I have no context and I am desperate to know what led to Batman using a flamingo as a weapon
Batman: my real kids could beat my ass any day
in the next batman movie selina is back in town to con bruce wayne which he knows but he missed her so much and obviously he can afford it so he just lets her
Russian Roulette, except its goons trying to see if Jason is still wearing the bat symbol.
What if Dick’s hallucinations of Jason got so out of hand that he began to believe that the spirit of his brother was trapped in his coffin and needed to be laid to rest?
So, like, HalluciJason normally just hangs out in the corner of Dick’s eye and occasionally blames Dick for his death. But one day, HalluciJason begins to talk about how he’s trapped. How it’s so dark and it smells like dirt and there’s velvet beneath his fingers and he can’t breathe. At first Dick tells himself to just ignore the hallucination, he’s just crazy. But over time, as HalluciJason starts to venture further and further into Dick’s field of vision, it becomes harder and harder to ignore his pleas. Something about the hallucination becomes more substantial, more real.
Eventually, Dick breaks. He goes to the graveyard where Jason is buried and digs up his grave. Bruce, who has noticed Dick slipping, is horrified when he finds out what Dick is doing and rushes to the graveyard.
He arrives just as Dick finishes digging and Jason bursts out of his coffin. Dick hugs his little brother, covered in dirt and sweat and tears.
After this, everyone believes that Dick was actually having visions and wasn’t going crazy at all. Stranger things have happened—like Jason’s resurrection. He was trapped in his coffin, if only briefly. And if Dick hadn’t been there, Jason would’ve indeed suffocated.
(But two weeks after Jason returns to life, Dick sees him, just in the corner of his eye. A boy dressed in a bloody Robin suit. Jason. Watching, with pale blue eyes.)
Awwwwwwwwwwww <3
Pls just imagine how dramatic a young justice fic would be if it was like
So now you’ve got a very paranoid and over protective Batman who hasn’t actually met any of the other justice league members yet and an itsy bitsy Robin who looks like he’ll tear someone’s head off. The Justice League has them quarantined in the Watchtower, they’re not letting them go home to the batcave or anything, and Batman is arguing with Green Arrow while holding a flailing Robin by the scruff of his neck. He looks like a feral kitten.
Now keep in mind, no one in this scenario knows Batman and Robin’s secret identities. They’re not even really sure if they’re father and son, brothers, uncle and nephew, or maybe strange mentor and protege picked off the streets, they’ve no clue. So seeing what is now clearly a young twenty-something Batman trying to wrangle in a wriggling eight year old is both highly entertaining and totally baffling. Where the hell did these two even come from. And how has that tiny kid been around longer than some actual adult heroes.
“He bit me!” Kid Flash cries, running away from a glowering Robin.
“Don’t try to touch me next time, asshole!”
“Hey!” Batman barks, holding Robin up by an arm and dangling him in front of him. “We don’t bite super-powered strangers. Who knows what kind of radioactive germs they might have.”
“But B!” Robin’s voice is so high and whiny, Conner is starting to feel dizzy. “He tried to pick me up! He called me cute! I’m not cute I’m terrifying.”
And the two just keep bickering back and forth, Robin eventually hanging with his ankles and hands hooked around Batman’s arm. Batman is trying to shake him off like a bug. They are both still arguing with each other as this happens.
“Did Batman just accuse me of having radioactive germs?” Wally is gaping at the scene in front of him.
As is everyone else. This is a total mindfuck. Who let Batman be in charge of a kid.
The two of them do eventually, reluctantly, start to trust the league. And they’ve been told they have to stay on the Watchtower until their magic expert gets back from a mission. Four days from now.
There’s one point when most others stationed on the Watchtower are sleeping or taking a break, and Batman is holding a drowsy Robin close to his chest and looking out the windows of the observation deck. Someone brought them some casual clothes to wear during their downtime, but they both have domino masks over their eyes. Those who see them like that can’t quite comprehend just how young Batman looks without the cowl.
“The moon looks so big,” a sleepy Robin mumbles, his cheek squished against Batman’s shoulder.
“That’s ‘cause it’s so much closer here,” Batman tells him, his voice incredibly soft. “Can you see where Gotham would be?”
Robin’s head turns just slightly, looking toward the Earth, and he hums, a fist moving up to scrub at his eye.
“S’over there,” he points. “With all the clouds ‘n stuff.”
“Looks tiny from up here, huh?”
“Yeah.”
Robin mouth opens in a comically wide yawn, then he shoves his face in Batman’s neck.
“S’not gonna fall from the sky, is it?”
“Nah.” Batman shifts his arms, holding Robin a little tighter. “This place is in orbit, kinda like how the moon is. It’s not gonna fall.”
“Would you catch it if it did?”
“I’d steal us a ship from here so fast, I wouldn’t need to catch it.”
“Kay.”
Batman presses his cheek to the top of Robin’s head, stray curls tickling his nose.
“Do you wanna practice your flips and shit in the morning? I’ll spot you.”
“Yeah,” Robin mumbles, “And I wanna scare Green Lantern by poppin’ outta the vent again. He screamed like a little girl when I landed on the table.”
“Do a flip when you do it and I’ll smuggle you an ice cream bar from their kitchen.”
“Deal.”
Batman has to twist his left arm funny so he can shake Robin’s hand, his right arm occupied by holding Robin up, and they shake on it.
Batman lets out a snort of a laugh, looking at Robin with an incredibly fond look on his face.
For everyone else, it’s a very long four days of them being menaces and encouraging each other to do more and more odd shit.
When they get turned back, they act like nothing was out of the ordinary. They’re not even phased when they’re reminded of some of the things they got into.
happy death day, jason :3
they're meant for each other or something
I can’t be normal about this man
Do y’all ever wonder if post-pit Jason gets phantom pain - not in the sense that missing a limb or anything but in that he was severely tortured and died and spent years being malnourished and his brain still remembers that pain, but the pit wiped it clean from his body. But his brain remembers. And sometimes his brain misfires and forgets for a second that his body been changed, that’s he’s not still that malnourished kid who got beat with a crowbar. Do you ever think his bones ache, or he bumps into to things because his mind thinks he’s still 4 foot 6 and not some hulk of a man, or he’ll get random hunger pains that make him double over despite being well-nourished and eating regularly? Do you ever wonder if Jason gets days of dysphoria, where he can’t even stand to look at himself because he can’t recognize the person staring back at him?
The thing about Jason Todd is I like to call him cathartic and he *is* but he's also...a sort of fantasy fulfillment, but not the one I think people assume.
Jason cannot be a Punisher type fantasy because his own victimization undercuts it. This isn't a tale about a hero avenging his family. This is the singing bones.
Because fundamentally, the fantasy in utrh is this: the victimized dead can rise again, screaming. Can cut a bloody path through the world and make the powerful listen. It doesn't matter if what he does is just or right, anymore, just that it exposes the wound.
In real life the dead stay dead and their abusers write their obituaries and get sympathy cards from their families and you bite your tongue and let the wounds rot and -
And then there's Jason, who comes back wrong because the world is wrong. Who comes back sharp and cruel, who makes himself a knife where there was once only grave dirt. Who tells Bruce, and by extension the audience itself, that *yes* you were grieving wrong. Yes you did allow this. You preserved peace over justice. You offered platitudes to a silent headstone while you ignored the screams of the living victims.
The fantasy of Jason Todd is this:
You have to look the corpse in the eyes, this time.
Oh no my heart 💔💔💔
Magic is a fickle thing, so when the things go down the hill for the Batfamily, and they accidentally (temporarily) regain a copy of little Jason in his Robin era, they both delighted and confused.
Naturally, no one really minds getting Jaybin for a day - Bruce, Alfred, Dick and Barbara all circle around the lost child, talking, offering anything and everything, hugging and kissing his freckled cheeks. Those family members who didn't know him before are no less enamoured. He is polite, nothing like a brash boy they always imagined him to be. He listens to Tim curiously, legs tucked under his chin, happily calls Cass and Steph his big sisters, helps Damian with taking care of animals, and endlessly giggles at Duke's jokes.
Everything is so... nice. What they are worried about, is their Jason's reaction. For the most of it, they expect him to be mad. Offended. Maybe frustrated.
When Jason stumbles inside the Batcave, freezing on the doorstep at the sight of himself, much younger and bubblier, everyone is silent. Dick coughs awkwardly, almost imagining what could happen, and tries to soften a blow:
"Little Wing--"
But there is no need for that. Not really.
Because their Jason stares at little Robin with delight. In awe, even. His whole face softens, and he slowly steps closer, reaching out for a kid.
"Hey, kiddo."
The sheer vulnerability in his voice, confuses others even more.
Jason stares at a kid as if he sees something so dear and lost, and it is strangely baffling. His smiles grow wider when the Second Robin shyly waves at him.
"Come here," Jason encourages him. Once the kid climbs in his arms, he whispers in the crown of his head: "Welcome home, little hero."
And suddenly, it all makes sense.
Because, of course, Jason loves and loved this child.
After all, it is the same one, who he spent protecting from the evil tongues of his own family for years.