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greytoiletpaper · 3 years

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Out on Allen Street, it’s 7 in the Morning

Set in the Street Siblings au by @a-sketchy-character | @streetsiblings without which I may not have had the motivation to write this much.

Drizzle | Deluge | Squall | AO3

Chapter 4: susurration

The world is dark.

Somehow, she knows how many marks and cuts criss-cross her body; how many bruises decorate her like a canvas. But she can’t feel them, not even one.

Instead, all she can do is listen, tuning in to the rain as it pours, as red droplets fall in time off of Mad Dog’s blade. If she really listens to the sound, it almost sounds like a different boy’s laughter.

She focuses on the noise and it alone, her body so perfectly still.

Mad Dog thrusts his blade to her chest, and Cassandra’s eyes open.

They’ve only been in Gotham for a week, yet, it feels like he never left. At least for Park Row, the “Crime Alley”, the city has never changed. Slowly, the Red Hood and Ravager make the area their own. He does everything to make sure that the Bat never catches a whiff of what he’s doing. He knows it is pointless; even if Bruce knew, he would be too much of a coward to venture into the evil heart of the city.

It infuriates him, the remnants of the old argument. If Batman was ever truly needed. It would be - no, should be - here. In the black, beating heart of Gotham, where crime and cruelty channel through its citizens as if it were in their own blood. Yet for all he prattles about his crusade of justice, Bruce will never set foot into Crime Alley; too hung up on the ghosts of his past to banish the ones that haunt others.

It’s why he’s wearing the original persona of the man who murdered him. Jason had lived these streets, born and raised and died because of them. Deep down, Jason understands what Bruce simply refuses to believe. Some people simply want to watch the world burn, and they can never be stopped, only carefully controlled, managed or otherwise taken out. He never wants what happened to him to be inflicted on someone else. Not if he can help it.

Now, Red Hood is here, slinking through the darkened hallways of Arkham. Past every guard and camera until he arrives at one particular cell. He knocks on the door, and a mop of neon green flips upwards.

The madman beams; his eyes are whirlpools of chaotic energy.

“What’s this? Birdy clipped his wings!” The Joker begins, guffawing like a howling hyena. “I was wondering when you’d come back to see me, little Jay.”

To his credit, Jason doesn’t react. The pneumatic seals of the helmet hiss as it comes off. The Joker never takes his eyes off his face.

“There you are, my boy. Just like your uncle Jay” The lunatic says without tone, feral grin seeming plastered. “Say, you seen Cass anywhere?”

That makes him shift uneasily on his feet. The Joker leans in close, almost conspiratorially.

“You think the Bat ran her out? That he…” Something morbid flashes in the eyes of his monster. “Killed her just like I did you?”

Jason wants to drive his fists into the man’s back. Stamp on his legs until the bones shatter. Bludgeon him over and over with whatever is on hand until the madman’s flesh is nothing but paste. Instead, he stands frozen as the cackling echoes around the room and in his ears.

“I’m not doing this for you,” Is what he says. “And I’m not doing this for me either.”

His hand lifts the pistol from its holster.

“I’m doing this because someone has to do what Batman can’t.”

The Joker takes the words in stride, nodding to himself. To Jason, it’s the calmest he has ever seen him.

“Not a fan of the whole motorcycle fetish style, but to each his own,” The madman’s eyes, still rotting in their own insanity, meet his. Something about the gaze seems so clear despite the instability. “You’re going to be wonderful for the Red Hood name.”

He sighs.

“When you do it, boy, make sure you get as much of the colour out of me.”

Jason nods and presses the barrel into Joker’s forehead, closes his eyes, and everything is silent.

He presses his hand to the glass, the rain sliding down the pane on the other side, its streams the same lengths as the rivers that flow from his red crown.

Fact One, a statement: Roman Sionis is the Black Mask, one of Gotham's most powerful crime lords with connections running deeply in the underground drugs and weapons trade.

Fact Two, an amendment: Roman Sionis is the Black Mask, arguably one of Gotham's most powerful crime lords with sizeable connections in the weapons trade.

Fact Three, a truth: He is absolutely livid with the Red Hood and the Ravager.

Roman stares at the text on the notepad; he picks it up and throws it across the room.

In the space of two nights, the new duo had taken over his entire drug operation and cut off every tie Roman had to Crime Alley. Internally, he thinks ‘cut off’ is still too lacking a description. Half of his thugs breathing through tubes for days. Pimps found castrated and dangling from lampposts. Drug dealers with their mouths frothing as they dissociated. If the rumour mill among villains is anything to go by, Red Hood had killed the Joker in his own damn cell. Roman shudders. He’d seen the images from the crime.

The pair are definitely a threat, and Roman needs him gone as soon as possible. Hiring the Joker would have been one of the best choices: effective, relatively cheap and definitely motivated to take on whoever dares don his previous mantle. Alas, reality disagrees.

Black Mask picks up the phone, ready to dial the more expensive alternative. He sighs and hopes they don’t call Deathstroke the ‘Terminator’ for nothing.

Cassandra dives away at the last second, adrenaline flushing through her body and lifting the fog from her mind. Her opponent’s blade impacts with the ground, firmly planting itself the whole way. Mad Dog, clearly thrown off, becomes an easy target with her renewed energy.

She does not hold back, unleashing a flurry of blows to the assassin’s chest, even as he tries to hold his defence together. With renewed focus, she redirects every strike he makes and strikes him back thrice as hard.

It is not long until Mad Dog is at Cassandra’s mercy, nearly a bloody pulp under her hand.

“Finish it,” Shiva calls suddenly, and she almost complies. But, with her hazy vision, the images of Faizul and the assassin blend together. The vertigo Cassandra is feeling becomes sharper, and she’s drowning in it.

In her hesitation, Shiva tuts and stabs her own blade into Mad Dog’s heart, crimson fluid spraying in all directions.

Cass doubles over, desperately heaving, and liquid green purges from her body.

Bruce stares up at the readout on the Batcomputer. There are new players in Gotham, but there’s something that makes them stand out from the others. They make headway faster than he’s ever seen it, clearing out and claiming Park Row as their own territory in a week.

Twenty-seven confirmed kills and thirty-four hospitalisations. He would have stopped with his investigation then and there. Yet, the detective in him tugs the back of his mind. He checks through the names again and finds that each one is attached to a laundry list of crimes that become more appalling the further he reads.

Then Red Hood killed the Joker; and for the first time since the madman’s debut, Gotham is quiet.

Bruce rubs his face in his hands and turns to the screens entirely dedicated to monitoring his daughter Cassandra. (The memorial makes itself known in his peripheral vision.) Her work in Hong Kong as Black Bat had been phenomenal so far. Every story he can find of her weaves the same story: Black Bat, hero of the Forgotten. Of the waylaid and the oppressed.

What would they think? Bruce finally turns to the statue, mouthing the words on the plaque to himself.

“Can you promise something for me, Bruce? Just one thing?”

“Anything for you, Jaylad.”

He tears his eyes away.

Damian becomes cagey whenever either of the three vigilantes come up in conversation. It is suspicious, but he has had the lesson very solidly ironed in his mind how unconducive to understanding he can be. So, he gives his son his space.

Despite the child's refined nature, little pieces of him remind him of Jason, far beyond the boy's temper, pride, or even his cursing. Bruce had seen Damian in the library once, his fingers tracing the spine of a newer copy of Huckleberry Finn.

Red and orange flash by his primary monitor, and Bruce pulls himself from his thoughts.

Batman rises, ready to confront whatever ghosts will taunt him in the shadows.

The world roars in her ears, and no matter how hard she tries, Cassandra can’t stop the erratic sequence of deep breaths that claw out her throat. For once she’s glad she’s not wearing her old costume. The mask reminded her too much of smoke inhalation and chains and-.

“Why?” She rasps in a throaty, breathless voice that has not escaped her for years. “Why would you do this?”

“Can’t a mother test the progress of her daughter?” Shiva replies coolly. Her stance gives off nothing, so Cassandra does not deign her a response.

“He went looking for me, you should know.”

Her head snaps up.

“He was curious. A unique girl who can read the body as if it were a book and a unique woman who can do the very same? An unlikely coincidence,” Shiva turns her head away, ducked down as if she had already admitted too much. “He asked me, if it was my choice to leave you with your father.”

“It wasn’t.”

Sandra nods.

“He told me that was, and I quote, ‘a load of shit’.”

“Sounds like Jason,” Cass mutters under her breath. A hush falls between them, not comfortable but not unwelcome either.

“It is not me you came here for,” Sandra says with such conviction that Cass can’t help but gape in her disbelief. Of course, she did. Shiva gave birth to her.

Before she can voice her thoughts, Sandra grasps her shoulder and wraps her arms around Cass.

“You’ll find your brother soon. I can promise you that.”

Gotham rumbles, her shock snaking through the crown of her scalp. She knows that tonight is the night; when events will pass and tear the whole city asunder. For better or for worse, she cannot tell.

But she is eager to find out for herself.

“Think that’s a wrap for tonight?” Jason asks quietly, almost inaudible over the Gotham rain. It’s the only coherent sentence he’s made in days, so Rose takes what she can get.

“Probably, you’re not shanghaiing me into grabbing groceries, right?”

“Maybe,” He chuckles, but even though his voice is filtered by their comms, she can tell it’s forced. “Anyone ever tell you how similar some of our problems are?”

“Really? You realised this just now?” Rose rolls her eyes because, honestly. “I mean, at least your dad isn’t some psycho assassin supervillain.”

“Aww, Rosie, making your old man sad. Truly, I’m hurt,” Hues from orange and blue armour melt from the shadows as Deathstroke emerges, eyeing her. “You don’t wear the uniform like Grant did.”

“It’s not meant to and either way, I barely knew him or Joey.” She draws her blades, trying to hide how much her arms are shaking. It doesn’t help. “No thanks to you.”

“Is that Slade?” Jason’s voice is like music to her ears, relaxing her muscles in the ways she needs.

“I made your brothers stronger,” There’s an edge to Slade’s voice, sharp as the glistening blade he brandishes. Ready to pounce at a moment’s notice. “I suggest you come with me so you can be the same.”

“What, dead because of problems you caused?” She laughs shakily, grimacing under her mask. “I suggest you fuck off.”

“I’m coming, Rose.”

“No can do. There’s a hit on the two of you, and its fait accompli,” Deathstroke makes a ‘what-can-you-do?’ gesture and Rose darts forward, her tears faster than the raindrops that dance on her skin.

Batman has followed the Red Hood for hours now, and he has no idea what to think. He expected someone wielding the Joker’s former identity to be as insane as the Clown Prince himself. Yet, the red helmet only bobs up and down as if it were in conversation rather than rotating listlessly.

Despite how antithetical the new face in Gotham is to his beliefs, some actions catch him off guard about the man.

While he has seen no deaths on this patrol, with every bone the criminal breaks, the same hands offer food to street children and escort working girls to their homes. Bruce is thrown, viscerally, into a memory of the bird that flew beside him to do the very same.

The Dark Knight watches him stalk through Park Row, freeze and then take off in another direction.

It is time.

He pursues the criminal, sprinting across the rooftops of Gotham, gliding above catwalks and fire escapes. Within minutes, he overtakes and blocks the path ahead of Red Hood, who curses and vaults over his body.

Or at least, he tries to as Batman grips the man’s ankle and slams him back into the pavement. Hood never misses a second, drawing a knife and swiping at his limbs. He lets go; the man faces him again, twirling the knife round and round.

“B,” A modulated voice hangs in the air, but there is a quality to it that tickles his conscious, like an old ghost whispering in his ears.

“Red Hood, I suggest you surrender peacefully, or I –.”

“Cut the act, alright? You think that just because you’re Batman, nobody can be above you,” Red Hood laughs. Through the modulator of his helmet, it comes off as hollow. “The truth with a saying like that –.” The knife is stowed away. “– It just means nobody is beneath you either.”

The criminal grapples him; kick, jab, punch, kick again in a rapid dance of attacks that Bruce can barely keep up with. Some of the criminal’s movements are achingly familiar yet so foreign that the composite form nauseates him. Red hood strikes over and over until he actually has him, the Dark Knight, pinned.

“And some of us can’t wait to drag you all the way down.”

Jason had always had a gift for speaking. His sister’s hands may be knives, but his words were bullets.

Breaking out of the Red Hood’s hold, that is what Bruce muses in his mind.

They’ve been at a game of cat and mouse for so long now. Locked in a chase of diving and darting around a maze of alleyways and rooftops. Jason drops on one of them and turns to face his pursuer, who draws short away from him.

“What, can’t work it out?” He triggers the seals on his helmet as he lifts it off. Without the lenses he can see, even in the rain, the second Bruce recognises him. “You really didn’t care enough to remember my name or something?”

“Jason,” Bruce’s tone gives off nothing and everything. “W-Why are you doing this? How are you –.”

“I’m doing this because you refuse to do what needs to be done.” Jason snarls, venom laced in every word. “You want to rule them by fear, but you never go any further with the ones who aren’t afraid.”

“Jason, I don’t under-.”

“I died for your cause, and in less than a year you shove some other kid in the uniform so he can die too!” He is raving now. He also doesn’t care. “You let my murderer run wild and slaughter thousands and when someone finally steps up to do what needed to be done, you cut her out?”

“I had to –.”

“Had to what? Isolate her? Run her out of the only family she’s ever known? She was my sister, my whole fucking world; who believed in you and you left her like she means nothing to you! Cass is gone now, and that is your fault!”

“If you would –.”

“Do you even remember? That the only thing I ever made you swear to me, that you vowed on your life, was that you’d never let her down?” For once this night, his voice isn’t angry or vicious. It is a void, detached from any feeling. “Guess I should have known better.”

He knows, almost intrinsically despite the years, that if there is one thing that Jason has said tonight, those are the words that pierce Batman’s defences. It’s why he lets Bruce rush forward like he wants to. Allows the chase to continue. When he jumps, Jason lands in an apartment that carries the same bloodstains that leaked down his mother’s arms a lifetime ago.

Black Bat arrives in Gotham, and superficially, it is empty. She almost hails Barbara when bright flashes shine in her peripheral vision. Lo and behold, Deathstroke and an unknown are locked in a duel below her.

Cassandra drops from above, and at that moment, she kicks Deathstroke into a wall hard enough to knock him unconscious. His opponent, she notices, stops immediately.

Before her is a girl, hair silver under the moonlight, garbed in orange and black.

Then the Batmobile rounds the corner, a small figure rising from the hatch.

"Black Bat," Robin says, "You have not responded to Oracle, she was-."

Damian's eyes bug out once he notices the girl beside Cassandra. She fully expects him to snarl or draw his ridiculously long katana. Instead, uncharacteristically rushes forward and embraces the girl tightly instead.

"Wilson. A-are you finally assisting us in Gotham?" Damian says, even with his head buried in a shoulder. "Drake may be intelligent, but his incompetence with the sword is impossible to rectify."

"Missed you too, D-man," The girl chuckles and ruffles the boy's hair. "I would help, but what’s up with tall, slim and broody over there?"

Cassandra crosses her arms expectantly at Robin, who obviously only just remembered her presence when he unlatches himself immediately. His cheeks may be red, but Damian still raises his chin proudly.

"I found her, Rose," His body language and eyes seem to sing. "I found his ukht."

The girl spins sharply, wolfish eyes drawn wide. “You’re her,” Rose breathes, awe rippling off her body. “You’re Cass.”

She would have flinched, but the body language is so familiar. Cass tilts her head.

“Yes.”

Rose grabs her arm so hastily that she almost rips it back in shock. But something is so honest about her body language that Cass relents, letting the girl lead her where she is needed.

He kneels, tracing the dark stains. Behind him, Batman pauses. Not even he would dare to disturb the sanctity of this room.

“Jaylad, please -.”

“Don’t call me that. That isn’t who I am,” Jason rounds on Bruce. He gestures to the shattered window, the ripped upholstery, and the bloodstained floor. “This is what I grew up being, what I never wanted anyone else to.”

He taps the insignia on Bruce’s chest with his pistol.

“That, right here, was your promise to people like me. People that needed help and protection,” He spits. “And you couldn’t even do it for the ones closest to you.”

"I just want to-."

"Want to what? Parade your antiquated sense of morality to hide, while the rest of the world suffers for what you refuse to do? Or cast out others from taking it in their own hands?"

Tears are building in his eyes, but he wipes them away while Batman stands ramrod straight.

"I don't think you understand. That you've never understood," The man begins, and Jason gapes because what the hell does that mean? "If I let myself cross that line, even for Joker, I won't ever come back."

"You know what I think about that, Bruce?" Jason breathes deeply, feeling the whispers of the Pit roaring with the heavy rain in his ears. "I think that's a huge self-aggrandizing load of bullshit."

He charges forward, knocking Batman's legs from under him and ramming his face into the ground. Batman is down to his knees before either can even blink.

"And I'm so fucking tired of hearing it."

Jason levels the barrel at Bruce’s forehead, torbernite lining the edges of his vision, engulfing him in an absence.

“What’s the use of you learning to do right when it’s troublesome to do right?”

Then, her voice shatters the tension in the air, gripping his heart and silencing the susurrations of the rain that suffocated his ears.

“When it ain’t no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same.”

“Cass?” The boy in the alleyway says. A gun. An apple in his hand. The girl falters in the doorway, her fist tongue clenches, and she nods.

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littleeyesofpallas · 4 years

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Batman shenanigans...

So, I’m the type of would-be writer that gets easily bogged down in plotting and planning and researching minutia more than writing actual moment to moment scenes and dialog, and the rabbit hole I’ve found myself tumbling down most recently has been this…

I wanted to rewrite Jason’s Red Hood origin story; from his death and resurrection, up until his big return. Under the Hood has a great finale and a memorable confrontation scene between Jason and Bruce, but in all honesty, the plot surrounding it is pretty blase. And granted, that’s mostly because there were no real long term plans for Jason as Red Hood beyond the big twist, so the initial story wasn’t really written with any solid themes, overarching direction, or character integrity in mind. But then on top of that things attempting to elaborate on the intervening years (Lost Days, and that weird thing they did in the first Red Hood & The Outlaws) also just aren’t especially well handled. They tend to be narrow in scope, isolated within continuity, and not especially thematically substantive.

But here we are, at a point in Jason’s character and publication history, where I think there’s just a lot that can be done with revisiting the idea of his Red Hood debut, as well as the events leading up to it, that could better incorporate his character’s themes and personal history. Something that until somewhat recently had all just felt a little too fresh, still, to really warrant any kind of rewrite and retcon.

The first big question I had to ask myself was, “How long was Jason dead/gone?” because to have gone from a somewhat under accomplished Robin to a credible threat to Batman himself, needs time, even with remarkable circumstances surrounding his training. So, I needed to figure out how long I really needed/had available to work with for his training, as well as what that training would entail; and part of figuring that out also meant taking stock of all the Batfam events Jason missed while gone. Basically, I had to figure out what Batfam events I wanted to keep in my new continuity, and draw up a timeline to keep track of them all…

So, taking a cue from the old Superman & Batman: Generations elseworlds comic —in which John Byrne re-envisions the World’s Finest’s superhero careers as if they had debuted in the year of their first issues, and aged in sync with the real world ever since— I anchored my timeline around Jason’s death in 1988 and just started working out fixed measurements from there…

For example, When Jason becomes Robin, Dick had recently retired the costume and gone to college, putting something of a finite age range on Dick, which helps orient his and Jason’s relative ages, and in turn lets me pinpoint their years of birth, and by proxy nail down Bruce’s age if we consider he adopts Dick in Year Two as Batman. And going off Batman: Year One’s premise of Bruce starting his vigilante career at age 25, it gives me a solid grasp of his age as well.

One problem of course came from the early days of The Dynamic Duo; namely Robin’s time between the ages of 8 and ~17(leaving for college) which lasted the awkward 40-odd years of publication. My solution was to scale the years in publication to his two confirmable ages at the time of The Flying Graysons’ deaths(8yo) and his leave for college(age 17); resulting in a ratio of 1 in-world year:~4.44 publication years.

Applying this to the years before 1980(when Dick leaves for college) in turn pinpoints Babs’ debut as Batgirl, which ironically ends up scaling down to the same year Jason first appears as part of The Flying Todds. (I kept the date of his appearance, but opted to keep his later origin story)

Anyway, while this process was fun and all (and hopefully leads to something a little more productive in the future) the bottom line here is that I just wanted to share the timeline I’ve constructed, because it paints a somewhat jarring picture of everyone’s ages, relative to one another and at the time of certain major events.

Now! Enjoy this harrowing examination of the relative ages of all your favorite Batfam characters, if they didn’t all just hover around the ages of 18-30!

1970: YEAR ONE

Bruce Wayne is 25 - becomes Batman (parents died 17y ago)

Barbara Gordon is 15 (just entering High school

Jean-Paul Valley is 1

In 1 year…

8yo Dick Grayson will watch his parents will die

1976: BATMAN & ROBIN - THE DYNAMIC DUO

Bruce is 31, Barbara is 21 (graduating with her Bachelors)

Dick is 13 - becomes Robin

Helena Bertinelli is 8 - watches her parents die

1979: BATGIRL

Bruce is 34, Dick is 16 (has been Robin for 3 years)

Babs is 24 - becomes Batgirl

already completed a PhD in Library Science

Jason Todd is 8 - watches parents die

in 1 year…

35yo Bruce will have been Batman for 10 years

17yo Dick will be shot, fake death, & go to college

join the New Teen Titans(?)

1983: JUST ANOTHER KID ON CRIME ALLEY

Bruce is 38, Dick is 20, Babs is 28

Jason is 12 - becomes the 2nd Robin

Stephanie Brown & Cassandra Cain are both 1yo

In 1 year…

21yo Dick becomes Nightwing

1988: DEATH IN THE FAMILY & KILLING JOKE

Bruce is 43, Dick is 25

Jason is 17 - murdered

Babs is 33 - shot and paralyzed

Lucas Fox is born

In 1 year…

Babs becomes Oracle

21yo Helena becomes Huntress

12yo Kate Kane watches her mother and sister die

1990: A LONELY PLACE OF DYING

Bruce is 45, Dick is 27, Babs is 35

Tim Drake is 13yo - becomes the 3rd Robin

Tim Drake & Kate Kane are the same age

Cassandra Cain is 8yo - just killed her first man

1992: KNIGHT FALL

Bruce is 47, Dick is 29, Babs is 37, Tim & Kate are 15

Stephanie Brown is 10 - becomes Spoiler

Jean-Paul Valley is 23 - becomes Azrael

Renee Montoya is 21 - joins GCPD, partnered with Harvey Bullock

In 1 year…

48yo Bruce will have back broken by Bane

24yo Jean-Paul will become Batman

1995: LOST DAYS

Bruce is 50, Dick is 32, Helena is 27, Kate is 18, Cass is 13

Babs is 40 - forms Birds of Prey

Tim is 18 - retires as Robin, goes to college

based on Unmasked happening while Tim is in high school, but pushing to senior year to accommodate Spoiler’s age

Steph is 13 - becomes the 4th Robin

keeping War Games in ‘04, Steph gets more time as Robin

Calvin Rose is 8 - locked in kennel by his father

In 1 year…

Jason will rise from the dead (with the body of a 17yo)

33yo Dick will relocate to Bludhaven

51 yo Bruce and ??yo Talia will conceive Damian

1999: NO MAN’S LAND

Bruce is 54, Dick is 36, Babs is 44, Jason is “20,” Kate is 22

Tim is 22 - returns as Robin

Steph is 17 - pregnant

Helena is 31, Cass is 17 - sequence of Batgirls

Duke Thomas and Harper Row are 1

Steph being 10 when she starts as Spoiler is also a little hard to believe, I know. And her having a thing with Tim 5 years her senior is pretty squicky. (It’s not a big age gap for adults, but the fact that Tim would be 20 when she’s 15 is pretty, bleugh!)

But the problem is that I anchored her to her teen pregnancy in 1999, and a pregnancy scare at 18 or 19 doesn’t really feel like a big deal, (I mean, it is as a personal thing, but not so much as a publication thing*, if that makes sense?) which made 17 about as old as I could make her at that time.

*Pregnant at 18 or 19 is just, “wow, you’re young, and this was probably a bad idea, and you’re not ready… but you’re also a legal consenting adult and this isn’t some kind of cause for moral panic, just kinda trashy…” territory, and not like a big controversial, 90s-dark-age, comic-selling gimmick, you know?

2001: JOKER’S LAST LAUGH

Joker dies of cancer (not featured on this timeline)

2003: UNDER THE RED HOOD, & WAR GAMES

Bruce is 58, Dick is 40, Babs is 48, Tim is 26

Helena is 35, Steph & Cass are 21

Jason is “24″ - returns in Hush plot

Jean-Paul is 34 - “dies”

Ra’s al Ghul killed by Nyssa ah Ghul (not featured on this timeline)

In 1 year…

22yo Steph will be “murdered”

25yo Jason will return as Red Hood

2006: ROBIN: WANTED

Cass is 24 - begins long process of beating up her family

kills Nyssa al Ghul (not featured on this timeline)

In 1 year...

Cass will take over the League of Assassins

2007: BATMAN AND SON

Bruce is 62, Dick is 44, Babs is 52, Jason is “28,″ Tim & Kate are 30

Damian is 11 - becomes the 5th Robin

Renee is 37 - becomes The Question

In 1 year…

63yo Bruce Wayne will “die”

29yo Jason will don the Red Robin mantle w/Challengers

Kind of like in Arkham Knight, I LOVE the idea of Jason returning to a Gotham where the Joker has been confirmed dead. So, instead of just going to Arkham and asking Joker what’s up with the new copycat Red Hood, everyone has to legit wonder: Did he just fake his death?/Was he resurrected? Is Joker back?

I made Jason’s return at age 25 because it mirrored Bruce’s start as Batman. There wasn’t really a good anchor otherwise, but I might nudge that date around, if only because resurrected Jason being “younger” than Tim is super weird. My other angle here was to determine how long Jason was training for his return, and determine his resurrection that way. (Comics have made it that he was resurrected within the same year he died, but that feels frivolous to me, so whatever my final version, I’ve opted to let Jason stay dead for at least a full year.)

There’s also the whole 2010s decade, but that’s less relevant to my Jason story’s timeline. But, yeah... this has highlighted some interesting points for me to play with! Like that fact that Jason…

…is almost the same age as the Dynamic Duo itself

He’s never known a world without Batman & Robin in it

…is the version of Robin Tim, Kate, Steph & Cass all think of first, since he was Robin when they were kids, not Dick.

And in fact they all would only ever know of Dick as Nightwing.

…got captured and killed by Joker right after Barbara got shot

He DEFINITELY should’ve been motivated to kill Joker by that, instead of the random biological mom smuggling drugs in Iran plot

…was resurrected right around the same time that Damian was conceived, and that Calvin began training as a Talon prospect

makes interesting parallels about different plans to replace Batman all forming right around the same time; with Bruce entering his 50s and having just lost to Bane

…showed back up in the same year that Azrael died

I think it’d be cool if those were more closely linked, instead of Azrael just being shot by a couple of C-listers

…comes back to start a gang war with Blackmask and yell at Bruce about dead Robin issues at the same time Steph gets killed by Blackmask while trying to execute Bruce’s plan to take over the mob.

How can I not take advantage of that for more drama?

Also, not part of my fic, but how cool that Duke and Harper were born in the middle of the Gotham earthquake in Cataclysm? And with Damian having lost a year to being dead, he’s the same age as Duke, which kinda makes Duke not wanting the Robin mantle a little more interesting.

I find it funny that kids in Gotham are really consistently traumatized at the age of 8 for some reason: Bruce, Dick, Jason, Helena, Cassandra, Calvin...

Half the Batgirls were in fact grown ass women and not “girls,” when they started in on the vigilante racket and I’m tempted to just combine them with the Batwoman legacy a ditch the weird nubile/infantilism fixation comic creators have on forcing them to hover around 18-20 while all the guys hover closer to 30.

And I’m trying will all my might to fight the compulsion to do a timeline for the Teen Titans, because knowing the Robins’ ages puts a pretty narrow frame on the other Teen Titans’ ages at any given time, but by god the fact that they keep reusing the New Teen Titans roster but for EVERY new Robin is a maddening paradox...

Don’t even get me started on that fact that now I get to go map all the Gotham Rogues and figure out just how long they’ve each been up to their bullshit, and who’s still rolling around Gotham in, like, a wheelchair at age 80, menacing the Bat...

#batman #redhood #bruce wayne #jason todd #nightwing #oracle #batgirl #robin

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