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olivia-anderson-fanfic · 3 years

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Stalker X Stalker, Part 12

First

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Stalker x Stalker taglist: @aespades @jayjayspixiepop @blueslushgueen @fan-written @seraphichana @nerd-nowandforever @toodaloo-kangaroo @khneltea @raeuberprinzessin

Tim had exactly zero idea what was going on.

Marinette had disappeared into the shower so he’d figured that, hey, work was over and he was 90% sure it was the day she usually shaved (something he knew because every time she shaved she excitedly asked him to touch her leg because it was smooth) so he had time to kill…

He walked over to her jewelry box.

He’d already bugged all of the new jewelry he had bought her but her old stuff was perfectly intact and he kind of wanted more insurance. Sure, they lived together now so it was unlikely she would have much reason to leave without him, but he was known for his millions of plans and contingencies and he wasn’t about to mess up when it was someone he cared about.

So, he went to work on the first necklace he grabbed. It had a tiny cat with green emeralds for eyes.

He looked at the tiny black pupils that the cat had. He pulled a tiny pick out of his pocket and carefully started carving a circle in it for the bug.

And then a bug-shaped god came flying out of the door for something.

There were a few beats as Tim and Tikki stared at each other.

Tikki broke it with a loud groan.

He watched her float past him for the towel hung on Marinette’s bedpost and then go back inside.

Shit.

He darted towards the bathroom, only to pause at the door. He really didn’t want to burst in while Marinette was probably naked, that was a huge breach of privacy, but he also didn’t want Tikki to tell him about all the bugs he was planting! Shit! He bit his lip, considering.

“Here’s your towel, Marinette,” Tikki said with a sharp edge to her tone.

“... are you mad?”

“Not at you. Where are the cookies you baked last night?”

“Uh, the fridge --?”

“Thank you.”

Why hadn’t she told her? Tim wasn’t complaining, of course, but he was a little confused. She was clearly mad about it and he doubted that Marinette had made some rule that said ‘you can’t tell me about people bugging me’ because that was oddly specific and not a very good idea… so… what?

He didn’t know. He was just going to thank the god of luck -- he was pretty sure that was Tikki -- and continue what he was doing.

Marinette didn’t have to struggle to keep everyone inside the first night. She liked that. More time to plan.

But how did she get herself let out, you may ask?

Remember how Tim had said that all-hands-on-deck situations are the only exceptions to the Stay Inside While Injured Rule? Well, guess what had happened.

Arkham had had a huge breakout and Marinette wasn’t going to complain… even if her kwami might be a little disappointed in how happy she was about it.

She was even happier when she’d found out that one of the people that had broken out was Scarecrow. She’d been meaning to tell him about her guesses about his brownie recipe for a while and she hadn’t really had a chance to do it when she was talking to him through a phone with a thick glass between them.

Batman -- Bruce? -- didn’t need to know that they’d broken into a bakery for the night to test out their theories before she had taken him back to Arkham.

He’d thank them when he got the brownies (the missing ingredient was Mexican cinnamon!). Or, at least, she hoped he would.

Tim had to say… Marinette's plan to get everyone in her house was working.

He could warn his siblings but, honestly, he found it kind of funny.

He was surprised to see Jason show up first. He raised his eyebrows at his brother. “Didn’t know you were in town, Flamebird.”

Jason did an exaggerated eye roll that Tim swore he could see despite the domino. “Marinette said she had something she wanted to show me.”

And she did. She walked over and dropped the Harry Potter books onto the window ledge beside him. “This is terrible and I hate you for making me read them.”

“It gets better later on --.”

“I read two books. That’s six hundred pages. If you can’t get your shit together in six hundred fucking pages then you don’t deserve my time.”

He scoffed. “They’re not that bad.”

“Oh yeah? Read it. It’s been years for you, right? Get to book three and tell me it’s good.”

Jason scowled and grabbed the books, taking a seat in the armchair.

Tim grinned and rested an arm around his girlfriend. “You don’t actually hate Harry Potter, do you?”

“Only the book version.”

He frowned. “I think we need to break up.”

“Nope. Not allowed to break up with me.”

“Oh, well, if I’m not allowed then I guess I won’t,” he said, leaning down to press a tiny kiss to her lips.

There was a groan from the window and they both rolled their eyes, turning to look at Damian.

“Why must you sully my good mood so early on with your disgusting displays of affection?”

“It’s our apartment, you just so happen to be here,” said Tim, glaring at his brother. “We can do what we want.”

Marinette, bravely, stepped between the two of them with a bright smile. “Now, boys, it’s not the time.”

“It is not the time for your libido, and yet...” argued Damian.

“Please, that isn’t even close to libi --,” Tim started, only to get elbowed in the stomach.

She gave him a look that told him to let her handle it and, while he didn’t think that was a good idea, he held up his hands in surrender.

“Robin, it’s unbecoming of you to argue with everyone you meet,” she chided lightly.

… did she speak Damian or something? Because Damian actually looked a little reprimanded at that and Tim needed to learn her ways.

Then, she leaned down with a grin. He could see her hands start to rest on her knees but she thought better of it at the last second. “I got some new stuff from the pet store and I wanted to know if you wanted to help test them out on Vanelope.”

Damian narrowed his eyes slightly. “What kinds of new things?”

“A bunch of cat toys.”

“... I suppose I can test them out for you.”

“I mean, I said you could help --,” she started, but Damian was already heading towards Vanelope without her.

Tim looked over at his girlfriend. She didn’t seem all that put out by this.

“You really had something planned out for everyone?”

She smirked and took a seat on the windowsill. “Yep. It should take Flamebird about two days to finish the first two books -- assuming he can even get through them that quickly -- and Robin is sure to be very thorough in his testing of all the cat toys.”

“Oh? And what’s your plan for everyone else?”

She shrugged just slightly. “Guess you’ll have to wait and find out.”

When Dick appeared she set him up with Beat Saber, saying that she was curious about why the VR glasses gave her a headache and wanted to see if he had the same problem. Tim knew the problem was that they were made for men and therefore sometimes had negative side effects for women, but he bit his lip before he could offer to get a set custom-made for her in favor of watching Dick select the poppiest pop song in existence and instantly get addicted to the game.

Tim raised his eyebrows slightly when Steph appeared, textbook in hand.

“How did you know everyone would show up?” He asked once Marinette had set her up with a particularly long and difficult worksheet to make sure she got the lesson.

“Well, Spoiler shows up every Saturday night for tutoring, Robin comes by every other day or more and he didn’t stop by last night, Nightwing pops by most weekends, and I called Flamebird over myself… speaking of which…” She pulled out her phone and tapped a few buttons. “Right, Signal said he’ll be here in ten minutes seven minutes ago… so, he’s almost here.”

Tim grinned. “You forgot Cass.”

“She only ever really shows up to get away from all of you guys so, with everyone here, she’d have no reason to come over.” Her face split into a sheepish grin. “Also, she’d see through me pretty quickly.”

“Don’t you want B to have no help?”

She shrugged. “It should be a light night since almost everyone important is in Arkham right now but that doesn’t mean that the two of them can deal with all of Gotham’s petty crime on their own. I give them until three or four before they crack.”

“... you might be a little scary.”

“You don’t last long as a vigilante if you’re not at least a little smart,” she chirped. “I just choose to turn my brain off most of the time.”

He smiled. “Oh? And the exception is what? Making you stay inside?”

She waved him off. “Kind of. It’s more that I only put effort into making sure I’ll never be bored. What’s the point of thinking about anything else? All that does is make you sad.”

Well that didn’t sound healthy, now did it? Tim was pretty sure that was just repression but, honestly, he had no clue. His family famously did not use therapists.

Before he could figure out how to address that there was a knock on the door.

Marinette grinned and opened it to reveal Duke, who was holding a computer.

Duke looked around the apartment, raising his eyebrows at all the people there. “Uh… should I ask?”

“I’m spiting Bruce.”

“Wild. Whatever. Ready for GBBS?”

“Sure. Tim, you gonna watch it with us?”

He hesitated. Steph had been sending him pleading looks since she had gotten her worksheet and he felt kind of bad for her… but then Duke and Marinette sat on the couch and she rested her head on his shoulder lazily to get a better view of the computer and Tim figured that Steph was smart enough to do the worksheet on her own if she really tried.

He took a seat beside her and smiled a little when she switched to lean against him instead.

“So, who’s your favorite person for the season?” He asked.

She thought for a minute before shrugging. “The guy that always wins but keeps being anxious about his bakes. Forgot his name, though.”

“Rahul?!” said Duke.

“Sure.”

Duke frowned. “I’m not sure whether to be happy you like at least one contestant, be proud it’s Rahul, or be annoyed you didn’t remember his name.”

“Character development takes time,” said Tim wisely.

Marinette scoffed a little. “Just put on the damn show. I’m tired of listening to you assholes talk.”

Duke grinned. “Fine. Fine.”

Time passed as the three of them watched the show.

Other family members slowly made their way over one by one. Damian brought the cat with him. Jason came over to give his brain a break after all the reading he had done (and then, when Marinette pointed out that you never take breaks while reading good books, had gone straight back to Harry Potter). Steph decided she didn’t want to pass her class and came to lay across the top of the couch. Dick eventually got tired and rested his body after the intense game that is Beat Saber.

… B released her at almost exactly three thirty. They ignored their comms in favor of continuing to watch the season finale.

Marinette bit her lip anxiously as she preemptively turned off the notifications on her phone. Tim did the same.

They typed up matching tweets about how they were moving in with their partners, tagged each other...

Their fingers hovered over the tweet buttons.

“We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. I’m sure one of my siblings will do something stupid in a few days and the media will leave us alone,” said Tim.

She smiled awkwardly. “That isn’t what I’m worried about.”

He frowned just a little and slipped his arm around her. “Well, can I help with whatever it is?”

She hesitated. It would be better to warn him, she supposed. “Not really. You’re going to get the ‘shovel talk’ --.”

“My dad is Batman, Bean, I’ll live.”

“-- by the person who currently controls the embodiment of chaos and destruction.”

His face paled a little (which is dangerous, considering he was already pale enough). “Does Chat Noir not know we’re dating yet?”

“Nope.”

“... so he’s going to find out through the media?”

“Yep.”

“Shit.”

She nodded her agreement, curling into his side and glaring at the phone.

Adrien was going to be pissed. Especially since he was going to learn through the media. Sure, that was the intention, she was hoping that Tim would be left more or less alone because her friend would be too busy being hurt about not being told to focus on his anger at her boyfriend… but, yikes, she didn’t really want to deal with that just yet.

Also, she thought with a wince, Adrien was going to be even angrier when he figured out that she hadn’t exactly given up, as he called it, ‘stalking’ the people she was interested in. Marinette was pretty sure that Tim already knew about some of it but she wasn’t completely sure and, just in case, she wanted to keep it a secret for a while… a few years, at least, and she wanted to be the one to tell him because she was sure that Adrien would be a lot harsher about it than she would. He already called it ‘stalking’ when it was clearly different, she didn’t want to know what he would say if she let him talk about it in more depth.

Unfortunately, though, Adrien wasn’t stupid. He’d eventually catch on. The longer they dated without him knowing the guiltier he would assume she was.

She sighed and took his face in her hands. “I’m leaving it up to you. I’m not sure. I’m leaning towards being public but...”

He bit his lip as he considered it. She fought the urge to stretch his face until he let go.

He smiled hesitantly. “Well, I’ve lived long enough, I think.”

“Don’t worry, darling, I’ll summon a lucky charm for you,” she half-joked.

He gave a puff of laughter that wasn’t quite real and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Thanks, Bean, but I doubt that’ll be necessary. This is Gotham, no one dies here.”

“We don’t know how long that’ll take, though,” she said with a pout. “I’d prefer to have you back as soon as possible.”

He rolled his eyes. “You’ll always have my siblings.”

“But I want you,” she huffed. “You’re my favorite.”

She felt his cheeks warm beneath her hands.

“I’m your second favorite,” he reminded her. “Cass.”

She snickered. “True. You’re my favorite until Cass accepts my proposal.”

“Hm. I’ll have to enforce the bro code to make sure that never happens.”

“Oh no! I guess I’ll be stuck with you forever, then. What a shame!”

He smiled brightly. Sometimes she lamented the fact that he didn’t give a lot of genuine smiles. The grins and smirks were nice, of course, but she liked to watch the way he would duck his head slightly to try and cover his face with his bangs. Still, in the privacy of her own head, she had to admit that the fact she could get such a smile out of him when few others could made her heart rate spike. He smiled for her. Who wouldn’t be flattered by that?

She pulled the smile that she loved so much down for a kiss.

The first time they stepped out the door as an official couple they were hounded by reporters.

Tim wanted to ask how they knew where they lived. He settled for asking them to blur the area around them.

It was more than a little annoying to be harassed on your way to the grocery store. They had just wanted eggs, milk (Marinette kept leaving it out for some strange reason), some cat food, and enough miscellaneous snacks to keep Cass occupied. They did not want cameras shoved in their faces.

But years of being public figures had trained them to keep pleasant smiles on their faces and to answer questions with as little information as possible.

Finally, though, they made it inside and a manager kicked out the reporters.

Marinette let her shoulders slump a little beneath his arm and Tim flexed the muscles in his face before it could get stuck in that awkward half-smile forever.

He squeezed her a little. “You alright?”

She shrugged as much as she could without displacing his arm. “Yeah. Just… hate reporters.”

He nodded his understanding. He pressed a kiss to her temple.

“Want to buy some Oreos while we’re here?”

Her face lit up. “Can we?”

“I’m rich. Of course we can.”

And, so, they did. He made a mental note to start buying oreos in bulk. All the flavors, just in case she ever got sick of the normal version.

They glanced out the door and, though they couldn’t see the paparazzi waiting just outside, they were sure that they would be back soon. They ducked through back alleys to try and get away.

Only to stop in the middle of a dark alley at the high-pitched cry of: “Give me your money or else!”

Tim sighed and set down the cat food to hand over everything in his pockets. A glance back at Marinette confirmed she was doing the same --.

And then he stopped short. He turned more fully to look at their mugger and then started to laugh.

“I’ll… I’ll kill you!” Said the mugger, who was just a kid. They might not have even hit puberty yet.

“With a pocketknife?” Tim said.

Marinette turned around as well at that and a grin spread across her face. “Oh my gods, that’s so lame.”

“It’s Gotham, you gotta do better than that,” said Tim. He reached into his pockets and pulled out a butterfly knife. He handed it over. “Here, have this, at least. Christ, that’s terrible.”

The kid didn’t seem to know what to do about the fact that his would-be victims were laughing at her and apparently helping her mug people.

Marinette handed over everything except for the necklace Tim had given her. “Here, kid. And get a mask or something to hide your face, it’s not nearly dark enough in here for you to just go with a hood.”

“Oh, and here’s my address,” added Tim. He typed it into his phone -- damn, he should have brought more than a pager -- and then handed it over. “We always have a lot of extra food, so if you ever need it just knock on the window.”

“... thanks?” said their now adoptive kid (they didn’t make the rules, this kid was theirs now).

“Yeah, yeah, no problem. Can we go now? One of his siblings is coming over soon and he will start our show without us.”

“Uh… sure?”

Marinette sat on the kitchen island, squinting at the cast on her arm. Was it worth taking off for the sake of doing work? Maybe --.

Tim’s voice crackled through her ear and she perked up a little at the sound, smiling. He was talking, greeting guests it seemed. Right. He had a meeting today, Janet had mentioned it earlier that morning.

Marinette sighed a little at the reminder that, while she might not care about her broken arm, her boyfriend did. Yeah. Tim would probably be stressed if she took off her cast before the doctor said it was okay. She settled to lay back on the counter, head resting on her good arm, and stare at the ceiling as she listened to his voice...

Only to dart up when she felt a tap on her arm.

She looked over, eyes blown wide, and only relaxed slightly when she realized she recognized the person.

Adrien stood over her, arms crossed over his chest despite the glasses/miraculous he had hooked to the collar of his shirt, but he apparently wasn’t angry enough to not accept the usual kisses on both cheeks that Parisians did as greeting.

He said something that she couldn’t really understand with the part of her brain still concentrated on Tim explaining some sort of chart.

She sighed and reached a hand to her ear to turn off the bug. “Hey, can you repeat that?”

He didn’t. Instead he squinted at her ear suspiciously. “Does your ear hurt?”

“... no?” She said slowly, a little confused.

“Whatcha listening to?”

She paled. Shit. He was going to be pissed (or, at least, more pissed than he already was) if he found out that her supposed ‘stalking’ was getting worse. She needed an excuse.

“Uh, that one rapper, uh --.”

“BS. You don’t listen to rappers.”

He held a hand out and, reluctantly, she handed it over to him. She might as well get her murder over with.

He set it in his ear and, after a few attempts, turned it on. His face soured even more, somehow.

“This better not be who I think it is.”

She gave a tentative half-smile.

That was all the answer he needed. He grabbed her by the back of her shirt and started dragging her through the streets.

No one helped. Not that she expected them to, it was Gotham, but it was still a little hurtful.

Adrien stopped suddenly after a few minutes of walking.

“... wait… where’s his office?”

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thecanadianowl · 4 years

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Batman: Death in the Family Review (SPOILERS)

This is going to be long.

I originally had no interest in watching this mainly because it's based off a story where its only significance is Jason's death. The thing that won me over was the "choose your adventure" type which is an interesting style to do for this particular event. The three main selections are Jason cheats death, Robin dies and Batman saves Robin. Of those 3, only 1 of them was the most interesting. But before I do that, let me go over why the other 2 were disappointing.

Robin dies choice is basically a rehash of the Under the Red Hood animated movie only its shortened and narrated by Bruce as he is speaking to Clark Kent at a diner. All it is a repeat of shit we knew. Bruce blames himself for the path he set Jason on and Clark giving a hopeful message of finding Jason. All this choice does is add an extended ending.

Robin cheats death one puts Jason having gone through surgery, having his skin grafted and stitched up from the explosion. The trauma and pain has Jason resent Bruce for the life he been put into and basically becomes Hush. He goes after criminals (btw decapitating Nygma, waay too much) which gets the attention of of Talia Al Ghul where she proposes an alliance with Jason while also taking in baby Damian under his tutelage. The problem isnt the story itself bit that it had so much potential. Seriously it could have been Batman:Hush as well as seeing where this conflict between Bruce and Jason will end now that Talia and Damian are in the equation. Btw Talia fans, this is probably the only ending with the character you are gonna like.

Batman saves Robin okay this is the one with multiple choices involved and goes down interesting paths for some of them. So Batman saves Robin but in doing so, he dies and Robin lives, and Nightwing becomes Batman (cool I guess, too bad they never gave him any dialogue). The first choice given is whether Jason chases/arrests the Joker or Kills him.

Kill Joker option where Jason is at a Diner and talks with this stranger who is revealed to be Joker who is now given up being the Joker because “his” Batman is gone. He recites the ‘2 inmates escape an asylum’ joke that he said in the Killing Joke allowing for Jason to put it together and kill him right there in front of 2 cops who are also in the diner.Immediately after you are given the choice to turn yourself in or run. The run option is the one that matters because Jason becomes Red Robin and begins his killing spree. Which Btw is just recycled footage they used in the Robin cheats death option just with the Red Robin edited over Hush. Really? Was budget that low? But what makes this ending good is that RR is later pinned down by Two Face and given the clean/scratched coin option, Jason is saved by Tim Drake (with a taser) and is reminded of Batman’s code and its importance not only to himself but to the people of Gotham. In doing so Jason stops killing and takes Tim in as a sidekick: BatKid. Seriously, that is the name you chose? Why not have Jason be Nightwing (which he was for short while, albeit to ruin Dick’s reputation) and Tim be Robin? Batkid :Great name for a kid’s Make-A -Wish dream, not so great if you want to use it in more serious context . This is one of the better endings as Jason becomes a better person in the end and the type of hero Bruce would have wanted but at the same time shows that Jason’s past habits were hard to get rid of especially with his father gone.

Arrest Joker has Jason become Redhood to lure Joker out in public. When he does that and unveils his true identity to him, the Joker brags about how he created him and how his rage has lead him down a murderous path, reinforcing the jokers belief of "one bad day". The next decision to be made is whether Jason should kill Joker or not. This decision ultimately has no impact as both decision lead to the same concluding decision set. I chose to kill him because let's be honestly this the path set by Jason really compliments the 2 choice options you have to make in the final one. Where Jason is confronted by Talia with a resurrected Batman who only says “Zur-en-arrh” trying to get Jason to join them but later results in a fight.

Okay there is a lot to unpack here. First: Did Grant Morrison write this? I’m asking because of how he has written Talia during his run on Batman (and how it upsets a lot of fans). You would think Talia knowing first hand what the effects of the Lazarus pit are, would she actually risk it turning the man she loves into a husk of his former self? Yes she would want Bruce to join her on their crusade against the corruption of the modern world but not if it meant Bruce wasn’t in a rational state of mind. Secondly, of all the possible Batman personas/iterations why this one?

I know they give some sort of reason near the end, but it just seemed so out of nowhere. Maybe I am looking too much into this, but if they were going to go this route, I feel like it would have been cooler to see Bruce in the Knightfall suit or have him wear a similar Batsuit that Damian wore in Batman 666.

And thirdly, you would think a fight between Jason and Bruce (where the roles are reversed, sorta) would be the most epic shit ever, but it doesn’t even last a minute it ends with either Bruce getting stabbed or knocked out (depending on which you choose). Before I go with why I think letting Bruce live is the better ending, I would like to say that when Jason kills him, Bruce sets off a bomb killing all three of them and the final shot of Jason’s corpse is very reminiscence of that comic cover of Jason caught in the explosion. I thought it was cool.

Now the reason why, I liked the save ending (and find it to be the definitive ending for this movie) is that Jason gives up being Redhood and works with Babs, Dick and Alfred in helping Bruce gain back his sanity. This ending encompasses all that was needed for Jason’s arc from becoming Redhood, to killing Joker, to his realization how wrong his methods were to being part of the Batfamily again and finally to save his father. It encompasses the idea that being Batman is more than just pain and suffering, its about hope and being able to become a better person, that your pain/anger doesn’t define who you are/can be.

Overall, I feel that this movie is a disappointing as both a prequel/sequel to Under the Red Hood. Unless you are a huge fan of Jason Todd, wait for a sale or when they release this in a collection with their other movies. The letdown for me is that certain choices have better writing than others and supporting characters aren’t used to their full potential. That being said, the idea of having different choices and giving the audience the chance to explore each of them. I hope they do this with other pivotal moments in DC’s history.

Also do the writers hate Black Mask? I get he isn’t the most popular Bat-villain but damn Sionis gets the short end of the stick in every timeline especially in the first ending of Robin Cheating death, it was so ridiculous that it is borderline hilarious

#dc comics #batman #batman a death in the family #jason todd #joker #dc animated movie universe #dc animated movies

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multiverseforger · 3 years

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Robin the Boy WonderEdit

Characters from an illustration by N. C. Wyeth for "Robin Hood" (1917) by Paul Creswick. The look inspired Jerry Robinson's design for Robin.[6]:83

Dick Grayson as Robin in his first appearance, on the cover of Detective Comics #38 (April 1940), along with Batman. Art by Bob Kane.

The character was first introduced in Detective Comics #38 (1940) by Batman creators Bill Finger and Bob Kane. Robin's debut was an effort to get younger readers to enjoy Batman. The name "Robin, The Boy Wonder" and the medieval look of the original costume are inspired by the legendary hero Robin Hood. The costume was designed by Jerry Robinson who drew it from memory based on Robin Hood illustrations by N. C. Wyeth.[6]:83

In his first appearance, Dick Grayson is a circus acrobat, and, with his parents, one of the "Flying Graysons". Robin was born on the first day of spring, son of John Grayson and Mary Grayson, a young aerialist couple. While preparing for a performance, Dick overhears two gangsters attempting to extort protection money from the circus owner. The owner refuses, so the gangsters sabotage the trapeze wires with acid. During the next performance, the trapeze from which Dick's parents are swinging snaps, sending them to their deaths. Before he can go to the police, Batman appears to him and warns him that the two gangsters work for Tony Zucco, a very powerful crime boss, and that revealing his knowledge could lead to his death. When Batman recounts the murder of his own parents, Dick asks to become his aide. After extensive training, Dick becomes Robin. They start by disrupting Zucco's gambling and extortion rackets. They then successfully bait the riled Zucco into visiting a construction site, where they capture him.

Robin's origin has a thematic connection to Batman's in that both see their parents killed by criminals, creating an urge to battle the criminal element. Bruce sees a chance to direct the anger and rage that Dick feels in a way that he himself cannot, thus creating a father/son bond and understanding between the two. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, DC Comics portrayed Batman and Robin as a team, deeming them the "Dynamic Duo", rarely publishing a Batman story without his sidekick; stories entirely devoted to Robin appeared in Star-Spangled Comics from 1947 through 1952.

The character history of the Earth-Two Robin accordingly adopts all of the earliest stories featuring the character from the 1940s and 1950s, while the adventures of the mainstream Robin (who lived on "Earth-One") begin later in time and with certain elements of his origin retold. Both were depicted as separate, though parallel, individuals living in their respective universes, with the "older" Earth-Two character eventually reaching death in Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Teen TitansEdit

1964's The Brave and the Bold #54 introduces a junior version of the Justice League of America. This team is led by the modern-day Robin, residing on Earth-One, and was joined by two other teenage sidekicks, Aqualad (sidekick of Aquaman) and Kid Flash (sidekick of the Flash), to stop the menace of Mr. Twister.

Later, the three sidekicks join forces with Speedy and Wonder Girl in order to free their mentors in the JLA from mind-controlled thrall. They decide to become a real team: the Teen Titans. By virtue of the tactical skills gleaned from Batman, Robin is swiftly recognized as leader before the Titans disband some years later.

In 1969, still in the Pre-Crisis continuity, writer Dennis O'Neil and artist Neal Adams return Batman to his darker roots. One part of this effort is writing Robin out of the series by sending Dick Grayson to Hudson University and into a separate strip in the back of Detective Comics. The by-now Teen Wonder appears only sporadically in Batman stories of the 1970s as well as in a short-lived revival of The Teen Titans.

In 1980, Grayson once again takes up the role of leader of the Teen Titans, now featured in the monthly series The New Teen Titans, which became one of DC Comics's most beloved series of the era. During his leadership of the Titans, however, he had a falling out with Batman, leading to an estrangement that would last for many years.

NightwingEdit

In the pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths continuity, the maturing Dick Grayson grows weary of his role as Batman's young sidekick. He renames himself Nightwing, recalling his adventure in the Kryptonian city of Kandor, where he and Batman meet the local hero of the same name. In post-Crisis continuity he is fired by Batman after being shot by the Joker and becomes Nightwing. He maintains this identity during his role in the Teen Titans, and occasionally returns to assist Batman and his successors as Robin in the form of Jason Todd and Tim Drake, Tim in particular becoming a younger brother figure to him.

When Bruce's back is broken by Bane during the Knightfall story arc, Bruce selects Jean-Paul Valley as his replacement as Batman as he does not want to burden Dick with the role and fears that Dick may go after Bane in revenge. However, when Valley proves to be too unstable to be Batman, Bruce undergoes a rigorous recovery and training program with the aid of Doctor Shondra Kinsolving and Lady Shiva to restore him to full health, defeating Valley with Dick and Tim's aid. However, feeling that he needs to re-evaluate Batman and his mission after Valley's defeat, Bruce leaves Gotham once again, after appointing Dick as his successor during the "Prodigal" story arc. While acting as Batman, Dick is left with a clearer idea of the psychological stresses Bruce must endure in the role, as well as facing some of Bruce's newer enemies — such as Killer Croc, the Ventriloquist and the Ratcatcher — while settling his own long-standing issues with Two-Face.

Miniseries and afterwardEdit

In Nightwing: Alfred's Return #1 (1995), Dick Grayson travels to England to find Alfred Pennyworth who had resigned from Bruce Wayne's service following the events of the KnightSaga. Before returning to Gotham City together, they prevent an attempted coup d'état against the British government that involves destroying the Channel Tunnel under the English Channel.

Later on, with the Nightwing miniseries (September to December 1995, written by Dennis O'Neil with Greg Land as artist), Dick briefly considers retiring from being Nightwing forever before family papers uncovered by Alfred reveal a possible link between the murder of the Flying Graysons and the Crown Prince of Kravia. Journeying to Kravia, Nightwing helps to topple the murderous Kravian leader and prevent an ethnic cleansing, while learning his parents' true connection to the Prince; they witnessed the original Prince being killed and replaced with an impostor who became as bad as his predecessor (although Zucco killed the Graysons before the conspirators could do anything about it). In the aftermath, Dick returns to his role as Nightwing, recognizing that, for all his problems with Bruce, Bruce never made him become Robin or join his crusade, accepting that he imitated Bruce's example because Bruce was worthy of imitation.

In 1996, following the success of the miniseries, DC Comics launched a monthly solo series featuring Nightwing (written by Chuck Dixon, with art by Scott McDaniel), in which he patrols Gotham City's neighboring municipality of Blüdhaven, relocating there to investigate a series of murders and remaining as he recognized that the city needed protection. He remains the city's guardian for some time, facing foes such as Blockbuster and new villains such as Torque, and even becomes a police officer so that he can make an impact on the city's criminal activity in both parts of his life. Later, Grayson divides his duties between Bludhaven and Gotham after a devastating earthquake and the subsequent decision to declare Gotham a No Man's Land, Grayson occasionally assisting his mentor and other members of Bat-Family in maintaining and restoring order in Gotham until it is fully rebuilt. When the Justice League vanished into the past fighting ancient sorceress Gamemnae, Nightwing was selected as the leader of the reserve League created by an emergency program Batman had established in the event of his League being defeated, Batman describing Nightwing as the only person he could have picked to lead the new team.

Eventually, the original League are restored, and Nightwing departs along with some of his League-although others remain as some of the original team take a leave of absence-although Batman notes that his leadership of the League proves that he is ready for more responsibilities. However, the death of Blockbuster prompts Nightwing to leave Bludhaven due to his crisis of conscience; Blockbuster was killed by vigilante Tarantula and Nightwing did not stop it even when he had the chance to do so. While Nightwing returns to Gotham to heal after assisting Batman in dealing with a series of gang wars, Blüdhaven is destroyed by the Secret Society of Super-Villains when they drop Chemo on it.

During the battle of Metropolis, Grayson suffers a near-fatal injury from Alexander Luthor, Jr. when he shields Wayne from Luthor's attack.[7] Originally, the editors at DC intended to have Grayson killed in Infinite Crisis as Newsarama revealed from the DC Panel at WizardWorld Philadelphia:[8]

It was again explained that Nightwing was originally intended to die in Infinite Crisis, and that you can see the arc that was supposed to end with his death in the series. After long discussions, the death edict was finally reversed, but the decision was made that, if they were going to be keeping him, he would have to be changed. The next arc of the ongoing series will further explain the changes, it was said.

After spending some time away with Bruce and Tim to heal and rebuild after their harsh times prior to the Crisis, Dick relocates to New York, but has trouble finding work as both Dick Grayson and Nightwing. During the Batman R.I.P. storyline, Nightwing is ambushed by the International Club of Villains. He is later seen being held in Arkham Asylum, where one of the surgeons, in reality also the civilian identity of ICoV member Le Bossu, arranged for Nightwing to be admitted under the name of Pierrot Lunaire (another ICoV member) and be kept both heavily drugged and regularly beaten by staff to subdue him. Scheduled for an experimental lobotomy by Le Bossu himself, he manages to free himself and come to Batman's aid for the finale of the story arc.

Batman: RebornEdit

Following the events of Batman's apparent death during the Final Crisis, Nightwing has closed down shop in New York so as to return to Gotham, where after the events of "Battle for the Cowl", he assumes the identity of Batman, with Damian Wayne, Bruce Wayne's biological son, as the new Robin.[9]

The new team of Batman and Robin is the focus of Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's Batman and Robin series.[10] Their dynamic reverses the classic dynamic of Bruce and Dick, by having a lighter and friendlier Batman paired with a more intense and dark Robin. Over time, Dick's experience as the Dark Knight would harden his personality as his mentor.

During this period, Dick Grayson as Batman also features as a member of the Justice League in a short-lived run by writer James Robinson. After an intense confrontation with the Club of Villains and the mysterious Doctor Simon Hurt (who has established fake evidence that he is actually Bruce's father Thomas Wayne), Hurt is defeated when Bruce returns to the present. However, Bruce leaves Dick to continue to act as Batman in Gotham with Damian as his partner while he sets up the new 'Batman Incorporated' program, Bruce publicly identifying himself as Batman's financial backer to justify a global Batman-themed operation where he funds multiple other vigilantes.

The New 52 (2011–2016)Edit

See also: The New 52

Dick Grayson is re-established as Nightwing following DC's Flashpoint crossover event, after which the publisher relaunched all of its titles and made alterations to its continuity as part of an initiative called The New 52. In the new status quo, Bruce Wayne is once again the only Batman, and Dick, like the other members of the adoptive family, is a few years younger. Dick, despite being 19 is drawn a bit shorter than in his pre-relaunch frame. This is likely due to adding believability to his acrobat past.[11] According to various interviews it is stated that Dick was adopted at 16, as opposed to 12. This is due to the DCNU's timeline existing for five years.[12] Dick Grayson is shown in flashbacks as Robin with a revamped version of the Robin costume in Nightwing (vol. 3) #0 (November 2012) and Batman and Robin Annual (vol. 2) #2 (March 2014).

Dick Grayson in his New 52 Robin costume from Batman and Robin Annual, vol. 2 #2 (March 2014). Art by Doug Mahnke and Patrick Gleason

In his civilian identity he is attacked by an assassin named Saiko who insists that he is the fiercest killer in Gotham.[13] The series Batman Incorporated relaunches with a second volume, continuing its story while taking into account the New 52's continuity changes; Dick is now depicted as Nightwing, and not as Batman, but the change is not addressed in the comic itself. In Nightwing, Dick inherits the deed to the circus from a dying C. C. Haly and begins a relationship with his childhood friend acrobat Raya Vestri. Saiko tortures Haly for information on Nightwing's secret identity, and the old man dies in Dick's arms after telling him the circus holds a terrible secret.[14] Investigating leads, he tracks down a supervillain named Feedback, who used to be a childhood friend, but does not learn anything.[15] Following Haly's clues, he finds a mysterious Book of Names in the circus that has his name on the last page.[16] Later the circus announces they will be doing a memorial show on the anniversary of the night Dick's parents were murdered, and Saiko attacks by detonating a massive explosion.[17]

It is then revealed that the circus has been training assassins for years, and Saiko was a childhood friend using Raya as an accomplice. Grayson had been selected to become a new Talon for the Court of Owls, but when Batman adopted him, Saiko took his place. The killer plummets to his death and Raya turns herself in. Returning to the Batcave, Bruce reveals to Dick that the current Talon is his great-grandfather William Cobb.[18] During the Night of the Owls event Dick faces Cobb, who was revived while protecting Mayor Hady.[19] Following the event, Dick decided to keep Haly's Circus in Gotham and plans to invest in turning an abandoned amusement park into their new location without Bruce's money.[20] He works with Sonia Branch, the daughter of Tony Zucco, the crime boss who murdered Dick's parents, into getting a loan for this plan by investing his entire trust fund despite being a high-risk due to Saiko's recent attack. The problems arise because of the guilt Sonia feels towards her father's actions [21] and many members of the circus are afraid for their lives because of the previous disasters and accuse Dick Grayson of being a flake, making it hard for those who choose to stay.[22]

The "Death of the Family" crossover event across the Batman-related comic books led to a major shift in Nightwing's status quo. During the storyline, one of Dick's friends Jimmy Clark, who worked as a circus clown, was murdered by the Joker because Joker felt like Jimmy was a knockoff of him. Nightwing later discovers Joker broke Raya out of prison, infected her with his Joker venom and has forced her to fight him while wearing a makeshift Nightwing costume. The toxin eventually killed Raya, though Nightwing tried in vain with an anti-toxin to save her. Nightwing then discovered that Joker left a message on Raya's abdomen that he was targeting Haly's Circus next.[23] However upon arriving there, Joker unveils his plan to burn the circus to the ground and then infects Nightwing with his gas that not only causes him to experience hallucinations of Jimmy and Raya, but he is soon attacked by the other members of Haly's Circus that were also affected by the toxin allowing Joker to capture him.[24]

In the aftermath, Haly's Circus is gone, with Dick broke as a result for having lost his investment. While the other circus members survived since Joker used a different Joker venom on them, they blame Dick and decide to leave after Raya and Jimmy's funeral, though deep down they know it is not his fault. Dick becomes bitter from his loss. After he used excessive force to bring down some criminals that tried to plunder valuables from the remains of the circus, Damian, having been monitoring him, is able to talk some sense into Nightwing, which helps him recover.[25]

Nightwing is later deeply affected by the death of Damian following his murder at the hands of Damian's clone, the Heretic, in Batman Incorporated. With Damian's death and potential resurrection becoming an obsession of Batman's, Dick is shunned by Bruce when he tries to tell him to move on, in Batman and Nightwing (a retitled Batman & Robin #23).

Later, the Nightwing series changes its setting to Chicago, Illinois. Sonia Branch reveals to Dick an e-mail that indicates that her father Zucco is still alive. After giving the address to Red Robin to try and track down who sent it, Robin uncovers that Zucco is residing in Chicago. Nightwing moves to Chicago in order to find and arrest Zucco, who is now living under the assumed identity of Billy Lester, an assistant to the mayor. Soon after arriving in Chicago, Dick meets his new roommates, a photojournalist named Michael and a computer specialist named Joey. After leaving the apartment to meet with Johnny Spade, a borderline criminal who steals and sells information, their meeting is interrupted by the police. A short chase results in the accidental destruction of a newly rebuilt subway. Meanwhile, a criminal hacker called the Prankster tortures, maims and kills criminal con men who are untouchable by the police.

The Chicago story is later abruptly ended by Nightwing's role in a larger company-wide crossover event. After the Crime Syndicate invade Earth Prime at the conclusion of the "Trinity War" Justice League storyline and defeat the Justice League, the DC crossover story Forever Evil depicts Nightwing's capture by the Crime Syndicate, who expose his secret identity to the world. Following their escape from the Syndicate, Batman and Catwoman decide to rescue him. He then is invited by Owlman to help defeat the Crime Syndicate, which he accepts. Nightwing is severely beaten by Ultraman and is attached to a device from a parallel world known as the Murder Machine, which is controlled by his heart rate and is reportedly impossible to escape from alive. When Batman and Lex Luthor arrive to free him, Lex stops his heart in order to fool the system so he can disarm it. However, Batman, enraged over what Lex has done, attacks him. Luthor explains it is not too late to save Grayson.[26] In an uncharacteristically heroic moment, Luthor injects Grayson's heart with adrenaline, which successfully revives Grayson. Cyborg enters, having defeated Grid, and Grayson joins Batman, Cyborg and Catwoman in freeing the Justice League from the Firestorm Matrix. After the defeat of the Syndicate, Grayson is seen with Batman in the Batcave. Batman tells him that he has to send him on the most dangerous mission he could possibly undertake.

GraysonEdit

The Nightwing title concluded in April 2014 at issue #30, and was replaced with a new title, Grayson, which depicts Dick having given up his life as Nightwing at age 22 and going undercover as an agent of the Spyral organization where the former Batwoman Kathy Kane works.[27] Written by Tim Seeley and former CIA counter-terrorism officer Tom King, the career change for Dick Grayson comes from the urging of Batman himself, who convinces him to remain dead to the world. Seeley stated that the series will be "leaning into" Grayson's sex symbol status. The character's look also is redesigned with no mask, but a blue-and-black outfit calling back to his pre-New 52 Nightwing counterpart with an addition of a "G" on his chest, said to be reminiscent of the Robin "R".[28][29]

In the "Agent of Spyral" storyline, Dick (known as Agent 37) is enlisted by Mister Minos, the director of Spyral, after having been chosen by Helena Bertinelli to serve as a new candidate. However, Dick serves as a mole under Batman due to their agenda of unmasking heroes by collecting the Paragon organs, organs in which contains the DNA of the Justice League and bestows meta-bioweapons the ability to use their powers. He assists Spyral's agenda to know more about Minos and his endgame, resulting in Spyral attaining most of the scattered organs. In a later story arc, Minos betrays Spyral and attempts to leak its secrets. To his surprise he finds the new Agent Zero, who reveals that she, along with the upper echelon of Spyral, had used Minos to attract Dick into Spyral and kills Minos as he has outlived his life full of humor.[30][31]

During Batman and Robin Eternal, Grayson finds himself working with various other members of the Bat-Family-during the time when Bruce Wayne is amnesiac after his resurrection against the ruthless villain known only as "Mother", who, it is revealed, briefly met with Batman early in Grayson's career as Robin, believing that he shared her views on using trauma to make people stronger. Mother intends to trigger a global collapse with the reasoning that the survivors will rebuild a stronger world after being broken by tragedy and without the hindrance of parents to force their ideals on them, but Grayson and the rest of the Family are able to defeat her, Dick affirming that Batman helps the Robins become their own people who can avoid the mistakes he made in dealing with his own trauma rather than Mother's belief that she and Batman each teach people to use their trauma to define themselves. At the conclusion of the storyline, Dick meets with the restored Batman, assuring Bruce that, unlike Mother, he never forced his ideals on them, but simply gave them all an example that they chose to emulate while avoiding following it so exactly that they became like him.

When the Court of Owls plant a bomb inside Damian Wayne, they are able to blackmail Dick into officially joining their organization, although all sides are aware that Grayson intends to try and use his new position against them.[32] The Grayson series ended at issue #20, where in the final issue, it was revealed that all knowledge of Dick's identity was erased from most of the world with one of Spyral's satellites, allowing Dick to resume his superhero activities as Nightwing once again.[3]

DC RebirthEdit

Starting with the DC Rebirth relaunch in 2016, Dick returned to being Nightwing with his black and blue costume, his Spyral contacts having wiped all global evidence of his dual identity and the bomb removed from Damian. He uses his new skills and expertise in espionage moving forward.[33] Nightwing is prominently featured in two Rebirth books: the fourth volume of Nightwing, his own solo book, and Titans, where Dick teams up with the other original Teen Titans after Wally West returns to the universe; through Wally, Dick remembers events of his life prior to Flashpoint and The New 52.[34] After the Titans are forcibly disbanded by the Justice League, Dick creates a new Titans team after the rupture of the Source Wall consisting of Donna Troy, Raven, Steel (Natasha Irons), Beast Boy, and Miss Martian.[35]

In his solo book, Dick is paired with a vigilante named Raptor and the two plan to bring down the Court of Owls from the inside. Barbara criticizes Dick's willingness to trust him and does not agree with his methods. Though Raptor seemed willing to play by Dick's rules of not killing, he tricks Dick into agreeing to a plan that results in the deaths of all of the Parliament of Owls in Sydney. After knocking Dick out, Raptor goes to Gotham and kidnaps Bruce during a conference. Nightwing confronts him alone in the ruins of a circus in Paris. Raptor reveals that he grew up in the circus as a child and fell in love with Dick's mother, Mary, as they stole from the rich and powerful in Paris. Raptor watched over Dick in the shadows as he grew up, and developed a hatred for Bruce Wayne as he represented everything he and Mary were against and felt it was dishonoring her memory to have Dick raised by him. Dick defeats Raptor and rescues Bruce in time.[36]

After joining forces with the pre-Flashpoint Superman to defeat the latest attack of Doctor Destiny, Dick contemplates checking out Bludhaven, based on Superman's reference to how the pre-Flashpoint Grayson acted as the city's guardian for a time,[37] and ultimately decides to go there.[38] While there he meets a supervillain rehabilitation group called the Run-Offs, all of which were villains he and Batman defeated in the past. He finds that most of them are being framed for crimes around the area and works with them to find the true culprits.[39] After solving the case and clearing their names, Dick begins dating their leader Shawn Tsang, known as the former criminal the Defacer.[40] Shawn is kidnapped by Professor Pyg after Dick discovers she might be pregnant with his child, and he teams up with Damian to track Pyg down and rescue her.[41] After Shawn is revealed not to be pregnant, she ultimately breaks up with Dick, who focuses his efforts on taking down criminals such as Blockbuster, the returning Raptor, the Judge, and Wyrm.[42]

During one of his nightly patrols with Batman, Nightwing is shot by KGBeast and nearly killed.[43] As a result, he suffered from severe memory loss and attempted to build a new life in Bludhaven. He changed his name to Ric, gave up being Nightwing, and became a taxi driver that frequently went to bars. With Bludhaven suffering from an increase in crime from the vigilante's absence, a detective named Sapienza comes across Dick's abandoned hideout in the subway and decides to become the new Nightwing.[44] Sapienza recruits a team of his friends in law enforcement to help him, and together they make a team of Nightwings using Dick Grayson's old uniforms. In addition to Sapienza, the team consists of Malcolm Hutch, the deputy chief in the Bludhaven fire department, Zak Edwards, vice of the 10th precinct, and Colleen Edwards, detective of the 14th precinct.[45]

During Year of the Villain, Ric is captured by William Cobb, his grandfather who is a Talon. A brain surgeon that Bruce hired to take care of Dick after he was shot named Dr. Haas was secretly a member of the Court, who was using a mystical memory crystal to alter Dick's memories and eventually shape him into becoming a Talon himself. William Cobb forces Ric to wear goggles and puts Dick under his spell. As a Talon, Grayson fights off other Nightwing heroes. A Nightwing hero name Connor Red shoots at Grayson's mask, making his eye visible. Connor Red pleads for mercy saying he has a family, and as the sun comes up Dick Grayson suddenly breaks out of his grandfather's control. Dick Grayson starts to remember his adventures as Nightwing. Ric defeats Talon, and saves his girlfriend Bea.[46] Afterwards, he journeys to Switzerland to learn more answers about his past from Dr. Haas, who attempts to use the crystal to alter his memories once more. However, an explosion seemingly sends her down a river to her death while Ric is able to retrieve the memory crystal she used on him. During the "Joker War" storyline, the Joker steals the memory crystal and uses it to brainwash Grayson into believing he is the Joker's adopted son, "Dicky Boy" and turns him against the Bat Family in his latest war against Batman. After Barbara gets the crystal back, Bea uses it to allow him to fully regain his memories as Dick Grayson.[47

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ty-talks-comics · 4 years

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Best of DC: Week of February 19th, 2020

Best of this Week: DCeased: Unkillables #1 - Tom Taylor, Karl Mostert, Trevor Scott, Neil Edwards, John Livesay, Rex Lokus and Saida Temofonte

Ahhh shit, here we go again. DCeased was awesome.

In much the same way that the original Marvel Zombies filled my heart with dread, DCeased absolutely blew my mind with the short six issues that it took place in. It was equal parts violent and heartbreaking as the heroes of Earth had to figure out a way to either stop the Anti-Life virus or die trying. We had a good spin off with the single issue, A Good Day to Die and now we have Unkillables, another spin off focusing on some of the more violent heroes and villains while the events of the main series unfold elsewhere.

The book begins on the first day of the Anti-Life virus being released as Deathstroke finds himself on a job in Kentucky. Throughout the original story, I did kinda wonder what people like him or the other assassins were up to, given that we saw a select number of other dead supervillains throughout like Giganta and Clayface. As Tom Taylor and Karl Mostert unfold the story we see that Slade Wilson was killing some infected Neo-Nazis before an attempt to renegotiate his price ends with him infected too.

Mostert and Taylor set this opening up in a very comedic way with the white supremacits running from something in the local church as Deathstroke looks on, puzzled as to why they’re running before taking a few out before heading inside. Mostert, Rex Lokus and I think Trevor Scott then give us an awesome single page of Slade facing down a horde of zombies with only his gun and a bloody sword. He looks like a badass and, in the following panels, proves it by killing them with ease.

Mostert doesn’t shy away from Slade’s brutal violence and shows how fluidly he can kill with dynamic poses as he shoots and slices multiple enemies at once. This accentuated by the excellently colored spurts of blood from the zombies and the gory detail of blood on the walls. There’s even a really good panel of one of the zombies being cut in half with Scott inking the silhouette as their blood and insides drip down. Even better is when Slade gets infected and violently rips his mask off before coming back to his senses while choking a guy.

Tom Taylor introduces a unique aspect here as Deathstroke returns to normal on the second day of the virus being introduced. As we learn later, it’s due to Slade’s unique super soldier DNA that allows him to fight off the infection, effectively being immune to a point. I can definitely see this being a double edged sword for him as the infection seems to last for a day before being purged from his system. This makes him unique amongst both the heroes and villains of Earth as maybe a potential savior.

I’d also like to praise Saida Temofonte for her amazing lettering as well. She does an amazing job, not only with word balloons, but with captions that have a bloody background and the typefaces she uses for sound effects. For the most part, they fit the gruesomeness of the story with intense and bloody BANGs to eerie RRRRRRs, signaling the incoming zombies. Deathstroke’s scream as he claws his own face is intense, scratchy and blood curling until we get an AMAZING title page with names filling the empty space.

As things progress, we cut to Jason Todd in the Batcave. The silence is eerie as we get one small “spsh” sound as Jason steps through the blood trail of Bruce, Tim and Dick. Unfortunately, this seems to take place shortly after the events of DCeased #2 when an infected Dick and Tim attack and infect Batman, leaving Alfred to kill them all. Jason, like most readers, is shocked because he thought Bruce would have found a way to survive and then he’s met by Ace the Bathound. After letting Ace see that he’s not infected, Jason proceeds to make graves for his brothers and father before speeding off in the Batmobile to find the rest of his family with Ace.

These scenes are powerful as Jason, normally the black sheep of the family, has to deal with the fact that he’s one of few left. Why wasn’t Bruce prepared? Why was he the one left and not Dick or Tim? Damian’s still alive in Metropolis, but effectively, Jason is all alone. Mostert and I believe Neil Edwards show Jason’s love for his family as he carves out wooden headstones and buries them in the cave. Without a word of dialogue, this speaks volumes about Jason’s love for his family.

Elsewhere in Gotham, Ravager, Rose Wilson with a missing eye, unlike her main continuity counterpart, is curled up in her apartment in fear. The zombies are pounding on her door when Slade radios in and tells her it’s time to escape. Rose has the ability to see into the future in short bursts and sees that everytime she goes for the door, Zombies come through and kill her. Deathstroke, however, has a plan. As a side note, it’s great to see Rose in gear similar to what she wore in Geoff Johns’ “Teen Titans” while also complementing Deathstroke’s current armor.

Unfortunately for Deathstroke, as he keeps his eyes to the sky, he sees the terror that is an infected Man-Bat flying at him with a terrifying SCReeeee as he crashes through the window and smashes the plane on the roof Rose runs to her dad and, believing him to be infected, plunges her sword through his chest and he screams “Ow.” This scene is pure comedy made even better by the dramatic rain and fire in the background. Soon after, Mirror Master, Evan McCulloch, shows up offering them help.

I don’t know what the reason is for using the Scottish version of the character, but it doesn’t really matter as the representation of the Mirror Dimension is still cool as hell. While wearing special glasses that block signals, they walk through the dimension and Mostert draws an epic depiction of it with all of the violence, gore and death through the many mirrors while the characters look miniscule compared to the vastness of it all. The Mirror Dimension has always been terrifying and McCulloch could do a lot to solve the problem, but it makes sense that he doesn’t. Cause it’s terrifying.

After many pages, we arrive at the rest of the stars (fodder) of the series in Vandal Savage, Solomon Grundy, The Creeper, Cheetah, Lady Shiva, Bane, Deadshot and Captain Cold. I do have a bit of a continuity issue as Cold was shown to have been one of the Infected during the events of “A Good Place to Die,” but alternatively this series could explain how he got there or, much like that story, it’s off base with what’s happening in the main pages. But some of these additions are pretty interesting to say the very least.

Savage is near immortal, but has been shown to have been killed before. There’s a high chance that using Deathstroke, he’ll find a way to cure and rule over the people of the Earth after the heroes leave. Grundy is already dead, so can he get infected? The Creeper is much like Deathstroke in that he can heal from anything, so it makes sense that he’s managed to survive. Cheetah is strong and fast, but I don’t rate her chances high and the rest, while immensely skilled, are still just human. This is a ragtag group, but they’re not averse to getting the job done by any means.

The rest of the issue focuses on Jason Todd and his fight to rescue the remaining members of the Batfamily. Mostert, Lokus and John Livesay give readers an awesome assault on the Gotham PD with Cassandra Cain as Black Bat, James Gordon and Harvey Bullock fighting back against the zombies. Cass awesomely kicks and knees zombies in the background while Harvey and Jim shoot them. I LOVED Cass as Batgirl/Black Bat and it was awesome to see the return of the iconic costume and a character that I like so much.

Of course, Temofonte thrills with the lettering here again. She sells the panic in both Jim and Bullock as they fight off the horde as well as the frankness of Bullock as he has to break it to Jim that Blck Bat is the only one coming. The static-y bubbles that she uses on Bullock when he gets infected is also amazing and saddening, but gets even worse when Cass has to “CRCK” his neck to kill him. Soon after, Jason plows through the GCPD in the Batmobile with a “CRNNNCH” that shrinks around the vehicle.

Jason rescues Cass and Jim after shooting the remaining zombies in the head and plans to get the hell out of dodge. Jim, still holding out on the idea of hope, tells Jason that Barbara is still out there somewhere, but Jason, knowing that it’s no longer the time to keep secrets, reveals his and Cass’ identities and shows Jim that Barb is dead. He then takes the haggard detective to her last known location and Mostert and Lokus sell the utter despair of the scene.

Infected versions of Barb, Stephanie Brown, Batwoman and Catwoman were killed by Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn in Issue #3 of DCeased (if I remember right). This scene of James finding his daughter is depressingly grey and his facial expressions show us just how painful this is for him. He’s lost just about everything and cries in his grief. Jason, however, finds the dead body of the Joker and ties him to the front of the Batmobile before they all make their escape to Bludhaven.

This first issue of a three part miniseries already has me as excited as the original story did. I love each of the characters being used, the callbacks to past history and the way that everyone is being written. Each of these violent characters sees that there’s no need to hold back anymore as the regular rules are tossed out of the window. Everyone now has different amounts of pain and grief to deal with while others have different hopes of power or a cure. Ultimately, I don’t think things will end ultra well given the events of the main series, but I have no doubts that this will stand on its own.

Tom Taylor continues to be excellent when writing the despair and tragedies of DCeased and lifting up lesser characters, like The Creeper. His scripting and dialogue are a joy to read and I really feel like he’s got a grasp on everyone. Karl Mostert brings their all to this book with awesome panels and scenes that make readers want to wince, but look again to see the utter brutality of what they’re witnessing. His art is stellar. The various inkers definitely bring it to life alongside Lokus’ vibrant colors and Temofonte’s amazing letters.

I’m already gleefully anticipating the next issue and it more than justifies the $5.99 price, high recommend!

Also, y'know, support me on Patreon: patreon.com/TyTalksComics

#dceased #dceased unkillables #jason todd #cassandra cain #james gordon #deathstroke #rose wilson #tom taylor #karl mostert #rex lokus #saida temofonte #dc comics #comic books #comics #zombies

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bigskydreaming · 5 years

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Hi, I'm not sure how much fanfics you read, seems like you read enough... Do you perhaps know why Tim and Jason get the most intense stories where they go on adventures or are abused by the society so they live in whump central and just generally the most interesting stories, whereas Dick gets the family/ Damian centric stories? His major whump plot is only that Tarantula thing. His role seems to be either the himbo or the happy thot big bro who means well but doesn't get the kid bros' trauma...

LOL aka the eternal source of my frustration in fandom.

*Shrugs* My view is its more than likely a result of how much both canon and fandom have conditioned readers and fans to view Dick as only existing as a supporting character in everyone else’s stories, rather than someone with stories of his own, let alone ones that the others act as his supporting cast. The exceptions, as you noted, are the occasional Court of Owls fic or Tarantula based whump-fest.

But its the whole big brother rides to the rescue thing, dialed up to eleven, and combine that with Dick’s characterization as an empathetic caregiver type personality, and it creates a perfect storm for people to just slot him in the role of designated comfort-giver in any given plot...OR to cite fanon lore and use that to cast him as the antagonistic foil to Jason or Tim

End result is....DC isolates Dick for his own stories, but then only has him interacting with his family when he’s swooping in to either help, support, or make everything all better...a la Robin War, Batman & Robin Eternal, etc...but the second the crisis (always someone else’s) is over, DC sends him back out on his own, because they have this perception that the only way to differentiate him from Batman is to have him completely self-sufficient, as otherwise Bruce would overshadow him when swooping in to save him.

Except, that’s a flawed premise, because you don’t need to send in Bruce to SAVE Dick, even in plots like the Blockbuster arc...its enough to have him show up to comfort and support Dick...but the problem is....DC is unwilling to ever let Bruce take the back seat or support role in even his children’s own stories. Thus he’s largely absent from Dick’s, even when he really SHOULD be there, he’s made into Jason’s antagonistic foil more often than not to keep him from playing the supporting role there, and DC’s take for the last several years has been just to cloud what the hell Bruce’s connection to Tim is even supposed to be. And so on and so on. The closest I’ve seen DC come to letting Bruce play a supporting role is Snyder’s use of him in the limited Batman & The Signal run....but then Duke and Cass both ended up shipped off to the Outsiders book where Jefferson and Katana occupy the role of supportive caregivers.

All of which sucks.

But that’s DC’s problem. The problem with fanfics, IMO, is they so rarely apply the same transformative energy to Dick and his stories as they do to Jason or Tim’s because....Dick’s USEFUL in the caregiver or antagonist roles. He serves a purpose in being everyone else’s supporting cast, and they’ve got canon as an example for how that works and why, not to mention to point to as an explanation for why they so frequently put Dick and Dick alone in that designated spot.

But Dick being the heart of his own stories and adventures not only ‘takes him away’ from that caregiver slot for Jason, Tim and Damian, which much of fandom has come to see as being so synonymous with him, its like...if he’s NOT there and ready to provide support at any given moment, he’s fundamentally just failing as a brother and a character.....

But also at the same time, with Dick as the protagonist of fanfics rather than the designated supporting caregiver....someone else has to be cast in that role, for HIM. And by and large, most people just...don’t seem to want to do that.

Typically, when it does happen its for things like Tarantula based fics, where its relatively easy to slot Jason into that role, because of the facts that Jason IS actually a very empathetic character himself, and very passionate about being an advocate for victims, as well as someone with experiences himself....but ironically, even with those fics, Dick’s trauma tends to become just as much about Jason, because of the other appeal for casting Jason in this role....Jason VERY easily fulfills a wish fulfillment role for readers projecting onto Dick and his situation and desiring to see Tarantula and/or Mirage punished in the ways Jason’s best known for.

And the other thing about keeping Dick’s trauma limited to specific instances just like Tarantula and Mirage or the Court of Owls, is there’s no need to reimagine anyone else’s role in the family, in order to take up the caregiver role more fully, at least when Dick is the one in need of comfort. Like, there’s no need to drastically redesign the status quo of the Batfamily, shake it up, or analyze or rebuild or restructure the family dynamics to account for Dick not having to be solely responsible for maintaining that position....

Because when Dick’s trauma is limited to those select story plots, the story already comes with a ticking clock for it. Its framed as a finite thing. There’s a definitive beginning or ending to someone else having to shift over into the caregiver slot in order to support Dick...because if the trauma is framed as a specific isolated or finite thing by the narrative, then Jason or Tim or Bruce’s time in the caregiver role is set up from the get go to only be a temporary thing, like just until the story’s over and Dick’s ‘back on his feet’ and able to take over his old narrative duties, as it were.

All of which...doesn’t work for me for a number of reasons, but like....I don’t think its like, really a mystery why things tend to play out this way with caregiver archetypes....because its pretty basically a reflection of how its very easy for those personality types to be taken for granted and taken advantage of in real life, and that’s like....a huge and constant part of my irritation with this phenomenon. Because ultimately, like all things fiction AND fandom related...its really just an extension and reflection of real life tendencies and behaviors...rather than really ‘just’ being about a fictional character and being frustrated there’s not enough varieties of fic to read about him, lol.

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violetsmoak · 5 years

Text

Philtatos [3/?]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20101543/chapters/47654632

Blanket Disclaimer

Summary: During a patrol where Red Hood and Red Robin cross paths, Jason is infected with the blood of the Eros, the ancient God of Love, who informs them that they must track down his missing bow and arrows, or Jason will go slowly mad with an obsessive desire–for Tim. Though overwhelmed by the sudden attention being paid to him, Tim sets to work trying to solve the case, before Jason succumbs to madness. In the meantime, Jason discovers that there’s more than godlike powers at work here, as well as a legacy that reaches back through the sands of time.

Rating: PG-13 (rating may change later)

Beta Reader: None at the moment.

JayTimBingo Prompts This Chapter: # fate #gods in disguise #reincarnation #secrets #titans #wings

First Chapter

________________________________________________________________

As a general rule, Tim avoids going to Batburger when in uniform; it feels as if he’s endorsing a company that capitalizes on cape and rogue identities, and which he knows for a fact treats their employees like chattel.

But apparently mythological gods of love have insane metabolic needs.

He makes a mental note to ask Bart to send some of those special high-calorie protein bars he eats. There’s no way Tim intends to spend valuable time playing delivery boy if Jason’s in trouble.

He frowns at the thought, causing the girl at the takeout counter to step back nervously.

Jason was his usual charming self tonight. But it was a bit off.

The older vigilante, never the paragon of patience and gratitude, was on a hair-trigger tonight. Under normal circumstances, there’s more verbal sparring between them before Jason things get physical. Even then, their altercations are usually because some villain is trying to pit them against each other.

Or he really was just pissed off I was following him.

But Tim can’t help thinking that’s not it. The whole thing has been nagging him since the night before, drowning out what would normally be frustration and hurt after his encounter with the Red Hood. There’s no time to be hurt when there’s a problem to solve.

Tim accepts his order, and after ensuring it’s triple-bagged, tips the girl at the counter for her time before taking off. Swinging across the rooftops of Gotham carrying ten times more than he ever buys for himself is too awkward, so he ends up jumping on the roof of a passing bus and riding it toward the old theater district.

His eyes automatically flick to the passing buildings, wondering if his progression away from Jason’s part of town is being watched from up top.

Or if he should be ducking an impending sniper shot.

Jason’s words echo on repeat in his mind, needling deeper each time. It shouldn’t sting as much as it does, but they were just getting to a good place in terms of trust.

“If I need help, I’ll ask. And chances are, I won’t be asking you.”

“So much for that,” Tim mutters to himself as he prepares to disembark from his ride.

Upon arriving back at the Nest, he skips changing out of his gear and heads straight for the subbasement. The containment unit there was build with Poison Ivy and Scarecrow related emergencies in mind, but it’s come in handy since he acquired an Olympian roommate of sorts.

Normal protocol after a twenty-four-hour observation period would be to send Eros off to a prison for metahumans, but Tim is wary about giving up custody of him any time soon. The potential danger to Jason aside, he’ll need to get his hands on a good deal of null technology and fortified transportation just to move the guy without setting off his powers.

That memory induces a shudder; it’s been a day, and he’s still tasting pomegranate.

Tim doesn’t wish that on anyone. And if that lack of control seizes Jason, forcing him to throw himself at Tim like a ravenous dog?

A visceral swirl of nausea settles in Tim’s gut. Jason’s always had strong ideas on consent, even before his death. It’s one of the few things that didn’t change following his resurrection. If Jason becomes the very thing he’s been fighting his whole life, Tim worries he’ll break for real this time, and in a manner very different than when he first broke The Rule.

Tim isn’t going to let that happen, even if that means working with an entitled godling that’s already become more trouble than he’s worth.

It was hard enough just getting him here, the guy’s way heavier than he looks…

He wonders if it’s the wings, if their mass is still discernible even when they are out of the visual spectrum, and how strong they’d have to be to carry something person-sized. They probably aren’t like a birds’ appendages, and Eros is clearly not hollow-boned, so either they’re extremely well-muscled or of some metaphysical material construct that—

“Hey! Are you going to feed me at some point, darlin’? Or is part of your brand of hospitality enforced starvation?”

Tim jolts back to present from his drifting thoughts and glances across the open space of the Nest toward the containment unit. It’s a hundred square feet of bulletproof glass and filtered air designed by S.T.A.R Labs specifically to counteract the abilities of metas and other enhanced humans.

Eros lounges on his cot, wings out and examining the feathers with his lips pressed together. He’s been annoyed with Tim since waking up in the in custody, though Tim thinks he’s more upset about the whole being knocked-out thing. There’s some kind of telenovela playing in the background.

He wasn’t sure how long he was going to have his guest, so while Eros was still unconscious, Tim hooked up a television screen inside, and brought several books and a mp3 player. He also brought every piece of art from his apartment upstairs and crammed it inside the unit. Eros’ abilities may not have affected Tim when he put him in there (this time), covered as he was, but as those powers grow beyond his control, he’s going to want to siphon it off however he can.

Eros finally looks up at Tim, narrowing his eyes. “For your sake, I hope you got the fries Jokerized. And your channel selection sucks. What kid your age doesn’t have at least one Adult channel?”

“The kind that finds them gross and exploitative.” Tim makes a face as he pushes back his cowl, though he keeps his domino on.

And who has two full-time jobs that make sitting down to watch anything like that pretty much impossible.

He can’t remember the last time he went on a date or did anything nearing the realms of sexual. Normally he just sees to his needs in the shower and that’s that, since there’s no time for much else. He’s even gotten in the habit of not taking more than five minutes so he can do other things. What’s the point of taking longer if there’s no one there with him?

Eros is watching him with a cruel twist to his lips, and Tim’s ears warm. He has a flash of worry that the Olympian can read minds but then decides if Eros had that ability, he’d be using it mock Tim by now. The guy's sort of a dick.

Tim scowls at the notion and opens the hatch in the side of the unit and shoves the takeout bag inside, punching in the code to decontaminate the area.

Eros gets up from the cot, stretching in a languid movement that’s distracting for reasons other than his shirtless state, and stalks over to the hatch on the other side. As he moves, he brushes his fingers across a bronze Grecian krater from the Classical period. Something like golden wisps of smoke swirl around it and then settles into the piece, which gleams a bit brighter.

He wasn’t kidding about that, I guess.

Eros clutches at the takeout bag and begins unloading it on the table by the door hatch, stuffing fries in his mouth and making borderline pornographic noises that have Tim swallowing uncomfortably.

“So where’s Tall, Dark and Angry?” the Olympian asks. “I figured you’d be wrangling him back here—force him into a sweet set-up like this one.”

He kicks at the glass.

“There’s no wrangling when it comes to J—Red Hood.”

“And you’re not worried at all?”

Tim considers the last meeting and carefully says, “He seemed fine when I ran into him tonight.”

But he can’t quite hide his unease. Eros picks up on it.

“You get that that’s only temporary, right?” he asks, stuffing a handful of fries in his mouth.

“I also know that going at Hood head-on isn’t the way to convince him of anything. He’s got to reach out for help himself. The most I can do is monitor him from a distance until he’s ready.”

He wanders over to his main computer and brings up the tracking program for the bug he planted on Jason when he grabbed him tonight. The other man was more distracted than he let on if he didn’t notice Tim slip it on him.

And he hasn’t gotten rid of it, judging from this.

It’s not making a quick exit via sewer or a passing truck, which is par for the course when ditching a tracker. He’s chased enough of those to know what that pattern looks like. And when Tim pulls up camera footage from the surrounding area, he catches several shots of Jason making his way to the safehouse in Coventry no one’s supposed to know about.

“Really?” Eros drawls. “Are you sure it’s not because you’re perfectly happy with this state of affairs? Maybe you’re hoping you’ll finally get some recognition from the guy you’ve been pining for?”

Tim tenses and turns, forcing a blank look and neutral tone. “I’m not pining for him.”

“Don’t lie to me—God of Love, remember? I could smell it on you the minute you were both in the same room.”

Tim clenches his fists, a pit forming in his stomach at the idea that someone knows, followed by disgust as he registers what Eros just said.

“No, I’m not happy about it,” he growls. “Why would I be happy about him being forced to do something against his will? Especially if it’s giving a crap about me?”

“Hey, no offense meant,” Eros says, holding his hands up in surrender; the effect is ruined by the burgers clutched in each fist. “My mother and I have made a career off guys wanting the object of their affection to pay attention to them, at whatever the cost. And there was no such thing as dick pics back then. It’s kind of a question I’ve got to ask in my line of work.”

“Your line of work? You mean you still fly around the world making people fall in love?”

“Uh, no, human beings fall in love fine on their own. I just…make it happen faster and last longer. To my mother, love is a whimsy, gossamer thing, all moonlit strolls, and flowery words and basking in the newness of it all. For me, it’s fierce. Intense. Something that when denied guts you like a knife and hollows you out with desperation.”

A hungry expression passes over his face that has nothing to do with food, and Tim shivers, disliking how a lot of that sentence is hitting too close to home. Rather than betray his discomfort, he takes a chiding tone. “If that’s what you do, no wonder people kill themselves after bad break-ups. Some people aren’t able to deal with that sort of pain—do you even care?”

“Not particularly. Besides, it’s only the interesting ones we get involved with. They tend to be stronger at heart.”

“Because that makes it so much better!”

“Do I tell you how to do your job? No. So how about I get a little less judgment and a little more ‘start finding my diviners’ from you?”

“Oh, we’re going to find them,” Tim says, fighting to control his anger. Whether I’m letting you have them back is another story entirely. If I can figure out some way to keep you and your bow locked up, it’d save a lot of people grief. “But just so you understand, Red Hood is my priority here, not you or your toys.”

“Really?” Eros purrs, sneering skepticism on his face. “Even though I could ensure he starts to return those pesky feelings of yours? In a less life-threatening way, of course.”

“He might not even be affected.”

“Naivety’s not a good look on you, darlin’. But seriously—all I have to do is use an arrow, and you two could retire from the cape gig and go antiquing in New England once this is all over.”

Tim snorts at the ridiculous image and shakes his head. “No.”

“Really? You’re still willing to fight for him, even if he goes back to treating you like an afterthought if you help him?”

“When I help him. And it’s not like it would be something new.”

And, yeah, that still hurts.

Eros huffs, his expression suggesting he’s not sure what to think of that, and then shakes his head.

“Self-sacrificing as ever,” he pronounces and pops the top on a can of Zesti.

Tim puzzles at that remark for all of five seconds, when the screen of his computer lights up with an incoming transmission from Titans Tower. Tim accepts it and the screen fills with a familiar face.

For the first time that night, his mouth smooths into a genuine smile. “Hey, Cassie.”

“Red Robin,” she replies, eyes flicking over him as if to assess him for injury or danger.

She keeps to his rules about secret identities in his base. Sometimes he wishes his identity was public like hers—and then he remembers that he gets enough unwanted attention as Tim Drake-Wayne, it would be worse if people knew for sure he was Red Robin.

Vicki Vale would be the first in line to turn my life into some kind of reality TV show…

“You tried to get a hold of me earlier?” his friend asks, and Tim nods. He’s never been the type to leave anything to chance, and last night while Eros was still conked out, he shot an email to Cassie asking her to get back to him as soon as she could.

“How are things in California?”

“A hell of a lot warmer than where you are, but I don’t think you want to talk about the weather.”

“Nope. How much have you heard about Eros?”

“Eros?” she asks. “Like Cupid?”

“Really?” the winged Olympian groans. “You too? You’re supposed to know better.”

Cassie’s eyes narrow as she takes note of the figure in the containment unit behind him. “Who is that?”

“He says his name’s Eros, and from what I’ve seen, I’m inclined to believe him.”

Eros gives Cassie a smarmy smile. “Hello, Auntie. Nice to meet you finally.”

She wrinkles her nose, and Tim can’t help mirroring the expression. “And I thought my family was messed up.”

“Your family is messed up,” she retorts. “Mine’s just been doing it longer.”

“Touché.”

“So, why’s he in a cage?”

“The real question is why isn’t he gagged,” Tim replies, earning a smirk from Cassie and an offended ‘hey!’ from his detainee. “Basically, he’s losing control of his powers and when that happens apparently there will be a nuclear explosion of desire.”

And that’s possible the weirdest sentence he’s ever said.

“Super orgy,” Eros agrees. “Which though fun in theory, is a lot messier than any of us want.”

Cassie and Tim shudder.

“Not that Gotham couldn’t use a collective chill pill,” Cassie says, “but that sounds like an easy fix. You’ve got him locked up, send him on to Iron Heights or one of the other places that have meta containment.”

“Hey! What’d I ever do to you?!”

“I would, but there’s a complication,” Tim sighs. “He was wounded in an altercation involving a bunch of mobsters, and some of his blood infected a human—no, not me.” He is quick to add that at her widening eyes. “But the individual in question isn’t exactly known for being in control of their emotions. They have a history of trauma as well that could turn this into an issue, so I need to find a cure as soon as possible. Preferably before the symptoms Eros insists are coming manifest.”

He purposefully downplays Jason’s involvement, since the Titans aren’t his biggest fans. Even the ones who weren’t around at the time have heard the story of unconscious bodies, a message written in blood and Tim nearly dying. Heroes are supposed to be above grudges, but they are still teenagers.

“Not sure what I can do for you on that front…”

“Eros says his arrows will reverse it, but they’re missing, along with his bow. I’m looking for that. But I have to find out how bad this could potentially get, and how long it will take.”

“I could tell you that,” Eros grumbles.

“I need independent corroboration because I don’t believe he’s being completely honest with me,” Tim finishes, ignoring him.

“I know nothing beyond what I’ve heard in the stories, and those you have to take with a grain of salt,” Cassie muses.

“Told you,” Eros informs Tim.

“But I’ll contact a few people in my family. They might know something concrete.”

“Thanks,” Tim says, relieved. “Other than that, everything’s good with the Titans?”

“Just the usual stuff. Nothing end-of-the-world bad this week, but it’s only Tuesday.”

“Don’t jinx it!”

“We live in a jinx,” Cassie replies with a roll of her eyes. There’s a crash somewhere in the distance, and the trumpeting of an elephant and she winces.

“Beast Boy?”

“I’ll see you later, Red, I’ve got an idiot to kill,” Cassie sighs.

“Isn’t it fun being the leader?”

“Shut up.”

The screen goes blank, and Tim can’t help his grin.

“So, you know my aunt.”

The grin vanishes as he turns to face Eros. “First, stop calling her that, it’s weird. Second, she’s with the Titans. Of course I know her.”

“Titans,” the Olympian scoffs. “You call yourselves that, but you’ve never met an actual Titan. They were formidable warriors. So fearsome they had to be thrown into the deepest pit of Hades to ensure they never rose up again to threaten the gods.”

“Clearly they weren’t all that if they got locked up,” Tim retorts, offended on behalf of his team.

Miraculously, Eros has nothing to say to that.

⁂

Jason wakes to the sensation of lips between his shoulder blades and someone’s fingers sliding down the curl of his spine. He grumbles in dozy annoyance, shoving his face deeper into his pillow. It took him way too long to fall asleep last night, his overactive imagination plying him with thoughts he does not want to be having. Whoever’s bothering him is about to—

He jerks upward then, fingers clenching around the pistol beside his bed and whirls around to aim at whatever intruder has slipped into his room.

Because he went to sleep alone last night, and no one should know about this safehouse or how to bypass his security.

(Well, obviously there are the members of the Family, but Jason’s fairly confident none of them would be waking him like that.)

He faces the emptiness of the room, breathing hard as he tries to gather his wits. The space is too sparsely furnished for someone to find a place to hide, the shadows already eaten away by the sunlight. There’s no question he’s utterly alone, gun pointed at nothing and his body heaving like he just went three rounds with Bane.

What the hell…

He lowers the gun, scowling, and rubs the back of his head with his free hand. He’s used to having realistic dreams, but that’s new…

Jason scrubs a hand down his face, gives one last bleary glance at his surroundings, and heaves himself out of bed. There’s no way he’s falling back to sleep after this.

He’s distracted the rest of the morning, paranoia higher than usual as he takes second and third glances around the room before getting in the shower. He really shouldn’t have skipped it last night, because his skin is sticky with dried blood.

The wound in his shoulder is completely gone now.

If he’s learned anything in his life it’s not to ignore when things magically appear or disappear.

And yet…

If he acknowledges it, it means acknowledging the fact that he’s starting to fixate—hell, already is fixating—on Tim, and that’s something he can’t give in to.

Repressing shit is a time-honored Bat tradition, and he decides for once he’s going to partake for as long as possible. He’s still able to function, which means there might still time for him to figure all of this out on his own.

He returns to the location of Eros’ warehouse, hoping to find some trace evidence left from the night before. If he can get an analysis of the blood that infected him—

Except, the person he’d usually ask for that is the one he should be avoiding at all costs. The other options are ten times as unpalatable.

Damn it.

It turns out there’s nothing to be found anyhow, although Jason isn’t sure it’s because someone cleaned it up (the GCPD crime scene cleaners or the ever-diligent Red Robin) or because maybe Olympian blood doesn’t stick around. His wound is healed like it was never there, it’s possible it’s the same with the blood.

The day gets steadily more discouraging.

The first time Jason hears the voices, he’s in the middle of busting up a shipment of drugs he stumbled onto while leaving the warehouse district. The Triad flunkies seeing to said shipment aren’t exactly happy to see him, which is why things quickly devolve into fisticuffs.

As one of the knife-wielding henchmen take a run at him, Jason crouches, ready to engage, when without warning, someone whispers in his ear.

“Ready to lose?”

“Do your worst, infant.”

Somehow, he can feel warm breath along his jaw, even though he’s wearing his helmet.

Jason jerks to one side, prepared to pull whoever is behind him over his shoulder, only to find the air behind him empty. His pause allows his opponent to shove his knife at his ribs.

Body armor and his own deflection abilities keep the blow from being fatal, but the rest of the fight, Jason is thrown. There’s no one else but him and the Triads, but the sensation of someone hovering behind him doesn’t disappear.

Tim?

He’s looking for him before he even registers it, stepping over the groaning bodies of his opponents and examining the shadows for any sign of Red Robin. It would be just like him to sit and watch from the shadows, the little stalker. Dick told him stories about what little Timmy was like as a kid, and it wouldn’t surprise him if he still liked to sneak around with a camera.

That idea makes the blood rush to his cheeks for some reason.

Disappointment rises when he confirms he’s completely alone—followed by the queasy realization of what he was just doing.

He doesn’t even bother calling the GCPD to do a clean-up as he flees the scene.

As he stitches himself up later in his safe house, Jason eyes his reflection in the mirror, glaring at himself in reprimand. He should be stronger than this, damn it! If not because of his All-Caste training, then even thanks to Bruce’s insane regimens for dealing with poisons.

His gaze flicks over his scarred body, assessing the damage. He’s used to the litany of scars that cut across his skin, this latest is just part of a growing collection. The other one, though—

He studies the healed part of his shoulder and swallows.

If he hadn’t known there was something wrong with it before, healing as quickly as it did, he knows now. The raised skin of the new scar looks as if it’s been glossed over with gold; fine threads of it follow the surrounding capillaries like loose threads.

If this is some kind of King Midas deal, I’m going to kill that winged douche. Though, turning into a golden statue is potentially a better outcome than what could happen if what Eros said was true. At least this time Bruce will have something better to stick in the case than an empty suit.

The grim humor usually makes him feel marginally better; today it doesn’t.

After that, the voices are everywhere he goes, needling at him in a way that is somehow more present than the insanity of the Pit, more maddening. At least when he was driven by an insane rage, the voices egging him on made sense. There was a purpose, a logic behind their prompting.

“Always planning, aren’t you?”

“Well, someone has to.”

The whispers that dog him are more like snatches of a picture or a dream, without context, and yet each word murmured to him falls on him like a searing iron on his heart.

“Should e’er I go, will you go with me?”

In the next few days, things get steadily worse.

Jason’s all but given up on sleep, since every time he closes his eyes, Tim’s face seems engraved on the backs of his eyelids. Only not Tim—sometimes he looks different, but the image is so fleeting Jason couldn’t even explain how. And when it’s not Tim’s face or his voice, then his slumber gets interrupted by vibrant flashes of color and sound. There is warmth and laughter that abruptly turns to crushing, wrenching pain.

“You think of me as a shield?”

“I think of you as my shield.”

“You’ll have to catch me!”

It’s not an echo of the physical, the way nightmares about his death tend to be; the bone-shattering imprint of the metal bar against his bones. No, this pain is something else, a gaping hole, someone shouting into a dark void that no one will ever hear.

“I would that you would leave them all to perish.”

“Bury us together.”

During the day, he experiences a bitter longing, like he’s missing a limb or a lung. By night, his patrols are more vicious, bloodier as he tries to exercise his frustration the best way he knows how. As if hitting harder, and faster, will bleed out whatever is slowly poisoning him.

By the middle of the week, Jason is smoking a pack a day and filled with the manic energy of the perpetually exhausted. He’s started seeing things out of the corner of his eye—full lips tilted upward in amusement, flashes of blue eyes, dark hair disappearing into a crowd—that makes his stomach flip.

“Come back to me.”

He picks his phone up and puts it down several times one morning, each time getting closer to calling Tim until he throws it at the wall. He leaves his apartment before he can do the same to his tablet.

There’s no point carrying out his usual errands, and he ends up wandering aimlessly around the city for a few hours. Somehow he ends up on a building across the street from Wayne Enterprises, staring at the floor where he knows Tim’s office is. Where he knows Tim is.

Even on a case, pretty boy has to be the model employee or no allowance from B.

It would be simple for Jason to get into the building if he wanted to. There’s Bat access points all over the place, and secret corridors and doors. He wouldn’t even need a disguise to keep anyone from recognizing Bruce Wayne’s dead kid.

Yeah, and then what, moron? What exactly is the game plan once you get in?

He can’t even answer himself and lets out a wordless yell of rage that gets lost in the whipping wind.

“Screw this,” Jason growls and turns his back on the WE building. It galls him that it’s difficult to do even that.

Time to get some answers.

Since there haven’t been any reports of arrests of winged metas, he knows exactly where to look. Tim’s as paranoid and as much of a control freak as Bruce, and he’s not about to let a potential resource go before he’s used it to its full potential.

And there’s no way babybird doesn’t have a secret hideout under his place.

It’s a short journey back to the old theater district, or at least it feels that way; Jason’s more distracted than he’d like and barely registers the trip. Once there, he circles the block where Tim’s apartment is located a few times, making sure that there’s no sign of its owner (even though he knowsTim’s at work, there’s a part of him that keeps hoping) and then breaks in.

It’s a bit of effort to disable the security system (the little shit is too paranoid and smart for his own good) and then even longer to start looking for a way into Tim’s base of operations.

He may or may not get side-tracked snooping through the kitchen (no wonder he’s so scrawny, he’s got barely any food in here) and rummaging in the bathroom medical cabinet (at least he’s well-stocked, it’ll keep him from bleeding out the next time he gets injured) and picking through various DVDs (of course Tim has the extended versions of Lord of the Rings, why doesn’t that surprise him?). It’s only when he peeks into Tim’s bedroom, sees the king-sized bed and has a sudden image of the younger man sprawled out on it that Jason remembers the actual reason he’s here and almost runs back downstairs.

It takes longer than he’d like to find the trick to opening the secret door, though when he finds it, he snorts.

Because fish? Really?

When would Tim even have the time or patience to remember to feed them, unless he was coming over to the aquarium every day? It’s the only thing in the apartment that doesn’t feel like Tim.

Jason scowls, wondering when he started being so familiar with Tim’s esthetic. They’ve barely hung out together since his grand and bloody return to Gotham, and they’re both always traveling the world or wide void of space, there hasn’t been the opportunity to get to know the kid. Yes, he once studied his replacement obsessively, but that was to find his weaknesses, to learn how to take him apart, to destroy him and in turn destroy Bruce.

None of that should translate to knowing minutiae like how Tim takes his coffee.

When did I even pick that up? Could it have been that time with the waffles?

His ruminations trail off as he takes in the vast, three-level cavern he’s descended into.

And…okay, this place is way cooler than Jason’s pseudo-Batcave, but he guesses that’s par for the course when a tech nerd whose Daddy bankrolls everything.

Though he doubts Tim would have used Bruce’s money to finance this. He likes his independence; Jason learned that for himself about the time he found the kid holed up in Lex Towers. It’s one of the things he likes about him.

He finds Eros in a containment unit.

Bingo.

The guy has a decent set-up too, from the look of it; he might as well be in a swanky hotel room.

“Back so soon?” Eros calls, not looking up from his show right away. “I thought you had work or whatever it is you humans force yourselves to endu—” He glances up and sees that it’s not Tim, and his sentence trails off, expression becoming almost gleeful as if he’s been waiting for him a while.

“Kairόs dé, poimḗn laôn,” he purrs.

Jason blinks, not understanding the words even as they tug at something in him. It’s like being spoken to in a dream or from beneath running water.

He shakes his head. “Sorry, that’s not one of the languages I had drilled into me.”

Eros’s face morphs instantly.

“Well, you’re no fun,” he says, and though the words are accompanied by a childish pout, Jason thinks he senses actual disappointment there. Normally he might investigate that, but he’s here for a reason, and that involves figuring out what the hell is going on with him.

“You know why I’m here.”

“Indeed,” Eros says. “Starting to get that unscratchable itch, aren’t you?”

“What do you think?”

“I think I warned you and you didn’t believe me. Not sure what you expect me to do about it now.” The Olympian examines his nails.

“Oh, I don’t know--fix it, maybe?!”

“I already told you how to fix it. You could have been helping the pretty boy the past few days and possibly gotten closer to sorting things, but then you had to be all brooding and tortured and stomp off like a teenager.” Eros considers him. “Unrelated, but have you ever actually seen a bird brood? I’m curious, if you took that bucket off, would there be actual similarities?”

Jason tells himself the reason he clenches his fists is because of the Olympian��s flippant manner, and not because he called Tim ‘pretty’.

Which, no, not relevant.

“You said I’d be going out of my mind over T—Red Robin,” Jason growls. “That including hearing voices? Or seeing things that aren’t there?”

“It might? To be honest, I have no idea,” Eros says with a yawn. “I’ve never had anyone with your particular…history exposed to my blood. There’s any number of things it could be.”

“My history,” Jason repeats.

“Well, to start with the most glaringly obvious, you’ve returned from the dead. There’s an odor Revenants like you give off…hm, sort of like dirt and petrichor. If they’re brought back properly, I mean, otherwise it’s all rotting flesh and bodily fluids.” He shudders. “And there’s the unmistakable seal of the All-Caste on you. Ducra’s work, I’m guessing.”

Jason’s mouth twists. “And you can just…tell all that.”

“It’s written in the story of your soul,” Eros intones, and then looks smug, “among other things.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen too much in my time to go for that poetic New Age crap.”

“Oh, it’s far from New Age, boy, it’s from an olden time when men were men—”

“And sheep ran scared?” Jason interrupts. “Spare me the walk down memory lane and just answer my questions.

“You haven’t really asked me anything yet.”

“How long do I have before I completely lose it?”

“Again, no idea. Though no one’s ever made it more than two weeks, and by that point, there’s not really much left to save, if you know what I mean.”

Kind of figured that.

“And before it gets to that point? Is there a way of putting off the…urges?” he almost gags on the word.

“Depends.”

“On?”

Eros smirks. “On how far the object of your obsession is willing to go to save you.”

Rage frissons through Jason’s body. “Fuck you. That’s not happening.”

“Then you’d better get your affairs in order and say your goodbyes, et cetera…”

“I’m going to kill you.”

“Oh, do try,” Eros sniggers. “Birdboy took great pains to tell me there’s no way into this shiny prison cell unless you unlock the door from the outside. And if you walk in here now…well, you might end up seeing those troubling hallucinations and hearing those whispers a little more clearly following a second exposure.”

Jason snarls with rage and punches the glass in front of Eros’s face; it doesn’t even make a dent, and his knuckles immediately burn with pain.

“Feel better now?” Eros simpers, and then his face goes cold. “I don’t care if it’s with or without your little crush, it’s in everyone’s best interest to get my toys out of the world and back in my hands as soon as possible. You two have already withstood enough tragedy, don’t you think?”

“That written on my soul, too?” Jason spits but doesn’t wait for an answer. He whirls around and stalks away from the containment unit. This was a waste of time, and he needs to get out of here before Tim returns.

He’s not sure what he’d do if he actually ran into the other vigilante just now.

But one thing’s for sure: he’s going to have to start taking this seriously.

Knowing Tim’s already investigating the bow and arrow angle, Jason decides on a different take. There’s something not entirely above board about Eros, and Jason has no illusions the guy wouldn’t screw them over in a second. He’s calculating, like Tim, except in the Olympian’s case, the only one to benefit from that calculation is himself.

And there are some things he says that don’t jive. Jason’s not sure what exactly he’s been picking up on—going over all of their interactions, there’s nothing that stands out—but his gut is telling him there’s more going on here than the Olympian is telling.

The problem is, who the hell is going to help him out with this?

He can’t work with Tim, for obvious reasons, and contacting Bruce or Dick to use their Themysciran connections is right out. He doesn’t have any of his own, not really—Donna doesn’t really talk to him anymore. Even if he did have an in somewhere, he’d want to have at least enough background on the issue to understand whatever mindfuck logic usually comes along when dealing with Olympians or magic or anything like that.

He needs information, and he knows who he needs to reach out to to get it since Tim isn’t an option. He’s not looking forward to it.

It’s always a toss-up if she’ll help or not.

Or make him beg or demand a favor in exchange.

Though at this point, the sooner he unravels the shitstorm that his life is devolving into, the better. Then he can hightail it out of Gotham and not come back until he and Tim have forgotten all about this little bit of awkwardness. Perhaps get back to the Ally-Possibly-Friend-Kinda-Brother-Sort Of? thing.

And so, before he can talk himself out of it, he taps into the private comm line to Oracle, the one he purposefully keeps muted whenever he’s back in town.

“Red Hood,” the familiar digital voice acknowledges a few seconds later.

“I need a favor.”

“Will wonders never cease.”

“I’ve been asking myself that for years.”

“You’ve been pretty adamant about not wanting help from me,” she remarks, and even with the lack of intonation he can hear the rebuke and rolls his eyes.

“Look, can we skip the guilt-trip? I’ll owe you.”

“I know you will.”

“It’s more your research skills than hacking.”

“Oh?”

“I need to know as much as you can find about the Greek god Eros.”

Oracle is quiet for a long moment, and he wonders if she hasn’t logged off, but then she says, “Does this have anything to do with Red Robin asking me to watch for reports of individuals carrying a bow and arrows over the past few weeks?”

“It might,” Jason allows, a smile in his voice at the mention of Tim. He forces that back down, mentally castigating himself.

None of that!

“Are you two working a case?”

“Sort of. Not together—” Definitely not together! “—but same case. We’re approaching it from different angles.”

“But you’re reaching out to me, which you don’t do unless things have the potential to take a turn for the worse.”

“I’m reaching out to you so that they won’t have to later on, and that’s all I’m going to say. Can you help me or not?”

Another pause.

“It will take some time.”

“We’ve got less than two weeks. Think you can manage that?”

“What did you boys get yourselves into this time?” Oracle sighs. Her cooperation is implied, and Jason relaxes a hair.

Things are going to be fine.

“Thanks,” he says, and then pauses. “So, when you spoke to him—Red Robin, I mean. How did he sound?”

Or not.

⁂⁂⁂

Next Chapter

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bat-losers-inc · 5 years

Text

Collisions in the Dark (Ch 20): Buried Piece

Summary: As unbelievable as it seemed to Tim, they were all together as a family again, planning a battle strategy in Jason’s cramped kitchen.

Chapter Notes: Buried Piece: A piece hemmed in by friendly pieces and pawns. Such a piece will have a difficult time actively participating, and may also interfere with the development of other pieces.

“You and I wear the dangerous looseness of doom and find it becoming.” —“Introduction: New & Selected Poems.”, E.E. Cummings

They came as a group, ambushing them in Jason’s small kitchen, the only warning— a text from Damian offering a five minute heads up. There was no knock at the door, just the turn of the lock as Dick used his key to let them in.

Jason turned away from Tim to lean back against the counter, silently appraising the group. Tim knew they were waiting for him to turn as well, but Tim refused to do so until the coffee maker started dripping dark liquid into the pot. He had no doubts that this would be a long talk and coffee would be necessary to keep his calm.

When he turned he was greeted by five pairs of eyes that followed his movements.

He hadn’t expected to see all of them here. If they were going to be lectured on their individual actions over the past couple of days, he expected it to come from Dick and Bruce. Damian had already voiced his opinions on their decisions more than enough, as far as Tim was concerned. Tim hoped that the younger boy had just come to enjoy the show… except he was having a hard time believing that. After everything that Damian had done for him and revealed to him over the course of a day, Tim understood that he took no pleasure from watching this play out. And if he wasn’t here to gloat or to chastise, then why was he here?

Jason must have been thinking something similar for he grunted and said, “Man, you called in the calvary? I guess we really are in some deep shit. What is this a family roast? Everyone’s gonna get a chance to take their best shot at us?”

Steph’s brow creased with confusion, and perhaps a small bit of pain. “We’re not here to kick you when you’re down, Jason. We’re here to help.”

Jason’s eyes slitted. “Oh, yeah? Like how you helped Tim before? Locking him in a room like he’s a child with false promises that everything will be okay?”

Tim swallowed quickly and shifted his weight. He couldn’t help the sudden flash of heat that surged through his gut at Jason’s heated words. He knew that the older boy was jumping to his defence and a large part of Tim wanted to be relieved that Jason was there defending him again, snapping at anyone who might hurt him like a vicious dog. Another part of him, however, understood how misplaced his intentions were.

Tim bit hard into the side of his lip, but couldn’t stop himself from speaking. It needed to be said.

“You don’t get to say that, Jason. You’re just as guilty as they are in this, except where they stayed… you abandoned me.”

Jason twisted around to look at him, the anger on his face slipping away to reveal the vulnerable cracks underneath. Tim couldn’t stand that raw look.

He licked his dry lips and continued. “That’s not to say I’m free of blame, because I’m not. I’m just as guilty as you.”

Bruce looked around at all of them. “We’ve all made mistakes and hurt the ones we care about as a result, but we can’t move forward until this is forgiven.”

Tim gave a weak laugh. “Forgiven? You’re being very naive if you think any of this can be forgiven and forgotten. I think I speak for both of us when I say that I might move on, but that doesn’t mean I won’t still hate you all for your actions.”

“He’s right,” said Jason, eyes cast towards the floor, evidently deep in thought. Jason shrugged one shoulder. “I love Tim and would do anything for him, but I don’t think I can ever forgive him for what he’s done. My love for him doesn’t erase my hatred for his past actions… at most one counterbalances the other.”

“What we’ve done can’t be easily forgiven, but with time, hopefully we can mend the wounds so that they won’t leave scars.”

Tim met Jason’s eyes and slid further to the side until he was leaning against the counter next to him, their elbows touching, their fingers brushing until eventually their fingers intertwined.

Dick seemed to want to smile at the sight of them together, but another thought dragged his expression into a troubled frown. “But none of that can happen until we deal with the most immediate problem. Ra’s al Ghul.”

“As past experiences have proven, he isn’t going to take no for an answer.” said Bruce. “If he won’t stop, we’ll make him stop.”

“Yeah?” snapped Tim, “How’s that?” He couldn’t help the irritation that threaded through his voice. It just felt like Bruce was rubbing salt into an open wound. After all, it was Tim who had been fighting toe to toe with Ra’s for two weeks straight, getting further from victory with every encounter. Yet here stood Bruce, pretending he had all the answers— like Tim hadn’t been wracking his brain for the same thing for days now.

Bruce eyed him in that same way he’d done the last time Tim had gotten the nerve to lash out at him. It wasn’t anger or disappointment… no. Bruce understood well enough that he didn’t have the right to feel those emotions. The look seemed like more of an acknowledgement, noting that Tim and Jason were justified in their anger and willing to let events play out in whatever way his children wanted them to.

Tim pressed his lips together. In truth he didn’t want to be fighting Bruce. He wasn’t the real enemy here. Their family’s hastily formed peace left Tim feeling like they were standing on a stretch of volcanic rock. Fractured in places and barely holding itself together, their anger spitting lava through the cracks, it would be impossible to move forward until their tempers had cooled.

Bruce looked silently between Tim and Jason for another minute, making sure that whatever needed to be said got its opening.

“We go after him together… as a family. Since it’s impossible to change his mind, the only other option we have is to take his resources away from him.”

Damian stepped forward. “Right now, Grandfather is on the hunt for you, which means that he’ll be based at Nanda Parbat. It’s the strongest league base with the largest force of assassins and the most advanced tech. We dismantle that base and he won’t be able to hunt for you. Not until he’s rebuilt his organization.”

Tim bit his lip, thinking it over. “It’s a temporary solution at best. Knowing Ra’s, he’ll have the league up and running again in a month, at most two.”

“Oh, undoubtedly,” grunted Damian.

Bruce nodded. “I know, but it’ll give you time to get back on your feet and it’ll give us time to come up with a better plan.”

“Okay,” Jason scratched behind his ear. “So dismantling a base. That doesn’t sound so hard. With the firepower on the Batwing we might be able to do it without our feet ever hitting the ground. If we’re really lucky, maybe a wall will squash Ra’s into a pancake and save us all a lot of trouble.”

Steph shifted closer to Jason to give him a not so sly fist bump.

“One can always hope, right?” she smiled.

Bruce shook his head. “We won’t be blowing up anything. We’re all going in there to take down as many ninjas as possible and lock down any valuable tech. If it can’t be accessed and altered then we’ll fry it.”

Bruce turned to Tim. “I’m leaving that part up to you, Steph, and Damian. Barbara will be assisting you remotely—”

“No!” Jason barked out so sharply that Tim flinched hard against him. The grin he’d been sporting a moment ago had dropped right off his face.

Tim stared at Jason as he pulled his hand free of Tim’s in order to advance on Bruce.

“I’m not letting you pull him into this again. Tim’s staying here. Get someone else to hack computers for you. Fuck knows we all know how to do it! You never left a stone unturned when it came to training us, that’s for sure!”

One step forward, thought Tim, two steps back.

“Jason,” Tim gripped his arm above the elbow and gave it what he hoped was a reassuring squeeze. “It’s okay. Honestly. I’ll be with Steph an—”

Jason turned on him suddenly. “No, it’s not fine! It’s not fine, Tim. I want you to stay here where you’re safe. I won’t stand by and watch him throw you into that psycho’s arms again.”

Bruce had held his tongue while Tim and Jason spoke freely with each other, but now he spoke up. “Do you really believe that Tim would be safer if we left him at home while we did this? Call me reckless for bringing him with us, but I think there’s just as much of a chance of this being a trap. What if Ra’s expects us to leave him? Do you really want to take that risk?”

A mirthless laugh bubbled out from Jason’s lips. “That’s fucking cruel, Bruce. You’re going into this mission expecting Tim to be taken from us. The only question you pose to me is if I’d rather fight alongside him and watch him get taken right in front of my eyes or leave him here in false safety.”

Tim squeezed his eyes shut.

Jason shook his head and continued, “All you really care to know is which decision I could live with.”

He’d had enough of this… He couldn’t stand here listening to this same conversation play out over and over again. All of this talk about him, yet it was never posed to him. Tim was so tired of being the chess piece moved around on the board.

He slammed his fist down on the countertop, drawing eyes to him. “Stop talking about me like I don’t have a say in any of this, because I do. I love you guys, but your opinions on this matter don’t mean shit. It’s my choice and I say I’m going.”

He’d apparently shocked the room into silence, though Damian smirked approvingly from across the room. Jason’s eyes bored into him the longest of all of them. Tim didn’t say anything, despite the discomfort of his intense gaze. He let his words hang in the air… he wanted Jason to feel them and know that they weren’t going to change.

Finally, Jason gave a half shrug, “It’s your decision. If you can live with it then so can I.”

Tim breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps they were getting somewhere after all.

Nanda Parbat, as far as secret bases went, was usually pretty desolate and hard to find from the outside. With the sonar vision in the Batwing to give them a peek inside the mountain base, though, they could usually get a good sense of what they were dropping into. Today, however, the sonar was reverberating off of the walls of empty hallways, the only movement coming from a small group of sentries completing another lap around their floor.

“Well that’s not weird at all,” blurted Steph. “Where are all the ninjas?”

Dick squinted at the monitor. “Deeper in the base, I guess. Ra’s must have gathered them where our tech can’t reach.”

“You promised me ninjas. There’d better be ninjas.”

Cass placed a hand on top of Steph’s. “I’m sure there will be plenty of ninjas once we get inside.”

Jason balked at the girls. “Hey ladies, we’re only about to engage in a dangerous battle in the hopes of saving my boyfriend from a psycho. Don’t sound so eager, would you?”

Tim blinked at him from where he was buckled into his seat. “Boyfriend?”

“Oh, is it too soon to be putting labels on things?” asked Jason with his eyebrows quirked in way that warned Tim he was arguing a futile point. “I just figured I might as well since we may all be dead in ten minutes.”

Tim couldn’t really argue with him there. “Alright, Boyfriend. Just don’t start calling me babe or anything in the middle of a fight because I will shoot you with your own gun.”

“Noted.”

Damian rolled his eyes. “Will you idiots please focus. Please— just for like, five minutes.”

“Oh, lighten up, Damian,” sighed Steph. “We’re focused.”

“Yeah, like a swarm of gnats. It’s no wonder Batman prefers to work alone.” grumbled Damian, strategically ignoring the evil-eye he got from Bruce.

“Alright,” Dick announced drawing everyone’s attention. “We’re heading into this blind as a bat.” He flashed a smile at Bruce while the rest of the group groaned. Despite his dislike of Dick’s puns, intentional or otherwise, it was still nice to have a little humor right before something this big. They might not be the best family, but they knew how to work together and ease the tension before a big mission. Tim thought that in the event that he didn’t make it out of this—if this moment was going to be his last memory of them all together, then it wasn’t a bad one to have.

“Remember your teams and tasks.” Dick continued. “Neither of these are optional. This base needs to be razed to the ground and everyone needs to be watching each other’s backs while we do it. We’re going up against an army. If we get separated, we’ll be outnumbered and then we’re all dead. Understood?”

They all nodded.

Sitting at the controls, Alfred flicked the switch to drop the ramp. It lowered with a mechanical whine until the lip hit the ground. They descended one by one into the packed snow.

Tim followed in Cass’s footprints as they head for the hidden entrance. He didn’t look back as the Batwing lifted off the ground, whipping snow up around them, and left them to their fate.

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awhitehead17 · 5 years

Text

Sunshine Activities

Batbros, Brotherly Love, Bonding, Fluff, Humour, Vacation, Sequel

Summary: While on vacation Dick spends quality time with each brother doing their selected activities.

A/N: This is a sequel to my Vacation fic I did for Batfamweek2018 earlier this year. You can read that one here if you missed it.

Enjoy! :D

It was unrealistically perfect. The weather was at a perfect temperature, not to hot and certainly not to cold. The hotel’s amazing, each room is incredibly large and each comes with a luxury bed, an on suite, personal kitchen set and to top it off they all have amazing views from the balconies which either over look the ocean or the forest. The swimming pool was deep and massive, it also had a diving board set that allowed them to try all kind of jumps.

It’s easy to say that Dick was loving it. It made a nice change to be away from the smog and crime-ridden cities and out into a sunny coast line hotel with mind blowing views. While he does miss the cities, he’s happy to have a very much needed break away from them.

It’s been three days since they all got to the hotel and Dick’s pretty sure that everyone was enjoying themselves. Thankfully the hotel wasn’t busy and that allowed everyone to somewhat relax a little easier (not fully able to relax because you know, they’re vigilantes, they can never relax enough to fully let their guard down) because at least they weren’t being bombarded with questions by the press or see flashes going off everywhere or even being pestered for an autograph. It was quiet and it was peaceful.

It was on the forth day of being at the hotel where Dick started to fulfil his promises to his brothers. His sister already had her promise fulfilled from the start as an excited Steph followed them onto the private jet. The two girls seemed to be contented enough to laze around the pool and try a variety of cocktails.

The first promise he had to complete was Jason’s. As far as he knows, Jason’s been practically avoiding everyone since arriving, the only times Dick’s actually seen Jason is either when there’s food out or the occasional time he’s been chilling in the sun by the pool with a book. However on the forth day he goes seeking Jason out, he finds his brother in his hotel room and gives him all the details he needs for that day as the shooting competition is during that afternoon. Jason takes the papers with a narrow gaze and then studies what Dick’s given him. After a moment he hums and says thanks before walking out of his room and down the corridor. Dick quietly follows behind him. it wasn’t until they were leaving the hotel that Jason turns to him.

“What you doing?” He demands seeming frustrated.

Dick gives him an innocent look, “Well I’m coming with you.”

Jason blinks at him for a moment before he’s narrowing his eyes in a glare, “Why? That wasn’t in the deal.”

“Nothing was ever said about me joining you or not.” Dick shrugs.

Jason goes to protest but pauses, as if he’s reviewing that conversation they had on the roof top that night. Jason frowns at him, “That’s not fair. And no. You’re not coming. I’m going on my own.”

His brother turns around and carries on walking down the path away from the hotel. The competition was being held in a shooting gallery just outside of the main town on the island, it was about a 30-minute walk from the hotel they were staying at.

Dick easily follows behind him, not caring about Jason’s harsh attitude towards him. “Come on Jaybird… I won’t embarrass you. I just want to watch you wipe everyone else out of the competition.”

“Fuck off Dick.” Jason growls out.

Dick doesn’t respond to that. He simply follows behind Jason enjoying the sun shine and taking in the environment surrounding them. The walk over was quiet as Jason had given up on trying to get rid of Dick and has just resulted to ignoring him.

Half an hour later they arrive at the place of the competition, they find that it’s busy but not overly busy. There’s a lot of native’s there but just as many tourists involved in the competition. As they wait in line to sign up Dick nudges Jason’s shoulder, “Nervous?” He teases lightly.

“No.” Jason snaps at him. “There’s nothing to be nervous about.”

Dick rolls his eyes, “There’s nothing wrong with feeling a little nervous Jay.”

Jason doesn’t answer him, instead he’s choosing to study everyone around them. Dick does the same as they both fall silent. Eventually they get to the front of the line and Jason puts his name down, he gets put to one side and Dick gets put to the opposite side.

Another half hour goes by before the actual competition starts. Dick’s stood with a large group of people behind a large glass window that looks into the shooting area where they can see all the competitors standing and waiting for their go. At one point he makes eye contact with Jason and jokingly waves to him, Jason rolls his eyes and flips him the bird. Dick couldn’t help but laugh at that, good old brotherly love right there.

The competition was fun to watch. There was a wide of abilities mixed in the group, some that were very precise and had incredibly good aim then there were others who couldn’t even hit the target. Each competitor had three shots and at the end of their go their points get added up, the top five will have another shoot off to declare a winner.

By the end Jason was in the top five. Dick has to keep himself from laughing out loud because these people seriously have no idea who they’re up against. To make himself look less suspicious Jason occasionally strays away from the centre of the target and hits the edge or even misses the target completely. When he does his bullseye he just laughs it off as a fluke.

Just as Dick thought, Jason gets declared the winner of the competition and even gets handed a medal and a certificate as a reward. As it’s all over everyone begins to leave and Dick meets up with Jason outside. His brother comes out wearing a grin with the medal over his neck, certificate in one hand and another piece of paper in the other hand.

Dick gestures to it, “What you got there?”

Jason holds it up for him, “A cheque for a hundred American dollars.”

Dick raises an eyebrow in surprise, “I didn’t realise there was money as a reward.”

Jason shrugs, “Neither did I, but hey, I’m not complaining.”

Dick decided to keep the comment about them not really needing extra cash because they have Bruce to himself. Jason appeared happy and proud, he doesn’t want to dampen his mood. Dick grins instead, “I knew you could do it.”

Jason rolls his eyes and starts to walk away, Dick quickly follows, “It was easy Dickhead, the real hard part was actually missing the target.”

Unlike their walk on the way, their walk back was full of chatter about the competition and what they each thought of the different competitors. When they finally reach the hotel Jason stops short of entering and turns to him, “Thanks Dick, for uh, coming today.”

Dick smiles knowingly, feeling warm inside at the rare gratitude Jason was showing him. He shrugs and tries not to make a big deal out of it like he really wants to, “No problem, Jay. It was fun.”

“Yeah… well catch you later Dickhead.”

Jason waves him off and enters the hotel and Dick watches him go, feeling happy about how the day went.

The fifth day away, Dick spends it with Tim. He hasn’t had much contact with his second youngest brother since arriving on the island, he occasionally sees Tim walking around with his camera in hand taking photos of whatever or he’s up in his room doing who knows what. One time, he thinks it must have been on the second day, Dick had caught Tim on his laptop that he had somehow snuck onto the trip. Dick immediately took the gadget away from his brother and hid it where Tim won’t find it (he hid it in Damian’s room). Tim had been sulking around for the next few days but Dick didn’t mind, he was away from work and that’s all that mattered.

He goes and finds Tim up in his room and together the two of them start making their way out of the hotel. Dick’s promise to Tim was to go with his brother to the new museum that had opened on the island to visit the technology exhibition they have going on. That day Tim seemed more cheerful to him than the last few and Dick will take that as a win.

The museum was in the main bit of town again so it takes them around half an hour to walk it. The walk wasn’t boring as it was full of chatter and banter between them.

When they get there they line up with everyone else and then slowly proceed to the front where they eventually get their tickets scanned and are allowed into the museum. They take their time walking around it, looking at all the exhibitions the museum has to offer. They read about the things that interest them, share opinions with each other and laugh at the more ridiculous items on show.

After having enough of the main museum they head for the technology exhibition. It was busier than Dick originally thought it would be, apparently a lot of people wanted to see technology through the ages, so he and Tim spend a fair amount of time weaving in and out of the crowd to get a good look at the items on show.

Most of it didn’t really interest Dick, yeah he liked his technology, especially in the field, but as a general interest it didn’t bother him too much. No, he was particularly interested in watching Tim. His brother has suddenly become a large ball of energy since entering this section. His eyes were wide in wonder and he had a giant smile on his face at what he was seeing. He would excitedly slap Dick to get his attention before rushing over to a display case, before he excitedly talks about what was inside it at a speed that even Wally and Bart would be proud of.

Dick didn’t understand at least half of what Tim was saying but the look of happiness and excitement on his brother made the bafflement worth it. It wasn’t often he’d see Tim so generally enthusiastic about things that didn’t involve capes or WE business that it made a nice change.

After about an hour and a half later he drags Tim to the museum’s canteen to grab a late lunch. At the rate they were going Tim won’t stop to eat because of how excited he’s being. Once they were done eating Tim drags him back to the technology section and they finish off looking at everything. He does have to admit though, it is interesting in seeing how everything has evolved into what it today, it’s interesting to see how it all started and what developments have been made to make it better, what changes happen and why.

They eventually leave the museum about half hour before closing time. On the way back to the hotel Dick slings an arm around his brother, “Did you have fun today kid?”

Tim grins up at him and leans into his side, “Yeah, actually, I really did. God it was so cool in seeing how it’s all evolved through the years, like you wouldn’t believe what it was really like back into the 40’s compared to what we have today! Just look at the computer!”

Dick smiles as Tim goes into a detailed analysis of the first computer back in the 1940’s and how that has lead to what they have today, he presses a kiss to the top of Tim’s head and lets him finish speaking. Tim is such a nerd that it’s adorable.

After a while Tim trails off, “Sorry for rambling Dick. I know that you aren’t that interested in it.”

Dick shakes his head at the apology and gives him a squeeze, “No, no, no. Don’t be sorry Timmy. I’m happy to hear you ramble on about this sort of thing, it makes you happy. It’s nice to see you smiling and being excitable for a change. I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

Tim smiles sheepishly and looks away, “Uh, thanks for coming with me Dick. It means a lot.”

“No problem Baby Bird. Hey, maybe when we get back home we should take a day trip to visit the Smithsonian if you’re interested.”

Dick certainly doesn’t miss the way Tim’s eyes light up at that. His brother grins up at him, “I’d love to.”

His promise to Damian was fulfilled on the sixth day away. Out of his brothers, Damian is the one he’s seen the most of before their day together. His youngest brother would often have lunch with him during the day and then occasionally spend time with him around the pool.

Unlike with his other brothers, it’s actually Damian who approaches him instead of Dick going to him. They were sat having lunch together when the youngest brings it up. He places a bit of paper in front of Dick and waits for him to read it. Dick raises an eyebrow at his brother before looking at the piece of paper, lifting it up with one hand he finds that it’s a leaflet to do with guided tours around the forest that surrounds the hotel.

He looks at Damian and the child speaks, “There’s a guided tour I wish to go on in 45 minutes Grayson, I wish for you to accompany me.”

Dick raises both eyebrows in surprise, “I’m surprised you want to go on one of these little D, wouldn’t you prefer to just go around on your own at your own pace?”

“I would, but there are questions that I want answered, according to that pamphlet the Guides are knowledgeable of animals within this area and they’ll be able to answer any question I have.”

Dick looks at the leaflet again before looking back at Damian, “And you want me to come along with you?” Dick’s trying to fight the smile that’s threatening to appear on his face.

Damian nods his head once, “Yes. Father wishes to stay around the pool area, Cain is with Brown having ‘girl time’ as they called it and as if I would ask either Drake or Todd to come along. You are my only other choice Grayson.”

The smile finally breaks out onto his face and he grins at Damian, it’s cute how he doesn’t just say he wants to spend time with him. “Sure Damian, I’ll come along with you.”

An hour later Dick finds himself following a tour guide as they walk through the local forest. Damian was right up in front next to the one of two Guides taking them through the forest. The group wasn’t big, there was only eight of them in total so at least it wasn’t too crowded.

Up ahead hears Damian asking a variety of questions to the Guide, thankfully the Guide takes it in stride and easily answers all the questions the kid seems to have, he even offers Damian extra information about the environment surrounding them.

Dick observes his brother as Damian was completely in his element. There was a rare look on his face that showed how much he was in awe with it all. It wasn’t very often that Dick sees Damian act his age at all, the kid always tries to come across older than he is and he is more mature than what he’s supposed to be. It makes him smile to see Damian acting close to his actual age for once, to be a kid where he hasn’t been one before.

About half way through the tour they all stop and have a break. The guides hand out little fruit packs to everyone as snacks and even give out bottled water to each of them. As they eat and drink the guides tell them the history of the forest they’re in and what their plans for the future are. Normally Dick wouldn’t find this sort of thing interesting but it was all worth it to see that look of awe on Damian’s face beside him.

Towards the end of the tour the group of them are joined by some of the forest inhabitants. Little brown monkeys make their way towards them and climb the trees surrounding them. Some even get confident enough to come right up next to them.

One in particular started to climb over Damian. Dick couldn’t help but laugh at his brother (and take pictures of course), he would be concerned but the smile on Damian’s face said it all, he was over the moon to be having a monkey climbing all over him. One of the Guides holds out a banana to Damian, without taking his eyes of the creature Damian grabs the yellow fruit and holds it up to the monkey. A bright grin appears on his face as the monkey snatches it away from him and starts to peel and eat it while perched on his shoulder.

Eventually the monkeys get bored and leave. Damian’s face drops a bit but there was still a hint of a smile crossing over his face. They all get back to the hotel and part ways. Dick smiles down at his brother.

“Enjoy it, little D?”

“It was incredible Grayson! Did you see how the monkey was perched on my shoulder and the way he peeled that banana?” Damian pauses in his excitement and seems to get a hold of himself. “I mean it was satisfactory Grayson. The Guides were knowledgeable and were able to answer all my questions, I found it very educational.”

Dick couldn’t help but laugh at his brother again for that change in personality, “Sure Dames, whatever you say.”

“Well I am off to find father, your company was appreciated today Grayson, thank you.”

Dick watches as Damian wonders off through the hotel in his search for Bruce. That kid was really something else. Overall Dick’s just glad that he had a good time (even though he may try to cover it up).

Looking back over the last three says, Dick’s just glad that all his brothers seem to be having a good time away, that was the aim overall anyway so at least Dick knows that he’s achieved his goal during this vacation.

#batbros #dick grayson #Jason Todd #Tim Drake #Damian Wayne #fanfiction #fluff #sequel #vacation #humour #bonding #Brotherly Love

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marudny-robot · 6 years

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About donuts and coffee

Fandom: Batman (Comics) Rating: Gen Warning: unhealthy obsession (over donuts. mainly), cursing? some slight cursing A/N: It was supposed to be on February 8th (because Fat Thursday and pączki), but… exams, so I'm very sorry it's late.

With Special thanks to @lilalou-draws because if it wasn't for that doughnut shirt and her help, that fic would never happen.

Translations at the end.

Summary: little collection of drabbles about Tim Drake, donuts and unhealthy obsession (and sometimes coffee).

Tim was seven when he first tried donuts.

Surprisingly, he was also seven when he tried coffee – mistaking it for the cocoa (and it wasn't his fault, because his nanny apparently had to make coffee and cocoa in similar cups and put them besides each other) – but back then, it wasn't up to his tastes.

But, going back to donuts. The first time he tried that sweet pastry, was when a girl from his class decided to share with him. Back then, the seven-soon-to-be-eight years old Tim felt as he had just met the love of his life.

Although, to this day, he has no idea why that girl wanted to share her doughnut with him, nor why she acted so weird when he asked if she had more – but it wasn't important now.

What matters is that Tim, still to this day, remembers the vicious battle of minds between him and his current nanny at that time. That woman was adamant that Tim could not eat that many donuts – or better! That he should not eat them at all. And, unfortunately, she was really good in guessing where her charge hidden all those donuts.

It's not like Tim was joking when he admitted to considering her his first enemy. She was good.

But back then Tim was better.

(He still remembers her last day working for Drakes'. That stink eye she send him, before closing the door – and that curious look from his mother as she asked him, later in the day, what has he done?)

He was sure he won. After all, he never saw her again! There was no more fight! No one to tell him no to donuts! What other sign he needed?!

…But here he was. In Blüdhaven, in civvies, with his brother – Officer Grayson.

…And so was She. Talking to Dick about how policemen are usually seen with donuts and what bad image this brings and did you know children shouldn't eat that much sugar?

Tim swore, she looked at him, as she said the last part.

And his brother, Dick, nodded to her words of wisdom – in the end refusing to buy that box of donuts, they planned to eat today.

Tim glared at his former nanny. She won that battle. But the war wasn't yet over.

&&&&

It sounded cliché. The Big Bad wanting to talk with the Protagonist one-on-one, directing him to selected room and sending away his guards and servants.

For all that banter Tim had with Ra's Al Ghul over the comms, before they even saw each other since that whole plan 'let's help Tim find clues for Bruce whereabouts' started… Tim could foresaw this.

It was too cliché. Why he hasn't foreseen this?!

He cursed mentally, looking at the table in the middle of the room, full of delicious looking cakes, with baskets of fresh fruits as well as the dried ones and pitchers with tea and coffee. Plate full of freshly baked donuts laid in the middle of the table d a r i n g h i m.

“Why don't you eat something, Detective?” Ra's asked sitting on one of two chairs besides the table. Second chair obviously for Tim.

“…No, thank you.” He replied after the moment, not going to sit. “I was repeatedly warned about old guys in the white van, you know?”

Ra's took a sip from his cup, calmly.

“…Are you aware, Detective, that there are places in the world, where calling people old is considered rude and …inconvenient for the speaking party?”

“…Are you aware that some people consider eight hundred as ancient? Besides, you forgot to negate the metaphorical van.”

“And you aren't bothering to excuse your statement, knowing full well that there might be repercussions for your insolence.”

“What about the van?”

“What van, Timothy?”

“Oh! For the love of-! Forget it. I don't want your snacks. No thanks. They are probably laced with water from Lazarus Pit or something…”

“Quite astound observation. What gave it away?”

Tim was this close to flipping the damned table.

&&&&

Did you got it?

Steph messaged Tim.

Yeah. Just brought it from the Manor.

and??? did you tried it????

not yet

what are you waiting for then?!?! your sister wants pics!

Tim rolled his eyes at the demand, exasperated. He just got back from work, stopping at the Manor to take the package while trying to avoid everyone, and went back to his Nest. He was tired and he also had to look at the case files before patrol.

He heard the ping for the new message.

baby brother

picture?

Great. It seemed like Cass also wanted to annoy him.

He sighed, resigned to his fate. He threw his phone on the couch – ignoring all those pings, which were a sign of Steph and Cass being bored – and went to take a shower.

(Besides, before, he actually couldn't wait for that package to arrive.)

About hour or two later, the girls were laughing at pics Tim have sent them.

On one, you could see Tim in front of the mirror, wearing red hoodie and aviator glasses on his face. In his hand he hold his phone (in new pink & doughnut patterned case) – indicating what he used to take the picture. Dozens of phone straps and charms with little coffee cups, donuts and marshmallows were hanging from it. Caption said: 'couldn't decide'.

Other pic must have been taken by someone else (or Tim must have use his camera) as his phone was seen inside his pocket. On the pic, Tim with his hoodie on, was crouching on the floor, making lopsided peace sign with his hands. Besides him was big donut plushie with little hands and legs and cute little smiling face on the top. There was no caption.

On the last picture, camera was placed on one end of the table, so that both chairs on the opposite sides could be seen. On one chair sat Tim – on the other, placed on stacks of books, was coffee-cup plushie similar to the doughnut one. On the table, in front of each, were placed cups with coffee. In the center of the picture (and between the cups) stood single glass with one fake flower in it. Caption said: 'Perfect date <3'.

On all pictures, Tim hold perfect poker face.

&&&&

Lucius stopped mid-sentence.

“Bruce? Is everything alright?”

Bruce Wayne didn't turn to Lucius to answer him. Instead he hold his gaze, looking at his middle son.

Tim – Timothy – was sitting at the other end of the conference table wearing the most. Eyesore. Thing! that Bruce had laid eyes upon.

“Tim.” Bruce said, almost not intoning the question and going straight for blaming his son for his new migraine.

In that moment everyone in the conference room stopped talking. All invested in the confrontation between father and son.

“Bruce.” Tim replied, non-pulsed.

Bruce raised eyebrows in question.

Tim raised his, asking different question.

Bruce's eyebrows fell back to normal. He send Tim lighter version of his dadglare.

“What?” Tim asked, sipping his coffee.

Bruce gestured vaguely with his hand at Tim.

“Can't you just say, like normal person for once?”

“Your sweatshirt, Tim.”

“What of it?” Tim took a sip of his coffee.

“Why?”

“Because, I'm cold? No spleen here, remember?”

Bruce was done. He hid his face in his hands and counted to ten, breathing slowly. Then counted to another ten.

“Oh! You meant, why that one, right?” Tim asked, while Bruce tried to calm himself. His father nodded, feeling a spark of something akin to hope.

Tim grinned and pulled at his pink sweatshirt with doughnut pattern, gesturing at it. “Cool, isn't it?! Cass sent me this. She was worried I might be cold. She is just the best.”

Bruce felt the spark die in the most horrible way possible.

&&&&

“Jay? Are you listening to me?”

“Stopped a while ago. You aren't saying anything new.”

“I'm telling you intel for your major case. Some appreciation would be nice.”

“As I said – nothing new.”

Tim glared at him. He reached for his coffee, but before he could grab the mug, Jason snatched it and put on the highest shelf – far away from Tim.

Tim looked bewildered – and little angry – at Jason. “What's your fucking problem?!”

“I don't have a problem, Timmers. You have. I'm just helping.”

“Is it intervention?”

“Might as well be.”

Tim crossed his arms in front of his chest. He did not pout, but he also refused to talk to the other man. Jason shrugged, silence not being a problem for him. He went back to the kitchen counter and continued his project.

Tim for first two minutes considered grabbing his mug from the shelf – and planning the way to do it without Jason's immediate intervention. In the end he admitted that, sadly, there was no way he could grab that mug without Jason interfering and spilling it's contents. He could go with more elaborate plan (and probably also save the precious liquid) but…

But for this he would also have to give a damn – which wasn't happening today. Nope. Not a chance.

He sighed deeply, suddenly feeling very tired. There was no point in arguing about the case, if that was how Jason wanted it, but he also didn't know what to do now (and wasn't ready to get up and go home).

Thankfully, Tim knew the best remedy for boredom, which he learned during his childhood – observing what Jason was doing. Unfortunately, without his favorite camera.

“…Are you making a cake?” he asked curious, after few minutes of silent observation.

Jason turned to him, confusion on his face.

“No?” He replied and turned back. “I'm kneading dough.”

“…Why?”

“Because I want to? And I can?” he halfway turned to Tim and added: “You won't believe how good it is for working out frustrations. What, you want to help?”

Tim shrugged. “I could, if you want. But I would rather eat.”

“Good, because I don't want you to help me with this.” Not looking up from what he was doing, he pointed at box laying in the corner. “Those are failures. Leave all too burnt ones and you can eat the rest.”

Tim looked inside the said box, surprised. He took one of the bread rolls from there.

“They are all fresh…?” he squeezed one. “I don't think there is even one burnt one.” Tim heard Jason cursing. “What for do you even need burnt ones?”

“For Bruce, who else? I'm not giving Alfred burnt ones.”

“Then, who gets the newest batch?” Tim gestured at Jason's work.

“For Alfred. Hopefully.”

“…Can't you just give him one of those?”

“Are you kidding me?!” Jason retorted, abandoning his work to turn to Tim.

“Timmers. Those? Those are shit.” Jason grabbed one at shoved it at Tim's face, making him fall back. “Those ones are too brown. These – too white. These are too crunchy while those two were baking so short, that it's wonder they still have the same shape.”

Tim swatted Jayson hand away from him.

“Yes, Jay – now I totally can see the difference.”

Jayson huffed annoyed at Tim's sarcasm.

“Forget it.” he said annoyed and got back to his work.

Now, Tim felt like an asshole. He still had no clue, why Jason was striving for perfection (where those bread rolls he made, were actually delicious), but, maybe, he could said it in different way.

Tim went to stand besides Jason. “Sorry.” He started, as he leaned on the counter and looked at Jayson. “Didn't meant to… laugh at you or something. I just honestly believe that those bread rolls in the box are delicious and I think that Alfred will be happy with them. You know – no need to be hard on yourself.”

Jason nodded, showing Tim that he was listening. “Yeah, I'm aware that Alfred will love it. Alfred will love whatever I bring him, even if I bring him failed try at Tamareans food, only making subtle excuses to not eat it. That's how awesome Alfred is and also that's not the problem here.”

“So, what's the problem?”

“The problem is that I have to show someone that I'm better and that I can make edible food, thank you very much.… And Alfred is the only one I know, who can tell me what's wrong with it.”

Tim nodded slowly, trying to not think why Jason got so… worked up about the whole deal.

But curiosity got better of him.

“And that someone is…?”

“The same person that showed me how to bake and make other things. Some old lady I've met in Germany – she and her family runs bakery. They lent me a bed, in exchange I help them with bakery.”

“That's sounds nice.”

“Because it was. Nice family. They had two daughters and a dog.”

“Cool. But you mentioned showing her who's be-”

Tim jumped, when Jason slammed his fist on the dough.

“Who's better. Yes.” Jason continued to calmly knead the dough. “Because that granny doesn't want to share her recipe unless, I quote: 'Du wirst aufhörfen, diese Brötchen zu backen, bis sie so dunkel sind wie du.'” Jason grimaced, parodying whoever told him this.

Tim gave Jason a questioning look, wanting Jason to translate – but sadly, he was ignored.

Jason continued, angered – not caring who was listening.

“'So dunkel wie ich?'?! That audacity! That stupid hag and her stupid white-ass Brötchen! Sie hat von Brötchen geträumt, die so dunkel sind wie meine! Who the fuck does she thinks she is?! Saying stupid shit as that?!! Ha?!”

Tim took few steps away from Jason, moment when he saw others eyes turn slightly green. He didn't plan to be a victim of whatever Jason was throwing tantrum for.

Thankfully, after minute or two of unrecognizable-for-Tim German words and five minutes of taking deep breaths, Jason visibly calmed down.

“Soo… you mentioned also knowing how to make pastries…” Tim said after the moment of silence. Jason nodded.

Tim grinned. “So Jay, how do you feel about making me some donuts for that intel?”

“No.” he replied. “Forget it, Replacement. We gonna take care of this obsession of yours, after we take care of the coffee one.”

Again. Tim did not pout.

&&&&

Dick tried to be quiet, as he slowly shortened the distance. It was for the good cause, he swore!

“Grayson. Put. The phone. DOWN.” growled Damian, not looking at Dick.

Dick sighed. Busted – he commented to himself. He didn't put the phone down, but he stopped sneaking and walked normally to the younger boy.

He ruffled Damian's hair. “What cha' doing, little D? Eating donuts? What about Alfred's dinner, huh?”

Damian glared at him. “You saw nothing”, he muttered giving almost perfect impersonation of his father. Unfortunately, powder on his face and another doughnut in his hand destroyed the effect.

Fortunately, Dick managed to snap a photo. That one would definitely go to family album.

“Sure, Dami. Whatever you say.” Dick replied, ignoring murderous looks from his baby brother. He took one of the few remaining donuts. “Hey, do you know who left that box here?”

“I saw Drake bringing it. He put it here temporarily, when father called for him.”

Dick was coughing. Panic overtook him.

“Those were Timmy's…?”

As he started saying he felt the temperature in the room fall. The feeling of danger being near, which was honed trough all his vigilante's years, was now screaming in his head. Slowly, he turned around, only to stand face-to-face with Tim.

Tim, who was ready to gut Dick and hide the body.

“…Timmy… little bro…Do you…want donut… maybe…?”

Tim glared at Dick one last time. He turned to Damian, giving the oldest a break.

Dick took a deep breath, to calm his pounding heart. And another one. It was working. Until he remembered that he left angry Tim with D a m i a n.

He was about ready to stop another little brothers quarrel (and how much he hoped to not do this…!), when his eyes look upon the most strange view in recent month. Namely, Tim and Damian talking calmly and sharing donuts.

Those donuts had to be laced with some poison! Dick's mind supplied, crashing on other explanations.

Not aware of oldest brother dilemma, Tim laughed at his other brother's joke.

“Come on, Dami. We will take Titus on the walk, while I show you the best place with donuts.” Tim suggested smiling and prompting Damian to go after him. He then exited from the kitchen.

Damian silently agreed to Tim's offer. He took the last doughnut from the box, while glancing at Grayson.

“What?” Damian asked, seeing shocked face of his older brother. “You expected us to fight? It's getting really old, Richard.”

Damian went to get Titus, not waiting for Dick's answer.

Dick didn't know what to say to this turn of events. After a moment he laughed, relieved. (But he would check that doughnut place later. Who knows what strange hallucinogens they may add to the recipe.)

translation:

'You'll stop baking those bread buns till they are dark as you'

'Dark as me'?!

She dreams of having her buns dark as mine!!

A/N: Can we talk about polyglot Waynes?

#Tim Drake #Dick Grayson #Ra's al Ghul #Bruce Wayne #Stephanie Brown #Cassandra Cain #Jason Todd #Damian Wayne #Maruda writes #and I'm done with writing for now :D #I had no idea how to title this fic #still don't

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jacobtmcelroy-blog · 7 years

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Batman the Animated Series: ALL Episodes Ranked

Over my lifetime, I have seen many live action and animated television programs. Out of all of those, I have never watched a show I have as much adoration for as Batman: The Animated Series. The series premiered in 1992 and could have been a cheap cash-in on the success of the first two Tim Burton movies. However, thanks to the storytelling skills of Bruce Timm, Kevin Altieri, and many others, Batman TAS was a massive success. The show was dark, mature, but still great for children and adults alike. Two episodes even won Emmy’s. So, I recently re-watched the series and decided I am going to take on the brave task of ranking every episode. Because there are so few purely bad episodes of Batman TAS, choosing the top groups was incredibly difficult. However, I did my best to complete the tall task and my hard work lies below.

The Dreadful, Horrible Tier

As I previously stated, there are very few bad episodes of the BTAS. Very, very few. However, those select few are pretty atrocious. Basically, this is the “what this show could have been with lazier, cheaper writers tier”.

102. Showdown

This episode has absolutely nothing to do with Batman. That is all. Let’s continue.

101. I’ve Got Batman in My Basement

Batman: The Phantom Menace. Seriously, these kids were as bad as Jake Lloyd Anakin.

100. Tyger, Tyger

Who thought turning Catwoman into an actual cat was a good idea? It definitely was not.

99. Love is a Croc

Odd pairing couple strategy just ended up being... odd.

98. Cat Scratch Fever

Man, Catwoman had some bad episodes. This awkward commentary on animal testing was one of them.

97. The Demon Within

This just feels nothing like a Batman episode. The evil kid is really annoying too.

96. Critters

Joel Schumacher takes over the helm of this hilariously bad episode... at least it seems like.

Of Lower Quality Than Others Tier

While not horrible and a disgrace to existence like the prior episodes listed... these are not too great either. They are at least watchable. Usually these are either uninteresting, laughably entertaining, or just REALLY mediocre. At least there’s no “I’ve Got Batman in My Basement” here.

95. Prophecy of Doom

Batman versus... Miss Cleo, the fraud psychic from the 90′s! It’s about as interesting as it sounds honestly.

94. The Underdwellers

Hey Arnold’s Sewer King episode was much more interesting. Not much else to say honestly.

93. Terrible Trio

Talk about appropriate title names. The plot isn’t terrible, but the villains certainly are. One of the show creators called this the worst episode of the DCAU.

92. Make’em Laugh

See? Even the Joker can have a bad episode.

91. Blind as a Bat

“ALFRED, I CAN’T SEE!!!” Possibly the worst delivery from Kevin Conroy for one of the most melodramatic lines of the series. The Penguin has another flop here.

90. The Cape and Cowl Conspiracy

The poor man’s Riddler takes on Batman in this underachieving episode that actually could have been interesting.

89. The Forgotten

Cool Hand Batman! If the villain wasn’t a joke, maybe I would not forget this episode as much.

88. Moon of the Wolf

Entertainingly stupid, but also stupid. Why would “advanced werewolf-ism” cure werewolf-ism?!

87. Sideshow

A bit of a controversial placement on this list, but I just don’t think Killer Croc is a sympathetic villain. He is pretty much a pure evil character. Just my opinion.

Jason Bourne Amnesia Tier..../Forgettable

We have escaped the very worst of what BTAS had to offer. The problem is there are so many good episodes of the series that some fall through the cracks. Oh, and there are also some mediocre episodes in this tier too. Especially, forgettable sequels to really good first episodes.

86. TIme Out of Joint

Basically, this is one of those. A disappointing sequel to a stellar introductory episode to the Clock King. This one also has too much of the Saturday Morning cartoon feel to it.

85. Animal Act

Mad Hatter definitely had some good episodes in this series.This one was not one of them. The writers tried to institute Dick’s circus past into this episode, but they just don’t do it very well.

84. Cold Comfort

Essentially, this is the Saturday Morning cartoon Mr. Freeze episode. Both of his other episodes were mature, dark, and tautly written. This one is not terrible, but it is just really disappointing based on his prior two.

83. Be a Clown

This episode isn’t near as bad as I remembered it to be and it actually has a nice lesson for kids and parents. However, there are some really stupid parts. Why did Bruce, Mayor Hill, Gordon, or anyone else not recognize the Joker in disguise... AS A CLOWN?! He even puts a bomb with a Joker face on the cake. Oh, and the kid is kind of annoying.

82. Fear of Victory

This is not a terrible episode either, but it feels a lot more juvenile than most episodes in the series. Comparing this to the other Scarecrow episodes makes that more obvious. Pretty forgettable too.

81. Bane

Bane’s sole appearance on his own in this series is fairly mediocre honestly. His fight with Batman is good, but Bane’s representation in this series is sort of laughable. His lines and character are ridiculously over the top and almost cringe-worthy at times. Also, Robin is a joke this episode.

80. Torch Song

I have always thought Firefly was an underrated Batman villain, but his iteration here leaves a lot to be desired. His burning the city plot is kind of cliche and the girl he is stalking is really unlikable. However, the ending has a nice “burning” feeling to it. (*facepalm*) One of the better of the series actually.

79. A Bullet for Bullock

I wish this was a more memorable episode based on the fun but complicated relationship between Batman and Bullock. However, the abrupt and awkward ending drops this episode’s quality significantly.

78. The Lion and the Unicorn

Looking into Alfred’s past and making him more involved was a good idea, but bringing back such a mediocre villain like Red Claw sure was not. Her accent is just as awful as it was the first time.

77. Fire from Olympus

Fire from Olympus is entertaining, but Maxie Zeus and his plot is honestly too cartoony and goofy for a cartoon with the tonality of BTAS.

76. It’s Never Too Late

This is not a bad episode by any means, but I forget it exists most of the time. Enough said.

75. P.O.V.

Remember what I said for the last one? Same case here.

74. Girls’ Night Out

Despite Supergirl’s appearance, Girls’ Night Out is by far the least memorable of the Harley/Ivy team up episodes. The dynamic between Supergirl and Batgirl is fun at times though.

Flawed... But Still Entertaining Tier

This next group of episodes is a decent step up from the last section due to them being a little less forgettable or at least trying a new concept, even if it does not fully work. Still, once again, these are where we are starting to venture into the decent category. (very good for most other shows...)

73. Chemistry

This episode had an interesting and much higher usagee of Bruce Wayne, which helped its cause. However, the plot feels way too similar to the superior “House and Garden” episode from the second season making it a retread.

72. Night of the Ninja

Kyodai Ken brings in elements from Bruce’s past, which I always like when the series does. However, his plot and overall character, in this episode, are just kind of boring and cliched. His fight with Bruce near the end (with a nice touch as Summer is covered by a curtain) was pretty solid.

71. The Worry Men

The Worry Men is fun and is full of fan service at the end, but its twist is just a little too predictable for my liking.

70. What is Reality?

The Riddler’s back... and he either watched Spy Kids 3, Tron, or Sword Art Online while he was gone! The use of virtual reality really has not aged well in this episode... at all. Still, it’s at least fun even if parts only sort of make sense.

69. Mad as a Hatter

Oh ho ho, another controversial placement. While almost all the established origin stories are good in this show, I have always felt this one pales in comparison with the others. Not saying it is bad, but Hatter’s first episode’s plot does not pop out to me as much as others.

68. Sins of the Father

Tim Drake’s origin episode should have been a lot better than this. The death of his father did not leave him with a single tear, which took out all the needed emotion in this episode away. Compare that to the masterful Robin’s Reckoning. Dick’s reaction after leaving the circus for the first time carried more emotion than this entire episode combined. Still, at least it is entertaining.

67. Off Balance

Off Balance is thoroughly entertaining and introduces us to Talia and briefly Ra’as. However, it just does not stand on its own well. It’s well... off balance. (Da dum tis)

66. Eternal Youth

The sight of Poison Ivy’s end plan is pretty horrifying. Alfred and a lady friend are a bigger part in this episode, which is also a nice touch. The part that bothers me is not a single person recognizes Poison Ivy’s Clark Kent disguise. She should have had a lot of media coverage after trying to kill Harvey Dent, right?

65. The Cat and the Claw

Catwoman just could not stop from being paired with either bad villains or bad villain plots, could she? The parts that focus on her and her relationship with Batman in this episode were great as most would expect. However, Red Claw and her atrociously fake accent is such a boring villain that it takes away from the rest of the episode.

64. Avatar

Batman: Raiders of the Lost Egyptian Tomb. This is sort of an out there episode for Batman TAS, but admittedly it is pretty entertaining. Bruce, Talia, and Ra’as have such an interesting relationship that it makes any episode with all three of them in it at least fun. Once again though, this just does not feel much like a Batman episode.

63. Cult of the Cat

I really do not like the re-designed Catwoman suit in the later seasons of the series. I had to say it. Besides that, Cult of the Cat is a fun Catwoman episode that lets her be slightly more evil than normal. The action is high octane and kickass here too. However, the villains are kind of stock and bland making this episode not stick out as much as it should.

62. The Last Laugh

“You Killed Captain Clown!”. What a wonderful line and moment of the series. Besides that, line nothing really stick out from the pack of great Joker episodes in BTAS. The plot is okay, but forgettable.

61. Lock-Up

This episode never reaches the heights that it should given timing of it to all of those villain reform episodes. It is entertaining, a little silly (Bruce’s smoke suitcase he borrowed from Clark Kent, I guess), but cannot land the Shoryuken it sets up before the time skip. However, the ending is brilliant and one of the best in the series.

Now These Episodes Are Good Tier

Now, this is what I was talking about. From here on out, I can say every episode it at least in the good category and would be really good for most other shows. Are episodes in this tier masterpieces? No, but while they would not be the first I would recommend, watching these will at least entertain and leave most viewers feeling mostly satisfied.

60. Paging the Crime Doctor

The creators of the show dub this episode as “the geezer episode”. Despite this moniker, the storytelling under the hood is both suspenseful and gives a different feel than many other episodes of the series. The only real downside is we never the see “The Crime Doctor” again in the series, which is a shame because he is an interesting character. It makes the episode lose some of its punch because of it.

59. Holiday Knights

While not groundbreaking, Holiday Knights is a really fun episode. In fact, it is the only anthology episode in the series, which gives it a different vibe. Of the three stories, the best one I believe is the Harley/Ivy going with Bruce on a shopping spree story. The following two are not quite as strong, but fun episode all and all.

58. Heart of Steel

Holy invasion of the body snatchers Batman! The fact this is a two part episode feels a bit odd to me, but it is entertaining despite it being way over the top. Building up Barbara’s character and her relationship with Bruce was a nice touch here.

57. Day of the Samurai

Batman meets anime. The Big O? Not quite, but we will get to that later. Day of the Samurai is a much better Kyodai Ken episode than his prior appearance, but still feels a little out of place. However, the setting and classic samurai style to the story makes Day of the Samurai an entertaining watch.

56. Zatanna

Zatanna is one of my favorite DC heroines, and her appearance here came out of nowhere for me. While the plot and Batman/Zatanna team-up is really fun, the villain is kind of average and forgettable. The flashbacks in this episode were particularly strong on another note.

55. Christmas with the Joker

“Jingle Bells! Batman smells! Robin laid an egg!”. Christmas with the Joker sure is not deep, but it is still a fun Christmas episode that I watch every year during the Christmas season. The only aspect of the episode that bothers me is that the ending is incredibly similar to The Last Laugh. Still though, nice Christmas episode.

54. Mean Seasons

When an episode like Mean Seasons only finishes mid-pack, you know you have a good show on your hands. Mean Seasons is a clever narrative on age and beauty standards in modern times in the entertainment industry. It stands up really well. However, for some reason or another I still forget about it when I do my watchthroughs of the show.

53. Appointment in Crime Alley

Roland Daggett appears in episodes all over the board in quality it seems like. While Appointment is not his best episode, it is definitely solid. The ending is another one of the best ones in the series. Once again, not much terribly wrong here, I just tend to forget about it.

52. The Mechanic

The Mechanic is a highly underappreciated episode of the show. I usually find it ranked in the bottom ten to twenty in most lists that I see. Unlike most, I think the Mechanic has great action and a nice, different twist on the origin of the batmobile and its creator, which one never really thinks about. Plus, the duck scene is one of Penguin’s most menacing of the series. Is it deep? No. Is it fun? Yes.

51. Batgirl Returns

Of all the characters who received great iterations in BTAS, one of the more underrated ones was Batgirl/Barbara. Her character is extremely likable. Combine her and Catwoman (plus a disapproving Robin) and you get a fun episode. This episode fades in comparison to her premiere episode, but this one is pretty good too.

50. On Leather Wings

The first produced episode of Batman is definitely a good one. In a rare occasion for this show, I believe the sequel to this episode is superior. However, that does not mean On Leather Wings is a bad episode. The action is great and it is a good early Batman against Bullock episode.

49. Baby Doll

Well, here comes another controversial placement. I do definitely think Baby-Doll is an emotional, zany episode with a solid ending, but it just feels too zany and unbelievable at times. Despite that opinion, Baby Doll is one of the more interesting original villains introduced in this show. She’s certainly a lot better here than in “Love is a Croc”.

48. Second Chance

While The Riddler will always be my favorite Batman villain, I personally believe Two-Face was the best and most consistently written villain in this series. All of the episodes based around him are good, but that also means some fade into the mix. Second Chance is one of those due to Judgment Day using a similar twist in a little better way. That is not to say Second Chance is not good. Because it definitely is.

47. Beware the Creeper

Woah, what a zany, fun episode. This could also be one of the most risque in the series too, especially due to the very seductive, and hilarious, Harley Quinn inside the pie mix dance for her and the Joker’s anniversary. The Creeper himself is a crazier version of the Joker, created in the same way the Joker was in the 1989 film. I did not think a crazier version of the Joker was possible, but alas here he is. While I do not think this episode reaches quite the heights it could, the Joker screaming in fear to get away from the “crazy guy” is never not funny.

These Are Really Good Tier

Well, you read the tier name. Let’s continue.

46. The Strange Secret of Bruce Wayne

Now, this is what I am talking about. An interesting plot, a great early series supervillain team up, and a hilarious twist make Dr. Strange’s lone appearance on BTAS a good one. My only real complaint is Bruce makes some uncharacteristically stupid decisions in this episode that propels the plot into motion.

45. Vendetta

Killer Croc has never been amongst my favorite Batman villains, but this tautly written episode makes the best use of (solo) Croc in the series. Besides Croc’s appearance here, the Batman/Bullock relationship is explored and is made a central focus of this episode. As one may expect, I like that.

44. You Scratch My Back

As previously stated, Catwoman had some real duds in this series. However, her later appearances tended to be solid. Teaming Catwoman up with a rebellious and somewhat angsty Nightwing was a smart move by the writers here. While I saw the twist of the episode coming, it was still really entertaining and made for one of Selina’s best episodes of the series.

43. The Ultimate Thrill

So... this could be one of the racier episodes of non-adult cartoons I have seen. Roxy Rocket mounts a rocket for a large portion of the episode, gets off due to Batman chasing her, and is half-dressed a large amount of time. I can understand why this episode was skipped when it aired later on. Besides what I mentioned, The Ultimate Thrill is a really solid episode with really nice action setpieces. It all feels a little... strange, but still a good episode.

42. Legends of the Dark Knight

Episodes like this one with so many in jokes only comic book fans would understand are wonderful. The kids’ throwbacks to the 60′s campy Batman and the gritty Frank Miller Dark Knight Returns Batman are spot on. I also love the jab at Joel Schumacher with the kid named Joel’s ridiculous description of what he thinks Batman is like. It’s hilarious. The only real uninteresting part of this episode is the frame story.

41. Riddler’s Reform

Of all of the season 2 redemption episodes, Riddler’s falls into the upper tier. Yeah, a couple we will talk about soon are definitely better, but Nygma’s reform path is a good one. I like how Ed actually sort of wants to reform in this episode but is just to obsessed with riddling Batman and Robin to actually reform. Oh, and the ending is executed really, really well.

40. Read My Lips

I have always found the Ventriloquist to be an underrated Batman villain despite how silly he is in premise. The writers of the animated series always utilized the character’s multiple personality syndrome really well and in the most realistic way possible. As one may guess, the character’s premiere episode was really good. However, (unpopular opinion) I think some of his later episodes are a nice step up.

39. Joker’s Favor

How does the average Gotham citizen view the Joker? Well, similarly to how most of us would view a homicidal maniac it ends up. Joker’s relentless torture of an average guy is an interesting idea for an episode that is well executed throughout. Another plus is this episode created Harley Quinn. So, there’s that. Oh, by the way, that makeshift bat signal would not have worked if Bruce was 100 feet further ahead.

38. Nothing to Fear

Besides one misstep of an episode, Scarecrow is another villain with a tremendous track record in BTAS. His premiere episode is a great introduction to the character and slowly introduces who the character actually is and why his motives are what they are. Crane’s later episodes are mostly improvements, so we will talk more about those soon.

37. Shadow of the Bat

As I said earlier, Batgirl’s representation in this series is well done. The way the writers introduced Barbara first similarly to the way the writers introduced Harvey Dent and Two-Face gave viewers a basis for the character early. As most two part episodes in this series, Shadow is great. The slow burn of Batgirl being looked at as a joke to a somewhat reliable ally for Batman and Robin is written well.

36. Deep Freeze

Backing up Heart of Ice was an almost impossible task. While Deep Freeze is a lesser episode in comparison to the aforementioned masterpiece, Deep Freeze is a terrific Mr. Freeze episode... even though it inspired the plot of Batman and Robin. Despite that, the emotion is still here and Mr. Freeze’s voice is still kick-ass.

35. Mudslide

Similarly to Deep Freeze, Mudslide is a small step down from its predecessor, but Feat of Clay was one of the best of the series. So, take that as it is. Mudslide continues the tragic downfall of the drug addict Matt Hagan and his yearning to become fully human again. This episode does a stellar job at showing showing what desperation can do to those most in need of a cure to their ails.

34. Birds of a Feather

The Penguin had a few major clunkers in this series, but Birds of a Feather is far from that. In fact, it is another one of the best attempts at reform episode in the series. In fact, I was halfway cheering for Penguin during the course of the episode because of his sincere effort. The ending is both tragic and fitting for character like Oswald despite this.

33. Harley’s Holiday

If one would like to watch one of the funniest episodes of Batman, look no further than here. Parts of Harley’s Holiday are hysterical. One scene (at about 1:30 here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J064TI8WDKo) where Harley recognizes Bruce’s chin and identifies him as Bruce Wayne rather than Batman is brilliant. In fact, all of Harley’s interactions with Bats in this episode are. A certain other comedic Joker episode beats this one out, but Harley shines here big time.

32. Joker’s Millions

Remember that Joker episode I mentioned one episode ago? Well here it is. Joker’s Millions is probably the funniest episode of the series. The fake Harley Quinn and tryouts to be the new Harley Quinn are possibly one of the funniest scenes of the series. (another certain Joker scene takes the cake though...). I found the twist a little predictable, but this episode is perfect if you want some Batman action and laughs at the same time.

31. House and Garden

Of the reform episodes of the series, this is probably my second favorite overall. Poison Ivy somehow becomes sympathetic and really disturbing in the same episode with a perfect mix. Without revealing spoilers, the twist is revealed in an effective, slow-burning manner. Just give this one a watch. You will not regret it.

30. See No Evil

If I had to rank the most underrated or overlooked episodes of BTAS, See No Evil would easily make the cut on that list. Why is this exactly? Mainly, this episode is genuinely really, really creepy. A man with an invisible suit could have been a lame and cliched cartoon villain, but like with many other things, Batman did it right. The episode has some stellar dialogue, action, and a surprisingly funny moment in it. Oh, and Batman has one of his coolest lines of the series near the end.

29. Never Fear

Never Fear, one of the Scarecrow’s best episodes, dares to answer the question: what would Batman be like if he killed people? Never Fear uses the opposite formula (literally in a way) than the rest of the Scarecrow episodes as his fear toxin in this episode gives the unlucky victim no fear rather than all the fear in the world. Its effect on Batman alone makes this a fantastic episode. The guy takes out alligators with his bare hands in this episode for God’s sake.

28. Harley and Ivy

A Harley Quinn/Poison Ivy team-up episode did not have to work, but fortunately for everyone, it did. This is one of the first episodes to show what Harley could do without the guidance of her “Puddin’”, and the added new element to her character improved it even more. Poison Ivy is fantastic here as well in the mentor role to criminal noob Harley. Oh, the Joker’s material here is as good always too.

27. Dreams in Darkness

The best Scarecrow episodes are the ones that ask the most questions. Here, what if Batman was insane? Dreams in Darkness is my favorite of the many great Scarecrow episodes due to the challenge of Batman facing off against his sanity, (something he also does in a certain Mad Hatter episode...) which is something we do not see that often. The narrative all the way up to the ending with giant versions of his rogues gallery makes Darkness ultimately satisfying.

26. His Silicon Soul

I love many things about His Silicon Soul. First, the animation was done by Sunrise, the animator for Cowboy Bebop, Outlaw Star, Gundam Wing, and The Big O. In fact, this episode was the single biggest influence on Sunrise on The Big O’s creation. That anime was essentially BTAS in look, characters, and tone. Good show. Another discussion for another time though. Back to the episode, this use of HARDAC was much better than the first time. Creating another Batman and sticking him in Gotham was more clever and deeper than the prior two-parter combined. The ending is also a work of art.

The Elite

During the NCAA basketball season, the polls and pundits keep a Top 25 list of the best 25 teams in the sport at the time. These teams are powerhouses, the best of the bunch, and not surpassed by any others. Same can be said here. Out of all the wonderful episodes of BTAS, these are almost the best of the best.

25. Pretty Poison

While I have made many obvious and repetitive statements while making this list, I will say again Batman did a fantastic job of establishing its villains before they became villains. Pretty Poison establishes Harvey Dent as one of Bruce’s best friends before ongoing his transformation, and it pays dividends later on. As for this episode itself, Poison Ivy is established early as one of the most dangerous re-occurring villains of the show. She is seductive, tough, and clever all at the same time. Her plot in this episode is simple yet suspenseful due to tight writing. Make this an essential viewing.

24. Terror in the Sky

On Leather Wings was an entertaining and explosive start to the series that lacked... well... something. However, Terror in the Sky added whatever Man Bat’s first escapade was missing. The action in Terror is some of the best in the entire series from the motorcycle chase to the final showdown on the plane. Also, the twist is a classic in the series. Without spoiling anything, this overlooked episode of Batman is one of the very best action focused episodes of the series.

23. Judgment Day

Without spoiling everything here, Judgment Day probably has one of the best twist endings in the entire series. I was genuinely shocked after my first viewing of this episode. I may have been six or so, but still it is really clever. Aside from the ending, Judgment Day features some nice action, a mysterious new vigilante character, and whole lot more. Just watch it.

22. The Clock King

While Mr. Freeze is the most famous example of Batman’s rogues gallery being revitalized, The Clock King is honestly a close second. Clock King really had not been utilized since the 1960′s as a Batman foe, so using a gimmicky, sort of goofy villain here in a 1990′s cartoon was a shock. Luckily for the show, they had world class writers that converted Clock King into a gimmicky, but psychotic, vengeful villain. After being late for once ruined his life, Temple Fugate devoted his life to trying to humiliate and murder Mayor Hill in, of course, a time-themed way. This episode could have been really silly, but Clock King ends up being a fantastic villain in a well-paced, action packed episode of Batman.

21. Joker’s Wild

Of all the wonderful Joker episodes, I find this one to be the most overlooked and underrated. The episode starts off with a fun interaction between Joker and Poison Ivy, kind of like the awkward best friend who hates her friend’s boyfriend type of situation. After setting his sites on destroying a new casino designed after him, the Joker is actually shown escaping Arkham, which is a rare occasion in the series. What follows is a brilliant scene where Bruce Wayne eggs on the real Joker, high octane action, and the expected brand of humor. Simple, but great.

20. Catwalk

Now we are finally talking, Selina Kyle. Catwalk is one of Catwoman’s final episodes of the series, and it ends up being her best by far. After giving up her life up as Catwoman, Selina is trying to blend in with the real world with the aid of Bruce, but it just is not working. Subsequently, Kyle is given an offer by another certain rogue that she cannot turn down. Thus, Catwoman returns. What makes this episode strong is the twist, the dynamics between Batman, the other villain, and of course Catwoman. She gets to be more of a villain this episode, or at least more gray, and that is how it should be. Good job Mr. Altieri.

19. Old Wounds

After the events of Robin’s Reckoning, one could start to tell the relationship between Bruce and Dick was starting to weaken through their differences. A major wrench was thrown into that already strained relationship when Barbara played her hand as Batgirl. Thus, we have Old Wounds, one of the best flashback episodes of the series. Without getting into spoiler territory, a traumatic event on the night of Dick’s graduation from college, when Dick was already fed up at Bruce for pulling him away from, almost completely severed the head off their relationship. While the ultimate reason is a bit of misunderstanding and involved jealousy, it is really sad to watch unwind even if we know what is coming. Nightwing’s mullet suck still though.

18. Over the Edge

Let me get this out of the way. Over the Edge could have easily been a top 5 episode if the ending was not such a cop-out. *sighs* Oh well I guess. But seriously, other than the asspull of an ending, Over the Edge is the most suspenseful episode of the entire series without a doubt. Without spoiling things again, shit hits the fan about five minutes in here and everything snowballs from there. Watching it is thrilling, unnerving, and feels nothing like most of the other episodes of the series. Seriously. When a certain other baddie comes in at the end (in a much better appearance than his first, mind you...), things get even more intense. Give this one a try even if the ending leaves something to be desired.

17. Perchance to Dream

Once again, I will start on the only tiny negative of this episode. If you know the villains’ theme music like I do, you will know who the villain is in this episode early on. Anyways, dream episodes when they really should dream episodes can be very good. HINT HINT. Perchance to Dream is definitely one of those. After waking up in a world full of his greatest desires, Bruce has to unravel what has happened to him and what actions he should take. That may sound vague, but I am trying super hard to avoid spoilers in these top few episodes. Just watch this one and wait for a wonderful ending and a great dual performance from Kevin Conroy.

16. The Laughing Fish

Who would have thought an episode having to do with copyright law and patents would be the Joker’s best episode? Not me. But, The Laughing Fish is indeed my favorite Joker episode (where the focus is on his plots). After making nets full of fish in Gotham harbor carry his signature smile, the Joker tries to patent the Joker fish. After being denied, old Jack Napier takes revenge on everyone who stopped his original plan in a demented, funny, and tightly written plot. Hell, there is a scene where the Joker dresses up like the Gorton fisherman. This episode is a blast.

15. Growing Pains

Well, I feel depressed after watching this one. Growing Pains is one of the most heart-wrenching episodes of the animated series. Not only is it painful for the viewer, but even moreso for Tim Drake’s Robin. I feel like this is the best utilization of his character. After not listening to Batman’s advice, Robin gets more wrapped into helping a young girl who is seemingly running away from her abusive father. This plot brings back Drake’s relationship with his own father and his empathy for others he sometimes lacks in other episodes. Oh, and the twist is brilliant and connects the later episodes to the original series satisfyingly.

14. Double Talk

Ah, the best redemption episode of the series. Not only is Double Talk my second favorite episode in the later seasons, but it is one of my favorite dramatic episodes of the entire series. The Ventriloquist could have easily been a joke of a villain, but he has several stellar episodes in this series. Out of all them, Double Talk is definitely the best. The audience is cheering for Wesker to get over his issues, and his battle to overcome them is suspenseful and well written. The ending is poetic as can be, and I love it. Give this overlooked episode a watch and you will not regret it.

13. Feat of Clay

The downfall of Matt Hagan is one of the most depressing storylines of the entire series. The allegory for drug addiction with Matt’s reliance on Renuyu and the awful things he would do for just a little bit of it is a true tragedy. The allegory went over my head in my younger years, but watching now after seeing several people I have known my entire life struggle with addiction, the episode has a heavier hit. The two-parter’s first half ends possibly on the most horrific scene of the series. Anyone who has seen this knows what I am talking about. While the second half is not quite as strong as the first, Feat of Clay is a top flight Batman episode.

12. Robin’s Reckoning

Speaking of depressing two-parters, Robin’s Reckoning is the closest thing to a tear-jerker in the series. The scene where Dick leaves the circus left the production staff silent for several minutes supposedly because of how emotional it was. While Robin’s Reckoning is one of the many Robin origin stories in existence, it is definitely one of the best ones. The raw emotion makes RR one of the best episodes of the series. Robin’s decision at the end of the second episode is tense. Maybe that is why it won a Daytime Emmy.

11. Harlequinade

Have I stated on this list before that I really like Harley Quinn and her episodes? I guess I have. Out of all of them, this is my... second favorite. Tough decision. It is painful making this one miss the top ten. Especially after Harley’s rendition of Say We’re Sweethearts Again. And Batman facepalming on a table. Literally. The plot revolves around the seemingly serious sounding plot of the Joker stealing an ATOMIC BOMB and threatening Gotham. Batman teams up with Harley Quinn in exchange for her immunity to bring down Mistah J. What results is one of the best and funniest episodes of the series. Just watch Harley’s karaoke moment of the episode if you do not believe me. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp6wLXj4-5A)

The Masterpiece Tier

The title should say enough for these episodes of BTAS. While Batman of the 90′s has so many stellar episodes, these are the best of the best and incredibly difficult to rank. I tried my best though.

10. Almost Got’im

When this episode ranks as low as ten... woah. AGI is the best episode with mulitple villains collaborating in one episode. While they are not coming up with an evil plot in this episode (well, mostly...), the group discusses the closest each of them got to killing Batman. Each tale is fun and the other villains’ commentary on the other stories is even better. The interaction between Two-Face and Poison Ivy is particularly good. The final line of the episode is also wonderfully poetic. Almost got the that top spot...

9. Mad Love

Of all the top notch Harley Quinn/Joker episodes in this series, Mad Love takes the cake as the best one. Based off the graphic novel of the same name, Mad Love possesses all of the extreme emotions and dark realism as its source material... besides some of the racier stuff. Still though, Mad Love does not hold back. The relationship between our two leads is completely one-sided and abusive making this episode work as the perfect allegory for all too common abusive relationships in the real world. Just because the main focus is on the clowns this episode, does not mean Batman is not excellent this episode. Because he is. Also, the Joker says, “May the floss be with you” at one point...

8. I Am the Night

Possibly the most emotional episode in the series, I Am the Night takes the animated series to its darkest depths. While laying flowers on the site of his parents death site, Batman misses a police sting where Commissioner Gordon ends up shot and critically injured in the hospital. Batman, feeling useless and underappreciated, vows to stop being Batman because of his failure. Every supporting character is utilized perfectly in this episode to stretch Bruce’s mental health in very different directions. Bullock and Robin represent the most extreme opposites. The ending is super satisfying and can teach everyone a lesson if they are feeling underappreciated.

7. Heart of Ice

Before Joel Schumacher and the Governator took a steaming pile of crap on Mr. Freeze’s new origin, Batman the Animated Series revamped the character with this well-known masterpiece. Seriously, this one won an Emmy too. Before the 1990′s, Mr. Freeze was a lame, generic ice villain, kind of like how Firefly is a lameass fire villain in this show. Heart of Ice is shockingly dark, soaked with emotion, and cold-hearted to the core. Mr. Freeze’s voice is soooooo perfect in this series too. Not much else to say that has not been said.

6. The Man Who Killed Batman

The premise to this episode is so simple that it is unbelievable that it is so good. A small time crook nicknamed Sid the Squid, while awkwardly stumbling on a rooftop, appears to kill Batman. After this moment, Sid becomes an idol to all the criminals in the city. Unfortunately, this is not all good news for the squid. What follows is some top notch comedy when everyone in the city might want to fight him now. Even the Joker makes an appearance. That appearance I personally believe is the best for the Joker in the entire series. Don’t believe me? Watch this scene. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ld0uIhst3TA) It is possibly my favorite of the entire show. All in all, watch this episode for something great from beginning to the end.

5. Beware the Gray Ghost

Alternating from the top comedy of the prior episode, The Gray Ghost is one of the more depressing episodes of the series. Without spoiling as much as I can, it is also one of the more uplifting that gives me chills almost every time I view it. A type-cast actor who used to play a superhero on a tv show is struggling financially, with his career, and overall emotionally. His state gets involved with Batman when the episode’s villain’s plot collides with a plot from an old episode of the Gray Ghost. At first bitter and not wanting to help, Batman soons teams up with his hero to take down the villain and it is almost perfect. Who plays the Gray Ghost by the way? Adam West. Whoever came up with that idea deserves a medal. Also, Bruce Timm plays the villain in this masterpiece, which is pretty badass.

4. The Demon’s Quest

The second best two-parter of the series, The Demon’s Quest combines the best of Batman with arguably the best iteration of Ra’as Al Ghul as well. The whole episode feels like an Indiana Jones film, which is not a bad fit honestly. The first part does a nice job establishing Ra’as and Batman’s relationship, and the second half does a stellar job of completing the plot with major style. Talia and Robin also make major appearances in this episode and both really work. Once again, watch this rare world domination episode of Batman for something very different, but very good.

3. If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?

Now, here is my sleeper episode in the top five. I see this episode on people’s list every once and a while but rarely this high. Is this a Riddler (my favorite villain) bias? Maybe a little bit, but I personally think this is one of the strongest episodes due to several factors. One, this iteration of the Riddler is terrific. John Glover is perfectly cast as the genius and knocks it out of the park. His plan involving revenge, video games, supposed mental superiority, and of course riddles is well written. Robin makes one of his best appearances in this episode as a good foil to Batman’s riddle solving methods, and having superior video game skills predictably. However, the most stalwart aspect of this episode is the ending. It’s chilling and perfectly poetic at the same time. Way to go, Nygma.

2. Trial

Remember when I mentioned Almost Got’im as the best villain teamup episode? I lied. Flat out. Trial combines all of the best aspects of almost all of Batman’s reoccurring rogues gallery and all of them are at the top of their game here. Batman is captured and put on trial in Arkham, and the new DA, who hates Batman and thinks he belongs there as well, has to defend the Dark Knight. Joker plays the judge, Two-Face the prosecutor, and several other villains take the stand as witnesses. Guess what? It’s an absolute blast to watch. The episode has good comedy, top notch dialogue, and a terrific ending note. Trial is guilty of nothing but being one of the best episodes in the series.

1. Two-Face

Not the most original choice, but Two-Face was my clear cut favorite episode of Batman the Animated Series from the moment I considered composing a list. As I stated before, Two-Face is the best villain in the animated series overall. This episode really aided in making that true. So did Pretty Poison’s establishment of Harvey Dent. Seeing Harvey’s downfall from beloved District Attorney, fiance, and best friend to Bruce is painful, tragic, and as well written as humanly possibly. I feel like the first half is slightly better than the second, but both are masterpieces and work perfectly together despite a time gap which all other two part episodes lack. So, all in all, Two-Face is what I believe to be the most masterful episode in a series full of masterpieces.

Thanks for checking out my list. I had a fun, but strenuous time making it and hope you check out my future lists too!

#batman #batman the animated series #dcau

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