#just barely and very gen but i feel like any shipper wouldn't be too disappointed with the singing/dancing routine

[12freddofrogs]

An episode of a Batfam TV Show

A while back I started wondering how I would design the Batfamily for their own TV. It started as a quick exercise, just considering ‘Season one would be Dick as Robin, and maybe he and Babs would do this, and then in S2 Jason would turn up’... and then it got detailed to the point I was working out individual episodes, character arcs, and themes.

This is an extract from Season Three, aka, Tim’s Robin run (pt1). The full chapter includes bright eyed Tim Drake nearly getting himself run over by the Batmobile so he can make his case why Batman needs a Robin, a minor cameo by the giant penny in the Cave, an adaptation of The Killing Joke, a driving lesson that technically involves Nightwing stealing the Batmobile, the Spoiler setting up in purple, a Wayne Gala or two, much mourning for what happened in the S2 finale, and Cassandra Cain rejecting her blood family for one that actually cares.

And, of course, this musical episode.

Full fic on Ao3  -Chapter 3 here. It’s much easier to read, especially on mobile.

Chapter 1 here.

Season Three, Episode Twenty - Songbird

A Pied Piper themed villain comes to Gotham. 

He has nothing to do with the Central City villain.

His powers work on children. Specifically, anyone under the age of about eighteen. It’s never made entirely clear what the cut-off age is, just that Cass is immune. 

Of course, no-one really knows how old Cass is, either, considering her lack of birth certificate.

 Tim is having an ordinary day at school, calmly walking past a couple having a break-up in the cafeteria, when the dramatic screaming match switches into a Broadway musical.

Tim is alarmed, and as he continues through the school, other people are bursting into song. Music is playing, and from the way he turns it’s obvious he can hear it and can’t figure out from where.

 “I need to finish my assignment for mathematics / but I can’t find the time without skipping football practise,” one boy tells his friends, then claps a hand against his throat.

“I’ve spent so much time working on Miss Greene’s essay / that I completely forgot about the science test today!” a girl sings, her voice calm despite the fact she’s frantically flipping through a textbook.

“He’s so handsome, he’d never notice me / what would I have to do to make him see?” another girl sings from her locker, glancing at a boy several doors away. He notices her singing, and she yelps, hiding behind her locker door.

Everyone is growing frantically confused by the music.

It eventually turns into a school wide song with everyone, including Tim, singing the same lyrics about “What’s going on? Why are we bursting into song?”

The song finishes and all the students stare at each other, wide-eyed.

“What was--”

“How--”

“I don’t--”

While everyone is still panicking, Tim slips out the school doors.

He heads straight to the Manor.

When Bruce opens the door, it’s to find a bundle of nervous energy fidgeting on his threshold.

“B, we - oh, no, it’s happening again.” Tim claps a hand over his mouth.

“What’s happening?” Bruce steps aside immediately to let his panicked third Robin into the house. 

It takes a moment as Tim scrambles inside, dropping his school backpack on the ground and turning to Bruce with a panicked expression, but finally he lowers his hand.

As expected, out comes another song.

“Bruce, we really need to talk because / there’s something in my voice. / Everything comes out as song / and I don’t have a choice. I don’t have a plan for this / so I kinda hope you do. / Otherwise get ready for Gotham’s musical debut. ”

"...I see.”

It’s not that Tim’s constantly speaking in song.

He still talks normally most of the time.

It’s just that whenever he feels something particularly strongly, he has an automatic performance about it.

He’s very concerned that when he sings, it’s always the absolute truth about how he feels.

“I have a secret identity! I can’t go to school if I’m going to sing about wearing a cape!”

Dick finds it hilarious

When he hears about the situation he comes up from Bludhaven immediately.

He’s trying to be sympathetic, but it comes across as insincere when he’s filming the whole thing.

“Come on, just one little song for the camera?”

“Mmm-fff!” Tim shakes his head, hands clapped over his mouth defensively.

Babs tells Dick not to worry, she caught Tim’s last performance on security cameras. Tim looks offended.

Meanwhile, Cass is jealous she’s too old.

“This is not a good thing, Cass,” Tim complains.

“Looks fun.”

“It is not.”

“Sourpuss.”

Tim has a song about being insecure in his place as Robin

Batman informs him that he is not to get involved in the case.

Tim grumpily agrees, and stays alone in the Cave while everyone leaves.

He starts on the obstacle course, swinging up and down on the wires as he begins to sing.

“Batman needs a Robin / That much is plain to see / The question that I’m asking / Is the Robin he needs me?”

He’s not insecure about being kept off this particular case, understanding if not liking it, but in general not sure about his ability to live up to the name.

 It finishes with a more triumphant declaration that he can do this. He’s Robin, he’s earned his cape, watch him go.

Steph is equally affected by the curse.

It’s the first time she’s turned up at the Cave, but she figured this was probably a big enough situation to be worth knocking.

She’s trying to make the most of it, and turns it into a game.

She acts like she’s finding it enjoyable. It’s almost believable until she does get a moment alone with Tim to confess that it’s creepy.

Steph and Tim have a duet.

Dick’s attempt at provoking them into singing finally works.

The song starts with Tim being annoyed at Dick, and quickly fades into both of them admitting they’re annoyed with the situation. It’s a very fast-paced cheer about how they can’t stop singing, when they find out who’s responsible that person will find out just what Robin and Spoiler can do.

They’re dancing around, jumping on and off the equipment, and performing perfect choreography.

Dick and Cass applaud.

It finishes with Tim dipping Steph, her balancing with one leg in the air, when they both react in terror. Tim drops her.

“I didn’t want — we didn’t want to do that,” Tim blurts out.

“You don’t understand, it made us move. It’s never done that before. It actually controlled what we did.” Steph’s breathing heavily, still sitting on the ground.

It’s discovered that the musical magic is not only growing, and is turning into a more complete form of mind control.

Dick and Cass suddenly no longer find it funny.

Within days, maybe even hours, the Pied Piper villain is likely to have an entire army of Gothamite children for choreographed villainy.

So, of course, the Bats push this situation up several rungs of the priorities.

Tim and Steph were already off the case, but now they are banned from leaving the Cave until they know exactly what this song can do.

They each call their parents to inform them they’re staying at the other’s house. Steph swears up and down that she’s just studying with Tim, seriously, she’ll bring home the flashcards as proof if she has to.

The two of them then actually end up making flashcards, because they no longer trust their bodies enough to train.

For a while everything is calm.

Batman, Batgirl, Nightwing, and Oracle are all focused intently on the case.

Alfred is watching the two youngest.

It’s not a joke anymore, but with Tim and Steph sitting casually on the ground, talking together completely normally and checking in via coms, the situation doesn’t seem red alert urgent.

No-one notices how Tim starts humming as he cuts out the next flashcard, or that Steph takes up the tune while she coats one in glitter.

The scenes of them humming along together is intercut along with moments of the others working the case. The audience is very aware — Tim and Steph’s song has no diegetic soundtrack, so all the audience can hear in the Cave scenes are Alfred’s footsteps, the scratch of pen and paper, and two teenagers humming too quietly for anyone else.

Up until the point where they actually start singing.

Steph and Tim’s humming gradually changes into a song.

“Cut and paste and listen,” they murmer in unison, wistful and fanciful, still working on the flashcards. “Cut and paste and listen to the magic sound. Cut and paste and listen. The Piper is coming to town.”

Alfred is no longer dusting the computer. Instead, he clicks on the communicator so Batman can hear the chant, and carefully approaches.

Tim and Steph insist that they’re fine. They don’t speak in unison for it, but it does come out as more of a duet.

“Don’t worry, Alfred, we feel fine,” Steph insists.

“Absolutely marvellous,” Tim chimes in.

“Completely sublime.”

Tim gets to his feet with an encouraging smile, scissors dangling in his fingertips. “We’ve just got a song stuck in our heads.”

“There’s no need to worry.”

“And no need to fret.”

“It’s just a shame you can’t hear that sound.” Steph tugs at her ear, grinning.

 “It sinks to your bones and makes you feel like dancing around.”

 Alfred cuts off the song to assure them that the Pied Piper will soon be defeated. This whole nonsense will be finished with by tomorrow, and by this point even Dick will be grateful for it.

The songbirds are oddly upset about that idea.

“You’re getting him chased down by the Big Bad Bat?” Steph asks.

“That shouldn’t happen. The Piper won’t like that,” Tim says.

“No,” Alfred says slowly, warily. “I suppose he wouldn’t.”

The argument culminates when Tim nearly stabs Alfred with the scissors.

 Alfred dodges the blow on instinct, sidestepping the blade aimed at his head.

Tim freezes, his arm outstretched.

For a moment all three of them are still, Alfred watching the scissors over his shoulder and Tim’s eyes wide. Steph’s mouth hangs open.

The scissors clatter on the floor as Tim steps back.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry Alfred—” Tim nearly hyperventilates.

“Master Tim,” Alfred says after a moment, almost resting his hand on Tim’s shoulders but deciding against it. “I assure you I’m fine, but perhaps at the moment we should consider using the restraints.”

“Yes. Yes, we should do that.”

Tim practically bolts himself in to the medbay stretcher, and only allows Alfred to help because it’s not designed to be tightened by the patient.

Steph is slightly more reluctant, and has to force herself to take each step. She notably bites down on her lip, bunching her fingers into a fist while Alfred secures her to the other bay, but she allows it to happen.

 The urgency is immediately upped.

“Do you need someone to watch them with you?” Batman asks, pausing on a rooftop to talk into his comm.

“No. They’re quite lucid at the moment,” Alfred says, watching Tim and Steph talking nervously. “The best thing for everyone is for you to stay on the case.”

“I can come,” Oracle suggests. “The Cave has all the same tech so I can stay on the job, and if the kids are getting stabby you will need backup.”

It’s decided that is a good idea, especially as Steph starts humming again before slamming her head facedown into the pillow.

 Batman successfully tracks down the location of the Piper.

The three field vigilantes burst in, much to Piper’s horror.

They find him building a giant radio transmitter, and immediately start trying to shatter it.

Piper flees the room, carrying a small cassette player with him. Nightwing stays to make sure the transmitter is utterly broken. Batgirl and Batman split up to track the villain.

The Piper is caught by Batman, lifted off the ground by the scruff of his neck, when a dozen children come barrelling into the room to rescue him.

The idea of punching hypnotised kids makes Batman hesitate, and Piper manages to get away.

Worse still is that breaking the transmitter didn’t fix the problem. The kids are still hypnotised, and Nightwing reports that it wasn’t even finished. Piper had been making it for something, but it wasn’t the cause of the problem.

They search through Piper’s files, and track down that it was the cassette player that influences the children.

Steph and Tim are drifting back into their musical hypnosis.

 “Don’t listen to them,” Steph murmurs, pulling her face out of the bed. Her voice is too quiet for anyone but Tim to hear. “Hold yourself steady.”

“It’s time for a fight so you better get ready.” Tim holds up one hand. The picked restraints drop silently onto the mattress.

When Oracle arrives, Robin and Spoiler take the distraction and attack.

When Alfred and Oracle return to the room, it’s to find the two youngest have gotten into their uniforms and are swinging down from the ceiling at them.

 It’s not a real fight. The hypnosis is just telling them to go. It’s an escape attempt more than anything else.

Oracle is able to handle herself when Spoiler leaps at her, boot flying towards her face. A quick movement and Steph is thrown over Oracle’s shoulder, wincing.

But they don’t need to beat her, just outrace her. Spoiler jams a batarang into one of Oracle’s wheels while Robin locks Alfred in the cupboard, and by the time Babs can move again — it couldn’t have taken more than thirty seconds to untangle the batarang — they’re gone.

Fortunately, Batman already has a lead on where they must be going.

Over two hundred children — some as young as ten, most closer to fifteen or sixteen — have converged on a Gotham news channel’s office.

It’s a very convenient way for a villain’s exposition to be told to the audience. The children are singing about Pied Piper’s plan to broadcast his song to every child in the country as they forcibly drag the communication workers out of their offices. The Piper himself is walking through the chaos with a self-satisfied smile.

The song seems like a normal triumphant villain song, with a hint of creepiness when every once in a while, someone will say that they don’t like what they’re doing, they’re so sorry, can’t anyone help them?

Piper locks himself in the CEO office.

He’s humming to himself as he pulls out his cassette player. When he opens the case, an array of buttons that would look advanced on a phone blink back at him.

He begins to tap in a command when the window shatters.

Batman swings into the room.

Batgirl and Nightwing are close behind.

When Piper tries to run, he doesn’t get five steps. Batman throws him against the wall.

Piper glances at the door.

In an instant Batgirl vaults over the desk to reach it, turning the lock with time to spare before teenagers start banging on it. “Nightwing. Help… ballaracade?”

Nightwing is already pushing the desk aside it.

Once they’ve successfully ensured no-one’s getting in Nightwing informs her the word is ‘barricade’. Batgirl nods, pleased.

“Where are they?” Batman growls, looming over the terrified Piper.

“Where are who? The children? They’re all outside, or at least the ones I called are—”

“Don’t play games with me.”

“How do we fix it?” Nightwing demands.

“You can’t. It’s unstoppab—”

 “Lying,” Batgirl says sharply.

At that point Robin and Spoiler shatter a second window.

They land between Batman and the Piper, standing protectively over the villain. Robin has his staff at the ready while Spoiler’s cloak flutters.

They’re also humming.

It takes a moment for Piper’s shock to fade, but then his lips twitch in a smile.

There’s a fight.

Batman, Nightwing, and Batgirl hold back.

Robin and Spoiler don’t, which means that the hypnotised fighters are actually able to gain ground.

And of course, Robin and Spoiler are singing all the while. By now that’s not the focus of the scene, feeling more like background music with lyrics than a Broadway fight scene. Potentially, the TV audience can’t even hear the music, just watches the singing characters.

The lyrics don’t really delve into anyone’s interiority (mainly). It’s just a fast-paced song about fighting.

Every once in a while, though there’s a line like “Of course I know I can’t win, but that’s never stopped me before.” “Of course I’ll try my best, but I’ve never wanted to lose more.”

Just enough to indicate that some part of Tim and Steph know what they’re doing.

Piper takes the distraction.

He gets the barricade open and a hundred mind-controlled teenagers pour in, and suddenly the Bats have a much bigger disadvantage.

Piper escapes. Nightwing follows.

There’s a chase as Piper rushes towards the ground floor.

A dozen children are thrown at Nightwing, diving in his way.

But a former Boy Wonder doesn’t get taken down by a thirteen-year-old attempting a tackle, not when he can bounce off the walls to somersault over their heads.

Piper goes for the elevator. Nightwing is delayed to the point that he misses the doors by centimetres.

He pushes off the eleven-year-old girl clinging to his back and rushes to the fire stairs. His grappling hook connect with the handrail as he leaps over the edge.

Freefalling down the spiral staircase centre gets him to the ground with time to spare. He bursts out of the door and is able to throw his bolos at the fleeing Piper, tripping the supervillain up.

Within seconds Nightwing’s on him, scrambling through his pockets. He finds the cassette player.

Before the children can converge again, Nightwing leaps up with his grappling hook, holding himself on the high ceiling and resting one foot on the top of a window.

He flips open the cassette player.

“Oh, look at that. A labelled ‘off’ switch.” Nightwing grins at Piper, who’s just managing to pull himself free from the bolos. “So if I flick it, will it do anything to inspire me to kick your teeth in?”

“No, no, please—”

“Begging sounds promising.” His fingers hover over the button. Below him, the children are swarming, trying to figure out how to climb the wall. “If this hurts anyone, I am going to break every bone in your body. So is there anything you want to tell me?” Nightwing pauses for an answer, but Piper doesn’t give one. The children are starting to create pyramids. “Alright. Here goes.”

 He flicks the switch.

Immediately, the music turns off.

The children stop pressing up against the wall and back away immediately.

“Is it over?”

Upstairs, the same happens.

Everyone freezes in their attack on Batman and Batgirl.

Robin drops his staff and retreats several steps.

“Fixed?” Batgirl asks.

Spoiler touches her head. “I think so.”

Of course, this means the Piper just got himself trapped.

He’s now surrounded by a sea of students who had been at least eighty-per-cent aware of what happened.

Nightwing swoops down and pulls him out before anyone can catch him, but waits just long enough for Piper to realise the danger he’s in.

Nightwing ties him up, and waits patiently for the others to come downstairs.

He hands over the cassette player to Batman and goes to hug the now-coherent younger two, but Spoiler brushes off the affection onto Robin. Instead, she walks up to Piper and punches him in the face.

“Feel better now?” Nightwing asks.

 “Yeah.” Spoiler steps back and allows Nightwing to reassure himself that she’s okay, letting him wrap her in a short hug. “Much better.”

So the day is saved, everything neatly finished.

Piper is arrested, the children/teenagers that hadn’t already dispersed are collected by the police to be taken home.

Later, everyone is back in the Batcave, exhausted. They’ve changed back into their civilian clothes.

“So I guess I am never going to another karaoke night ever again,” Steph mumbles.

“Karey-oakey?” Cass repeats.

“It’s like a place where you sing. You choose a song, and they’ll play the music for you so you can yell out the actual lyrics as badly as you like.”

“Oh.” Cass mulls that over. “The singing did look fun. Before the dancing started.”

“Are you seriously still upset you’re too old for mind-control?” Dick asks.

Cass shrugs.

There’s silence for a moment.

Tim groans. “Fine, I’ll come with you, but I’m not singing anything else today.”

“I know a great karaoke bar.” Dick picks up his jacket from over the chair. “They sell amazing nachos.”

“I could go for nachos.” Steph stands up.

“Already booking us a private room,” Babs says.

“I’ll prepare the car,” Alfred says.

Dick grins. “B, you coming?”

“No.”

“Please?”

“You won’t have to sing,” Tim adds. “Sit with me and Steph and watch while the rest of these losers get up on stage.”

“I assure you, Master Tim, I will not be singing.”

“Sit with me, Steph, and Alfred,” Tim corrects.

Bruce groans, but reluctantly gets up.

Dick leans over to Cass where Bruce can’t hear him. “Bet you five bucks I can convince him to get on stage.”

“Deal.”

End episode.

Available on AO3.

S1 episode extract here. (17 year old Dick gets kidnapped for ransom, is very bored.)

S2 episode extract here (Robin-Jason goes up against Two-Face, trades himself for a hostage, proceeds to be as sarcastic as possible).

S4 episode extract here (in which Tim gets a dose of fear gas, Spoiler confronts her inner child in an alarmingly literal way, and Cass is awful at baking cookies).

#batfamily #batfam #tim drake #timothy drake #bruce wayne #stephanie brown #dick grayson #cassandra cain #batman #robin iii #batman and robin #black bat #nightwing #timsteph #just barely and very gen but i feel like any shipper wouldn't be too disappointed with the singing/dancing routine #cw: mind control #12freddofrogs writes #gotham crusaders