.

-------------------------------------------

Bruce, in a completely monotonous voice: @Superman says: I wanna suck Bruce Wayne's soul out through his dick and spit it back in his face.

Bruce, with a completely straight face: Poetic

--------------------------------------------

Cue the batkids watching this video after its been uploaded and gone viral on Twitter: Remember when Uncle Supes wrote that tweet about you when he was stoned off his ass??

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Said video was further used as blackmail by Tim, Jason and Steph. Duke couldn't look him in the eye for a week straight. Damian is yet to understand why the kids at school keep making jokes about his dad.

------------------------------------------

The Justice League will never live it down

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brucewaynehater101 · 2 months

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Each of the Batfamily members have moments that genuinely scare the others.

For Cass, the family generally tries not to piss her off from a consensus that she'll win any fight.

Damian is usually not feared, especially when he's making assassination attempts or insults. When he becomes silent and an animal is involved, that's when the Bats start to freak out.

Duke doesn't mean to be scary. He'll just casually mention something he's done or react to someone instinctively with his powers. This reminds the others why he usually handles the day shift alone.

Dick has two settings to set his family instantly on edge: The first is when he lacks a smile or quips. This is usually reserved for enemies. The second is when he -is- smiling, but it's not right. He only does this allies who are about to be verbally or physically eviscerated.

Steph will lack any visible emotion in her face.

Jason's scary to his family when he makes biting remarks or starts to monologue. He usually follows those up with physical retaliation or some dastardly plans.

Babs uses her "Customer Service" voice as the last warning before your tech or reputation is destroyed.

Tim will either disappear without warning (to make some heinous schemes), or he'll pull out the Drake™ smile.

Bruce just starts talking about emotions.

For Alfred, there'll be dirty dishes in the sink.

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zylev-blog · 2 months

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Batman opened the door, catching the falling body that had come out of the tube. Glowing green Lazarus water flowed around his feet, but he didn’t care. He gently laid the boy onto the ground, listening for breathing sounds. But he wasn’t even sure if his species could breathe. The boy was no older than Tim, with stark-white hair, and pale green skin. The boy wasn’t human, that was for sure, but as to what species he was, Batman had no clue. The teenager hadn’t even opened his eyes since being removed from the tube.

The Lazarus water didn’t smell quite like the pits he was used to. The water smelled cleaner, stronger. Less like battery acid and more like a strong-scented cleaner that he couldn’t give a name to.

He grasped the boy by the shoulders as he picked him up bridal style. He needed to take the boy to the cave, and figure out if he was even alive. A regular hospital wouldn’t be able to do anything for him.

“Batman, we’ve apprehended the last of the men in white suits.” Red Robin said over the comms.

“Good,” His voice was gruff, “Make sure they don’t escape before police arrive.”

Tim didn’t bother saying anything else to him. Neither of them were in the mood for jokes. Not after what they had seen tonight. They had stumbled across a lab in Gotham in an abandoned warehouse. They had thought that it was a Joker hideout when they first arrived, but they had quickly found out that wasn’t the case. After they had began to investigate, they had found corpses of many people that had been thrown into a pit. The bodies had evidence of vivisection, torture, and experimentation. The bodies had ranged from children to adults, but the results were all the same. They were all dead.

They had found tubes like the ones used at Cadmus. They held a few humanoid-species, but most of them looked like they were in varying stages of death. The only tube that looked like it held someone living had been the teenage boy he now held in his arms.

The worst thing about all of this were that they had no idea what this place was, what they were doing, or why they were in Gotham. They had stumbled in by mistake.

He had a lot of work to do.

“No survivors.” Nightwing’s voice sounded. Not even Dick was in a good mood anymore, and he had been joking around for the last few hours.

Batman looked down at the boy in his arms. The boy hadn’t stirred once, hadn’t moved, and hadn’t breathed. He might be carrying a corpse for all he knew.

“And the files?” He prompted.

“Downloading.” Red Robin’s voice was grim. “You’re not going to like it.”

He didn’t like anything about this situation already. How could it get any worse?

“From what I can tell from skimming through the files,” Red Robin continued, “They were experimenting with people’s souls. They killed all of these people because they wanted to catch their ghost.”

“Hrrn.” He looked away from the teenager in his arms. Maybe he didn’t have a corpse in his arms—but a ghost. A ghost of a teenager he failed to save.

What if it had been Tim lying in his arms? Dick? Jason? Damian? Did this teenager have parents before he died, or were his parents in the pit?

The boy stirred, whipping Bruce’s attention back to him. The boy moaned in pain, starting to writhe in his arms.

“You’re safe now.” He said to the boy. “You’re saved.”

“Nnnngh.” The boy opened Lazarus green eyes to look at him. The eyes were hazy, as if exhaustion plagued them. “Batman?”

“They won’t hurt you ever again.” He promised.

“Where is my sister?” The boy asked. “They took her.”

Dick’s words played on repeat in his mind. No survivors. But the boy didn’t need to know that. Not yet.

“We’re still searching the base. She’ll be here somewhere.” He lied.

The boy closed his eyes, letting out a deep sigh. But even with Bruce watching him, the boy did not breathe. Maybe he didn’t need to anymore. Tears leaked down the boy’s cheeks, as if he knew Bruce’s lie.

#dp x dc #dp x dc au #dp x dc writing prompt #dp dc crossover #dp x dc fanfic #dp x dc prompt #danny phantom #danny phantom crossover #dp x dc crossover #dp crossover #dpxdc prompts #dpxdc #dcxdp #dc x dp au #giw #ghost investigation ward #batman

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sonknuxadow · 8 months

Note

if that was actually the case, i don’t blame the current cast for initially assuming the prime cast was going to replace them given what happened with the 4kids cast

yeah it wouldnt be an unfair assumption to make really, especially considering that they (as in most of the current cast) voiced the characters in a tv show before now just in games so its not like they couldnt do a cartoon

#for anyone who doesnt know the sonic voice actors lore and what sonic x has to do with anything:#the cast with jason griffith mike pollock lisa ortiz etc was initially only supposed to be for sonic x #but starting with rush and shth in 2005 they started using that cast for the games too #so that the characters voices would be consistent across all media #which is kinda funny . considering that the characters voices are even LESS consistent now than they were back then #like for one almost the entire 4kids cast got replaced a few years later (only exception being mike pollock as eggman)#and while they havent done another complete recast since then #there are still some characters who have had their voice actors replaced again (like tails knuckles blaze and silver just to name a few)#and then here come the sonic movies that use a completely different cast from the games aside from tails #and also that one animated short thats set after the second movie that had tails and knuckles be voiced by different people for some reason #and then here comes sonic prime which uses a completely different case from the games AND the movies #like damn. what happened to caring about consistency with the voices lmao #asks

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vulnonapixes-dc-corner · 3 months

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Not me thinking about a fic idea, where a Damian from another universe steals his siblings, cause their Damian doesn't value them enough. Needless to say. Damian isn't happy and wants his siblings back

Tim was the first one, cause he often "disappears". He got his coffee drugged.(his Tim died after blowing himself and Ra up in a suicide mission)

The next one was Cassandra, who he was able to confuse with his body language before he drugged her as well. (His Cass was devoured by a monster. She was unable to read its body language as they fought)

For Jason he used his most childlike voice to call out to him, to get him close enough to drug him. (His Jason bleed out all alone in a warehouse, after he saved some kids from getting experimented on.

He took Duke in the middle of the night, because he was the only one out of the family that sleeps.(His duke died on a lab table)

For dick, he just walked up to him as Damian and drugged him after hugging him. ( his dick was killed by his colleagues in the police station)

#batfam #batbros #batfamily #batman #dc #damian wayne #tim drake #cassandra cain #duke thomas #jason todd #dick grayson

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dragonfly0808 · 1 year

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So my Batfamily brain rot is back (not that it ever really left) and I just had a thought like…

If you’re a henchman/criminal in Gotham, seeing your life flash past your eyes is gonna be a somewhat regular occurance but… what if like… the thing that truly made a henchman’s heart fall to his ass was when they hit Robin just a little too hard and this 10 year old kid just starts crying and goes ‘Daaaaaadddd!’

That’s the moment when they truly think they’re going to die because said dad, the kid is calling for is a 6’6 demon from hell who’s all muscle and shadows and vengance and a lot of Gotham still thinks he’s a cryptid

The henchmen all drop their guns and try to calm the kid down but it’s over in 5 seconds flat. Batman breaks several bones before speaking to Robin in the softest voice they’ve ever heard him use and the criminal world, who was already a bit hesitant to fight a kid have even more reason to take it just a little easy on Robin.

And like, I can picture different reactions with every Robin.

Like, for Dick, he’s ten and we all know he was the most violent Robin second only to Damian so maybe when he’s ten or eleven and has calmed down a little, a henchback who still remembers what a little shit he used to be decides to get back at Robin, slips on a pair of brass knuckles and BAM

And then, little Dick just stares for a moment in shock, cheek already starting to bruise, the criminals he’d been fighting all stay still because it was a nasty punch and then…

“Daaaaad!!!” He cries out in a whiny voice that reminds them that Robin really is just a kid and it all clicks into place.

Even Bruce wasn’t expecting that, Dick has just started calling him dad and he still isn’t used to being called that so to hear his kid calling for him in the moment where he is startled and hurt and a little scared… the henchmen don’t even have time to react and they wake up in the hospital with concussions and maybe a few broken bones.

It doesn’t take Dick long to calm down, it was mostly that the hit from a random henchmen really startled him and got him right in the cheekbone. But Bruce still finishes patrol early and Dick still hides under Bruce’s cape all the way to the Batmobile.

Then comes Jason and Jason was such a sweet kid, I headcannon he was the one that called Bruce dad the most often while being Robin. So one night during patrol maybe he finds himself fighting Penguin or Two-Face and it’s been a long night and he has an exam the following day and Bruce is fighting another villain at the other side of the warehouse

The point is, the henchmen and Two-Face start landing hits on eleven year old Jason in his gut and at some point he loses sight of Batman fighting on the other side of the room. Jason gets scared because he’s never really fought without Batman and while he knows that Bruce is still in the warehouse, he can’t see him and the handle of a gun hits the back of his ankle and he falls and he sees Two-Face or Penguin or one of the henchmen getting ready to grab the front of his uniform and beat him up and…

“Daaaaddd!”

The criminals freeze for a moment. They’ve heard the stories of what happened the last time a Robin called scared for dad.

They’re fucked.

They all drop their guns and try to get Jason to calm down, but he’s crying just a little bit and calls again, his voice breaking and despite having been at the other side of the warehouse just a second ago, Bruce somehow drops from the ceiling and it’s over before the criminals can keep pleading with Robin to calm down.

Jason tries to apologize for ‘acting like a baby’ but Bruce is having none of it and carries him back to the Batmobile and Jason is happy to just hide his face in Bruce’s cape because he knows his dad will always be there to save him.

Then comes Tim.

And Tim gets found out while doing reconnisance and somehow he finds himself face to face with Bane who manages to wrench away his bo staff and Tim is just eleven and he is scared because Bane doesn’t look like he’s going to hold back

All Tim knows is that the crack he hears must surely be his ribs either cracking or breaking and he can’t breath and he can only muster enough air for a single word… and he calls for his dad through tears and fear

And at this point… at this point Batman has already lost a Robin, Tim may not be his legally but he is his son just as much as Jason was

Bane spends a month in the ICU

Tim is embarrased that he reacted like that. He thinks it makes him less of a Robin to called scared for Batman… for dad.

So Bruce tells him of the other two times it happened. It’s one of the first times he’s spoken about Jason to Tim so bluntly.

Then comes Stephanie.

Stephanie never calls Bruce dad when she’s Robin. She’s not his daughter and he’s not her dad. They’re not sure what exactly they are to one another.

As far as Bruce knows, Stephanie’s version of Robin never called out to him when she was scared.

What he doesn’t know is that it did happen. Just once

It was the last time she was Robin. When Black Mask had her and she thought she was going to die

At some point while bleeding and feeling nauseous and so scared she could barely hear anything that wasn’t her own heart beating wildly against her chest… she called for dad. Not for Arthur Brown, but for Bruce

Black Mask laughed at her

Stephanie never tells Bruce

And finally… Damian

Now, we know Damian would probably never be startled enough to call for Bruce out of instinct, so I can see 2 scenarios in which this could happen.

First, he sees another kid do it. He sees a kid close to his own age laughing and playing, then tripping and staying quiet for a split second before crying out for mom and dad and he just… assumes that’s something kids do when scared and hurt and startled and does it mostly in an attempt to be a little more ‘normal’

Or, my favorite scenario… he hears of the other times it has happened. He overhears maybe Dick remind Jason of what Bruce did when Jason called out to dad as Robin. Tim maybe jokes that a Robin calling for dad is still the villains’ greatest fear

So Damian stores that knowledge away as a battle strategy just in case he ever needs it… and maybe a small part of him wants to put it to the test, to see if his father would protect him as brutally as he’s protected the Robins before him

So some random night during patrol, he’s up against several henchmen, a few of them grab him from behind, trying to hold him down. Damian is fighting against them when one of them swings a cylinder of metal that Damian thinks might’ve been meant for the plumbing and…

The henchman breaks Damian’s nose, there’s blood dripping down his chin and staining his uniform

Now… it is most certainly not the first time he’s broken something, he’s more than used to the pain, in fact, he barely feels it. However, it gives him a chance to put his little theory to the test

And so Damian allows himself to sound like the ten year old that he is and in a whiny, teary voice, goes… “Babaaaaa!” (Bonus points if it’s the first or second time he’s called Bruce baba instead of father)

What Damian didn’t take into account though, is that Batman and Robin aren’t the only ones on patrol that night. They made a big bust. The biggest part of the operation was over but they were still fighting a few stragglers. The whole fucking family is here.

And they all hear his cry.

Damian doesn’t think he’s ever seen a fight end so quickly. The henchmen only have a split-second of surprise before vanishing, being tackled or shot or having knives buried on their shoulders by his siblings.

The one that actually broke Damian’s nose is being beaten up by Nightwing, Damian doesn’t think he’s ever seen Grayson so angry.

A shadow kneels in front of him, father. Baba. He’s checking Damian and Todd is right at his side, both speaking in hushed tones, checking his injuries and wiping the tears that usually came with a broken nose.

And now… Damian is used to his father and Grayson treating him like a child, trying to be as soft as they can with him. Even Cain does it to some extent.

But… having Drake wrap an arm around him, calling him baby when knocking out one of the criminals that had hurt him ‘that’s my fucking baby brother!’ and continue to hold him later into the night on the couch, having Brown willingly give up all the snacks she keeps in her utility belt and promise to take him to Batburger the following day for milkshakes because he was ‘a champ’. And Thomas wraps his favorite blanket around Damian while they’re fixing him up.

Todd decides to stay the night at the manor. Which he never does. They all decide to spend the night at the manor when Damian still sniffles on the Batmobile and they have breakfast all of them together. Which Damian isn’t sure has ever happened before and Cain gets Alfred to make pancakes with chocolate chips instead of blueberries.

They call him baby in hushed whispers but for once, it doesn’t bother him even though it really should

But most of all, Bruce refuses to let him go for a good five minutes after he first cries for him. Smoothing down his hair and whispering that it’ll be okay and just being soft in a way Damian has never seen before.

He sleeps between his Baba and Grayson and he knows that Todd and Drake and Cain check in on them at least twice in the night for some reason.

And he realizes it’s… it’s nice. Maybe this really could be an effective battle strategy to be employed again someday.

#batman #batfam #batfamily #dick grayson #jason todd #tim drake #stephanie brown #cassandra cain #duke thomas #damian wayne #bruce wayne #batfamily headcanons #batkids #Robins

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luveline · 4 months

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Hi idk if u have already written this if u have pls igonore but what about the first time bombshell reader calls Spencer beautiful?

fem, 1k

“Gideon has a new prodigy.”

Your head rises of its own accord. “Yeah?”

“He's younger than you. Twenty three, I think Hotch said. Fresh out of college, two degrees and working on a third? Or maybe he was getting his doctorate? I couldn't keep up.” Morgan shakes his head in disapproval. “Overeducated and under-experienced. He failed his physicals. The ones he took, anyways.”

“Ooh, ouch. A baby on the team before me,” you joke with a smile. “Genius baby, but a baby.”

Morgan smiles when you smile, he's too nice not to, but he picks up soon enough, crossing his arms where he's stood and wrinkling what was once a finely steamed suit jacket. “I don't know what Gideon's thinking.”

“Does anyone ever know what he's thinking? What's Hotch say about it all?”

Morgan reads what you're typing from over your shoulder and corrects a mistake. One day you won't need his help, but for now you take as much of it as you can get. You're not too proud to acknowledge when you mess up, you're a realist. Super sensible (in mind if not action).

“Hotch lets Gideon do what he wants, mostly. What can you do when he's one of the originals?” Morgan leans heavily onto his desk by the forearms and shrugs. You’re similar in this regard; complain, move on. You're similar in other ways, too. That's why you get along.

“Well, I want to meet this guy,” you say. “We'll be teammates just as soon as Strauss stops hating me. I'm one strategic boxed bouquet from a full pardon.” He laughs and touches your arm like he believes you. “Is he around?”

“Here they are now.”

You spin in Morgan's desk chair slowly. Jason Gideon is stalking through the office with his head in the contents of a manilla envelope, while a new face follows behind him talking a mile a minute.

“Obviously,” you hear Gideon interrupt as they get close enough. “Agent Morgan can explain that to you. Don't overthink it, Spencer, just try to get through it.”

He doesn't acknowledge you nor Morgan as he leaves Spencer and hurries up the steps leading to his and Hotch's offices. You aren't expecting much else from him. What little Gideon knows about you he doesn't like. If you ever get over the Strauss hurdle, it's him you'd have to convince next. You don't watch him cross the landing, your gaze focused on the man making his timid way toward you. Your lips part briefly, and then quirk into an overjoyed smile.

“Oh, you're beautiful,” you say without thinking.

He frowns at you.

“Reid,” Morgan interrupts, “This is Y/N L/N. She works in the sex crimes division. As you can imagine, we get a lot of crossover.” You stand, holding out your hand. “Y/N, this is Spencer Reid.”

“I don't shake. Sorry.”

You press your hand to your chest. “Oh, that's okay. I shouldn't assume…” Your voice melds into a silkiness that has his shapely brows furrowing further, “It's nice to meet you, Spencer Reid. You're really pretty, do you know that?”

Spencer peeks at Morgan quickly, who laughs good-naturedly. “She's serious, Reid. She's not making fun of you.”

“You'd know,” Spencer says. It isn't malicious, but it isn't exactly friendly, either.

You twist to frown at Morgan deeply. “Morgan, you're not being nice to him?”

“I'm being plenty nice, sweetheart, but this is how it works. I gotta haze him a little.”

“No, you don't.” You tip your cheek toward your shoulder to look at Spencer through your lashes. “He pretends to be worse than he is, I promise. But don't let him neg you, okay? You're smarter than he is–”

“Hey.”

“–and he's used to being the office pretty boy. It's jealousy, nothing else,” you finish. Spencer really is gorgeous now you're close enough to see his eyes. A brown like caramelised sugar tented by dark, dark eyelashes. When he smiles, the very slightest hint of teeth shows, and it makes him even prettier. You endeavour to make him smile again. “Sorry if I'm coming off a little strong. It's not my intention.”

“She's just nervous. You have everything she wants,” Morgan says.

You sigh forlornly. “Oh, doesn't he?” Spencer's confused pout is even cuter than his smile. “Getting into the BAU is about as easy as walking on water.”

“For a human,” Spencer says. “Easier if you're smaller. Like a water strider.”

There's a silence. Morgan is aghast, you think. You're in love.

“Yeah?” you ask, stars in your eyes as his own spark to life.

“Because water strider's can transfer their weight, but also due to their hydrofuge hairpiles. Their microhairs.” He catches himself, measuring your expression carefully. “Did you really wanna know?”

“Do you wanna get a cup of coffee and tell me about it?” you ask.

His lips part as yours had when you first saw him.

He's prevented from answering as Hotch's office door opens and the man himself walks out near the railing. “Good, you’re here. I have something to talk to you about.”

You grin at him. “I'd love to chat, Agent Hotchner, but I'm getting to know your new protégé.”

“I see.” He waits.

You would ignore him —Hotch has a soft spot for you (or rather, he likes you enough to put up with you, which is more than can be said about other members of his division) and he'd shrug off your dismissal— but you're really keen to hear what he has to say. Perhaps Strauss has changed her mind about your proposed trail basis with the team.

“I'm so sorry,” you say to Spencer, immediately re-dazzled by his pretty, lovely face. “It was really nice to meet you, Spencer Reid. Maybe next time you can tell me more about it.”

You give Morgan a quick thank you for the help with your paperwork and trust him to log out of your emails. In your rush up the stairs, you hear a wisp of conversation.

“Was she messing with me?”

Morgan laughs. “No, kid. That's how she is.”

"Oh... She's nice."

"You have no idea."

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x fem!reader #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid oneshot #spencer reid scenario #spencer reid drabble #spencer reid fic #spencer reid fanfiction #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds #criminal minds fic #criminal minds x reader

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