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#like both dick and duke think they’re the ‘normal ones’ but it’s more like
deaddovedecadence · 6 months
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Title: Puppies
Warning(s): manipulation, yandere shit, yelling
Summery: after a fight with bruce, duke brings you a gift (but not is all that is seems to be)
Bruce is a dick when he’s angry, but he never yells and that’s the worst part. He takes, takes everything that you are and makes you feel so small, and sometimes you think that this is what Jason run, because if he had to deal with this when he was young then why wouldn’t he.
You’ve curled up in your bathroom, the room door that locks, and you’ve rested yourself against it, not thinking about how you’re breaking another rules because there are so many rules and you always seem to fuck up even on the days that you're trying to be good. There is not good enough for them, there is nothing you can do to get your freedom because they are all faster, stronger, smarter then you are. They've done a millions times and you've never been held hostage and been told that it's for love.
this is nopt love, this is possession and you do not want possession. Does freedom even exist for you, made something that you didn't used to be by them, because of them.
"Hey," there's a voice from outside the door, pulling you away from the spiral that you've sunken into. You don't respond to the voice even though you know that it's just Duke, Duke the only person not to raise his hands againt you, never cruel, always patient, always kind. It was with him that you meant to go on a outing with but now, you don't want to leave this bathroom, because at least it is safe in the bathroom.
There's a soft rapping sound and Duke sighs, "I heard that Bruce lost his mind, huh? That probably really sucked." He's making an understatement and you both know it but Duke is gentle anyways, (a predator) coaxing you out of your hiding spot. "Tell me what happened and I'll give you a surprise." he says, and Duke's surprises are always good so you start.
"I didn't know that bruce didn't know about our outing," you whisper, "i was waiting on the front step and he saw and he lost it. Duke, am I really nothing without you?" There's a hissed out sigh from Duke, "You know that Bruce gets anxious about us, right? Specially you an Jase cause you're new and Jase is fresh home. He didn't mean to." You know that and yet, it's not enough right now. "I told you what happened," you snap, "so give me my surprise now."
Your (not a) brother laughs, "only if you unlock the door and come out.” You unlock the door, slowly opening it. It’s duke and he’s holding something, well two something’s actually. He’s holding what look like twin Rottie puppies and they’re so cute. “I thought you’d like to have someone besides me and Jase. You take one of them and coo and it. “Whats their name?” You mumble, holding the puppy tight across your chest. “I thought it might be funny to name them Shadow and sunshine. I’d take shadow, she’s a girl, and you could have sunshine, he’s a boy .” You croon and Sunshine with his black fur and bright blue eyes. “They’re perfect. thank you duke.”
Duke smiles, “and because they are puppies, we get to go to training together so more outings.” You grin at him, crooning at the say that sunshine yawns. “Can he sleep here?” You murmur, and Duke nods.
“Thank you Duke,”
“Welcome Sunshine.”
-
Bruce is getting some work done with his son storms into his office, eyes glowing in way that they only do when he’s angry. “What’s wrong?” he says, and Duke hisses, that sound more animal then anything a normal human could make.
“You really had to fuck up all my progress with them? I got sunshine to the point of not wanting to escape and you nearly ruined all that because you’re scared.” Bruce stands, staring at duke. “I did not know,” he snaps, “I did not know and I didn’t mean to.”
His son laughs, the sound cold. “I know that but that doesn’t mean you ruin all my fuckin progress with Sushine cause you a paranoid motherfucker.” Some of Duke’s gotham is slipping into his accent as he speaks, never yelling but obvious furious. There’s a knock on the door, and Dick slips in, looking at the two of them before sighing, “just go spar it out and you’ll feel better.” Duke slips out of the room, tiling his head in a way that means follow so bruce follows.
Author’s note: Duke is such a scary yandere to me bc this man really be bending you in ways that you can’t even notice. Yes the dog was a plot to get you to stay with them and not run. Duke genuinely does not care what he has to do to protect his family and I think that he’s so real for that /j
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rad-batson · 8 months
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Damian Wayne: Figure Skater
or: Damian Wayne Fluff Because Damian Wayne Deserves Joy and Happiness <3
Damian Wayne prides himself on being good at everything he does. He never half-asses anything.
Damian has tried tons of different skills before. He’s mastered dozens of martial arts, become fluent in over thirty languages, earned several PhDs, and he’s not even a teenager yet. Why? He needs to be the best or it’s not good enough.
But there are only so many skills that give him the same joy as when he started. Studio art is his favorite and has always been a constant for him, but he’s yet to find something else. Something that truly invigorates him.
At 12, Damian watches the Winter Olympics with Dick. It’s his first ever time viewing the Olympics, and he doesn’t really know what he was expecting, but Damian is…kind of underwhelmed.
Everyone talked about how the Olympics are supposed to be this grandiose display of the world’s talents, but most of it’s pretty boring.
Curling is boring. Alpine is slow and monotonous. Bobsledding is repetitive, and sled dog racing seems unethical.
But then figure skating comes on. And Damian is captivated.
Without even realizing, he moved right in front of the television and watched an hour of figure skating uninterrupted. Dick notices and smiles.
“Aren’t they cool?” Dick asks. Damian, with his eyes still glued to the screen, nods. “Wanna go to the local rink with me and try it out? It’s even more fun than it looks.”
That pulls Damian out of his trance, and he closes himself off. “No. I don’t need to.”
He just thought it was cool, okay? And he totally doesn’t want to try it himself. And he totally isn’t worried that he won’t be good at it and fall like an idiot in front of his older brother if he does.
It’s just that…it’s so cool!!
Damian knows agility, okay? He can do flips and tricks with ease, and he knows how to do it with both grace and poise. But these people? They can do it on ice! With blades on their feet!!
OF COURSE DAMIAN WANTS TO DO COOL TRICKS WITH SHARP BLADES STRAPPED TO HIS FEET
Admittedly, he goes through a two-month-long period of pretending he isn’t dying to try it. He almost completely forgets. Then, by complete coincidence, Cass and Duke invite him to an indoor skating rink, and he caves. Maybe it’s not that hard.
Spoiler: Figure Skating is Hard
Within five seconds, he falls flat on his face. How do people do this? Cass and Duke say it’s normal, but he still refuses to leave the wall the whole time out of shame.
Once they’re home, however, Damian realizes how stupid that was. He’s Damian Wayne Al Ghul. He can’t just give up! What would the rest of his family think?! What if they go back one day, and he just falls flat on his face again? There’s no excuse the second time, and he doesn’t want the others to think he can’t do it.
So that night, he sneaks back into the rink after hours and tries again. And again. And again. And again.
On the fifth try, he is able to make it all the way around the rink. He realizes that he’s distributing his weight wrong. (Stupid mistake, of course. He’s essentially balancing on knives.) That makes it a lot easier, but he’s still flapping his arms around like a bird.
He spends two more hours improving his balance, then decides that’s good enough. He did what he came here to do, and he doesn’t need to come back.
Two days later, he comes back. (I mean, who knows? Maybe, he’s gotten better.) He didn’t, obviously. But what harm is there in spending some more time on the ice? Other than the collection of bruises he acquires.
He falls way more than he’d like to admit, but once he teaches himself how to do that safely, it’s actually kind of fun. He circles the rink countless times, figures out to start and stop (though it is admittedly a very ungraceful way of stopping.) He can even kind of control his speed.
So he’s done, right? He did it! He can now ice skate to a degree that isn’t mortifying for a beginner. He doesn’t need to come back.
The Short Program
One week and four visits later, he admits that he is hooked. He wants to see how far he can go with this. But he can’t just improve without proper guidance, so he decides to take Tim’s advice for once and use the internet.
That’s when he really starts improving. Exponentially. He pours over articles and videos and diagrams about gliding, stopping, pivots, crossovers, and finally some simple spins. Just basics, of course.
He also purchases his own pair of skates because the rental ones he’s been “borrowing” suck. And they smell. And he forges a membership card (you know, so there’s no paper trail.)
His original goal is to make it to free skate level, but once he’s there, he can’t stop. It’s just so gratifying to add another skill to his repertoire. If he can do front crossovers, then he can surely master them backward. Closed Mohawks shouldn’t be that bad if the open Mohawks were so easy. Before he knows it, he’s spending hours every week developing his skills.
After a few months, his improvement plateaus because the jumps prove difficult. He doesn’t know how to build up the speed, and his stealth and fighting techniques (which he’s been borrowing from thus far) just make him wipe out. So he works on that for a bit and tries to figure out what he’s doing wrong.
During a JL meeting, The Flash happens to mention a rogue who used to figure skate. Lisa Snart, or the Golden Glider, is a famous figure skater from the 90s, but she was kicked from the Olympic team due to her life of crime. Now, she jumps between both petty crime and vigilantism.
Damian tracks her down and claims to be researching the sport for a school assignment. Yeah, it’s a bit thin of a cover story. If she wanted to see through his lie, she’d only have to break into his school and check his teacher’s assignment book, but once he laments about how every other skater is busy, and he was so surprised to learn that she was no longer skating when she’s clearly so talented, Lisa happily tells him all of the secrets to the sport.
For a few months, he applies her techniques and even asks her to skate for him a few times, recording her from multiple angles. “I value the quality of my education,” he explains. She sees through the lie but doesn’t say anything. (And somehow, he doesn’t particularly care.)
In the coming year, Bruce notices a change in how Robin moves during patrol. If he had to describe it…well, there’s a lot more power behind his movement. He redistributes his momentum with ease, which proves extremely valuable. There’s more height to his jumps and speed in his attacks. On top of it all, he can reorient himself quicker.
Bruce praises Damian once they’re back at the cave and even allows him more freedom during missions. Damian totally doesn’t cry about it in his room.
The Free Skate
Damian refuses to let anyone watch him practice for YEARS to save his pride. I mean, yes, he’s at free skate level 5—thanks, Lisa—but he’s not at level 6 yet! And that won’t take too long, right? Maybe they can know once he’s mastered his quad axel (which is a totally doable goal. He’s not overachieving. He’s Damian Wayne Al Ghul.)
Next, he works on transitions. At first, he copies other skaters’ forms, then he slowly develops his own. It’s sharp in some ways and fluid in others like he’s been on ice his whole life but he’s got places to be.
At about 15 or 16, he invites Jon to come with him one day. He shows him “a few spins” (triple axels) and Jon immediately starts encouraging him to join some kind of showcase or competition.
Damian’s response is “No! I’m not good enough yet. I still can’t land a quad axel. That’s insulting.”
Cue Jon’s family-friendly “bitch please” face. He says, “Okay, but you need to show someone else. I can’t be the only person in the world who knows.” so they get Billy in on it.
He’s obviously good at keeping secrets, considering he hid his age and the fact he was homeless from the JL for five years.
Billy also loses his shit, but he’s more understanding about the “I don’t want to tell anyone else” thing. Thus, Jon and Billy become Damian’s cover for every time he’s caught sneaking out. (He was running out of excuses anyway.)
Bruce hears that Damian is hanging out with Jon and Billy every week, gives him a look, and tells him he’s proud that he’s making friends.
Damian nods along, thanking all the gods in Billy’s head that his secret is safe. If Bruce doesn’t have any reason to snoop, then he won’t. Simple as that. The greatest detective in the world doesn’t need to start snooping.
During the next Winter Olympics, Damian watches every single skating performance from the comfort of his room. (Tim can hear him yelling at his TV through the walls but doesn’t have the energy to question it.)
Jon and Billy are his cheerleaders. They go out for lunch then head to the rink with him and mess around while Damian practices. Sometimes, they spend all day together. Doing homework, gossiping, playing fun little games.
Damian keeps mentioning the quad axel to them until Jon looks it up and says, “Um, hey Dami? Apparently, the quad axel is like…almost physically impossible. You know that, right?“ “If Lisa Snart and Ilia Malinin can do it, so can I.” “Okay, Mr. PhD.” Still, they don’t doubt him for a second.
Damian teaches them some stuff during a public skate in Fawcett City. Jon cheats multiple times by floating a tiny bit to keep his balance. Billy falls a lot.
As much as he likes being with his friends, though, Damian finds himself skating more to clear his head rather than to improve or socialize.
When he has a bad patrol or gets into some trouble he could have avoided, he’ll sneak into the rink alone and skate for hours.
He’ll pour all of his frustration into the music and carve it out into the ice until he’s exhausted and lying down with the cold surface against his back, letting it sink some sense into him.
It’s a good outlet. Kind of like his art, but there are only so many pencils you can snap in anger before your dad cuts your art supply budget. Bruce doesn’t know about this yet.
Six months later, when Damian lands his first quad axel in front of Jon and Billy, they all scream for five consecutive minutes and celebrate with hot chocolate and sorbet.
“What’s got you in such a good mood?” Tim asks when he’s back home. Damian tries to hide his smile but fails spectacularly. “Oh, nothing.” He’s never had a problem with schooling his emotions before, but anything is possible now. Even a quad fucking axel.
Competition Season
During patrol one day, Dick sees Damian spinning on the roof and says, “Hey, where’d you get those sick ballet moves? Did Black Bat teach you that?” Damian immediately stops and says, “Uh yeah.” Thankfully, Dick doesn’t ask Cass to confirm.
At 17, Jason catches him sneaking out at 10 pm and unknowingly opens an entire can of worms.
Damian, too tired to make a good excuse: “I’m seeing Jon.” Jason: “Like a date?” Damian, dying inside: “…Don’t tell Baba.”
At 18, he’s able to reliably land the quad axel and do it with style. It’s almost more gratifying than punching criminals in the face. (Almost.) That’s when Jon and Billy finally bring up the idea of telling others about it.
Damian is still hesitant, but he thinks about it.
I mean, he’s made a lot of progress in six years, hasn’t he? The only other thing he’s spent so long practicing was his assassin training, then his vigilantism, and his art. But this one is special because it’s just his. (And Jon and Billy. Kinda.) And getting to show off to them is fun, especially when he perfects another element, and they got batshit crazy together over it. That would be nice, wouldn’t it? Having a few more people to mess around with in the rink?
He just doesn’t know if it’ll be impressive enough. After all, his entire family is great at stuff. Bruce is the world’s greatest detective—how he hasn’t learned about this yet, Damian doesn’t know. Dick is a beyond incredible acrobat. Jason has one of the highest proficiencies in marksmanship ever. Tim is the best bo staff user on this side of the Atlantic...
...And Damian can do jumps and tricks on the ice. Wow, cool. Good job, Damian.
But then he’s twelve again. And he’s sitting in front of the TV watching Yuzuru Hanyu and Yuna Kim do triple axels, and Dick is inviting him to try it out together. And Cass and Dick are taking him to the rink because they thought it’d be fun. And Lisa is rambling about how she misses skating competitively. And Bruce is telling him he’s proud of the progress Damian’s made both inside and outside of patrol. And Tim is telling him he looks happier than usual.
He is happier.
Yeah. Maybe, they deserve to know.
He agrees to sign up for a free skate competition. But not one in Gotham. And only a small one. He wants to test out the waters first. They find one that’s a month away, and Damian signs up.
When the day comes, Damian is shaking in his skates. He did not account for a “small competition” still having over two hundred people watching. What the fuck was he thinking?
What Jon and Billy don’t tell him is that they snuck Dick into the crowd to watch. Dick has no idea what he’s doing there until he sees Damian skate out to the middle in a red and grey top with black pants and matching skates.
He performs to Beggin’ by Måneskin and starts the performance out with his quad axel.
Everyone loses their shit.
He looks so genuinely excited when he’s skating. He completely ignores the hundreds of people watching, doesn’t count points. He just jams out to the song until he’s breathless, spinning and gliding and jumping and turning to the beat, mostly showing off to Jon and Billy like he always does.
When it’s over, he just hears this massive crowd of people screaming, and then overtop of it, Dick shouts, “THAT’S MY BABY BROTHER!!” and Damian almost falls flat on his face.
Dick uses the Emergency Group Chat to send a video of Damian skating then screams into the phone to Bruce, who immediately drives out to the rink with the rest of the family, and his siblings make Damian do it over once the place is cleared out because they can’t believe they missed it.
Dick: When did you learn to figure skate?! Damian: After we watched the Olympics together. Dick: You’ve been hiding this for SIX YEARS?!?! Damian: …It looked fun.
Of course, Damian is still the son of Bruce Wayne so tabloids eat it up.
“Damian Wayne: Figure Skating Prodigy” “Wayne Prodigy Wins Gold at Regional Figure Skating Competition, Baffling Judges” “Is Damian Wayne fit to represent the US during the next Winter Olympics??”
A swarm of coaches ask Damian if he would like to skate competitively but he declines. He just likes doing it for fun.
Thankfully, the performance was recorded by the competition holders (after a suspicious request from the CEO of Wayne Enterprises last week. Wow, wonder why)
Leave it to Damian to spend his rebellious phase becoming an Olympic-level athlete.
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tomboy014 · 2 years
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It seems like a lot of the DP/DC crossovers I’ve seen have Danny either secretly related to Bruce or Damian or Dick, and if he’s not directly related to one of them, Bats is at the ready with adoption papers.  But if it’s a fic where anyone is related, it’s one of the bats related to Danny, but I think there’s a better candidate.  May I present for the Phandom’s consideration:
Sam Manson.
Hear me out!
Bruce and Sam have a lot in common.  They both
Have black hair
Have eyes in the same color family (Bruce and Sam’s parents are blue, Sam’s are purple)
Are both goth
Come from inherited, generational wealth
Are Jewish
Are intelligent and athletic
Will aggressively fight for causes and the change they want to see
And of course, they both fight superpowered entities that should be beyond their capabilities to handle as normal humans.
The timing also works out for Martha and Ida to be sisters.  Out of ease, the kids use the titles of Aunt and Uncle for Bruce, Pamela and Jeremy even though they’re actually cousins. They don’t really see each other that often, mostly for holidays and big events like graduations or Sam’s bat mitzvah. Every so often, they all get together for more formal galas and charity events.
Plus, it makes it so much funnier if these are the “cousins” Sam refuses to babysit.  Can you blame her?  Would you want to be in charge of keeping Tim and Damian from killing each other?  Plus, the interactions between them and the way they relate would be great!
Bruce (43), Dick (26), Jason (21), Cass (19), Steph and Tim (18), Duke (15-16?), Damian (10), Sam (14)
Dick:  Is the perky ball of sunshine Pamela wishes Sam could be, and she get compared to him a lot.  Sam can’t stand him.  Dick has never seen Sam when her mother isn’t around, so his impression of her is she’s moody and surly.  Doesn’t like being in the middle of their fights or getting his cheeks pinched by Pam every time he comes over.
Jason:  Pamela can’t stand him.  Due to whatever cover story they made up to cover up Jason’s death and return, Pamela is now convinced that he’s some delinquent who’ll wind up a criminal (she’s not entirely wrong?).  Such a shame since he was so sweet as a kid.  His death is what started Sam’s interest in the occult.  Sam’s favorite cousin.  She loves that he’s actually a giant dork and bookworm behind the cool, tough-guy façade.  He keeps Sam well supplied in combat boots.  If they both disappear at a function in Amity Park, they’re probably hanging out at the Skulk n Lurk. 
Tim:  Another problem child according to Pam.  He’s the one who introduced Sam to videogames and Doomed.  Tim changed the Manson’s home theater set-up so they can play videogames on the big screen whenever the Wayne’s come over.  Will go out of his way to piss Pamela off.
Steph and Cass:  Steph doesn’t always come over when the rest of the Wayne’s do, but when she does, she sticks to Cass.  Big sister vibes from them both, scarily insightful, and good listeners.  They’re cool.
Damian:  They have the most shared interests, so you’d think they’d get along, but neither can stand the others’ attitude.  It’s a case of like repelling like.  Sam helped him figure out what kind of vegetarian he wanted to be and gave him a bunch of her favorite recipes.  If the two of them disappear while at Wayne Manor, you can usually find them hanging out with Batcow.
Duke:  The newest addition to the family, Sam is aware of him, but they haven’t met yet.
Part 2
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undeadspeeds · 2 years
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Meeting the family
Damian Wayne x Male! Reader.
don't normally write romantically abt Damian cus He's 14 and Its weird but I owed this to anon. Just keep that in mind!
there's a small misgendering part but it's more of a "I wrongly assumed my brother was straight" way than transphobic.
“I believe Master Damian has something to say,” Alfred interrupted the conversation, after seeing the doubtful eyes of the young man. The entire table stopped and looked directly at Damian, who was trying to remain calm.
“Yes. Thank you, Alfred,” said the boy, his voice cracking slightly and hands shaking. He truly hated not being in control of his emotions and was thankful no one had teased him about his demeanor yet. If they did, he would have lied and pretended they were crazy for implying Someone Like Him could ever feel nervous at a gathering. “I would like to introduce you all to the person I’m involved with next week,” he confessed finally.
Everyone was too surprised to speak, and for a few seconds, Damian regretted even thinking about the possibility of his partner meeting his family.
The first one to react was Dick, who, with a smile and thumbs-up, agreed to be there and let Barbara know, too. In front of him, Cass shot him a warm smile, one they both knew was comfort. Tim kept eating his meal, surprise in his eyes, while Stephanie was giggling. Duke’s hand touched his shoulder in support for a second.
Jason exploded in laughs, “Little man got himself a girlfriend? I gotta see this.”
Damian wanted to correct his brother but words weren’t able to come out: there was one last person who needed to react to the petition and he was the one the boy was more nervous about.
Bruce Wayne, who sat at the head of the table, had said nothing since Alfred’s comment. His gaze was lost somewhere, deep in thought and frowning.
Sweating off a need for approval and with yet another crack of his voice, he spoke. “What do you think, father?”
After being spoken to by his youngest son, Bruce turned to him and grinned. “Of course, son. I would love to meet her.”
...
“So you didn’t tell him,” he said with a hint of a smile. He wasn’t angry. He knew how hard it was for Damian to do this, and how much he was worried about his family’s approval.
“I’m sorry, beloved. Words just wouldn’t come out..”
“I get it, corazón,” he reassured. “They’ll love you forever, you know that, yes?”
“My father is pretty strict,” Damian spoke, hands shaking and breath quickening.
“Well, if he accepted Timothy and Cassandra, why wouldn’t he accept you?”
“They’re not like me. I’m supposed to be-“
“Legacy, yes,” the boy interrupted his wrecking boyfriend. “You’re more than that, though. I believe they will be okay if you’re not everything they expect you to be.”
“What if they’re not? What if I’m not?”
“Then I’ll be here,” Y/N whispered before leaving a kiss on his boyfriend’s cheek and locking their hands together. “Let’s do this?”
Damian nodded and, without letting his partner’s hand go, he knocked on the door. Alfred opened immediately. Of course, he had seen them get there on the front camera. He had been waiting close to the door to get it once you two were ready. The butler greeted the guest with a smile that was reciprocated.
“It’s very nice to meet you, Mr. Pennyworth. Now I know who to thank for the best reheated meals I’ve ever stolen,” the boy spoke first, making the man laugh.
“My pleasure, Mr…,” he left room for the young man to answer.
“His name is Y/N,” Damian answered.
“Mr. Y/N, you may call me Alfred. You are part of the family now,” the man turned around and started walking, signaling the kids to follow him. “Come now, everyone is expecting you.”
Alfred pretended not to hear when Y/N whispered, “See? that wasn’t so bad.”
The dining room was as loud as ever, giggles coming from the younger side of the table while the older ones talked between them about unimportant stuff, all waiting for the youngest among them to show up. And just like last time, Alfred cleared his throat, making everyone look at him in silence. Right behind, following, they saw Damian Wayne and an unknown boy holding hands. The unfamiliar nervousness coming from the boy all of them had always known as the most confident was perplexing and, for some of them, even funny.
The new boy held up his free hand, waving. Dick quickly got up from his seat and walked to them, holding both boys in a firm embrace once close. With a big smile, he introduced himself and stole Damian’s boyfriend from his hands, holding him by the shoulders and leading him to the assigned seat between Dick and Barbara and in front of Damian.
Everyone introduced themselves politely, even Jason, who looked a bit confused and embarrassed. However, he was still a victim to the judgmental eyes of Cassandra Cain, who was trying to decipher the boy’s intentions. He knew this was going to happen, Damian had warned him. He shot her a smile.
Dinner was far from normal, Y/N quickly learned the family was too chaotic for its own good. Stephanie and Duke tried to start a food fight more than once, despite being shot a disapproving look from Bruce every time.. Dick and Barbara couldn’t stop talking about their new dog, Dick had taken out his wallet which had only two bills and several pictures of Hailey. He had placed them all on the table while Barbara told the boy what was happening when each of them was taken.
At some point in the night, Tim and Jason had started fighting and kicking each other under the table. Cassandra got up and walked to each of them to punch them in their arms, signaling to stop. The only silent people at the table were Alfred, Kate, Bruce, and Damian, who had taken his time to eat.
After desert and all the fighting, everyone moved to the living where some more serious talk took place. Everyone wanted to know more about Y/N, asking him about his family and relationship with Damian.
“Damian,” Bruce said softly, standing beside him in a corner of the room. He was looking at you from there, leaving you to meet the family on your own. “Can we talk in my office?”
The boy agreed, walking before his father to the room in question. Inside, he sat on the sofa in front of the desk while his father sat on the desk, looking down at him.
“Is everything alright, Father?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.
“I’m sorry, father,” Damian whispered. “I just wanted to be sure you wouldn’t..”
Bruce quickly understood. “I’m not like that, Son. You know that.”
He nodded, avoiding his father’s eyes. Bruce stood up, his hand traveled to Damian’s shoulder. “I’m proud of you, whoever you want to be.”
The youngest Wayne’s eyes quickly got up from the floor to look at the oldest, a new shine on them. He stood up just like his father had done seconds ago and, with a hopeful tone, he asked, “So it is fine?” Bruce smiled for the first time in the night. “I trust your judgment, son. If this boy is who you want to be with, then yes, it is fine with me.”
Damian returned the smile. Surprising Bruce, he threw himself onto the man’s body, wrapping his arms around him tightly.
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inamindfarfaraway · 2 years
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Dark Oracle AU
Okay, I need to expand on this concept. I present my personal idea of a timeline from the canon state of affairs (or, well, my interpretation of them because comics are so inconsistent and full of crap, basically pre-New 52 with Duke) to Big Sister dictatorship!
The Batfamily is battling a really serious threat, like Ra’s al Ghul or the Court of Owls or a supervillain alliance or something. It’s a big deal. Very high stakes. The only reason they’re even attempting a mission this risky is because, thanks in large part to their resident information-finding specialist Barbara, they have a great deal of knowledge in advance and are sure they’ve planned for every possible outcome, as Bats tend to do. Except the villain has a secret advantage, another trick up their sleeve. There’s no way Babs could have found out about this, but of course she doesn’t believe that and blames herself, as Bats tend to do. The heroes aren’t prepared and in the chaos none of the contingency plans they’re able to execute work. By the time they defeat the threat… Black Bat and Batgirl are dead. Steph is killed first, heroically sacrificing herself, and Cass, the nearest to her, is caught off-guard in her shock.
I’m sorry! I am! But I truly think that Babs could not properly turn evil if she had Team Batgirl to remind her of her definition of heroism, of her own lingering inner Batgirl. She needs to just be Oracle. Cass is buried in the Wayne Manor cemetery; Steph in a public one the closest to the same distance from the Manor and Crystal’s house. They both get memorials in the Batcave.
Babs shuts down in depressed and self-hatred. She watched her daughter figures, her protégés, her Batgirls die because of (in her mind) her inadequacy. She feels like she’ll similarly fail at anything she tries to do now. She quits being Oracle and withdraws from the Batfam and her father. Remember, she has an eidetic memory, and watched and heard Steph and Cass’s deaths via the family’s mask cameras. They’re all she can see when she closes her eyes. Those screams are always ringing in her ears.
Meanwhile, Bruce takes this about as well as he took losing a child/young vigilante he inspired and mentored the last two times, but doubled. Although he and Alfred have enough experience that he doesn’t get quite as bad as fast as when Jason died, he’s still significantly more antisocial, aggressive, reckless and self-destructive and isolates himself more over the first months afterward. Jim notices the disappearance of Black Bat and Batgirl and the sadly familiar changes in Batman’s behaviour and puts the pieces together. He offers Batman what comfort he can, but is simultaneously worrying about Babs on top of his job. Crime rates go up whenever the Batfam’s numbers decrease.
The remaining Batkids are distraught. Other than Jason, they grow closer in their shared grief. Jason is off on his own turning his pain into violence even more savagely than normal. He recognizes that he’s falling back on his terrible coping mechanisms and doesn’t want to hurt his family this time, so he just doesn’t interact with them. Tim is hit especially hard due to being the closest to Cass and Steph - not to mention that he in particular so fucking sick and tired of his loved ones dying across his teenage years. He’s very unstable. Steph was one of the key people who taught Damian how to have fun and be a kid, and how important it was, so without her he’s more liable to forget that and backslide into acting cold, aloof, violently temperamental, etc.. Duke is made acutely aware of how short life is and that anyone he cares about could die at any time, so he actually strengthens his friendships with the We Are Robin kids. They can break down and be vulnerable with each other in private, but mostly push themselves harder because they each feel that it’s their duty to both keep Gotham safe and prevent Bruce and their siblings going off the rails. Dick is probably the least emotionally vulnerable because he has the most practice bottling up intense grief effectively and, with Bruce’s psychological decline and constant busyness, steps up more as the Responsible Adult alongside Alfred.
Bruce forbids Tim, Duke and Damian to go into the field and Dick agrees, because can they stop losing family for five minutes? A number of restrictions are implemented to uphold this. It’s Tim, Duke and Damian, though, of course they get out anyway. Helping people directly is one of the only sources of serotonin they have.
This is when things really start to go to hell: Bruce is killed. Because of his recklessness and accelerated by his poor health due to neglecting self-care. Because he charged into a dangerous fight alone, Alfred in the chair occupied with the Batkids. Because, Babs can’t convince herself otherwise, he didn’t have Oracle watching his back. The Batkids really could not stop losing family for five minutes. He’s buried right next to his daughter, the death dates just three months apart. Memorial in the cave, natch. But they don’t pretend he isn’t dead this time, so the whole city must mourn its Dark Knight. There are huge memorial services, statues made of him. Jim cries a lot. He already lost Harvey, now Bats?
Oh yeah, and - released a little later to throw people off and let them form a convincing cover story - Bruce Wayne is dead too. A massive blow to Gotham’s morale and even greater surges in crime follow. Their inspirational ray of sunshine and hope and belief in humanity is suddenly gone forever, and so soon after their original and most accomplished superhero. Who are they going to believe in now? Well… at least they still have the rest of the vigilantes.
Babs returns to work. Throws herself into it the way other people throw themselves off bridges. She stays on more formal terms with the Batfam at first, but does reconnect with them over time. She moves Cass and Steph’s memorials to the Clocktower “for motivation”, and this is evidently effective, seeing how she goes into overdrive and is soon leading and coordinating everyone alongside Dick. Gotham is floundering without Bruce and Batman and she refuses to let it fall into anarchy. She’ll be its Oracle, guiding it to a brighter future. She’ll never not know or foresee something ever again. She can’t. Jim is getting extremely worried.
If she’s doing badly, Bruce’s own children’s mental states can be summarised as deep shit. Everyone embraces the family’s classic coping mechanisms, workaholism and emotional repression, harder to try to cope with the chaos. Tim takes over more Wayne Enterprises responsibilities. You know, ‘cause he doesn’t have enough on his plate. Unlike last time, Bruce is definitely permanently dead and he doesn’t take that well. Alfred… is going through it. Sorry, Alfred. A small comfort is that Jason is inspired to treasure his remaining family and he and his siblings and grandad work on repairing their relationships.
Things don’t go Gotham meets Oceania overnight. Babs eroding her code of ethics to the point of evil dictatorship is a slow process, the kind you may not even register until it’s happened. One year after Bruce’s death she’s composed enough to run for mayor, still cripplingly afraid and resentful of Oracle’s limitations. She needs political control over Gotham to make it a better place in the long run. Who are the people going to believe in now? Barbara Gordon! Her loved ones are proud and supportive of her, having been reconnecting with her lately, if concerned that she isn’t processing her grief that much even compared to the rest of them. Her policies are focused on security and reforms to the police force and legal system that aim to reduce crime and corruption, which in the context of the soaring crime rates and spiralling despair of the Gotham public all seem wonderful to many. Surely, things at least can’t possibly get worse than they have been. She wins in a landslide.
The mayor’s power plus Oracle’s power soon goes to Babs’s head. Over the next year she slips from hero to antihero to a darker shade of grey. Her level of surveillance gradually moves out of the reasonable zone. Her patience for disagreement wears thin. When the Batfam or law enforcement take down a crime organization, she will siphon off their assets and information to consolidate her power rather than redistribute all of it to the people. For the greater good, obviously!
This culminates two years after Bruce’s death when Oracle defeats the Court of Owls with a cunning scheme (if they’re the ones who killed the Batgirls, this part hits extra hard): she fakes an alliance with them to set up a double cross, her ‘downpayment’ of information to gain their trust being false and luring their high command into a massive vigilante and police ambush. But Babs doesn’t dismantle the Court like the Bats expect her to. She takes control of it and integrates its vast, rich archives and information network into her own, now essentially omniscient regarding Gotham’s criminal underworld. She also uses the Court’s under-the-table connections to manipulate political and legal proceedings. It’s great for eliminating all corruption besides her own.
This move triggers the ideological conflict that’s been brewing amongst the Batfam to spill over into a devastating fight. Babs and Dick are at the forefront. Babs is accused of tyranny and selfish ambition, Dick and his allies of holding onto a naive, obsolete ideal of protection, both sides feeling betrayed and that the other is “becoming what they fought against”. It’s very emotionally charged. Very painful and bitter for everyone involved.
In the end Alfred, Dick, Jason, Duke and Damian leave in regret and disgust. To explain why them: Alfred is never turning evil. We all know that. The fabric of the universe would unravel if he did. Dick is likewise functionally incorruptible because he’s Dick Grayson, he’s the light of the DC universe. He is utterly heartbroken though. Him and Babs being enemies is the maximum angst option, I couldn’t not take it. Jason has already been through a ‘using villainous methods to protect Gotham how Batman won’t because a) I genuinely believe the ends justify the means and b) my mental health is a train wreck’ phase and basically come out the other side. He isn’t gonna do that again, but as a subordinate. Him and Duke’s backstories make them both more down-to-earth and grounded in the reality of the average and lower-class Gotham citizens’ everyday lives than anyone else in the Batfam, so they can see most clearly how Babs’s actions are harming their people. And Damian is closer to Dick and Duke than Babs, but also similarly to Jason did the edgy ‘morals hold you back, absolute punishment and terror will fight crime more efficiently’ thing and outgrew it. He learned to value human life and rights and swore his loyalty to the mentors who taught him this and their code. He learned how to reject the toxic bullshit the League of Assassins had been feeding him his entire life; it would insult his character growth in my opinion to have him accept Barbara’s toxic bullshit.
That leaves Tim to be Babs’s primary enforcer. Sorry, Tim. Someone had to do it. Between his severe psychological vulnerability and lack of his brothers’ personal experiences with immorality and insights into the average Gothamite’s life, I think it should be him. He’s also the CEO of Wayne Enterprises and involved in the Wayne Foundation and that pairs nicely with Babs’s data collection. Any Wayne Technologies device can covertly monitor people. To sever himself from the bat and bird motifs of the lost and unenlightened and show his allegiance to Oracle, he creates a new vigilante identity called Python. This is a reference to the Greek myth of a giant serpent called Python (from the original name of Delphi, Pytho, and the namesake of the snake classification) who resided in and guarded the site of Delphi, before Apollo killed it and installed his own prophetess Pythia in his place. He’s got a green scaly jumpsuit with armour plating. Two curved swords imitating fangs. Scale throwing blades. A penchant for nonlethal gas and aerosol tools like knockout gas, tear gas and smokescreens, in allusion to the natural hallucinogenic fumes at Delphi that led to its holy reputation. It’s cool. Sinister, but cool. Snakes don’t have eyelids, matching the relentless surveillance theme. Fun fact: pythons eat bats and small birds.
Shock of the century, Babara “Heaps of Recent, Untreated PTSD From Losing Loved Ones and Compulsive Need to Always be Aware and On Top of Everything” Gordon doesn’t take being ditched by all but one of her found family in stride. She has a total breakdown, blames herself for not being able to make them see things her way and lashes out by cracking down even harder on the populace. She’s accordingly immensely grateful for Tim staying and very protective of him. Were he to leave her too, it could be enough to shatter her.
The five rebels join the Birds of Prey, who leave Barbara after hearing how she turned on them, the Gotham City Sirens, Holly Robinson, Slam Bradley, Duke’s We Are Robin friends and a number of other malcontents, including Crystal Brown, to form a resistance. This alliance is called the Shadow Guard - ‘shadow’ because they literally are largely nocturnal, but furthermore it’s a contrast and opposition to Oracle’s prying and shining a light onto things; a declaration both that they are her blind spot and that privacy, the unseen, the ability to keep people ‘in the dark’ deserves to be protected. They’re guardians in the real shadows and of the figurative ones. There’s the angle that they’re only shadows of the Batfamily at its peak and the people they were then too. The rebellion uses pre-internet technology to be safe, with the occasional exception of scavenged tech cut off from Babs’s network.
Mayor Gordon declares Nightwing, Red Hood, Robin and the Signal to be dangerous, untrustworthy public enemies, even suggesting that they’re responsible for the mysterious disappearances of Dick Grayson, Damian Wayne and Duke Thomas. This forces Jim, who’s been putting off realizing that his beloved daughter and the only family he has left is having a moral degradation arc in favour of softer appeals to her compassion, to confront that Babs is now pretty damn totalitarian and he cannot stand by any longer. He joins the Shadow Guard as a spy, and supplies resources, equipment and other employees with consciences to their ranks. His hope is that once her power is removed, Babs will have to face the consequences of her actions and come to her senses. The three year mark is when her directing of the police cycles around to be so militarized and oppressive that her initial real ethical reforms are trampled, vindicating Jim’s decision.
Why don’t external superheroes and the government officials intervene? Because Babs is still their information broker. She provides them with vital intel and has truckloads of dirt on all of them. She isn’t above passive-aggressively reminding people of her ability to ruin them to get them off her back, even demonstrating it by leaking sensitive information, causing a scandal, giving an advantage to a rival, etc. every now and then. The rest of the US is watching the events in Gotham thinking, as people so often do, “Someone should do something! …But it’s not gonna be me!” (For the sake of the plot just quietly ignore the Superfam and Wonderfam and Flashfam and so on, okay?). Besides, Gotham’s crime rates are the lowest they’ve ever been. Oracle is untouchable and none of the illicit activity can be traced back to Babs, or even proven at all most of the time.
Keep in mind, Babs still doesn’t technically directly kill anyone. Tim doesn’t either. He just arrests criminals and disturbers of the peace and hands them over to the justice system. Business as usual. When they and all records of them disappear overnight, and when nobody ever gets out of Blackgate or Arkham… well, questioning that isn’t in his job description, and Babs and his job are all he has left. He’s come too far to give them up.
Four years into Babs’s mayorship, Gotham’s settled into its continually worsening dystopian status quo under a utopian facade. The roll down the slope accelerates when Jim’s spying is discovered. Babs is horrified, furious and deeply hurt. She almost, almost backs down, but falls victim to the sunk cost fallacy and desperately reaffirms her self-righteousness. He has frustratingly durable moral integrity, so she orders him arrested to get him out of sight and out of mind because again, she cannot handle another loss. The rebel Batboys break him out, they fight Python and the police, it’s sad and dramatic. The rebels get away by the skin of their teeth, but they’re followed. A raid on their base deals harsh blows and gets a sizeable proportion of them arrested, killed or traumatized into submission. They regroup and try to find a way to take Oracle by surprise. Jim is now the Shadow Guard’s co-leader with Dick.
Gotham is peaceful. It’s orderly. Supervillains are a thing of the past. Barbara is like the oracles of legend: whatever she says will be, will be. Needless to say, she won’t have much competition in the upcoming mayoral election. From there, she plans to expand beyond Gotham. The only problem that remains is how to stop her treacherous family and lay the past to rest once and for all…
That’s the catch with oracle stories, isn’t it? In the end, you find you’ve become exactly what you most strived to avoid being. Think of King Oedipus, the archetypal Greek tragedy and ironic prophecy story: a just, wise and noble leader stubbornly seeking knowledge to protect their people from ruin in a time of great suffering, only for they themselves to be the criminal they were looking for and the cause of their city’s corruption.
I’m ending it here with a five year time difference and pretty much in the heroes’ darkest hour, because this is where I would have (my) canon Babs, Steph and Cass transported to this world to help bring dark Oracle down.
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so i’m trying to write duke and i don’t think i’m writing him right. how would you describe his personality because with don’t trust fanon lmfaooo
(this was only supposed to be a paragraph or two i swear to god)
1. first things first, duke is a hardcore gryffindor. don’t let the yellow color scheme mislead you, okay. and while most of the time he’s depicted in fanon as “omg this family is crazy and i’m the only sane one,” it’s actually pretty much the opposite? if anything, i think the other batkids would be like “oh finally, someone who can match our level of chaotic energy. HEY DUKE WANNA BUNGEE JUMP OFF WAYNE TOWER—” and an hour later they’d all be in the batcave getting lectured by bruce for leading poor sweet innocent duke astray when really he was already planning on doing that this weekend.
listen, this is the kid who once jumped off a bridge to escape police. this is the dude who decided to fight criminals while they’re still eating their wheaties at 6am in a bright yellow suit. and while duke seems to be the best at following bruce’s command at the moment due to having been trained by him most recently compared to the others and is still figuring out how to be a hero, i’m positive that if bruce weren’t here to guide him, duke would be running around gotham taking down criminals anyway. i mean, he literally did do that with the “we are robin” kids. plus there was the whole thing when he was like ten years old and decided “i am going to singlehandedly stop the riddler in my light up sketchers and pikachu backpack. try and stop me.” 
duke is headstrong and has a strong drive toward heroism. he’s an extremely enthusiastic and passionate person in general, and i try to capture a little of that when i write him, even with mundane things like trying to beat his siblings to the last cupcake. 
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2. another thing i noticed is that duke swears like a sailor in comics? seriously, this boy could give jason a run for his money with how many “@#!%” speech bubbles there are. i don’t know if this is just a trend the writers added in the comics i’ve read of him, or if it’s a genuine trait throughout every comic he’s in, but that’s something to make note of when writing dialogue for duke. after all, he did grow up in the narrows, so it makes sense that he’d use a lot of swearing and slang in his everyday vernacular.
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3. i would also make a point of noting that duke is fairly young compared to the rest of the batfamily, being the second youngest after damian. duke is still a teenager in high school, and he acts like it. he’s got homework and friends and is eager to make a difference in gotham, trying to juggle everything and make it all work somehow. he’s stubborn and doesn’t give up easily, so it’s important to write him as someone who is trying to save the world while also struggling with finding time to study for his next math test. he's human. he doesn’t get to dedicate all of his time to fighting crime like cass or jason might be able to, since duke is still a mostly normal teenager with teenager problems.
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4. and don’t forget that unlike the other batkids, duke still has two living parents. sure, they’re jokerized and might not ever be the same again, but they’re alive and that’s what holds him back from letting himself get as close to the waynes as he wants to. duke won’t be calling bruce “dad” anytime soon, and i think he’d have some internal struggle over stuff like holidays and birthdays with the waynes, remembering what his parents are missing out on and wondering if joining the wayne family is a betrayal to them. duke is very conflicted over this, even if he doesn’t say it directly. stuff like ducking out of movie night early or feeling a bittersweet pang during thanksgiving dinner makes sense for someone in his situation. 
(i usually ignore that aspect in my fics because i want duke to just be adopted and part of the family already, but not everyone does that, and that’s perfectly fine.)
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5. honestly, duke is such a caring individual and we as a fandom need more of him being a shoulder for people to lean on because he’s?? so soft?? duke can be so sympathetic and rational when it comes to emotional problems. it seems like duke internalizes every bit of advice he gets from the people around him and uses it to inspire others and help them through their own problems. as tough and hotheaded as duke can sometimes be, he really is good when it comes to emotions.
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6. duke is a smartass. he will 100% use sarcasm against any and every authority figure he meets, usually just for the hell of it. 
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7. he’s very frank in general, usually the first to be like “okay full disclosure, we’re about to die right now. that sucks. anyway—” in a situation. he’s honest and tends to be upfront about his fears/anxieties, usually for comic relief, but i think it still counts.
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8. okay i have to add that duke is also kind of a punk? he and jason have a lot in common because of this: they both grew up in one of gotham’s worse areas (jay in crime alley and duke in the narrows) and they’re both highkey deliquents. duke has no problem getting into fights or talking back to authority figures, and it’s gotten him in hot water on more than one occasion. it’s why he kept getting moved around the foster system before bruce took him in because no one wanted to keep him.
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9. he’s also gotten so close with the other batkids and we love to see it!! duke calls cass “sis” and treats damian like the annoying little brother he never had and i adore every second of it. we haven’t gotten a lot of interactions between duke and the others aside from training and stuff, but he and jason have the whole “punk kid who got adopted by batman and is baffled by how rich people live” going for them, so they can bond over that. and duke is a thinker like tim, so they can hang out and do puzzles or play chess or whatever it is that smart people do. (and duke and steph are BESTIES i don’t care what anyone says.)
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10. most of all, duke is still learning how the whole hero thing works. he’s young and he’s trying his best, but he also makes mistakes. he will be impulsive and screw up, and he’ll try and merge the lessons batman’s taught him and that his parents taught him and that other heroes teach him until it all makes sense in his own mind. duke isn’t experienced like dick or even damian, so he’s going to be lagging behind for a while until he grows until the role he’s made for himself.
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other miscellaneous details to include: 
- duke is dating izzy, who used to be part of the “we are robin” gang with him - he used to live at the manor and now lives with his cousin jay, but honestly i just have him living at the manor in everything i write because i like it better that way - he can control shadows and light now! what a king! - duke secretly writes poetry and is good at creative writing in general  - this:
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- duke is super smart?? he figured out that agent 37 was dick grayson without even trying?? i’m so proud of him - his biological father is this supervillain called gnomon so now duke has got four parents: his mom, his dad, his supervillain dad, and bruce (plus selina if you count her as the batkids’ stepmom, which i do) - jason calls him “narrows” and i love that
- and, lastly, the most important panel in the history of comics:
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kimberly-spirits13 · 3 years
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Batfam Reacting to S/O Turning into a Robin HC (Request)
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So this entire thing happens because you and Bruce were fighting Circe who just had to throw a spell at a civilian
You jump in front of the spell and catch it, taking the blow
This means that on site, you turn into a Robin
Wtf
Bruce is big mad now since now he thinks that you could be a Robin for the rest of your life and that’s just not cool
The moment that the fight is over, he calls in everyone from the league
Z, Constantine, Dr. Fate, Zatara, Wonder Woman, the whole lot
Once they find out what happens there’s a worry but eventually they find that it’s going to be alright and you’ll change back within the next 72 hours or so
72 HOURS
Bruce just simply cannot wait that long
he doesn’t know what to do with a bird like
ALFRED
They make sure to not try and feed you anything that’s too disgusting that you wouldn’t normally eat
No worms
That would be gross
Bruce does find it kind of funny that you turn into a Robin and not something else
So happy it wasn’t a bat
You’d get mixed and lost with the rest of them in the cave and that would be weird
Plus there’s a high chance that you’d just fall from the ceiling
Once you finally detransform from the entire debacle, Bruce is very happy to have you back
Gets special charms from Z and Constantine that repel bad magic back onto the user
Ensures that something like this doesn’t happen again
Dick Grayson:
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This man does not know what to do
It’s a run in with Witch Boy that causes this to happen
Z!!!!!!
That’s the first person that he calls
Wally is really the one that takes you back to him since Dick wasn’t on this mission but you and Wally were leading it
You jumped in front of one of the newer recruits and that’s how that happened
Does this entire experience count as a souvenir?
Like maybe he just takes a feather that you drop or something and like SOUVENIR OF THAT ONE TIME THAT Y/N TURNED INTO A ROBIN
After the initial freak out mode, he just thinks that it’s kind of funny that it was a Robin
Z said that the spell was the wrong spell (thankfully) and you’d only turn into something that you loved for a little while
RObin yOU TuRNeD InTO A RoBIn
And that makes Dick a blushing mess
Once you finally do turn back, he teases you
Your most important question is did you eat anything gross
The answer was no but still
Trust issues
he does mention what the spell was and that lead to some blushing
Jason Todd:
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This was the last thing that he had planned
The absolute last thing
On a mission that involved some weird magic stuff, you just happened to get turned into a Robin
What the literal hell is happening now
The first instinct is to see that it’s really you
Once you understand that you’re a Robin, you’re just like, oh, so this is happening now
And that’s just how it is, you fly up onto his shoulder and just run with it
Just sitting there like it’s no one’s business cause it isn’t
If anyone asks why there’s a Robin following, it’s just what’s happening now
He is concerned that you don’t turn into a human again
So he does make sure to ask and this time, it needs a counter spell
Z is the one to do this since Jason isn’t keen on trusting Constantine
Doesn’t take super long to do this since Z is already very powerful
We Stan a powerful helpful queen
So Jason goes to one of her shows and sneaks back stage still in the Red Hood uniform and explains what happens
Z just goes ahead, sets you on the floor, and does the transformation
It was really easy, not to painful, but it was weird to just be laying on the floor and not able to fly
You’ll only miss that part
Jason doesn’t miss any of it and still jokes about the fact that you were a Robin
“Babe at least you didn’t blow up in your time being Robin.”
JASON PETER TODD
Tim Drake:
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So you turn into a Robin on a mission with the team
He was on this mission and watched the entire thing go down
The funny part was that you could still talk since the magic was somewhat incomplete
There’s just this small voice “WHAT THE HELL!”
And then Tim knows that it’s definitely you
Tim was going to take you to one of the magic users in the league
but since Diana was right there when you got back, you stormed up flew up to her and just mouthed off
“DIANA LOOK AT ME! THAT ASSHOLE CIRCE TURNED ME INTO A ROBIN! THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH ROBIN BUT I DON’T WANT TO BE ROBIN! WATCHA LOOKIN AT BATS! I’M NOT UP FOR ADOPTION!”
Tim just died laughing
Cause it really was funny that you were just a little tiny Robin and mouthing off at the most powerful heroes in the world
Recorded it 100%
When Diana takes you to Themyscira in order to get one of the Amazon’s to help, Tim obviously couldn’t come
So it’s about a three day long trip and during that period, Timmy is a mess
He needs to know what’s happening at all times to ensure that you’re alright
When you do finally get home, he tackles you into a hug and checks you up and down to make sure that there’s nothing still wrong
Very happy when he concludes that there’s nothing wrong anymore and you’re back to the regular Y/N
Damian Wayne:
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His first instinct is to not let anyone touch you but him
He takes you everywhere and makes sure that you’re alright
You can’t talk but he’s helped birds before and has dated you for some time so he knows what no to do and what to do
That being said, he does want you back to normal ASAP
That means that he’ll call an emergency league meeting without Bruce’s approval
Although Bruce probably would have done the same thing since he really knows that Damian loves you and would make sure that you’re alright
That’s super important to him and the rest of the family since you are kind of family at this point
Damian insists that the magic users help turn you back very quickly
They call in Constantine since Z is off doing other things and he makes sure that he knows exactly what happens
Constantine has had some bad experiences with magic in the past and he wants to be sure that you’re not going to have anything really bad happen to you
Damian is the same way
Probably threatens John’s life if something goes wrong
Once you’re finally back, Damian also tackles you
Though Constantine has to hold him back at first since the shock of turning back and then having someone tackle you to the ground would be over whelming
But when he finally can, he does
Checks you over just like Tim and then doesn’t let you out of his sight for a week or so
It’s not that he doesn’t trust you, just not anyone else
He makes it a point that you’re too important to lose
Cuddles everywhere
Once he does step back and think about it though, he finds it kind of endearing that there are thousands of other things that you could’ve turned into but it was a Robin
It was sweet but didn’t need to last longer than it had to
Duke and Luke:
I’m putting these guys together since in my mind they’re pretty alike
Luke is the classical version of Duke and Duke is the Lofi/ alternative hip hop version of Luke
For these reasons they both have very similar reactions
And that would be to freak out
they take you to Bruce and get advice cause what is going on
They don’t have as much of a connection with the Robin deal since they weren’t ever technically Robin for Batman
Duke is a bit more of an arguable case but still
They do find it both suspicious and a bit comedic that it was a Robin out of anything else though
I have to say that they’re the most chill out of any of the Batfam when it comes to something like this since this kind of thing just happens a lot
Not turning into Robin, just weird outta pocket experiences
Like this is just another thing to add to the list of oh here we go again
Duke does think that you’re still really a pretty Robin
In the most non- weird way possible you’re just a pretty Robin
Luke doesn’t really pay attention to that and instead wants to get to the bottom of what happened so that it doesn’t happen again
They’re both really smart so they’ll figure it out but at different paces since one is more urgent than the other
Doesn’t mean that either care less though
Once you’re back they do make sure that extra diagnostics are run to make sure that nothing was effected and you’ll be okay long and short term
Once they’re satisfied it’ll all go back to being pretty normal
Sry this took so long, exams are running wild
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batkids and their relationships with their siblings headcanons. under read more because this got fucking LONGGG
dick
dick is the eldest so he doesnt want to bog down his younger siblings with his problems, but if he DOES, he tends to talk to jason about it
dick and cass start to really begin to bond when Cass shows up to dicks gymnastics class for 3rd-6th graders and then cass shows up all the sixth graders and they get frozen yogurt after lmao
dick and tim are Very much thick as thieves. tim is very much like bruce on the Emotional Suppression scale, so dick just really wants to make sure his little brother is safe and happy ALL the time
Duke and Damian are the only two really permanently at the manor anymore, so when dick drops by he tries to do something with both of them. duke frantically zoom calls dick every other week to help him with his his trig homework. dick shows up to dukes high school graduation with literally the BIGGEST SIGN
everyone insists damian is dicks favorite but he does actually genuinely love all his siblings equally, his relationship with damian is just Very different from the others because of the age gap and being dami's primary caretaker for a year. dick babies dami every chance he gets
jason
would sell Dick to satan for One corn chip
him and cass don't have the greatest start to their relationship because cass is very much Against Killing so it takes a while for jason to warm up to her and earn her trust. now, though, jason is competing with steph by showing cass all the classic American Teenager things she missed out on. steph is currently winning but jason is like 98% positive a crunch wrap from taco bell is going to push him over the edge
tim and jason are currently competing over who can solve the most cases in a month. tim is winning. that won't last long.
jason Loves to Big Brother duke its so embarrassing. duke will get out of school and go to his car and jason is SITTING IN THE FRONT SEAT FRANTICALLY WAVING TO GET DUKES ATTENTION. JASON THAT IS MY CAR. signal has one (1) mission with arsenal and arsenal goes hey did you ask that girl to homecoming yet and duke is like I DON'T EVEN KNOW YOU.
Damian is proof that Actually, Little Brothers are Pests. Jason fully believes that he was brought back from the dead PURELY to torment damian and he will fulfill this mission at any cost
cassandra
it actually really upset her when Dick didn't accept her at first. she knows her other siblings really adore dick so his lack of trust was really disheartening. it takes dick a while but once he Actually Accepts that cass is going to be a permanent part of their life and oh, wow, dick you really hurt her feelings he really hyperfocuses on bonding with cass for a couple of months which definitely improves their relationship
she really likes jason!! their relationship doesn't start well but because he's close with steph and tim who are cass's top two favorite people to exist ever, cass is like well i GUESS ill hang out with him more. jason is fun to talk to because he always tries his best to explain jokes and give context to what people are talking about (also tim took her to taco bell already but she didn't tell jason she just wanted to hang out)
cass LOVES tim. they just click okay. tim always seems to know when to give her space and when to push and come closer. Tim's "guest room" is just her room lets be real. tim and cass occasionally get mistaken for twins and Cass Loves it.
duke makes cass listen to metal once and cass loses. her. damn. mind. they bond over music a lot because they both Love Music to a degree the others in their family don't.
damian!! damian is her little brother!!! dami isn't As Hostile to cass at first because he is 100% aware cass has the edge in fighting and respects her. cass likes all of his instagram posts and they have a snapchat streak going
tim
tim Loves dick, dick was his first sibling!! he had Very strong hero worship when he first met dick but it mellowed out when tim got older because wow 17 is really not that cool and mature lol. tim has an open invitation to dick's apartment which he does occasionally take advantage of. tim has more than once scared the shit out of wally when wally comes over and wally is convinced they're being robbed (HA) for half a second. i mean. he's not wrong.
listen. tim understands that forgiving the guy who tried to kill you would be a Struggle for some people and it was! definitely! but also at least he can trust jason to, uh, be open about if he doesn't like tim. which is not an assurance he has with other people. so if the guy who tried to kill him tells him tim is cool now then like. maybe tim isn't that bad or annoying a person? also jason arrested a whole gang and won the cases competition but then it created a power vacuum that the whole batfam had to clean up the rest of the month. thanks, jason.
tim LOVES cass. you know how most of the time theres this empty feeling inside you and you just kind of ignore it because you don't know what will fix it or if you do, you know you can't fix it? cass makes that empty feeling feel a little less empty. they just click. tim always tries to travel with cass whenever she leaves gotham.
tim and duke. Tim is actually the sibling who duke goes to whenever he has questions he doesn't want to ask bruce or alfred about, like, life or vigilante-ing or school or college or whatever and Tim is always like yes!! i love Giving Advice and Solving Problems!! tim and duke and jason fill out their college applications together.
tim and damian. LMAO. ROUGH START THAT'S ALL ILL SAY. at some point alfred goes like fuck it. family therapy. and tim and dami are PISSED. tim and damian get along best when they have a common enemy to work against. their relationship gets much better when damian is older and they actually talk about their feelings like emotionally stunted bats. despite how bad their relationship was, tim will ALWAYS protect damian
duke
very much intimidated by dick at first. dick is so much older and has his own job and friends and life and is very much AN ADULT. dick likes to take duke out to do lots of cool stuff (paintball, lasertag, tech exhibitions, concerts, etc). also, dick PERSONALLY introduced duke to superman and is dating THE FLASH. 10/10 awesome big brother.
was intimidated by jason for 0.5 seconds before jason actually opened his mouth and started speaking. jason is literally. So Embarrassing. which is weird because nobody else really seems to feel that way about jason but duke knows he's 100% in the right here. like yeah jason is also An Adult and does Adult Stuff but he's also at the manor like every other weekend???? and he always complains about bruce but always seems to be in the same room bruce is in????? like okay jason. they bond over literature!! jason and duke and alfred will spend literal hours talking about books and duke loves it. duke is the only one who doesn't think jason is funny and jason gets so upset about it lmao.
cass has this one week where she gets really into photography and by virtue of being nearby (and also not nocturnal), duke becomes her victim subject. duke prints out all the pictures and hangs them up in his room (his favorite is one he took when he stole the camera and took a really bad selfie of them together).
tim is closest in age to duke so duke tends to hang around with him a lot. tim introduced duke to his young justice friends and duke is like yes!!! meta-friends!!!! tim really helps duke out with his powers because tim is always like wow i wonder if your powers would work if we did This? can you see farther than other people? is your visible spectrum of light different than other humans? Bruce does the same thing but bruce is boring about it lol.
damian and duke live in the same house and will be in the same room and just send each other social media posts back and forth. they follow each other on instagram and will, OCCASIONALLY, make tik toks together because they're tik tok fiends. each of his siblings have visited his parents once or twice but damian routinely comes with him.
damian
damian gets a special bullet point to say that it took him. forever to come around to the idea of having siblings. he very much believed that he was Bruce's Blood Son and everyone else were just tagalongs or allies. it took him ages to acknowledge that dick, jason, tim, and cass were his siblings, so when duke came and like a week later damian was like Ah, Yes, this is my brother Thomas everyone else was like dude wtf
listen. LISTEN. Obviously. Richard is very highly skilled. and also Father values him highly. and also Richard will listen to Damian complain about his schoolmates. and also Richard is much more patient with Damian than other members of his family. listen....,,, (all this to say damian kind of fucking adores dick lmaooooo this kid).
Todd is kind of unbearable but damian has been informed this is both a normal feeling when it comes to Todd and also big brothers. damian was an only child for ten years so yes, Father, if Todd attempts to tickle me I WILL break his fucking nose. yes i WILL put money in the swear jar but I want you to know i don't regret it. they always try to sneak up on each other but mostly fail.
DRAKE!!! but no lol once damian grows up and is like I Apologize for attempting to murder you it was wrong and you are just as much a son to Father as I am tim is like UGH i guess its cool since ur being so emotionally mature and all. also im 2 for 5 on siblings trying to murder me so im definitely going to win trauma bingo and damian is like i take it back you are insufferable. When Will My Older Siblings Stop Joking About Their Trauma.
CASS!!! listen. cass is cool. Cass Gets It. They have a special Bond. also damian really likes it whenever cass is home because 1) he gets to hang out and do something cool with cass and 2) he feels significantly safer with cass in the house because Nobody will be able to hurt any of their family if Cass is there. ALSO he tries to call her cain but everyone is like DONT DO THAT and he doesn't want to call her wayne bcus theyre ALL wayne (dick adds it on as a middle name but also Richard John Wayne West-Grayson is just. the lamest name ever so dick needs to reconsider it before his upcoming nuptials)((dick will not reconsider it except maybe whether grayson-west would work better)) and so he tries cassandra but cass is like :) call me cass and damian is like cassandra is more formal and respectful and cass is like :) and finally damian just has to give in.
Duke! him and duke actually live together so they get the Most Bonding Time and have a bunch of inside jokes as a result. (is it bad i wanted to laugh because inside jokes... joker... i'll see myself out). they're eating breakfast together (and also alfred sits with them IM NOT A MONSTER ALFIE'S LIKE 70 NOW OKAY) and duke laughs and bruce is like what are you laughing at, son? and duke is like oh damian just showed me this funny meme and then he shows the phone to bruce and bruce grabs it (both the boys groan) and after WAY TOO LONG is like "i don't get it" and so now duke and damian have to try and explain the comedic intricacy of bob's burgers
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shyestofhearts · 3 years
Note
Shy darling I was camping with my family and it was honestly exhausting and I missed you that being said
Super fam and bat fam camp out your thoughts please
-⭐
Absolutely hun, I gotchu
(And I missed you too Star Anon)
Batfam treat it almost like training with how seriously they take it
Meanwhile the Superfam is trying to relax
The Batfam has two of those really big tents because of how many of them there are and how likely they are to fight each other if pushed too far
(Plus a smaller by comparison but still on the larger size tent for Steph and Cass to share)
Jason, Duke, and Damian share one
Bruce, Dick, and Tim share the other
The Superfam has 2 normal sized tents, one for Clark and Lois and one for Jon and Kon
Damian winds up sleeping in the tent with Jon and Kon more often than not though
Duke and Jason don't care because a) more space for them and b) they like to see Damian getting along with people (they're good brothers)
Damian handles any and all cooking over a fire (Jon tried cooking once with heat vision and after both family stopped a potential forest fire it was agreed no heat vision meals)
Damian keeps using Duke as a flashlight and Duke pretends to be annoyed (he also gets Duke to hide him in shadows to play pranks, and Duke joins in. They've yet to be caught)
Jon knows about their pranks but he's no snitch
Damian disappeared at one point and they found him surrounded by animals and their jokes about him being a Disney princess grow ever stronger
Tim fell in a hole somewhere at one point and no one knows how
Cass and Steph explore most days because a) they think it's fun and b) Steph calls getting lost "exploration" and Cass wants Steph to not die
Damian slapped a snake out of someone's hand at one point
Bruce also slapped a snake out of someone's hand
Jason climbed a tree and fell out of it
Dick then climbed the same tree to prove he could climb higher and also fell out of it (but he did make it higher than Jason before he fell)
Duke sat on the top of the tree snickering to himself
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novamirmirsblog · 3 years
Text
I am not a woman, I'm a God (17+)
If I can't have love I want power pt 2
If I can't have love masterlist
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Word Count: 1640
Genre: dark I guess?
Request: no
Warnings: none? (atm anyways)
A/N: I'm not too happy with this chapter so it's subject to change BUT the next couple chapters should pick things up a little :3 OH and the next chapter might contain smut (Idk yet - I'll try to edit this when I've written the next chapter)
1737 - The middle
The revenge was sweet and drawn out. The redhead and her long-time friend had made sure of that. They let you finish the duke off but not before they had their fun. The two women were gorgeous, both with red hair that would make any woman jealous. The green-eyed woman had hair like a wildfire and the blue-eyed woman had hair the colour of a deep red sunset. Liking women was wrong but you weren’t sure these two counted as women – they certainly weren’t human. Wanda, the one with sunset hair, tortured your husband mentally, angry whisps the same colour as Natasha’s hair crawled in through his ears and buried themselves deep within his brain. While this was happening, Natasha was peeling layer after layer of skin off him with her razor-sharp nails. You weren’t sure if you could even call them nails – not when they looked so much more like claws. While Wanda was exploiting your husband’s deepest darkest fears, Natasha was calmly explaining to you which tools to use where so you could cause the most pain. Apparently pain and torture was an aphrodisiac for them because the two demons decided to show you what you had been missing out on due to your husband’s lack of skill.
That was almost 200 years ago. Wanda and Natasha had given you great gifts, allowing you to have a much longer life, giving you cat-like reflexes and godlike powers. Perhaps your favourite was the enhancements they gave to your voice. People were suddenly compelled to do whatever you suggested they do and the rush it gave you was unexplainable. These gifts were not free however and yet the price was one you willingly paid repeatedly. Especially because it meant spending extra time with your two favourite demons. You were there to cause chaos and have fun which was ironic considering Wanda was a chaos demon and Natasha was a succubus but perhaps that’s why you did what you did. Perhaps it was because you were made by them and therefore must serve them in every way imaginable.
~~~~~
You had watched your siblings grow from afar and made sure every single villager who ever even looked at them wrong suffered. When you were with Wanda and Natasha, it felt as if everything just fit into place. It was strange and you felt as if you shouldn’t miss them – they killed and tortured your husband in front of you, gave you gifts that meant you couldn’t live a normal life and coerced you into sex that you weren’t sure you wanted; yet you still wanted them.
Your story was told countless times and the more times it was told, the deeper the truth was twisted into a legend, a tale mothers told their children to keep them away from the forests late at night. You were turned into a martyr, a victim of the horrible cruelties the evil creatures of the world could bestow onto innocent girls.
You were anything but.
If the storytellers could see you now, they would burn all mentions of your story. You were a problem child, a bad example and you had two of the most powerful demons wrapped around your little finger.
A few years ago, you had mentioned to Natasha and Wanda one evening that you were bored. That’s how you found yourself currently being shot at.
“Natty I’m bored.” You whined, throwing yourself dramatically over the bed. History was going through a dry spell; people weren’t doing anything interesting and there weren’t enough opportunities for you to wreak havoc.
“Natty” Wanda mocked “Our princess is bored.”
“Well, we can’t have that now, can we?” Natasha moved to hover over you, Wanda placed your head in her lap. Natasha’s tail flicked with a cat-like manner before it slithered between your legs.
You grabbed her tail and she let out a moan “Not now Natasha. I’m serious. If I knew living forever was going to be this boring, then I wouldn’t have done it.” That wasn’t quite true, you enjoyed being theirs to use but you were getting restless.
Natasha rolled her eyes, leaning up to kiss Wanda instead. You waited a few moments for the two demons to stop their make-out session, but it didn’t look to be ending any time soon. You rolled out from underneath Natasha and untangled Wanda’s fingers from where she was massaging your scalp.
“Awe come back baby.” Wanda broke the kiss and made grabby arms at you. For a supposed demon, she sure was soft. “I promise we’ll make things more fun.”
Natasha rolled her eyes again “You’ve gone soft Wands.” Although Natasha huffed and puffed about how ‘soft’ Wanda had gotten, she seemed to have a slightly less hardened heart when she looked at you.
You were no longer bored but you were being shot at and while it couldn’t kill you, it sure did sting. Perhaps going after Dick Turpin’s loot was a bad idea but what can you say? You wanted to live a little. All you had wanted was a pretty horse you had seen him steal but nooo – he had to keep them all for himself. You had managed to escape Mr Turpin himself but one of his lackeys just wouldn’t give up. Rather than continuing to run, you decided you may as well get a quick meal.
“Hello darling.” Your voice echoed from all around, you watched as the man trying to kill you frantically whipped his head around.
“Who are you? Come out now!”
You let out a low, predatory chuckle.
“I’m the poor little martyr in all your stories.”
“No. You can’t be- that’s impossible! You should be dead!” You watched as the man continued to spin around and around in circles, watching him trip before revealing yourself.
“I am ancient. I have seen empires rise and fall. I have seen kings and queens and holy men enter the world and I have seen them leave; and yet I am nowhere near as old or as powerful as the women who made me the person I am today. While I watched preestablished civilisations crumble, they were reminiscing the time they created them, all while burning them to the ground. Some call me the end but they are mistaken. They are the end. I am your warning. I am the only kindness they will show you. Trivial things such as death do not concern me.” As you finished your speech, Natasha and Wanda’s comforting aura surrounded you, the dark mist embracing you before forming the two women.
“Couldn’t let you have all the fun now could we dove?” Natasha’s voice rumbled out against your neck, biting it lightly.
“You have to share.” Wanda cooed, lifting your chin up to face her as she captured your lips with hers.
The idiot who you were about to kill and feed on decided now was a good time to make their escape. Luckily, Wanda had other plans as her red magic bought the squirming meal back to you.
“Go away. I want to eat. It’s been so long.” You pouted, making your way back to your meal. It was a little annoying that to continue living in your young body that you had to drain the soul from another person, but it was worth it.
“But if we leave then who’s going to do all the heavy lifting?”
“And who will dig the hole in your garden?”
“Or put the body in the hole?”
“Or-”
“Okay! I get it. Fine. But just hush, okay? I like to eat in peace.” You grabbed the man and kissed him hard, feeling his soul merge with yours before it was consumed by the darkness.
“I don’t know why you always have to kiss them to feed” Natasha bit out, moving away from you with Wanda, voicing her unhappiness at you kissing someone else when only she should be kissing you- her and maybe Wanda.
“Well, it wasn’t me who made her feed that way.” Wanda whispered back
“Are you suggesting this is my fault?” Natasha’s voice got low and dangerous, and you felt the forest drop about 10 degrees.
“Well that’s how you feed isn’t it?” Wanda’s eyes glowed and a wind picked up.
You pulled away from your meal, the faint glow of his soul swirling around your mouth and eyes. “Want to share?” The forest rose back to its original temperature and climate as Natasha kissed you, absorbing small remnants of the soul. Wanda wrapped one arm around your waist while the other snaked up to your neck, her teeth lightly biting and sucking along your shoulders.
“I think you forget dove” Natasha broke the kiss to growl at you
“We’re in charge here. If we wanted to share, then we would share.” Wanda finished off for her.
It dawned on you that perhaps this was about more than just the meal. They were jealous.
“Are you two jealous?” You laughed, not at the situation but at their reactions. Wanda bit you harder and Natasha just glared at you.
“Of course not. Why would we be jealous of some silly insignificant dum-”
“Baby…” You reached up and placed one hand lightly on Wanda’s horn and the other on Natasha’s cheek, effectively stopping Natasha’s rant about how unjealous they are. Wanda moved from where she was standing behind you to stand next to Natasha. “You both know that if I could live off Demon energy then I would, but I can’t.”
Natasha and Wanda shared a look, having a silent conversation in the space of seconds before turning their attention back to you. “That’s not necessarily true love.” Wanda said.
“It will be painful but…well demons aren’t born. They’re made.” Natasha explained.
“And if you wanted to…”
You didn’t even hesitate before giving your answer. “Yes.”
Taglist:
@lucydiibi
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woahajimes · 3 years
Text
So I have this little headcanon (well,,,, not really a headcanon but more of a nice-to-think-about headcanon because it would never happen but it’s- like the title- nice to think about so im sharing it here) in which they’re all going to the beach in this sorta mini-van that bruce rented. And take in mind that this is the wayne family, but at the same time most people that wear a bat on their chest,,,, so they had to whack some things up.
BUT ANYWAYS, it was Bruce’s dumbass idea to buy a van and call it a road-trip, and honestly? no one was ready. That usually happens with big families, even with one that has most kids over 18. And how everyone was on board with the idea doesn’t matter because this is my headcanon and they are all now squished in a minivan and there are bags in the back and towels in the seats and there’s a cooler on top because it didn’t fit. 
and just for reference the van was like SMALL. it was sort of like the school buses but way smaller, so they’re like buses in which there are three seats in front, driver, and then like two others (the middle one doesn’t really count because that’s where you put waterbottles and stuff). There’s a sort of space in the back, where you usually put the backpacks (these are like elementary school buses and every single kid has those backpacks with wheels and it’s a pain in the ass-) and then there is another set of four seats (that’s more like a sofa but no armrest- god please have patience there is literally not a single image on google im trying to be specific- and those are facing the back of the bus (so the backrest (?) is facing the place with the bags).
THEN we have another seat that’s close to this one but facing the opposite way but it’s only THREE seats so there’s a space for the next row of three seats and then there’s the back one that’s four again.
In conclusion, you can fit 18-ish people, driver counted. 
and continuing with my story, it’s Bruce driving, Alfred as shotgun, a water-bottle or two in the middle, the bags in their respective places... and then... 
disaster. 
Babs is the only one sitting in the four-seat closer to the bags, harper is in the three-seat, Dick is there as well. 
and then there’s the rest. Steph, Cass, Duke, Jason, Tim, Damian, they’re all screaming in the back and they’re throwing towels around and there’s an “OW! THAT WAS MY HAIR YOU DICKHEAD!” and a “THAT’S MINE!” and so many other things because. the back of the bus, it’s cURSED. And Bruce is just driving with a strained smile because he wants so badly to turn around and throw a waterbottle at each of their heads to get them to shut up (of course, it wouldn’t work because not even god can calm down the back of the bus)
Tim and Jason somehow get into this argument of how tim ‘has no friends’ and Tim shoots back that in fact he DOES, that he’s calling them right this instant. And bruce doesn’t even have a chance to yell at them, because now there’s a speedster and a cloned kryptonian right beside the moving minivan and Bruce is lowkey freaking out because none of them (the ones in the van and the ones out) are wearing their superhero costumes, and then Tim is just with his hands pressed on the window and he’s like practically banging the glass and waving and they can’t hear him but he’s like “HEY! HEY HYE HEY YOU GUYS MADE IT!!!” and then dick is just telling them to cut it out and slow down because you know, identities, and Steph is like HOLY SHIT THEY DID MAKE IT and Damian is just sitting upside down with his legs in the backrest off the seat and Duke is in the same position, making fun of Damian because his feet don’t reach. 
Kon and Bart seem to get the hint because they slow down, but not before bart has literally jumped towards the MOVING VAN and vibrated through (i’m like 99% sure he is able to do that so-) and then he literally landed on Tim (tim actually softened his fall, because Tim’s back literally made a ~crack~ sound by hitting somebody’s knee) and stood up real quick and then started waving and laughing at kon, who was now running normal-speed beside the van. 
And then bruce went FASTER and kon was like WHAT THE HECK OLD MAN and he can’t use his powers so he’s literally running behind the van and bart is laughing his ass off and then tim is like “BRUCE STOP THE VAN!” and then Bart is already calling cassie and telling her what happened and you can hear cassie laughing from over the phone and then Tim is just yelling at bruce in the background. Bruce eventually DOES stop, and Tim opens the door for him and Kon crawls in and Bart’s still laughing, and he’s practically leaning onto Dick and Harper, and they’re squished together and bart’s just laughing on the phone while Kon sits on the really far end of the opposite seat (practically on the door) so he’s the furthest from babs as possible because he’s actually terrified of her. Tim is just sorta awkward because he now realizes that he was a bit TOO excited to see kon, and then the back of the bus/van is staring at them and like what the hell and then Tim goes “who doesn’t have friends, huh?”, and Jason goes ‘pfft’ and he calls roy but he’s spending time with lian; he calls artemis and she goes, “but wasn’t this a family trip? what do you need me for?”, SO jaosn calls bizarro and then he barely answers the phone when bizarro goes “RED HER SAID NO. BYE” so Jason slumps and it’s quiet for a second when steph goes “is that GUM IN MY HAIR”. And then jason laughs and its chaos all over again. (i might make a ‘things that were heard from the back of the road trip bus post bc i have so many ideas oh my god)
and then they are at the beach, the bus barely stops and there’s a few bags thrown out the window, and people yelling at Kon to open the door, and Kon not being able to work under pressure so tim opens it and everyone’s pushing each other and Steph has an uneven strand of hair, because Damian went to ‘extreme measures’ and cut it so now steph’s hair is uneven and they were going to keep cutting it “to make it even” but then Alfred was like “you’re all going to clean the van afterwards so think carefully” and then nobody did anything and there’s literally a ziploc bag with steph’s strand of hair (damian didn’t even cut to where the gum was, he cut even FURTHER but yes, the gum is in the bag). 
As I was saying, they get out of the van, and the bags are out and Bruce has NO IDEA what to do. none. It’s alfred that rents a tent and then Damian’s chasing duke into a random restaurant’s changeroom and showers and then cass is dragging harper that’s dragging steph that’s dragging jason and tim is getting the bags with Kon and bart and bart realizes that he doesn’t  have a swimsuit and then he stops walking and Kon seems to realize too and it’s like OH MAN and they can’t run back (because no powers, rule set by bruce when two super-powered bros came in the bus) and They’ recarrying the bags to this tent (do you guys know what im talking about? i feel like we’re imagining completely different things- it’s this but much more people and there’s a bunch of people selling stuff like sunglasses and doign hair, piercings, tattoos even - for the tattoos thing it’s just promo for an actual shop they don’t tattoo you in the actual beach - ) and It’s literally Kon, tim and bart carrying the bags (which they CAN carry between the three, it’s not like they packed up half the manor) and then a minute later or so Steph is sprinting towards Tim and she’s yelling something Tim can’t understand and then Steph points at her bag (that tim’s carrying) and she screams something like “SAND! HOT!” and then she’s like high-knee-ing/sprinting even faster and Cass is just walking barefoot in the sand, super calm, but she’s got Harper on her back. Damian and Duke are racing towards the shadow (because the sand is cooler there), and next thing you know Jason’s aready in the tent with a coconut. 
And if you haven’t thougth about how the Batfam would be in the beach then let me tell you, you don’t have enough spare time because i know for a FAT FACT that: 
It was Jason that insisted on Bruce buying sand toys (a whole bag, i swear)
Damian tried coconut water, didn’t like it all that much (altho he loves the inside- idk what it’s called but it’s edible i swear)
Bruce put on an excessive amount of sunscreen
Duke has swimming trunks with the robin logo just to piss damian off (also Damian has matching ones but with the batman one)
Steph, Cass and Harper rented a banana boat (here’s a picture) and they dragged Jason and Tim along, just to toss them off in the end 
Jason 1000% got stung by a jellyfish 
Bruce bought like seven friendship bracelets from this guy that made them because they looked deadass cool 
They played beach volleyball and let me tell you Damian can throw a really mean overhand serve (actually, i don’t think you THROW a serve, but like,,, serve one-)
dick got buried in the sand, courtesy of Jason
bart was pissy because he couldn’t go in the water, so he and Kon sprinted with normal speed (they both had water-proof anklets that sucked their powers, so it was REALLY  a no-powers vacation, courtesy of Bruce, again.)
the only ones in stock were neon, and they settled real quick so now theyre sprinting back and cardying a bag of keychains they thought looked rad as hell and now tim caught up to them and all three are practically skipping towards the water
,,,,they forgot to put sunscreen on.... all of them,,, they forgot....
tim made a sand castle
in teams of two (kon/bart, tim/cass, duke/harper, steph/jason, dick/damian) got on each other shoulders and basically spent five minutes trying to see who would be the last team standing, splashing water everywhere and stuff
first team to go down was Dick and damian, because steph pushed damian and by trying to keep himself on Dick's shoulders, damian accidentally poked dick's eye (sort of CLAWED in so you know what i mean).
second team to go down was steph and jason, because damian doesnt play fair and so he swam down and literally just scratched Jason's ankle, knowing damn well that the jellyfish sting was there. Jaosn shrieked and steph lost her balance. so much for vigilantes at night with stealth and talent, huh.
third team to go down was tim and bart because kon insisted on being on bart’s shoulders and that’s easy peasy because i mean, bart’s not WEAK, but he’s not TALL either and it’s not like Kon weighs a feather and they’re on the deeper side,,,,, you can imagine the rest
Now there’s two teams, and they call it a tie because otherwise someone’s gonna end up injured (altho tim likes to say that he and cass won)
There’s music playing in the background, with really vulgar lyrics that alfred disapproves of, but you know. It’s not his beach. 
THIS IS REALLY JUST A SCREAM POST SORRY IT’S NOT WHAT YOU GUYS SIGNED UP FOR BUT TAGLIST ANYWAYS: @red-hood-redemption @screennamealreadyused @bikoncon @catxsnow @thesporklecat @thesesickfics-justmakemesick @hauntingsonofrobin anddd i think i forgot someone sorry 
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The Crown Found in Rose Thorns - fic
Characters: Damian Wayne, Dick Grayson, Talia al Ghul, Jon Kent, Cassandra Cain, Bruce Wayne Pairing: jondami Summary: “My name is Jonathan Kent, of the Kingdom of Krypton. And I’m here to marry Prince Damian of the Kingdom of Gotham.” A/N: I told @berryfartsart some medieval jondami headcanons inspired by the DKOS announcement and they cyberbullied me into writing the AU for it. (Kidding, of course.) Anyway get ready for some old fashion slow burns and smoopy goopy love~ (but like...eventually, this won’t be fast updated haha)
~~
Damian huffed, crossing his arms, wincing as the Cassandra pulled the brush through his curls once more.
“This is a farce.” He droned. “A complete jester act.”
Talia chuckled, but didn’t look back at her son. Continued brushing her own hair.
“It’s going to be the same as the past three days.” Damian warned. “They’re all simpletons not worthy of my time, or anyone else’s.”
“Then I would at least like to remind you, my dear precious boy.” Talia hummed, effortlessly twirling her hair into a braid. “That I am not asking you to marry today. I am asking you to explore what traits might appeal to you, what kingdoms you trust, or don’t.”
Damian winced as his sister tugged gently at his hair, and scoffed. “It shouldn’t be up to me. My marriage is unimportant.” He mumbled. “You should be focusing on the heir’s marriage.”
Talia sighed, dropping her brush onto her vanity and standing. She stared into the mirror for a moment before leaning over and plucking Damian’s crown off its stand. She turned and slowly walked across the room, staring warmly down at Damian as she approached him.
“Richard does not have a threat hanging over his life.” She murmured, pushing his bangs back before carefully placing the crown on his head. “Richard does not need all the protection he can get.”
“And our brother already has a suitor.” Cassandra chimed in with a giggle. “That warrior princess from the Tamaranean lands.”
“Indeed.” Talia agreed. “So even if he needed any protection from something he could not handle himself, it appears he already has it.”
“Jason then.” Damian tried. He twisted to look at Cassandra. “Or you.” He sat up. “You’re already betrothed to that bard woman!” He turned back to his mother. “Why can’t we make a big deal about her nuptials instead!”
“Because her grandfather is not threatening to steal her away and hold her prisoner and eventually murder her for power.” Talia laughed, holding Damian’s face with a hand on his cheek. “And I am not above a political marriage if that means you have two kingdoms protecting you instead of just ours.”
Damian pursed his lips, ignored the heat rising through his face. “…And if I pick no one to attempt a courtship?”
“Like I said, my beloved.” Talia leaned down and kissed his forehead. “I am not above political marriage to protect you.” She smiled, eyes darting between his. “Even if you forever hate me for it.”
She stood back up, adjusted his crown, then Cassandra’s, then her own, and turned to glide out of the room.
~~
The throne room was abuzz with citizens of the town, and even visitors who had come to try their luck and win Prince Damian’s hand.
Damian sighed as he followed Richard onto their altar. Scanning the room, he could already see no one of merit, and no one of interest. So it was going to be another boring, pointless, wasted day.
“This should be for you.” Damian mumbled again.
Richard snorted, plopping into his seat. “Sorry I found love on my own, little one. Without Mother and Father’s help.” He smirked. “Besides, you should be nice to me. I don’t have to sit here with you all day. I’m just here out of the goodness of my heart, and fondness for my poor, sorrowful, lonely little brother.”
“Piss off. You’re here to amuse yourself at my expense.” Damian rolled his eyes, sitting more politely in the throne next to him. “And so you can go cackle at my misfortune with our brothers later.”
“Nonsense. We cackle at your misfortune on a normal day too.” Richard promised with a wink. “How’s that growth spurt treating you anyway?”
Damian frowned, tugging at his sleeves. “…I have requested a new fitting with Alfred after today’s…festivities.”
Dick smiled again, running his fingers through Damian’s neatly combed curls. “Your clothes will fit for longer than a week one day soon, kiddo.” He let his fingers fall from Damian’s hair to his cheek. “…I’m not just here to keep you company, you know.”
“…Oh?”
“Mhm.” Richard nodded. Damian watched as his blue eyes darted around the room. “I’m here to vet your potential suitors. Make sure they are good enough for you, strong enough to protect you-”
“I can protect myself, thank you.”
“-and this is the fourth day of the festivities. No doubt your grandfather has heard of them by now. Someone has to make sure no undesirables have snuck in, or attempt to make a move.”
“Do you truly think he would be so brash?” Damian questioned. “Besides, this whole thing was Mother’s doing. So, I thought that was why Father keeps attending, to keep watch.”
“He is. But like I said, this is the fourth day. Enough time to get word and move to strike. And forgive me if I’d rather be safe than sorry.” Richard smiled apologetically. “So Father and I are in here, Jason and Cassandra are running the perimeter and Timothy is monitoring the guard towers.”
Damian sighed, staring out into the crowd once more. A few of the guests were glancing their way now. Giggling and falling back into their whispers. Some of the less modest ones outright stared, giving Damian as flirty a smile as they could.
“…Well, as much as I appreciate your concern, I’m afraid it will all be for naught.” Damian drooped in his chair and crossed his arms. “If today is anything like the past three, it will be the most boring day of your life, and nothing will come to fruition.”
“Never say never, little one.” Richard offered dreamily. “Love strikes when you least expect it.”
“Love.” Damian scoffed, glancing over as Bruce and Talia entered the room, hands clasped between them. “Who said any of this was for love?”
“Well.” Richard hummed. “It is because we love you.” He offered. “And we’re hoping not to make this an arranged affair. That we can find you happiness in a partner as well as protection. That’s why we want you to choose.”
“And if I never choose anyone?”
Richard blinked, then offered a smile. But it was sad, almost pitying.
Damian crossed his arms tighter, glancing towards their parents as the King and Queen sat next to them.
“As I keep telling you all, I can protect myself.” Damian mumbled. “And I’m content being alone.”
Richard kept his sad smile. Damian refused to look at him anymore.
~~
Damian wanted to rip his hair out.
As he had predicted many times that day, it was just more of the same.
A blacksmith offering the best weapons, and the safest house on the continent.
A nomad promising a life of adventure and delicious foods.
A group of sisters offering as many heirs as they could carry, and their father as the sole brave knight to protect them all.
A witch and a wizard together, offering magic as protection and endless fertility to continue the kingdom’s bloodline.
A princess offering the best clothes and parties.
A duke who…wasn’t even sure why he was there. He was sent by his father, and didn’t even know Damian’s name.
A young woman who merely offered her humor and loyalty. She could make him laugh, and made it clear that was all she had.
Damian almost agreed to meet with her, if only because he appreciated her honesty.
The sun was dipping in the sky outside the western window, and Damian could feel his stomach starting to growl. He glanced to his brother, who had sat all but stock-still all day, doing exactly as he’d said he would. Watching the room, vetting the visitors. Making sure these potential suitors were good enough for his littlest brother.
“…How many more do you think Mother will have stroll through here?” Damian whispered. “I don’t think I can take much more of this mind-numbing torture.”
Richard chuckled. “I’ll give her four more, then push for a recess. Alright?”
“Thank you.” Damian breathed in relief, glancing out towards the room. The crowd had thinned slightly, with some parties departing when their candidate was politely rejected. Others were just the local townsfolk, remaining purely to stick their noses in royal business.
Talia called for the next suitor to step up, and on the far side of the room, Damian saw three people stepping forward. But before they could make it even a yard, one of the large doors across from the thrones groaned open.
“Am I late?” A male voice called. A wave of chuckles swam around the room, and even Damian found himself smirking.
“Depends on what you’re looking for, son.” Bruce called. Despite the normal nature of the interruption, Damian could already see both his father and brother had put their hands on the hilt of their swords.
“Apologies, Your Highnesses,” Alfred appeared behind the man. He sent a glare over his shoulder as he passed by him. “I had asked him to wait a few moments, but he clearly refused. I do hope we aren’t interrupting.”
“No.” Bruce waved to three people apologetically, who nodded and disappeared back into the crowd. “If he is here for Damian, then we can hear him out.”
“I am!” The stranger called. When he moved, the sound of armor clanked around him. “Um, yes. I mean. I am. I am here for Prince Damian.”
“…Though tardiness is not a good first impression, I must say.” Talia scolded quietly. Bruce gave her a gentle smile and patted her hand. “Bring him forward.”
“Great!” The man – young, by the sound of it, probably closer to a boy – called, leaping past Alfred. “I mean, uh, thank you, Your Highness. For the opportunity.”
Damian watched the man as he walked the long carpet forward, and he felt his eyes narrowing in curiosity. He had dark hair that seemed permanently windblown framing his face, and an awkward smile that almost seemed like it was about to burst from his face.
What really struck Damian’s interest, however, were his eyes. They were a sharp violet, a color Damian didn’t recall ever seeing on a human being before. They were fascinating. Beautiful, even, if he really had to describe them.
As he approached, Damian realized the man – boy, he truly was a boy – was around his age. Seventeen like himself at most, but more likely a year or two younger. What surprised him about that, though, was the armour he wore. While a sparkling silver and recently cleaned, Damian could see nicks and dents in it, even a few shadows that could easily be blood stains, if he got close enough to look.
Barely seventeen and already a battle-worn war veteran?
Attached to the shoulder plate of his armour was a brooch that fastened his bright red cloak together around his neck. It was gold, shaped like a freshly cut diamond, with a large S painted blue on the inside.
Damian didn’t recognize the coat of arms. And Damian knew all the coat of arms of every kingdom and town on the continent.
That was suspicious.
He glanced to his side again. Richard had not taken his hand off his sword.
The boy had reached their feet now, that large smile still adorning his face.
“Hello.” He said plainly. “My name is Jonathan Kent, of the Kingdom of Krypton.”
Talia huffed, raising her head. “And what are you here for, Sir Jonathan?”
Jonathan’s smile, impossibly, seemed to widen.
“Well, Your Highness.” He started, turning his head to stare directly at Damian. Damian found himself flinching under the intense gaze. “I’m here to marry Prince Damian of the Kingdom of Gotham.”
A wave of gasps rolled through the room, followed by an almost deathly silence. While they were all here to propose a courtship and future with the prince, no one had dared to be so forward! Just as no one should have. It was presumptuous and out of place. Everyone knew that. Everyone.
Bruce and Talia glanced at each other, and Richard had the gall to stifle a laugh in his fist.
But Damian.
He was tired, he was annoyed. He was fed up with this charade that had not only taken up almost a week of his life, but one he did not want to partake in, in the first place. He was fed up with people looking at him. Fed up with being treated like a thing, a prize.
So as his parents glanced at each other, and the court calmed themselves over the offense, Damian stood, moving to the front of the altar.
“I beg your pardon?” He spat, brushing off Richard’s fingers as he tried to grab him. “How dare you think I’d want to marry a nameless peasant such as yourself.”
“Well, past experience says you wouldn’t be that against it.” Jonathan shrugged, armor clanking. “But that also is a moot point, because I’m not a peasant. I’m Jonathan, from the Kingdom of Krypto-”
“I’ve never heard of it.” Damian declared. “And I know every kingdom here to the coasts. Which makes you a liar, dear knight.”
The moniker was all but sneered, but Jonathan just let his smile grow a little wider, a little…fonder.
Suddenly Jonathan glanced over Damian’s shoulder. “My father’s name is Clark Kent, but he also sometimes goes by Kal. You’ve fought at his side before, King Bruce.”
Damian whirled around to find his father nodding. “Indeed I have.” Bruce frowned. “I don’t recall him being from any kingdom though. He called himself a traveler.”
“A…recent development.” Jonathan admitted. “One we are still getting used to. But Krypton is his – our – home, and once the truth was discovered, they welcomed us back with open arms.”
“Your father is king?” Jonathan nodded. “Quite the…development, as you said.” Bruce murmured. He glanced at Dick, who shook his head. “He never mentioned a son.”
“He has two. Myself and my older brother, Connor.” A nervous chuckle. “He was…very protective of us as we traveled. Hid us in forests and with witches when he and mother had dealings in towns and villages. Apparently whatever ousted him from Krypton all those years ago, he was afraid we would be its next target.”
“None of this is relevant to today.” Damian cut in, whirling back around to face the suitor. “How long have you been under the title of prince?”
“A few years.”
“And in a few years you did not learn any manners?” Damian scolded, crossing his arms. “You do not enter another’s kingdom and demand someone’s hand in marriage.”
“I did not demand.” Jonathan countered. “I promised.”
Damian felt heat rise to his cheeks. “And who said I would choose you? How do you know I have not chosen anyone to court yet?”
“Past experience.”
“Past experience with who?”
“You.”
The room’s silence grew tense. Damian’s hands balled into fists.
“I have never met you for a second in my life.”
Jonathan lowered his voice. “Are you so sure?”
Damian narrowed his eyes, and opened his mouth to respond, but was interrupted by his mother.
“Damian.” She hummed. “…What do you think of this…gentleman? Are you interested in him?”
“I think he’s a complete buffoon.” Damian answered instantly. Jonathan chuckled to himself. “An arrogant, deceptive moron.”
Jonathan merely blinked. “Your Highness, that doesn’t answer her question.”
Damian felt a blush blossoming on his face. “You-”
“And if we’re going to marry within the year, perhaps you should answer quickly, so we can begin our courtship.”
“Again, who said I would ever want to marry you?” Damian demanded.
Jonathan shrugged again. “Well, so far, you haven’t said you don’t.”
Damian felt his jaw go rigid. This idiot. This disrespectful, uneducated boy who claims he fell into power. So sure of himself, so narcissistic. And he already thought Damian belonged to him? That Damian was already his?
That smile was still plastered to his face. It was mischievous, and held a secret.
Held a challenge.
Say no, it said. I dare you. Let me embarrass you in front of your court and walk away with your tail between your legs. I dare you.
Damian never could turn down a dare. A test. And if it was a challenge Jonathan Kent of Krypton wanted, it was a challenge he would get.
He wanted to court Damian? Fine. Let him court Damian. Damian would eat him alive. Emotionally tear him limb from limb. Send him crawling back to Krypton wondering why he ever even bothered with the youngest Prince of Gotham.
After a moment, Damian returned the smile, slowly walked down the altar steps, and moved towards the knight. Stopped only inches away, and stared up into those mystical purple eyes.
There was something in those eyes, Damian noted. Something just out of reach. Purposefully hidden. Hidden from everyone? Or just Damian?
This close, and Damian was reminded once more of the marks on his armor. The red shadows he’d noticed before, he could now confirm were blood. Old and flaking, and much more of it than he first realized. Not his own, Damian decided, based on their locations. Blood from others.
Mischievous…and dangerous.
(And beautiful!, his brain supplied. But he ignored that part. Stayed focused on the challenge at hand.)
He glanced down between them when he noticed Jonathan’s fingers twitch, like he wanted to reach out. Want to touch him. Damian let his gaze rise. Smirked, and reveled in the scene of Jonathan biting his lip, just slightly.
“Yes, Mother.” He whispered. But his voice was heard through the whole room. “I think I am interested.”
Jonathan kept his gaze. Whispered back, “I knew you would be.”
“Your arrogance will be the death of you, Traveler.” Damian hummed, turning away. He began back up the steps, was almost to the top, when he heard the quietest words ever spoken.
“No, I do believe only you will be, love.”
Damian spun back around at the tender sound, his face heating up. Jonathan was still staring, but now his gaze was softer, more adoring. Like he’d known Damian for years.
Like he really was here just to profess his eternal love and marry him on the spot.
…Curious.
Suddenly, a hand was on Damian’s shoulder, and he turned to find Richard above him, watching Jonathan as he tugged Damian back to his seat.
Talia began speaking to Jonathan, Bruce adding a word or two, as Richard and Damian sat back down. That look was gone from Jonathan’s face now, back to business as the queen set a time for him to return the next day to spend time with her son.
“…First impression?” Damian murmured to his brother. He felt himself twitching every so often, when Jonathan would glance his way.
“Honestly? Suspicious.” Richard returned. “I’ll need to look deeper into this history he’s claiming. See if Father and I can get a hold of Clark. Find out about the status of Krypton.” Richard paused, then looked over at him. “Are you honestly interested in him?”
Damian shrugged. “If not for love, then for my personal entertainment.”
“That’s cruel, if he’s genuine.”
“Do you think he is?”
Richard looked back. The knight was bowing to their parents now. Stood, and turned to the two of them to bow again. When he stood upright once more, he gave Damian a wink, then turned to walk back down the aisle and out of the room.
Richard clicked his tongue as Jonathan disappeared out the large door. Glanced at Damian with a sly smile. “…Ask me again after your first date tomorrow.”
Damian groaned and slumped in his throne.
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fancyfade · 3 years
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Batboy fans (except for Dami n Duke fans who I love) really do just need to accept that they're dude tends to be used as a whit eguy power fantasy. Like just accept it stop trying to be like no Jason is a leftist feminist king who people are mean to like just accept hat he's a bitch
lol you're right why do so many jason stans want to act like extrajudicial murder is the most progressive thing out there?
That said (WRT the bat boys power-fantasy status)
TBH I feel like power fantasies (When they're like... not only limited to white dudes) aren't inherently a bad thing.
Like for an example:
Cassandra Cain could technically work as a power fantasy (at least during the first part of her batgirl 2000 run). She's an unparalleled martial artist, one of the best in the world. She takes down a meta human without having been told what a meta human was before. Very seldomly is the reader asked to believe she'll lose whichever fight she's about to get into, the tension is normally related to other things.
But (here's the important part)
Cassandra doesn't like warp reality with her power fantasy. Other characters are allowed to be themselves. People's morals or personalities or competence aren't altered so that there is always no doubt that she is the most cool person in the room. When she teams up with Connor, they're both allowed to be cool and badass. When she teams up with the Batfam normally everyone just is competent and does their thing, even if she's technically the best fighter in the batfam that doesn't mean she solves the entire plot for them.
compare this to how rhato jason is treated where roy and starfire have their personalities re-written to sidekick to him, or to red robin tim where everyone is written as less competent to make him look more competent.
and like I TBH wish that the writers let Damian work a little more as a power fantasy sometimes... not like he isn't very competent, but very seldomly is he written like he's written FOR people who might relate to him in the past few years he's mostly been written for people who hate him (in fact I think the only time he really seems like he's written for people who might relate to him is when he's written by Gleason when he's just introduced by Morrison he's more of treated as an obstacle than a potential protagonist). You contrast this to how Tim was written a lot and it's clear the reader is supposed to imagine themselves in his shoes.
(aside: I'm not sure Dick reads as very power-fantasy-y to me, at least not in NTT. Some writers under Nightwing I guess definitely swing that way a bit tho)
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hintofelation99 · 3 years
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Hi! I love your posts and want to ask your opinion on something. Who do you think in the batfam has the most and the least common sense of a normal person? If you can, can you also list how they are arranged? Thank you!
Ooohhh, this is a fun one! In my mind all bats lack common sense. Like obviously they're hella smart, after all they are a family of detectives, they just aren't very bright.
Here's a quick rundown (least to most): Tim and Dick tie for first place, both lack common sense in just in completely different ways. Then Damian (mostly cause of the whole 'being raised by league of assassins' thing), Bruce, Cass (controversial ik), Steph, Jason, Duke, Babs, and last on the list is obvs Alfred. (Kate is probs between Cass and Steph, but I've only really seen her in the DCAMU and need to get to know her better).
And Ima add a 'keep reading' cause this is gonna get long.
Tim:
Tim is one of the smartest in the family. He deduced Batman's identity as a child, majorly fucked up the League of Assassins, and has been honored (I say this v sarcastically just btw) with Ra's creepy obsession. He's smart, plain and simple. However, when it comes to just day to day survival and being loved, goddamn that boy is dumb.
He regularly mixes energy drinks and coffee. Sometimes he even mixes energy drinks, alcohol, and coffee.
In his mind warnings are optional. "Tim, did you just sniff that drano?" "Yeah, why?" "IT LITERALLY SAYS DO NOT SMELL" "Oops"
He regularly tests shit on himself. "Why is Tim on the floor?" "He mixed joker venom and fear gas to see what would happen" "HE WHAT"
Also if you try to compliment him or tell him you love him he will find a way to misunderstand. "Tim, I love you and you are an amazing son." "I don't know who this Tim is but he sounds great" "It- it's you, literally you. Timothy Jackson Drake." "I'm a bit confused, I didn't know you knew two Timothy Jackson Drakes. You should really introduce us."
Dick:
Dick in many ways is a total himbo. He's a complete sweetheart, super supportive, and very ditzy. His ditzy-ness directly correlates to how relaxed he is. Chilling in the manor? Peak himbo. A mission in space? Absolute genius and amazing leader. Just took down a bunch of thugs? Slowly reverting into dopey boi. He always has the ability to be super analytical, smart, and big brain, but he likes being whimsical and even airheaded. And that's not a bad thing, it's just him taking mental breaks, being lighthearted.
"YOU PUT DIESEL IN YOUR CAR?" "...Yeah, in my defense the nozzles look basically the same" "They're different colors?! Also the diesel nozzle doesn't even fit into your gas tank, how did you get it in?" "I'm a good pourer."
He always responds to the word dick and it always confuses him. "God Ra's is such a dick!" "What?" "Ra's is a dick" "I'm not Ra's!" "Wha- no! I mean penis dick!" "Ohhhh, yeah he is a penis dick"
Once Dick is safe he reverts into himbo pretty quickly, even after stressful situations. "Hey Wally?" "Yes babe?" "I forgot how to change my lock screen again" "Dick, you just hacked into an alien spaceship not even an hour ago??" "What's that have to do with anything?"
Damian:
Damian lacks common sense from growing up with the League of Assassins. He's an amazing warrior and super analytical but casual human interaction alludes him. He is getting better though, so eventually he'll be lower on the list than Steph. But for now he's a senseless bby.
The first time someone tried to give him high five he assumed it was an attack and flipped them. Same with a fist bump.
This is complete canon but his original treatment of Alfred, his brothers, and, well, everyone. Like bby boy please read the room.
His ego can easily override common sense. Like he wouldn't jump off a bridge if everyone else was doing it, but if someone said he couldn't he'd immediately swan dive off that bridge.
Bruce:
For the world's greatest detective he can be a major dumb bitch sometimes. Some of it's growing up rich and some is being so wrapped up in his 'crusade for justice' that he just misses basic shit.
One time he walked in on Roy and Jason making out, the next day he saw them cuddling, then they mentioned moving in together. It took him three months to realize that they're dating.
He doesn't understand coupons, like at all. Jason has tried to explain them but Bruce just gets even more confused.
Bruce tried to make coffee once. He literally just poured coffee beans in water and microwaved it. He was surprised when it didn't taste good.
Cass:
Cass is similar to Damian in she lacks common sense from an unconventional upbringing. However she's learning way faster than Damian and depending on where in the timeline you're looking she might have more common sense than Babs.
Basic things like lines, turn taking, and speaking when spoken to aren't innate to her. Like, she knows and understands them, but often forgets about them.
There are many times that she blurs the line between civilian and vigilante because she'll do something that looks v stupid and dangerous for a civilian. The thing is she never notices when she does this.
One time she was in a restaurant and there was a cockroach on the wall across the room (cause Gotham) and instead of getting up and killing it like a normal person she threw her steak knife and impaled it.
Steph:
Steph is probably lacks common sense the most conventional yet slightly concerning way. She lacks common sense in the same way a cartoon character or sitcom character would. Like it's sorta realistic but at the same time damn bby girl why are you such a disaster??
She will do anything on a dare. Anything. There is a rule against daring Steph to do things while in the manor or on patrol.
Every time she hears someone say Red Robin she yells yum. This has gotten both her and RR shot.
Steph is v lucky that 1) she's a badass and 2) the batfam loves her because she annoys absolutely everyone just for shits and giggles and the only reason she hasn't been murdered is that Cass scares everyone.
Jason:
All common sense is lost when dramas at stake. Say what you will but Jason is the (second) biggest drama queen in the family. Also he, like most bats, lacks a sense of self preservation which leads to shit common sense.
He tried to steal Batman's tires.
Sometimes he listens to music during patrol and tries to hit people/shoot on beat. This has lead to stab wounds.
Jason loves to loudly quote classic literature while on stake outs. This is a problem for obvious reasons.
Duke:
Ok this is around the time you get to average common sense levels. But he still runs around Gotham beating people up in tights (or kevlar) so he doesn't get full points. Also he's still not Babs level common sense. One area Duke lacks common sense in is how to deal with the Batfam (which is v understandable tbh)
One time Duke was joking around with Jason and decided to steal a roll off of Damian's plate. This ended in blood.
Other than lacking Batfam common sense, most of his poor judgement moments are less notable but still concerning.
For example the time he challenged Dick to a hot dog eating contest then went on a roller coaster.
Babs:
Other than being a vigilante Babs almost has normal human common sense. However being a vigilante has negative side effects on ones common sense.
While Babs' sleep schedule isn't as bad as Tim's it's not a whole lot better. She's stayed up 72 consecutive hours multiple times.
She has accidentally poured coffee onto her computer instead of into a coffee mug.
One time she drank an entire gallon of milk before realizing it was a month expired.
Alfred:
Most assume that working for Bruce Wayne is a sign of him lacking common sense. But nah, it's him knowing, understanding, and challenging his own limits. Also it's him being a charitable human being. Like he has enough common sense to go around and tbh it's the only thing keeping the family alive.
"Master Bruce, you may not use Elmer's Glue All to close a wound."
"Master Dick I would encourage you not to teach Master Duke acrobatics on the glass coffee table."
"Miss Stephanie I would not advise trying to consume an entire jar of peanut butter in one sitting, and no, I do not care if Master Jason dared you to."
Tada, there's the list! Sorry that was probably a lot longer than anyone wanted, but I enjoy talking about how ditzy the batfam is. Like they're all geniuses but at the same time they're just sooooo dumb.
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ellana-ravenwood · 4 years
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The day he understood what Death means - Batfam x Fem!Reader
Synopsis : The youngest Wayne makes a shocking discovery...And will need his parents, siblings, and the one and only Alfred, to recover from it. /Drabble.
I don’t know. I was thinking about this. How when you’re a kid, realizing that one day you’ll die, but worst, that the people you love will die, is sort of traumatic...And wanted to write about it. So. Here we are, with little Thomas eh. I hope you will like it :) :
My masterlists blog : @ella-ravenwood-archives​
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If you have no idea who Thomas is, he appears in those stories (long story short he’s the youngest kiddo, biological of Batmom and Bruce) : The Great Mall adventure, Master of Diaper Shaky steps and bad teaching, Polichinelle, “Go away, you’re confusing my baby”, Wild Child 2, “We want them back”, How do you make babies ?“ and Mom got lost again”
                                                   ******
Realizing your loved ones are not immortal for the first time can be traumatic. 
Especially if they’re amazing, if they’re your heroes, if you admire them beyond all measure, if they love you unconditionally just like you love them so damn much, and if you can’t even imagine your life without seeing them every day.
If you can’t even fathom the fact that maybe, one day, they won’t be there when you wake up and go look for them. And that they will never be there again. 
And so it was particularly quite the shocking discovery for little Thomas Clark Wayne, 5 and a half years old, to find out about that certain thing called...”Death”. 
It happened on a moody, rainy Summer day. The weather outside was awful, even for Gotham City. And it meant that Thomas was calmly playing inside, rather than getting up to some shenanigans in the garden. 
His parents were home, it was one of those rare day they both had off. 
Which always filled little Tommy with joy. It wasn’t often he could get them both with him !! In the end, the fact it was rainy outside was good. It meant they’d probably all snuggle up later in the day, and watch a film, a mug of hot cocoa in their hands. 
You would probably throw a blanket over him, and keep him close, sandwiched between you and his dad. His father would fall asleep half-way through the film, which would annoy you and Damian. 
Damian would join for sure. Sitting next to you. Yes. He would. Maybe Tim too, if he wasn’t too busy with college ? Oh he would surely make the time to come. And Cass ? Yes. Yes Cass would be there, sitting in her usual spot, on the floor right in front of you (or maybe Tommy). Because she knew you’d gently run your hand through her hair, and your youngest son slowly took the habit to do the same. Which was so soothing to Cass...Duke would certainly be there, he never said no to a good movie. 
Maybe, because it was a rainy day, Dick and Jason would come too ? Unlikely, but Thomas could hope. He loved having his entire family in one spot. 
They’d ask him to do his “puppy eyes” and convince Alfred to join them too, and not work. 
Alfred had an armchair reserved just for him. Right next to the couch where Bruce would sit, leaving enough space for Ace to lay down (Damian’s dog, Titus, always preferred to be near his master, who would more often than not be sitting next to you, laying his head on your shoulder, even as he was not a child anymore...Yes, Titus sat next to Cass, at Damian’s feet, letting his head fall down in Cass’ laps). 
Ace...Ace didn’t feel well yesterday, and this morning, the “dog doctor” came. 
Thomas heard him say they needed to give him a...an “indection” or something ? (An injection, really) So he’d probably get better. Shots were supposed to get you better or to avoid you getting sick, that’s what you told him. 
His dad looked upset, but it didn’t alarm Thomas much. Because his dad was always upset when him or his siblings would get a shot, he hated going, so it was probably the same thing. 
Come to think of it, Thomas hadn’t seen Ace since the “vekerinarianan” (or whatever it was pronounced) came earlier in the day. 
He suddenly wanted some “doggle” (dog cuddles), and so he put down the toys he was playing with, and went to look for him. 
Maybe, he could also round up the rest of his family so they’d start movie time earlier ? 
Hyped to have some family time, as he considered his dogs family for sure, he went on the hunt to find Ace, and gather everyone else. 
If only. If only he had known...
************
“Aaaace !! Aaace ? Ace boy, where are you ?” 
This was odd. Usually, Ace would come running if he heard the little one’s voice. That dog loved children, and he made it his mission to protect all of them (bonus point if he had some snuggle, and a few treats, while doing it). 
Bruce told him long ago to protect his kids...So Ace was always there. 
Maybe he wanted to play hide and seek ? Thomas would play that game with Titus and Damian, Ace never seemed very interested, but maybe he changed his mind ? 
“Ace ? Aaaacceeee ?” 
The boy roamed the manor, but every room Ace would usually hang in were empty. 
Finally, he decided he’d ask his parents, who would usually hang out in...oh, they weren’t in their usual spot either. In their bedroom, maybe ? 
Thomas ran as fast as his little legs could carry him, sure that he would find Ace, and his parents, asleep in the master’s bedroom. When they had their day off, his mama and daddy would often take long naps together.  
Thomas immediately knew something was wrong when the door to the room was wide open. Slowly, he approached the place and...surely his parents were there. 
But something was off. 
His dad was laying in the bed, back to the door, his head laid in your lap. One of your hand was caressing his head soothingly, while the other was drawing calming circles on his back. 
Definitely something was not normal. You’d do that to your kids when they were sad, or sick...Was daddy sick ?! This gave Thomas a little fright. 
You whisper something into Bruce’s ears, and he doesn’t answer, just shaking his head to say “yes”. And so you stand up, after giving him a kiss on the cheek, and...You spot your youngest son. 
You smiled at him reassuringly, and go to him. 
“Hey little buddy. You should give a big hug to Daddy, he’s very sad today.” 
You say, walking past him and ruffling his hair. 
From the direction you were taking, you were going to the kitchen, and Thomas just instantly assumed you were going to brew some tea for his dad. When Bruce was sad, you’d always brew some tea for him, from his mother’s garden (which was kept up nice and clean by you and Alfred, now). 
Worried about his dad, Thomas slowly walked to him and climbed on the big bed. Bruce turned around to see what this new weight was, as he knew you had just left and...He smiled. 
Of this wide pure genuine smile he gave his family only. 
But there was a hint of sadness behind his eyes, and Thomas didn’t like that one bit. So the little boy crawled to his dad, and nestled next to him, wrapping his little arms around his dad’s neck and holding tightly. 
Bruce engulfed his son in his own arms, holding onto the little one, burrying his face in his hair. There was always something comforting, in the smell his kiddo had. It was a mix of your smell, which was always soothing to him, but also something more...Something soft and sweet. 
Just like his son. 
Little Thomas was the epitome of a sweet child. It was a miracle, a man like him made a child this cute and happy. Ah, but he wasn’t raising him alone of course. There was you, and his siblings, and Alfred... 
After a pause of the little boy holding his dad, he whispered slowly : 
“Daddy, why are you sad Daddy ? Please don’t be sad, it makes me sad too.”
Thomas unwrapped his arms from around his dad’s neck, and squished his little hands on Bruce’s cheeks. Which made Bruce sigh fondly, chuckling a little as he said, honestly (he shouldn’t hide this sort of things) : 
“Because Ace is gone.”  
There’s another silence, during which Thomas tries to understand why is the fact Ace went somewhere so sad. He cannot figure it out, so he asks : 
“But, he’ll come back daddy. Like always. Yes ? Ace is a good boy.” 
“Was.”
Bruce is clumsy in his grief. He always been. He’s not sure how to broach the subject to his son, how to explain to him their dog was just too old and sick to make it...He doesn’t know how to explain death to him. 
“Was ?” 
“Ace is gone for good.” 
“What do you mean Daddy ? Where did he go ? Why couldn’t we see him again ? Did he move out, like Dick ?” 
Oh. Oh the sweet innocence of a child that is maybe a little too sheltered by his family (he’s the youngest, the one they’re trying to keep away from the horror they see every day as much as they can...Although he’s still trained, all of them hope he will never become a Robin, or worst, a Batman). 
“Did he move out, like Dick ?” 
Sweet, sweet Thomas. Not able to even fathom that Ace is never coming back...and why would he ? How could he know what his father meant ? 
“No, no he didn't move out. He left us, to a place we can’t follow him to.” 
Another short pause. And you could see the gears in little Thomas’ head turning. After a little bit, he asks :
“...The toilets ?”
This makes his father chuckle, even in this sad times. But he continues : 
“No. Not the toilets. He...He went really far away, where we can’t ever see him again.” 
This idea is so foreign to your son, that he raises himself on one of his elbow and exclaims : 
“Why would he do that ? Does he not love us anymore ?” 
Obviously, the thought is distressing to the little bird. So Bruce says : 
“No no no, of course he still loves us...loved, us. But he had to go.”
“But why ?” 
“Because he was getting very old, and sick.”
“But we don't mind daddy, right ? We don’t mind ? He doesn't have to go away for that, I don’t care if he doesn’t play like he used to, I want him to stay ! Tell him daddy, call him on the phone to tell him to come back.” 
Bruce is lost. How ? How can he explains what death means ? He thought about this moment coming many times, but never told him anything as he thought that he had time to know what it meant. He had time...
How do you tell a child that one of his favorite “person” in the world is dead ?
“Unfortunately buddy, we have some sad news.”
His savior. You, as usual. With two cups of tea, and a cup of hot cocoa on a tray. As you went downstairs to get some “pick me up” for Bruce, you knew your son was gonna need it too. 
“What news mama ?” 
“Ace. He died today.” 
You actually thought about it as you were preparing everything for them. How to talk about this ? You decided to go with “honesty”. Not brutal honesty though. You weren’t about to traumatize your son. 
But you thought it was important he knew what happened to Ace. As a child, you hated how your brothers tried to make you think your ferret ran away to Las Vegas or something of the like. 
You understood this sentiment, of course. But you also remembered how betrayed you felt when you finally understood “death” and realized your beloved Mister Will Ferret was NOT in Sin City having fun, but just died...
The truth was important. 
Especially about such subjects. 
Children weren’t dumb. And they had every right to know certain truth.
Did you wish your son could stay innocent for longer ? Of course. But he still had a right to know what happened to his dog. To be treated like a person and be explained things. 
People, too often, treats children as some kind of idiots who wouldn’t comprehend complex things anyway, and who have to be protected at all cost from anything...
Kids were clever. You had a bunch of them to prove it so. But above that, although you agreed kids had to be protected...You weren't one of those person who thought you should lie to your children in order to do so. 
 Because one day, he’ll know what death is. He’ll know what happened to Ace. And what if the fact you lied that day, settles a slight distrust in him towards anything you’ll ever tell him ? Just like it did with you and your brothers ? 
No. You thought at first it was a good idea to delay such a conversation. But why ? Because it would make you more comfortable ? That didn’t sound very fair in regard of your boy.
Everyone always talked about “the birds and the bees” talk, but never about something that was even more inescapable than that...
Death. 
You give him a few seconds to take in your words. “Ace died today.” You wait for his reaction. He seems to think about it, having vaguely heard of “death” before...finally he asks : 
“What does it mean ?” 
He’s sitting up in the bed now. Bruce did the same, encircling his arms around his boy protectively (old habits die hard). But he’s determined to explain things to him too. You and Bruce were always rather in sync, about how you should raise your children. 
“It means he will no longer be with us. He passed away to something else.” 
“To what ?” 
“No one really knows.” 
“Will we see him again ?” 
“No.” 
“Why ?”
“Because he’s dead.” 
“And being dead means you can’t see anyone anymore ?”
“Being dead means you are not living on this Earth anymore, so yes, you cannot see them anymore.” 
“It means we can’t see him ? And what do you mean not on Earth ? Is he in Space ? Can we see him if we go to the watchtower ?” 
“I mean in our life, we will not see Ace again. He won’t be with us ever again. He’s not in space, he’s just gone.” 
“Because he’s dead ?” 
“Because he’s dead.” 
“So, being dead means we don’t get to see someone ever again ?” 
“Yes.” 
“Ever ever ?” 
You decide to leave any conversations about a possible after-life aside, as it’s clear this, he’s not quite old enough to comprehend. So you keep on talking about the truth, with the support of Bruce. 
“Yes. Ever ever.” 
It takes Thomas a few minutes to take in all those new informations. Bruce is sitting on the bed, legs crossed, behind the boy. And your son is clearly lost in deep thoughts...Up until finally, finally tears are starting to well up in his eyes. 
“But I didn’t even say goodbye !”
“Unfortunately, we don’t always get to say goodbye...” 
“But mama, how will he know I loved him so much if I didn’t even say goodbye before he left ? How could you let him go before I did ?”
“I’m sorry, if I could chose I would’ve-...He knew you loved him and-”
“Are you going to die too ?!”
The dreaded question. Dreadest of them all, really. But you can’t lie to him. Not now that you started to explain things. 
“Yes. Everyone dies one day.” 
“But but but...but I don’t want you to die ! And Daddy ?” 
Bruce nods, and...and that’s when it finally happens. 
The awful moments your sweet innocent boy realizes what death sort-of means. That one day, none of his parents will be in his life anymore. Than one day, he’ll lose his siblings, and Alfred. 
Just like he lost Ace. Because he was “old and sick”. But...Thomas knew a lot of sick people ! And a lot of old people ! Were they going to die too, without him being able to say goodbye ?!
And so the tears started to fall. And oh, oh did they fall. 
Bruce held his son against his heart, drawing soothing circles on his back, just like you usually do. And you came to sit next to them, encircling them in your arms as well. 
Thomas was trying to talk, but nothing came out very clearly as he cried, cried, cried and cried some more. 
When he finally calmed down, he was slowly falling asleep, crying drained him of all his energy. That night, there was no “movie time”, but comforting snuggles with his parents... 
Thomas had finally discover what “Death” meant.
************
“Oh my God Thomas !”
Bruce’s heart drops.
The entire scene goes in slow motion, and the fearless Batman can see his entire life flash in front of his eyes, as his tiny son is running towards him, while a few thugs were about to shoot automatic weapons at him...
“There’s a kid ! There’s a kid !”
“Who cares, we have the bat right at our mercy, just shoot !”
“I can’t shoot a kid...”
“Should we shoot ?”
The few seconds of surprise after Thomas bursted in allow Damian to swoop down, and to get rid of everyone. Slowly, a serious face on, your son walks to his dad and, solemnly, he says :
“This was too close, father. And...Thomas...”
“I know Damian, I know.”
Your little boy was inconsolable, clinging to his dad.
They didn’t even have to ask him how he got there. It was obvious he somehow snuck into the Batmobile (which wasn’t that much of a surprise, although it was already quite a feat...Thomas was small, but also very stealthy, as he was taught to be).
He was only five, and it wasn’t really clear to him yet his dad was that “Batman” everyone talked about, that his siblings were also vigilantes...But he knew that when they went out at night, they were often in danger.
And that night. That night right after the one Thomas learned what Death was...He snuck in the car, so he would make sure “she” would not take her dad away ! Or her brothers and sister !
Only Damian and Bruce were in the car, on patrol together. The rest of the kids were scattered across the city, and you were taking care of the bat computer (nowadays you were the one doing so to give some relief to Alfred).
Thomas took the habit to fall asleep in the cave, in a bed there just for him...and he must’ve snuck into the car. 
It was nobody’s fault. It was very unlike the boy, to do such a thing.
He got into the car. When Damian and his father got out of it to apprehend a few of Two-Face’s thug, he stayed behind, looking at what they did...but when he saw those men about to shoot his dad (a proper ambush), he jumped out, punching every buttons (which was quite dangerous itself) to find which one opened the door, and then he ran to his dad...
The surprised probably saved Bruce. But it also almost killed him with a heart attack. 
What if those men didn’t hesitate long enough for Damian to take care of them ? What if they shot anyway, ignoring the surprising appearance of a small child ? What if they had recognize who that kid was, too ? (Unlikely, this was a time where Thomas was still quite sheltered from media, as you tried to give him a childhood as normal as you all possibly could). 
What if they shot anyway...
Bruce doesn’t think he would’ve survived the death of his youngest son. He was sure, actually, that he would’ve killed those men. 
That is, if Damian didn’t do it first. 
But it didn’t happen. It didn’t happen, but it was so close. So close. 
Later, when everything calmed down, Thomas would explain he jumped in the car to “keep death away”, to protect his daddy and brother. To make sure Death wouldn’t take them. 
And that's when you all understood Ace’s death, and the discovery that everyone dies one day, one way or another, truly was “traumatic” for your baby. 
From that point on, you made sure that Thomas would be in the cave...but this event. This event really unfolded a problem you knew you’d have to tackle truly one day. 
You just had no idea yet how to help your son. 
************
Damian had told Jason the debacle that was yesterday. About his parents explaining to their little brother what it meant to be dead. And about how it lead to Thomas sneaking into the Batmobile and running in front of danger to “protect” his dad. 
Because of where he grew up, Damian always knew what death meant. And he never cared much (or convinced himself he never cared much). He understood from a very young age what all this shenanigans was...
Jason did too. He found his mother, dead, when he was three years old. He grew up surrounded by death, in the gutter of Gotham. He knew. He did. 
But Thomas. 
Thomas was a “normal” 5 years old boy, as normal you can be in such a family. He trained a little, and sort of knew about his dad being “Batman” (but it seemed he didn’t understand he was ACTUALLY the Batman people talked about in the city). 
He spend most of his nights in a little area made just for him, with a bed and such, in the batcave (he hated sleeping upstairs alone, so he would sleep in the batcave and you’d pick him up to bring him in  his bed once you’d go to bed, and/or once the rest of your family would get home). 
So for a little one like Thomas, who was pure and sweet and nice...It was a shock, to know one day he’d lose the people he loved. 
He was inconsolable, at Ace’s funerals (thrown at the back of the Manor).  
He couldn’t get over the fact he didn’t get to say goodbye, and that he would never play with his dog anymore. 
It made it worst, that Ace’s death made everyone else sad. That dog truly was a member of the family... 
“I know you're feeling very sad. I'm sad, too. We all loved Ace so much, and he oved us, too.”
You told him a few times, tryin to put words on his emotions and helping him understand...God, to Damian, you truly were the most amazing mother. Always knew what to say, how to say it, when to say it.  
But Thomas was still blue, and it was so unlike his usual bubbly personality. 
And so, both Damian and Jason made it their mission to distract their little brother, and...it worked. For the most part. It really worked. 
Amongst all his siblings, Damian and Jason were the ones that loved having a little brother the most. Not that the others didn’t, of course ! They just were a little less willing to play for hours on end with a little kid. 
They were rather busy. Jason and Damian always found ways...They were an unlikely pairs at first glance. Most people would think Damian was the closest to Dick, and Jason too. But no. They were equally as close to all their siblings, in different ways. 
But Damian and Jason, they had an extra connection. Jason was there, when Damian was a baby. He didn’t remember his own name, and was used by the Al’Ghuls after they resurrected him...But he was still one of the only person in Damian’s life that truly valued him. 
Fate, right ? A funny thing. After all, how small did the world have to be for two of Bruce’s sons to meet in such a way ? A hidden son, and one he thought dead, at that ?! 
In any case. They were closer than most would think. And they also were linked not only by the Al’Ghuls, but by how they were both ripped off of an actual childhood, and therefor wanted to make sure their little brother had one too (Cass was the same, but more subtle, and discreet). 
And so...
They played, made art pieces, jigsaw puzzles, watched his favorite movies, cooked...Anything to take his mind off of “Death”. 
That little boy would overthink too much, for such a young age. 
But overall, Damian and Jason did a good job distracting him from the pain. 
They did an amazing job. 
You were so proud of how they took care of their baby brother (and it would give yourself more time to go cheer up the “Oldest Wayne”, your dear husband, who definitely had a hard time getting over his dog’s death...). 
Only, there was one problem...And that problem was that neither Damian nor Jason, just like everyone else, were immortal. 
And this, this, Thomas would realize very soon. 
************
“More compresses, Master Tim !” 
“On it Al !” 
The loud noises woke Thomas up. You knew. You knew you should’ve gone up to bed earlier. Tuck him in, and wait for your family to come back. 
Ah. But when they all arrived in the cave, ALL of them, including Dick who did not live at the manor anymore...You knew there was a problem. 
And indeed. Jason had been badly hurt. Not something that couldn’t be fixed, but ah, once again, too damn close. 
Everyone was on the tail of a high profile serial killer, the newcomer called “Dr Pyg”, and...Collateral damage. It happened, in this line of work. 
It wasn’t easy. Especially when it was one of your baby. But you had to keep a leveled head, as you helped Alfred fix your boy. 
You had taken medical trainings early in in your relationship with Bruce. For obvious reasons. And there was rarely a day it didn’t come in handy. 
In any case, all the noises around woke Thomas up. 
Before. Before he knew what death truly meant, he would’ve been worried. He would've cried. He would’ve been distressed. Of course. 
And one of his siblings would’ve taken care of him, reassure him, soothe and console him, and little Thomas would be ok again. 
Before he knew what death truly meant. 
He was so small anyway, most of the time he’d forget things, or just not understand them...but he was five now. Close to the age of reason. And definitely aware of his surroundings enough now to pay attention, and remember things. 
And he knew what death truly meant. 
He clung to Jason for dear life, even as everyone reassured him he was actually ok. Jason himself was conscious, he had been badly hurt but nothing he hadn’t seen before. 
He needed some rest for sure, but it was fine, really. 
It wasn’t fine for Thomas. He yelled, threw the biggest tantrum he ever threw, yelled some more that they should stop. That he didn’t want them to die. That whatever they were doing...He begged them to stop. 
Never before in your life, had any of you witness Thomas being in such a state. He was inconsolable. You couldn’t calm him down, no matter what...
And once more, it’s only because of exhaustion that he finally relaxed. But yet, still in his sleep, he clung to Jason’s sleeve, as if afraid his brother would be gone when he’d wake up. 
It tore yours and Bruce’s heart apart, to see your baby like this. But to be honest...neither of you knew what to do...
************
“Where’s Damian mama ? Where is he ?” 
Thomas was truly panicked. 
The first day, he thought maybe his brother was busy with school and such. The second day, he started to worry. But now ? Three days in a row with Damian not at the dinner table ? Or in his room ? Or in the batcave ?! 
It made Thomas anxious. What happened to his brother ? Was he...was he...DID DEATH TAKE HIM AWAY ? 
“Where’s Dami mama ? Where is he ?!”  Thomas kept asking, crying. And it took you moment to finally realize what your son must’ve thought. When you did, you picked him up and calmed him down, explaining Damian was simply over at Jon’s for a few days... 
And from that day on, you’d make sure to tell him why anyone would be gone for any amount of time. 
That night, Bruce and you talked about what you could do to help Thomas get over his consuming fear of losing one of you. 
But nothing really came to your minds. 
And it was awful, to feel like a failure like that. 
Later on, your Damian would tell you you were NOT failing at parents because you were a little lost about this. After all, none of your other kids got into quite a crisis like this one. He said maybe considering a therapist could do ? But oh, oh Thomas was so little. 
And if words were out that Thomas Wayne, barely five years old, was seeing a therapist ? The scandals would be unending, and would it really help your son ? 
Damian joined in in the search for a way to soothe his baby brother. He never said “no” to cuddles from him, but lately...Lately, Thomas almost became overbearing, as he made sure he’d always sort of have his eyes on everyone. 
And it wasn’t healthy, for such a little boy to worry so much. 
Damian missed his carefree baby brother. He knew he had to eventually grow up, of course, and that he’d have some hardships but...he was just five and a half ! He wasn’t suppose to be so scared of death ! 
And so he thought, nights and days, of a way to soothe him. But just like you and Bruce, this matter was quite delicate...
************
It seemed like Cass was the only one able to truly console him, and make him relax. She would sing him songs, just like you did to her when she felt sad. 
She would tell him tales of Death as a good thing, inspiring herself from many legends from around the world. 
She would try to put perspective on everything, in a way you truly admired. 
She never spoke too much, your Cass...But when she did, every words were carefully chosen and crafted into truly beautiful things. 
And it would soothe your boy. 
But only as long as he was with Cass. And he couldn’t always be with her. 
You didn’t have her talent to tell those tales, and your singing was working only for a few moments to put him to sleep but...you couldn’t always have him sleep. You had to think of more viable options. 
Nonetheless, when Thomas was really too anxious, Cass would be there. 
Relieving everyone of their worry, as she could calm her baby brother in matter of seconds. In those  moments, you wished time could stop. You truly did...
************
Thomas would cling to you and his dad the most. His siblings were often out and about, but you two ? Well you took some time off to be with your youngest son, to be there for him in this odd times...
And you weren’t sure it was such a good idea, in the end. 
He would often just snuggle up to you or Bruce, listening to your heartbeats, which would calm him...You’d normally never say no to hugs from your children. But this was all starting to become so unhealthy for the little one. 
What could you do ? What could you do ?!
************
Duke was panicking. 
Thomas was doing fine today, and Duke felt like he royally fucked up. 
Thomas was worried about Duke, telling him to be careful and that his heart would break if Duke ever died...Which melted Duke’s heart. 
It made him feel so loved and accepted. And he wanted to help little Thomas so much...
That’s when he made a rookie mistake. 
After all, he was still quite new at this “big brother” thing. 
“There are things worst than death.” 
Is what he told him. What was he thinking ? Reflecting on things, Duke realized he didn't think it through. To him, it was a soothing way to say death wasn’t that bad. But...Ah, ah it made Thomas cry. 
“What ? What is worst than not seeing you guys ever again ?!”  
At that moment, Duke hadn’t realized quite yet how much he fucked up. So he said : “Well, my parents can't remember me, can’t remember who they are...They’re not dead, but they’re not here anymore. They’re physically here, but they don’t know me, they don’t know how to hug me, they can’t be my parents anymore...Yet they’re still alive.” 
The horrified look on Thomas’ face is what gave him a hint that this really wasn’t a good thing to say...
“No no no wait Thomas, don’t cry please, I was trying to tell you...Wait Thomas, please, no. Oooh buddy, buddy I’m so sorry.” 
It almost made Duke cry too, to witness the one he considered his little brother in such distress. He wasn’t trained for this ! He wasn’t trained for this !!!
This was the first time Duke truly felt like an older brother, truly felt like he understood this important role. He had to think before saying something. He had to protect his baby brother. He had to find ways to soothe him...
“Ok here we are, here we are everything is a-okay, you’re ok, things will be ok...” 
Duke picked Thomas up, and started to rock him back and forth slowly, just like his own mom did to him...He mixed the way his mom used to put him to sleep, with your soothing singing. With words he borrowed from you. 
“I’m here, I’m here. Don’t worry I’m here, I won’t go anywhere. Things will be ok baby boy, things will be ok. You’re gonna be ok. I’m not going anywhere. I didn’t mean any of it...” 
Duke had been living with you for a while now. He came to see all of you as his second family, even as his parents were still alive, and a constant chain holding him back at times...a chain that broke right at this moment. 
Thomas was his little brother. He truly was. 
And Duke was determined to be there for him. Especially after he made him cry. 
“It’s ok Tommy, cry all you want. It’s ok to cry. It’s ok to cry.” 
You always told him that. It was ok to cry. To be angry. To want to break everything. To want his mom...
But you were his mom too now. You were. And you had such a way with words. Such a soothing touch. Even as he was grown up now, you always knew what to say. You always did. 
“You’re ok, right ? Yeaaaah you’re ok. See, things are fine, we chill, we chill.” 
Duke was slowly swaying from left to right, Thomas in his arm, slowly lulling him to sleep, calming him down. His voice seemed to have the same effect than yours...Because he was calm. And because he meant it.
The love. 
The love he had for this little boy. 
It poured out of him, easily, naturally. 
He loved that kid so much. And he wanted him to be ok. And it seemed like Thomas ? Thomas felt it. He felt the love. Just like Duke felt the love of all of you...
That little bean put himself in such a state at the mere thought of Duke dying, of one of his brother leaving...And Duke. Duke realized he felt the same. 
Couldn’t imagine any of them dying. 
And so he poured love in his every word, and swayed from side to side, calming Thomas, and making sure he knew...He knew that, he was right there. 
Right there. 
************
“You’re getting old, Alfred.” 
You said jokingly, as you beat him at chess. And oh. Oh what a mistake you just did. 
“Old ? I don’t want you to die Alfred, I don’t !” 
Thomas was playing next to you. You hadn’t thought about his “trauma” for a little while as he seemed to feel a little better lately...But oh, he plunged right back into it there. 
Because of you. You felt absolutely awful...
“I’ll fight Death for you Alfred ! I will ! I won’t let her take you !!” 
It took a while, as it became usual now, to calm him down. He was ready to throw hands with Death. Fierce that no one would take his “grandpa”. But he was still very scared and sad...
“I’m a terrible mother...”
You told Bruce that night. And he held you against him, consoling you, saying it wasn’t your fault and that it was just friendly banter with Alfred as usual...
“You are the literal opposite of a terrible mother, my love.”
“But Broosh, I made him- I-” 
You sniff, unable to control your sobs as you remember your poor little boy holding Alfred and yelling at Death she can’t take him. The poor butler himself didn’t even know how he could do anything to calm him down...
“We’ll find a solution my love, we’ll find a solution...” 
This entire night, Bruce stayed up although he was exhausted, so he could soothe you and take care of you. Skipping patrol (knowing though the city was safe with his children out). 
At some point during the night, Thomas came to your room. 
It was often, lately, that after a nightmare he’d come running to you. His nightmares would often be about losing you...
You had finally fallen asleep, in your husband’s arms, and Bruce gestured to your boy to not make too much noice. 
Sweet little Thomas acquiesced, and slowly came to the bed, taking the hand his father gave him. 
Bruce was about to fall asleep too, knowing you had finally found sleep...But now, he wasn’t going to. Not until he made sure his son was asleep as well. 
All he could do for now, was being there for you two. Try to soothe you as best her could. As best he could...
Sleep was restless and full of nightmares. 
************
Dick would try to often visit his parents and siblings. As much as he could, which wasn’t always easy, with his work in Bludhäven. But nothing is more sacred than family...He realized that over the years.
During those moments, it would be rather normal for Thomas to go settle in his oldest brother’s laps. He would make the most of seeing him.
So today, as Dick was in the kitchen trying to make himself a cup of coffee, it was no surprise when little Tommy came to see him.
You had bought a new espresso machine, and Dick had no idea how it worked...Slowly, his littlest brother came in, dragged a chair next to him, and used it to climb on the counter.
He then started to make Dick’s cup of coffee, without much of a word being exchanged. Dick smiled widely, his little bro was so cute and clever. In no time, he had make a great cup of coffee for him.
But...Something seemed to bother him. Tommy was an exuberant child when around his family, but he had been quiet right there. He didn’t jump in his brother’s arms like he usually does, and he wasn’t telling him all about what he missed since last time he came in !
Was it still this all thing about being worried about death ? 
“Are you ok little wing ?”
Ever since Jason, “Little Wing” or “Bird” became the common denomination for his younger siblings. A term of endearment that they all (secretly or not) loved.
Tommy seemed to think a little, while raising his arms, signifying he wanted Dick to pick him up.
Dick did, of course, and they went to sit at the kitchen counter, and as usual, Tommy settled down on Dick’s laps. He turned around and, after another short pause (Dick always knew when to stay silent, and wait for the other person to speak first) said :
“Dickie, are mom and dad not your mom and dad ?” 
“Mm ?” 
“Your real mom and dad, they died ? You can’t see them no more now ?”
There was a lump in Dick’s throat. Not because he thought about his parents no. He actually came to peace with their death long ago now. And though he missed them every day, it didn’t hurt as much as it used to. 
He was lucky to find another loving family...From which that little worried kiddo in front of him was an important part of. 
“Yes, I can’t see them anymore.”
“It hurts ?” 
“It used to. Now less. I miss them, but I wasn’t alone.”
“Because you have our mom and dad ?”
“Yes.” 
Dick ruffles his hair fondly. 
“Do you wish you’d still have your real mom and dad ?”
“Mom and dad ARE my real parents too. I was lucky enough to find new ones. Not everyone is as lucky, like dad. He was alone for a long time” 
“What about Alfred ?” 
“It took dad a while to realize that Alfred was a second father to him” 
“So...Will you be my second dad if dad goes ?” 
Dick feels another lump in his throat. Bigger this time. 
He couldn’t even imagine the day he’ll lose this “second dad”, this one he had now called “dad” for longer even than his own biological father...Dick was 8, when he came into yours and Bruce’s life. 
He spend more  years with you two than with his “real” parents. You never replaced them, no. You just..became his parents too. 
He would never forget his biological parents. But he would never diminish the impact his adoptive one had. The love you and Bruce gave him. 
Would he be good enough to be Thomas “second dad” ? After all, he currently had about the age Bruce had when he adopted him...
But Dick couldn’t imagine losing Bruce too. Losing another father. No. He couldn’t. He couldn’t. 
Thomas was already moving on, asking more questions : 
“Will I find another mom and dad too if mom and dad die ? Or will I be alone like dad ? Will I have Alfred forever ?”
“I-I don’t know buddy.”
“What if I lose all of you at the same time ? I will be all alone then.” 
“You won’t.”
“But what if I do ?” 
“I’ll always be there.” 
“You can’t know that, can you ?” 
“Maybe, but this will never happen. You will never be alone.” 
“You really think so ?”
“I Do. And I promise little wing, I promise...You won’t lose all of us. You won’t.” 
Dick held his brother even tighter against him, and missed the unconvinced expression on Thomas’ face. 
************
Your youngest son was still utterly terrified of losing any of you. But his terrible fit would pass now, he would calm down more easily, and wouldn’t cry until exhaustion...But it didn’t mean he wasn't afraid anymore. 
Unfortunately. 
“Death” was still a constant on his mind. One of the biggest question. Without much answers. 
His mother and father said no one knew what happened after “death”, but Thomas wasn’t convinced. So he went to the only one he knew would tell him the truth, and was most likely to know...Tim.
His older brother was currently in the garden, studying for his finals. But oh he’d take a break for his little brother, of course. 
Especially lately, as said little brother was overly worried and needed constant reassurance. 
“Hi Timmy.” 
“Hey little one.” 
“Bothering you ?”
“You are not bothering me, never.” 
“Can I ask you a question then ?”
“Of course.” 
“What happens when we die ?” 
Oof. 
OOOOF. 
Not something Tim could say he expected to be asked. Even as he knew Thomas was sort of obsessed with this lately. And ah...Ah he started to get lost into physiological effects of death, into science, into things Thomas could definitely not understand...
And into things he didn’t care about. 
Thomas had no interest in knowing what happens to the corporeal side of things. To our bodies. He wanted to know where “we” went. Where the being went. The conscience. 
Of course he wouldn’t word it that way, but it was easy to understand that it was what he meant when he said : “where do we go when we die ?”. 
After a long time of Tim getting lost in many complex explanations about decomposition (what the Hell Tim ?), he finally stopped as he saw that Thomas was most definitely lost.  
“Where do we go after we die ?” 
“Yes. What happens ? You must know, you know everything !” 
The faith his littlest brother put in him made him feel warm inside but...unfortunately on this subject he had to disappoint him. 
“I..I don’t know about this, actually.” 
Thomas looked crestfallen. Was nothing sacred anymore ?? Death existed, and the one he thought would always have a solution to everything didn’t know something that important !! 
“There’s many theories.” 
“What’s a theories ?”
“One theory, multiple theories. A theory is...an idea of how things might work.” 
“What are the theory ?” 
“Theories, plural.” 
“What are the theories ?” 
“Well. Some people think that you go into some kind of afterlife. It depends the culture, and the religion, and...many other factors. But there’s usually a few places we can end up.” 
“And we’ll see the people who died there ? We’ll see them again ?” 
“Supposedly so.” 
“Is it sure ?”
“No, it’s just a theory.” 
“You said a theory is an idea of how things might work.” 
“An idea that might not be proven.” 
“What’s the point then ?” 
“Theorizing.” 
“I don’t understand...”
Of course he didn’t, he was a smart little boy...But still just five. Tim sat down to his level, and looked at him in the eyes : 
“Well. You have to understand that um...No one knows what happens after death. So we have to make theories, things that might or might not be. You understand ?” 
“No.” 
“Well, since we don’t know, we make things up. But maybe those things are right. Maybe they aren’t.” 
“So the answer is we don't know ?” 
“Yes. But there are theories ?” 
“Ok. So aside from the place we see others again, what are the theories ?” 
“Well (...)” 
Tim was a patient boy. For hours and hours, he tried to explain every single “theory” people might’ve had about what happens after Death. And Thomas listened carefully. 
Finally, Tim was done, and his brother said : 
“So...No one really knows, and there’s a lot of theory...ies. Theories.” 
“Basically.” 
Thomas looked so discouraged. Tim was very well aware that none of what he told him really helped his brother, or reassured him...But ah. Tim was known to not lie. Which was a good thing. And he couldn’t possibly have a free conscience if he had told his brother just one theory of the after life, the nicest one, just to reassure him. 
Of course, he wanted to reassure him. To distract him. But he would do so another way. Lying to him was not it. 
Still, it was so disheartening to see this sweet little boy so crestfallen. 
“Um, Well...I guess some people know.”
Thomas looked up at his brother, hopeful, waiting for him to continue. 
“Like Constantine. But um, he’s sort of crazy. And dad doesn't want him around the house for...reasons you’ll understand when you’ll grow up. And-”
Ah but Thomas wasn’t listening to Tim anymore, and his monologue as to why maybe John Constantine wasn’t such a reliable source.   
“Constantine” huh ? Interesting. Ah. Sometimes, Tim forgot how smart his little brother truly was...for a five years old. And how he took after his father, when it came to memory and attention to details. 
************
This constant worry went on for quite just a few days. A few very eventful days, that were so...exhausting. Thomas was constantly scared for your lives, and would cry if anyone got hurt too much. 
He would follow you around, and be way too stressed for such a little bean. 
Everyone came to hide their injuries from him, tried to distract him from what they were doing when out as the Bats...But it was becoming a real problem. 
How ? How could they make a little five years old understand that he couldn’t forever be afraid of death ? It was impossible. None of you, not even you, had the right words. There were no right words anyway. 
You could tell him whatever you wanted, it’d never make him stop thinking about Death taking one of you with her, taking one of you far away from him. 
“A place he cannot follow you to.” 
How ? How could you help ?!
But the change had to come from within him, you would soon realize. 
About a week after Ace’s death, and a truly painful few days of everyone being lost and unable to help the baby of the family... he suddenly spoke up, at dinner time : 
“Mama, mama, if one day you die, I will bring you back. I promise. Same for daddy, and Dick, and Jason, and Cass, and Tim, and Duke, and Damian, and Alfred. I don’t know if we can bring dogs back, but humans yes ? And worst case scenario, I’ll conjure your spirit so I can say goodbye, and then I’ll know we’ll see each others again !”
“Wh-What ?” 
“Stunned” doesn’t quite cover how you felt at your son’s sudden tirade, at dinner that night. Everyone was here, a rare occasion. Your one dinner a months that was mandatory for all your kids ! To make sure you’d all have moments together. 
And boom. Came this monologue out of nowhere, from your small little five and a half years old son. 
Stunned. Not a strong word enough to describe you, or your other children. 
But Bruce. Oh Bruce. Bruce was frowning. Narrowing his eyes in a way you knew perfectly well...It meant he was angry at someone. 
“Who told you all this, son ?” 
“Mister Constantine.”
A growl. A scary growl. From deep within your husband’s throat. You would NOT want to be John next time he’d see 
“How did you talk to him ?” 
“I used your phone.” 
“I don’t have his number on my...Wait, the bat phone ?!” 
“Yes. The one you call uncle Clark on !”
“What the-...how did you-ugh ?!” 
There were so many questions. So many. 
“I copied what you do, on the phone. And I asked it if it could call the Constantine.” 
“The Constantine”, this better not be a stupid way he called himself in front of his son, Bruce thought. Ah, and curse the fact he kept having kids that were too damn smart for their own good ! 
Kids this days. Growing up with technology. Able to work a batphobe at age 5 and a half !! 
“Hope I helped little man - John Constantine”, said the note that came to the manor a few days later. Which made Bruce fume with rage, but Thomas beam happily. 
Bruce was already planning to go after John, and force him to say what he told his son. But...But...
To be honest. Whatever he said. You didn’t care. You knew, more than anyone else, that “Death” wasn’t as definitive as it sounded at times. And you knew for certain there was something after you died. What ? You couldn’t be sure. But something. Another place. Or maybe reincarnation ? Who knew. 
Deep in your heart though, you knew that no matter what, if you ever were to die...You’d see your family again. You weren’t sure how or where. It was just a certainty in your heart. A gut feeling. 
Yes. You didn’t care what John told your son. If it could help him accept that everyone will die one day. Didn’t mean he wasn’t afraid of losing you anymore. Oh no. But at least...At least he knew worrying about it lead nowhere. And to truly enjoy the moments of the present. 
Whatever John said, it helped your son. That’s all that mattered. And as Thomas would grow up, you knew he’d understand things more and more. 
He already knew he was luckier than many people. He had a loving family. They were all there with him for now (minus Ace, whom he missed every day). A lot of people couldn’t say the same thing. 
Death was an odd thing. Especially in the World you lived in. 
It wasn’t as definitive as some would say.
Your family knew that more than anyone else.  
Death was an odd thing, that wasn’t always the ultimate end...
This, one day, Thomas would truly understand. 
The end 
__________________________________________________
And here we are :). Just a quick thing again, my bigger story (fake boyfriend trope with Bruce hehe) is coming soon. But in the mean time, felt compelled to write about this. I hope you enjoyed reading it, and liked it ? Not my best work :/, another quick drabble written very late at night eh. But nonetheless, fun to write ? Hope it’s not a disappointment, it’s just a thing to make ya wait for a more elaborate thing that I took a lot of care writing. Anyway it’s 4 am, time for bed :).
If you did, don’t hesitate to leave a little feedback or/and to reblog :). If you didn’t as well really, it’s always good to know what’s not good so I can improve (just stay civil please). 
PS : Bonus point if you get where I’m trying to arrive at with those last few words about how definitive death is :p. 
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sleeping-lilies · 3 years
Text
Title: I Get Tim a Cat Because It’s What He Deserves (oh and i guess a group chat 🙄)
a batfam/wayne family groupchat would literally never happen in canon but it would be so fucking funny you all don’t even know, so i will do it anyways.
the chat just kinda... starts. no one know where it came from. who added them. who??? none of their emotionally stunted asses would be caught dead making making a family chat tf? why can’t any of them leave? they smash their phones and then on their laptop a notification pops up like “you’ve joined ‘x’ group” and they’re stuck there. might as well use it ig, but for what???
“everyone who is alive type ‘i’” no one responds so bruce spends hours trying to find out where their bodies are until he finds out everyone just had the chat on mute
“why isn’t alfred on here” “huh. alfred isn’t on here and no one knows who made the chat?” “so whoever made it just left immediately?” “...” “lol anyways”
tim was trying to send a snap to the core four gc but accidentally sent it to the family chat and gets super embarrassed (of course this happens when everyone’s online why wouldn’t they if it makes tim’s life more difficult) and everyone makes fun of him. duke printed out copies and plastered them all over tim’s apartment while tim was out for something and tim nearly murders duke. after that no one puts the chat on mute because this was too funny.
no one actually, like, texts on a regular basis because they’re not like other families 🙄 they only text if it’s really important or someone’s dying.
that’s being said, “dick where is dog” “send doggy” “dog?” “send doggy” “dick when did you get a dog?” “SEND DOGGY” “i demand you send the dog this instant” “dog now.”
damian breaks into dick’s apartment to take a selfie with him and haley (or bitewing, haley is just shorter to type) captioned “she is mine this is a warning to all of you. i will not hesitate if any of you low lives come near her.” and dick is like “??? this is my dog i can’t have anything these days, siblings take everything, man—” oh ya, everyone reacts to the haley photo with a heart. also dick only lets this shit slide with damian, if jason the problem child pulled this shit it would be on sight lmfaooo
- tim: the dog is cute but, but in photography i learned you have to crop out everything unimportant, like this *crops out damian from the photo*
- in other news, tim joined the dead bats club and now only bruce and duke are left 😃🔪
bruce: check in if you are alive. *everyone’s status is online*
u don’t know about y’all, but my bruce wayne is a responsible father who keeps an eye on his kids, or at least does his best, “has anyone seen duke? he has school and i can’t find him” “i will find him... if you give me $50.” “i will give you the money jason just tell me where he is” jason sends a photo of himself and duke laying down on the floor eating pop tarts.
-“literally why do you all keep coming into my apartment” “our apartment, dick” “i pay for this apartment it’s mine, i keep living in blüdhaven for a reason, god, siblings always steal everything that’s your’s—” it’s ok guys dick simultaneously has eldest daughter’s syndrome and absent sibling syndrome, who is doing it like him? legend behavior. anyways, duke and jason left crumbs on the floor and dick beat them up lmao.
“can i have money” “dad” (theyre sent by same person just different text) “yes cass i will sent you as much as you need, $2,000 is enough for shipping with friends?” “dad can i have money too” “dad can i too” “may i have some too dad” “dad” “dad” fhdjdjsks they only call him dad when they’re dying, want something, or are tattling on each other, someone save him 😩
“@everyone the interviewer in the last segment asked me if we have a family chat and i have a feeling they will try to pry into my texts to see what we are texting, please actually send something so they don’t get even more nosy from our lack of communicating” *someone sends the bee movie script*
ok but like, as time goes on they get more comfy texting each other and acting like a normal(ish) family unit that texts a little more. like tattling.
“someone broke the vase in the hallway and if they don’t want me to tell pennyworth who did it they will buy alfred the cat a new scratching post by nightfall” damian is so funny i love him
“HELPPVHRNXKAK” “what’s up with jason?” “cass is sitting on him” “lol” “i think she’s gonna break his arm fhdjdksk” “ANDBSJ I HAT E YO U A LL” “when did you all come to the manor???”
“😂” bruce vs “lol” dick and cass vs “agdhsjak” tim and duke vs “hA” jason vs “i don’t find any of you funny” damian
“damian i am putting your lemon cake pop thingies in the last bottom shelf on the right, i put the code and everything in the safe” “how often does damian even come to your apartment, dick?” “whenever you’re being an asshole bruce” “he’s always an asshole dickhead 🙄” “exactly 🥰”
“dad guess what” “TIM NOOO” “remember when” “TIM TIM TIM” “you told duke to take the day shift” “I WILL NEVER POST YOUR SNAP PHOTOS TO A GROUPCHAT WITH THE ENTIRE SUPERHERO COMMUNITY AGAIN!!!” “and he agreed to if he did his school work first?” “MERCY, MERCY” “what did he do, tim” “fjdjxkskkz duke goes on school zoom meetings during patrol and pretends he doesn’t have a mic and camera and i was watching his helmet footage and it was so funny, the teachers just believe him when he pretends to have really bad network and can barely type in the chat” “my teachers never trusted me that much” “that’s because you made a kid cry once jason stfu” “wait how did u know that cass—“
“AHDBSNZKAJHF” “stfu duke” “what’s wrong with him where is he?” “cain came to visit” “ohhhh” “FHDJFJDJ HELLPPPXSND” “i know you’re taking a video, you little shit, send it” “no todd come here and take one yourself—or don’t, your presence is unwanted” “fucking brat”
“DAD DICK HIT ME” “DAD JASON’S LYING” *bruce wayne online* (he doesn’t fucking respond fhsjskla) (is it because he’s exasperated with them or crying because they called him dad even though it’s a manipulation tactic or both we’ll never know)
“everyone who is alive, type in chat” *everyone is online* then bruce edits the message to say ‘everyone who wants alfred’s cinnamon rolls, type in chat’ “i guess NO ONE wants alfred’s cinnamon rolls, how sad” and the entire chat goes wild lmfao
ok uhhh let’s do on a scale of 1-10 texts most vs is online the most
bruce: 6-texting, 5.9-online because he always makes an effort to text his kids to check up on them and when his kids are texting he will text as well here and there in the convo to interact with them because he never sees and interacts with them normally and he wants to do better 🥲. he get’s minus 0.1 because of that one time jason and dick were fighting and he logged off agdhsjnz
dick: 3-texting, 3.5-online because he’s the only one in this hellhole of a family that has an actual job (in this house we uphold gymnastics teacher grayson 🙏) and sometimes he won’t have energy to text. so. but he does make an effort when he can. he’s online more than he texts because he’s able to sneak looks at the fights when he has downtime during his job and wants to see the drama lmfaooo. also everything goes on in his fucking apartment for some reason, so now he gotta break up a (one sided) fight between cass and tim because someone has to be a responsible adult.
cass: 2-texting, 10-online because she watches more than she texts? she’s more content to watch what’s going on than to join in. also 8/10 she’s usually the one causing the drama that everyone’s texting about, like beating up the others, so she can’t text while beating them up. i mean she could, but she wants to put more energy in beating them up (lovingly) (cass is basically violence (loving)) and watching what everyone’s saying about her fights. she’s always online to catch a glimpse at the drama. also most of her texts are to dick to see bitewing. and ask for money.
jason: texting-8, online-4 because if cass is the one causing drama offline, jason’s causing drama online. jason wants to be chat cryptic but texts the most lmfaoooo. he’s antagonizing his siblings whenever he sees them and whenever he can’t, king shit. he’s online less because he deadass doesn’t care that much, he’ll read the texts later if he really wants to, otherwise either duke or tim will fill him in on the drama. (“jason ur in the chat too—“ “shut up, tim, now tell me how cass beat damian’s ass)
tim: texting-6.44444, online-10, see tim texts a lot just not to the family group chat lmfao, he has REAL FRIENDS 😤 uhh ya, that’s why he’s online all the time, cuz he’s either texting his friends or on his phone doing some shit. broke: tim stays up late working on cases, woke: tim stays up late texting his friends and playing video games over chat. tim just. interacts with his family, gets bullied by them, ya. that’s the life. also he and duke keep throwing hands because it’s the family curse to beat up tim and in this essay i will discuss how dick is the superior sibling because he never tried to kill tim—wait he probably pushed him down the stairs once nvm but it was totally justified, king
duke: texting-4, online-4 because he has, like, school. and daytime patrol. and is like a junior in high school and therefore has a fuck ton of homework. my boy has no time for family and he doesn’t want it because they’re annoying, obviously 🙄. if he wants drama he’ll go into damian’s room and get the drama. diy icon. he’s online as much as he texts but is so fast of a reader he’ll know the drama in time for the next episode of wayne family shit. most of his time online is picking fights with tim and roasting his siblings to a crisp. he’s so mean, guys, legend has it that one time duke told jason that his helmet looked like a shriveled up dildo and that it could never be the gay statement he wanted it to be jason went offline for that entire day in order to cry himself to sleep. at least he got sleep (allegedly) ayyy duke the problem solver.
damian: texting-1.5, online 2 because the only time he’s texting is to ask dick for photos of bitewing and to send photos of his pets back as proper payment. a negotiator ugghhh father like son. damian honestly doesn’t care about the drama he just wants to sketch bitewing (using the photos dick sent as reference) into the Family Portrait Sketch™️ of the rest of the Animal Family™️. it is an honor for damian to create such a piece, picasso the women hater quakes in his grave as such art that blows his dog shit “art” FAR out of the water is developing. anyways, he goes online for that and to throw random barbs at his siblings. like no one is online and damian just throws a “drake is stupid” in chat and just dips. he’s online more to text the other teen titans and jon because they’re better than his dumbass family (and he texts grayson on messenger so fhdjdjsks) true chat cryptic, jason envies him
alfred: 0-texting, 10-online. huh who said that
“duke take down the tik toks, tim is crying”
“who has my sweatshirt??? i will kill you all” “i have it jason” “nvm cass that’s your sweatshirt now i’m sorry for being presumptuous don’t aTTACK ME” fhdjdjsks
“guys i have the day off do you want to hear when delilah said to jonathon it’s so funny” “are those the kids in your gymnastics class?” “ya” “tell us everything”
the bats just... love hearing drama about those kids because they’re so dramatic. apparently alex threw a rubber ball at maya and she tackled them. wild.
time for a round of: WHO SAID IT?!?!
“how do i make my text bold like the rest of you?” —bruce, dick, cass, and jason at some point.
“how do i change my screen name? please change it back to before” -cass when tim changed her name to “hal jordon #1 stan” (“what is a stan” —bruce), (“i don’t like it either change it back” —bruce after finding out what a stan is)
“what the fuck is a pog” —jason
“fucking ‘tik tok’. we used to use vine when i was a teen. i was a front line soldier of great disasters” —dick on one hand lmfao dick is so old but on the other hand holy shit you used vine??? tell us more about the battles fought
“what is a dilf?” —bruce after scrolling through twitter
ok that’s all, my brain is gone.
“cass dick is turning purple get off him” “no. make him give me my scarf back.” “oh dad that’s terrible can you send a video as evidence?”
“GUYS I FOUND A CAT AND IT SCRATCHED ME AND IM GOING TO THE HOSPITAL BUT GUYS!!! CAT!!!” “drake send a photo of the cat immediately” lmfao bruce zooms to the hospital after that text
“GUYS THE CAT HAS AN OWNER I CANT KEEP THE CAT 🥲” “the one time you could prove to be of use and you fail, drake.” “wow tim, find a cat to steal without an owner next time” “timmy, timmy, timmy, i can’t believe you’ve messed up in finding a cat again” “again?” “again?” “again?” “when i adopt a cat i’m not showing any of you, i hate you all” (lmao hard version of guess who is who i’ll give you a hint dick cass and bruce are the confused ones. )ok it’s not hard anymore.
“dad please get me a cat 😳🐱 haha jk 🤣😩 unless 👀😏😃🙏🥰” anyways tim named the cat starry because of her fur-hair-thingy
“they just so you all know steph just crashed in my apartment and i have work in the morning” “i will pick her up in the morning” “you mean tim will, you don’t have a license, cass. anyways”
“dick do you need help moving?” “no, bruce, i think i can handle it, donna and wally are helping me anyways, but thank you” “mOVING???” “OUT OF YOUR APARTMENT???” “DICK THAT SAME APARTMENT ON 666 HELLHOLE AVENUE???” “...ya?” “NOOOOO” anyways they all break into dick’s new apartment when he moves in, walk around it, and then leave. they just... ya... damn, these bats...
anyways that’s all. see ya.
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