There's always people theorizing how the Batfamily hides Jason disappearance and reappearance, but I literally haven't seen anyone use the best explanation: Witness Protection.
Like this literally answers every question. The Death Certificate? They had to fake his death. The empty grave? Obviously it had to be believable. The time when Wayne Heir "Richie Wayne" refused to step foot in Gotham and talk to his father? He was pissed about Jason's (non) death. Brucie Wayne's very real depression after his death? Well he lost contact with his son and he was under immense stress from the government.
Like this literally answers every question I can come up with. Why has no one said he was in witness protection? And if people have done it, send me fics and prompts because I'm obsessed.
And the best part is, the Waynes are so stupidly rich that they could pull it off. Lex Luther could try and conduct his own investigation but somehow he can never find anything concrete. And if he gets too close either Babs hacks them or Tim just calls up Conner for a distraction.
One time Jason gets cornered and asked how he felt about returning to his life after being in Witness Protection. Unfortunately, him and Bruce weren't on the best terms to explain the whole story but he comes in clutch. He spins the tale about how heartbroken he was to see his brother, father and grandfather grieving and how honored he was when he learnt his new little brother idolized him. Tim got ahold of a copy of the interview and will never let Jason live it down.
The media doesn't ask Bruce questions about Jason's death because last time they did he broke down and a suddenly furious reporter chastised them and reminded them that while Jason may be alive Bruce still mourned his death. The picture of Bruce in tears at the interview is currently one of Jason's favourite lockscreens.
Same goes for Dick. Any questions of his brother's death results in (1) Richie Wayne ready to throw hands at any and everybody, (2) his wife (well one of them) Barbara Gordon threatening the reporters or (3) That same Metropolis reporter chastising the whole community again.
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“DIDJA SEE THAT, DANNY?!” Tim, a scrawny eleven year old now, excitedly smacked Danny’s arm.
“Ow. Yes, yes I did.”
“Oh, gosh, I have to tell Jazz about this!!” The kid waved his arms about wildly, grinning from ear to ear.
“Jaso- I mean, Robin, smiled at me! And said he liked my t-shirt!! Oh my god, he likes literature puns, he even laughed! And then he punched the bad guy in the face! Look! I even saved the tooth!”
“Okayyy, nope!” Danny plucked the tooth and tossed it, ignoring Tim’s betrayed face. “I’ll trade you that for this.”
Danny Held out a piece of paper with Robin’s and Batman’s sigil on it, from when he asked them to sign it after they “saved” the two brothers from the two-bit thugs trying to mug them.
“Oh. My. God. This is like the best day of my life!! I love you, Danny! You’re the best brother ever!! Oh my god! I have to get Nightwing’s signature!!!”
Danny felt a rush of warmth at Tim’s proclamation of affection. Ah, he should probably step in.
“Hey, wait, no, we’re not going to Blüdhaven for you to stalk another vigilante.”
“It’s not just any old vigilante-!” Tim ignored Danny’s dramatic clutching-pearls gesture of mock hurt. “It’s Nightwing. The original Robin! He gave me my first ever hug!”
Danny paused. God dammit.
“…Fine.”
“YESSSSSS!!!!”
——
Danny-
“I’m gonna be Robin whether you want me to or not!”
-is so damn tired.
“Tim. I’m literally a vigilante ghost. What makes you think I’d be stupid enough to argue with a kid who runs around Gotham at night to take pictures of other vigilantes?”
Tim deflated. “Oh. Honestly, I thought you’d put up more of a fight…”
Jazz laughed and ruffled Tim’s hair. “I definitely couldn’t stop Danny when he went out. He trusted me to support him and I trusted him to come to me if he was injured, though. Can you promise me that, Tim?”
“Yeah… okay, Jazz, I promise.” Tim promised, even if he was still pouty.
Danny chimed in.
“Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m totally worried and I’m gonna hover like a mother hen when you go out, but again, I know how stubborn and crazy we vigilante types have to be.” Danny paused. “Do you want me to put up a token protest?”
Tim nodded, sulking. “Yes, please. I had a speech planned out.”
Jazz and Danny exchanged amused glances.
“Oh, okay, my bad, kiddo. Here, let’s start from the top.”
“Okay. Ahem,” Tim straightened his back, settling into his previous mulish expression once more. “I’m gonna be Robin whether you want me to or not!”
Danny placed an appropriately disapproving frown on his face. “No, you can’t! It’s dangerous! You could get hurt! You’re just a child!”
Tim launched into his speech. “But I can’t stay still and do nothing when people are getting hurt! Even…!”
They were gonna be here for a while. There was definitely something about Batman going on a spiral because Jason wouldn’t be able to walk again after the Joker got to him. Danny wondered if ectoplasm could help. He might offer, if it actually had a change of getting Tim out of the vigilante business.
But that’s for later, because they had time. Jazz was on Spring Break… and they’re still staying here for free, after all of these years.
“So, how are you going to convince Robin to let you be Robin?” Jazz asked Tim.
Tim froze. “I… hadn’t thought of that yet.”
“Well, you could always remind him of the fact that we saved him from the Joker. He seemed pretty ready to leave the Robin mantle, the last time I saw him as Phantom.”
“I don’t want to blackmail him into it!” Tim whined.
“It’ll just be a suggestion, Tim.” Jazz smiled patiently.
“Besides,” Danny continued, smirking mischievously at his adopted little brother. “If you were actually blackmailing him, you’d pull out the photos where he ate dirt.”
“I guess that’s true…” Tim mumbled. “I know! I’ll have to follow them to see how I can best approach him!”
"I think that's called stalking," Jazz deadpanned.
"Well, it's not any worse than what he's already done." Danny shrugged at his older sister. "Sure, kid. Why not? Do whatever you want."
"I was planning to!" Tim bounced off to grab his photography gear. Jazz stared off after him.
"Should we be encouraging that?"
"More like can we actually stop him?" Danny leaned back, lazily completing his GED assignments. Jazz sighed.
"Guess not. Make sure he doesn't get in trouble."
"Do you even know how hard that is, Jazz?" Danny complained, dodging the whack Jazz sent at the back of his head. She smirked at him.
"Womp, womp, Danny. How does karma taste today?"
Danny flipped her off as he put the last punctuation on the paper. He heard a clatter and groaned.
“I’m gonna go watch Tim stalk Batman for the night. Want anything from the store?”
Jazz hummed. “Get me the specialty strawberry ice cream, from that one place?”
“The one that’s definitely a front for Falcone’s money laundering??”
“Yeah. They make good strawberry ice cream.”
“Sure.”
Danny went ghost and flew straight through the walls to catch Tim sneaking out by the scruff of his collar.
“No. Bad Tim.”
“Awww, come on Danny!”
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Halloween prompts year 2 day 10
Danny groaned, blearily raising his head from the nest of blankets and pillows he had made in his apartment. He had smelled something strange.
Something strong enough to wake him from his sleep. Danny got up and stumbled to the front door, cursing his luck for getting a fever so soon into his interdimentional road trip.
Peering out of his open doorway he saw a little kid shivering in the cold, badly hidden behind two trash cans in the mouth of an alley. Danny didn't think twice. In fact he didn't think at all. It wasn't uncommon for an Omega to smell a child who didn't have the scent of another Omega on them and immediately claim that child as thier own, and seeing as his home dimension had exclusively Omegas...let's just say there's a lot of drama in family court and a lot of laws pertaining to this.
So of course the next thing Danny knows is that the kid was bundled up inside his very soft and comfy makeshift nest before Danny passed out.
For the next week Danny had this mysterious fever and he acted like a parent on autopilot, barely conscious as he instinctually cared for the little boy. He made them food and cut them up into tiny bits to feed his baby and if it was handfoods like pizza rolls or sandwich triangles, Danny would hold him in his arms and rock his back and forth, humming softly as his child ate.
Eventually his heat ended (note that omegas from his world don't have heats, they don't have alphas and so they don't even know what a heat is) and Danny was very surprised he has a child in his house. But he and the baby are very emotionally attached to one another. When Danny asked what the little kids name was (and man this kid was little) the kid stared at him in the way little kids do before muttering the world "Clone" followed by what sounded suspiciously like a serial number.
Danny decided, nah. His kid now. Sucks to be the bioparent cause Danny doesn't wanna share.
Somewhere in the city, the bats were freaking out. They had raided a lab and discovered not only had one of them been cloned, but the clone had escaped and no one knew where it was. Cue panicked parental frenzy.
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Alright. Willis Todd being an abusive father to Jason is a trope often utilized. Comparing this version of him to Bruce's reactions to Red Hood is fantastic. Lots to analyze there.
However, I raise you. There needs to be more fanwork addressing the classism behind Willis Todd being characterized as an abusive alcoholic. In some version of canon, Willis Todd was a good dad in a shitty situation. He was poor, his wife (Catherine) was sick, and he had a newborn baby he needed to provide for. In this horrid situation, where he has no family to fall back on and no higher education to obtain a decent well-paying job, he tries to get quick money. He's desperate to keep both his wife and son alive.
Catherine turns to drugs because it's easier and cheaper to buy drugs than healthcare. The pain she experiences is debilitating, and she'd do anything to not feel pain for one godsdamned second. Unfortunately, this turns into an addiction.
This ultimately shapes the way that Jason views crime. Bruce, while he may be sympathetic to individuals who resort to crime to pay their bills, will not understand huddling in Crime Alley in the dead of winter as he debates whether to buy food or pay for heating. He won't understand the bitterness, hatred, pain, and resignation of never having enough money to survive as you get chewed up again and again.
If Jason's dad is just an abusive criminal, that not only perpetuates the notion that all criminals are evil, but it will shape how Jason views those who commit crime. Breaking the law doesn't make someone bad. There's plenty of reasons people commit crime, whether to survive, protect someone, or something else. The issue, especially in Gotham, is the system that perpetuates wealth inequality through bribes and unethical governmental practices.
Anyway, I think Jason's Red Hood is more fleshed out if it accounts for him acknowledging the desperation behind goons and small-time criminals because he grew up without other options.
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DPxDC snippet/prompt:
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“John.”
Zantanna’s voice had that cadence to it. Faintly strangled. Forcibly calm. Her rising blood pressure and rapidly approaching limit for his special brand of excitement evident in every single letter of his name.
Felt like old times.
“Z.” He said, smoke curling out of his mouth and billowing towards the dreary grey sky above. The one nice thing about Gotham, it had the same gloomy dark ambience of ol’ London town. “Long time no see. How’s show biz been treating you?”
He saw the faintest of twitches at the corner of her eye. Could almost hear her counting to ten in her head. He smiled at her winningly, leaning back against the damp bricks of the alleyway as he waited. More smoke drifted upward from beside him in time with a bored sigh. Patience was running out on all sides it seemed.
“That’s a child.”
“Sharp as ever.” He said, taking another drag. He nudged the child in question beside him gently with his elbow, glancing down with a sly grin. “See this is why the Justice League pay her the big bucks. Nothing gets past our Zantanna Zatara.”
He got a cloud of smoke blown directly in his face for that, little shit.
“John.”
“Z.”
“Why do you have a child? Why is the child smoking?”
“Long story.” He said with a wave of his hand.
“I learned it from watching him.” The kid said, with the same cadence as that old American commercial. All dramatic and overwrought emotion. The gremlin swooned against John's side in an imitation of collapse, hand holding the lit bifter coming up to their forhead to really sell the melodrama. He nudged his ghostly companion off, grinning at Zantanna’s slipping patience as he did.
“Don’t worry about it. Kid's fine.”
“A child wandering around with you in a dark ally in Gotham smoking cigarettes is fine?”
“I mean, I’m already dead. And short. It’s not like smoking is gonna be able to do any worse to me.”
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