I read something to this effect once. Sobbing in my bed at three AM, because despite it being an AU, it didn't change. The tragedy was not averted. Despite their best efforts, NOTHING CHANGED.
Nothing changed.
And that destroyed me.
It starts with the Joker.
His goons picked up Tim Drake. Not specifically because it was Tim Drake, he just so happened to be in the Joker’s neighborhood, and we'll, he can't pass up that opportunity now can he?
Except Tim Drake is watching, along with the rest of Gotham, at the Batcomputer. He’s nursing a broken foot and has been put on monitor duty until he's cleared for field work again.
The guy looks enough like him, though. Black hair, blue eyes, and bags under his eyes for days. He's also got the same lean sort of build like he does.
It happens like this.
The Joker is doing his monologue thing where he explains whatever twisted game he's come up with this time. He takes up the majority of the screen, so nobody can see Not-Tim behind him, not until the big reveal. Then he covers the screen again, getting up close and personal, before stepping back. In those quick few seconds, Not-Tim is no longer sitting there tied to the chair.
Someone off camera lets the Joker know, and he whirls around, confused as the rest of Gotham.
And then Not-Tim comes in with the steel chair.
Or, well, a crowbar, but the reference holds up.
He takes out one of Joker’s knees before punching him in the face. The Joker drops like a bag of stones, out cold.
Then he looks towards the camera.
“Hey there. I'm not really sure where I am, but also if he was after Tim Drake, he got the wrong guy. I'm not him, I'm just some dude. Anyway, I'll just-yep-” he carefully steps over the unconscious Joker, gives the camera a little wave, and then leaves.
Batman and Nightwing enter shortly after, with the Joker and his goons out cold and tied up. The knots were complicated enough where, in the end, the police resorted to cutting the ties off of them so they could be properly cuffed and taken to Arkham.
“A constrictor knot,” Batman tells Nightwing as they watch the villain be taken away. “Often used by sailors to temporarily tie things together to keep something in a bag, or to hold something to glue it back together.”
“Huh,” Nightwing says, scratching the back of his head. “Go figure.”
—
The next time it happens, it’s the Riddler.
He’s laughing, giving his riddles to the Bats and recording himself to all of Gotham while his victim, one of the Wayne brats, hangs over a vat of something. From a distance, he looks like Tim Drake, or maybe a lankier Dick Grayson. And he’s not the only victim, they’re all scattered across the city, but he thought an important figure such as a Wayne should be under the Riddler’s direct supervision while he enacts his schemes.
While the Riddler cackles and plots and waves his cane around, in the background all of Gotham can see the figure escape. Several Gothamites recognize him as the kid from before, who clocked the Joker. They all watch with bated breath as he sort of wiggles his way out of the ropes holding him up. Once he’s free, he climbs the rope and gets himself down safely.
Gotham holds their breath as the kid casually walks up to the Riddler, who’s mid-rant. He politely taps him on the shoulder, and as the Riddler is turning around, the kid clocks him just as brutally as he had the Joker. He’s down with one punch.
They think he’s going to say another sort of awkward goodbye, but instead he pats the Riddler down until he finds a piece of paper tucked into the inside pocket of his jacket.
“Right,” the kid says, looking at the list. There’s a lot more static overlay now, and several wonder if it’s damage to the cameras. “Uh, the Clocktower, the Docks, and-” he squints at the page for a moment-”Mama Nacaroni’s? What the fuck is that? Anyway, uh. See you later, I guess. Oh! And we’re at the Gotham Arena. Have fun with him, I guess.”
The kid tosses the paper off to the side before the camera cuts to black.
Just like last time, everyone is out cold and tied up. The Riddler himself is sporting a pretty bad shiner, but well deserved nonetheless.
“Stop it,” Red Hood tells him. Batman just looks at him, and though Hood can’t see the top half of his face, he can tell that his eyebrow is raised. “You know exactly what I mean, B. Put the adoption papers away.”
“Hn.”
—
After that, it sorta becomes a game. The rogues of Gotham are no longer after a Wayne, or after anybody who holds any kind of social status like usual. They’re all going after this one kid, all determined to be the one to hold him. And each one is televised.
Mr. Freeze freezes him in a block of ice, but due to the cameras glitching out, nobody can really see how he got free. They do, however, see the kid suplex Mr. Freeze. It should seem impossible, given his lanky figure, but he evidently has more muscle than he’s originally let on.
Two-Face gets a hold of him, using chains and some power-dampening cuffs just on the off-chance that he’s a meta. They all watch as the kid leans down, pulls a bobby pin out of his hair, and picks the locks on his cuffs. One punch, and Two-Face is down.
Gothamites are going wild for the kid. They’ve dubbed him Feral McGee™ (an online poll, of course), because every time he goes in for the punch he gets this feral look in his eyes. Also, just the fact that he casually goes up to these rogues and takes them out with all the casualness of doing something incredibly mundane? Incredible. The Gothamites are eating it up. However, despite the video evidence, nobody has been able to properly identify the kid. They know he has black hair and bright eyes, but any time he gets near a camera, it’s like there’s this weird, sort of warped quality the camera takes on. It doesn’t usually calm down until the fight is done-as one sided as they usually are-before he awkwardly skedaddles away.
He gets kidnapped by the Penguin, Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy (though that was more just a friendly chat than anything), Mad Hatter, and the Riddler again.
And then the Joker escapes.
It’s no surprise as to who he’s going to go after.
Due to one too many careless goons, they manage to find their way to the Joker’s hideout pretty quickly. This time, it’s all Bats on deck, and they all hide away in the rafters as Feral McGee™ is hung over a vat of acid. His whole body is tied up, hardly a single inch of exposed skin to be seen except for the neck up.
They watch the goons, they watch the Joker, and they watch Feral McGee™.
The Joker is monologuing, practically begging the bats to come find him before the timer runs out. When it does, the kid gets dumped into the vat of acid.
Despite these stakes, the kid seems to be only mildly annoyed.
“Fuck this, I have homework I still need to finish,” they hear him say.
They all watch, amazed and confused, as the kid starts gnawing through the ropes. Human teeth shouldn’t be able to do that so easily, but one bit after the other, and soon enough the kid’s got himself freed enough to just climb up the rest of the rope. When he’s at the top of the crane holding him up, Batman lets down a rope and pulls the kid up and out of danger.
“Oh, cool, you’re all here,” the kid says casually, as if meeting the entire Bat Clan is just a normal Tuesday. And then he pulls out a notepad and pen and hands it to Red Hood.
“Can I get an autograph? You’re dope as fuck, dude.”
Red Hood has to look away and hide his face in his arms for a few moments to not give away their location with his laughter before signing. And then, one by one, the others do as well. They pass along the kid’s notebook with shit-eating grins and barely contained snickers despite the fact that the Joker is still right below them. Even Batman signs it, after his children don’t stop hounding him about it.
In their distraction, they didn’t see the kid sneak away. He’s far away from them now, nearly right over the Joker. Danny waits, though, until the Joker has turned around as the timer almost runs out. They watch as he snickers at Joker’s flabbergasted look. The Joker comically looks back and forth and under objects the kid obviously isn’t under. However, before he can do or say anything else, the kid drops from the rafters and right on top of the Joker. He crumples to the ground, unconscious. The kid, however, just brushes the dust off of himself. Despite the fall he took, there isn’t a scratch on him.
When the bats join him, they give his notepad back to him, barely able to contain their laughter at the absurdity of it all. The kid, too, joins in the camaraderie, laughing and joking along with them as Batman secures the Joker.
“Okay, okay, but I gotta ask, dude,” Red Hood says at one point, looking at the kid. “How do you keep getting kidnapped?”
The kid just shrugs. “I get distracted easily. And I’m sleep deprived, so you know. Social awareness is kind of at an all time low right now.”
“Why are you sleep deprived?” Nightwing asks, barely hidden concern in his voice.
“Finals are kinda kicking my ass right now. Especially this dumb English homework I have. You guys wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”
“Oh, lucky for you,” Red Hood says, wrapping an arm around the kid’s shoulders as he walks them out of the warehouse, “I happen to know a lot about English. So, it is Shakespeare?”
“Yeah, Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
As they walk off, Batman calmly watches, though the rest of the bats can see his jaw twitching. Nightwing comes up behind him, clapping a hand on his shoulder.
“If you don’t adopt him, I will.”
“Hn.”
shakes you in a tupperware /affectionate
Unfortunately, the Batfamily is used to weird shit, and they presume that some magic user made them forget Danny. Cue epic quest to reverse the spell and remember their beloved family member while Danny and Jason frantically commit to the bit and try not to get caught.
Dp x DC crossover
So imagine danny and jazz move to Gotham wither it be willingly or on the run. And danny becomes good freinds with Jason. And one day while with danny, jason invited danny to dinner at his family's place.
So jason brought danny to the manor and danny is like "bitch if your fam rich why you live in 1 bedroom apartment in the worst part of town, make it make since". Anway jason and danny sit at the table with the other batkids. The other batkids look at danny kinda funny, jason forgot to mention he was bringing a freind lol.
So then Bruce entered and sat in his chair. He looked at his children took a bite of his stake then his head snapped back up and looked at his kids again. His eyes honed in on danny.
"Who are you?" Bruce asked looking at danny
Danny looked at Jason uncomfortable
Jason looked at Bruce and let out a exaggerated gasp "bruce have you brought so many kids home you forgot about one of your kids!? And my favorite brother no less"
Bruce raised a brow and Damian yelled "what he isnt one of us!" Pointing at danny
"La gasp, demon brat you forgot about him too, even after everything you both have been together, dick talk some since into these heathens!!" Jason cried his hand over his heart.
"Um sorry I uh dont know who this kid is either" dick says fidgeting
"FOR SHAME, SHAME ON THIS FAMILY!!!" Jason yelled dramatically
Everyone was looking at him and Danny, "kid look can you tell us your name" bruce asked looking at the halfa
And danny being the little shit he is goes "you dont remeber my name?! Your jokeing right dad???!!" His eyes wide crocodile tears threatening to spill from his eyes. Everyone In the room is silenced looking at Danny in confusion and guilt.
"It's ok lil bro I'm always here for you" jason says placing a hand on his shoulder "let's go to place for ice cream ok" Jason says to danny gently, Danny sniffles and nods. Jason then leads them out of the manor.
The rest of the batfam is left thinking what the hell, did they really forget about one of their family members, bruce is like "I'm a horrible father, I forgot one of my babies!!??"
Bonus if to commit to the bit danny goes out on potroal with jason and they meet up with the bats and batman is like "who are you" and jason and danny are like "what the hell dad, you forgot Danny's vigilante persona too, you really are a sucky dad" and like leave.
I made something
"That implies there's a good death juice and I take offense at that,"
"Oh fair. But you've never had ecto-boba, so I'm gonna ask you to reserve your opinion until you can try it,"
"Is that a date?"
"It is if you want it to be. But maybe we should move out of the middle of the sidewalk, I think that guy over there is thinking whether or not to mug us."
"Oh, right. Gotham,"
Dead on Main Soulmate AU
First words your soulmate says to you are written on your skin. Jason didn’t understand his for a long time- it looks like an insult, but he has absolutely no idea what it means, both before and after his death.
Eventually, it starts to make a slight bit more sense as Trendy Lingo advanced, and he hears Steph and Tim and some other teens using something similar. Still, he doesn’t understand why they’re said, and he’s unprepared for when he’s approached randomly by some guy while walking down the street after a particularly violent pit rage.
“Sir, your vibes are rancid.”
Jason freezes. The pit writhes in offense, because what the fuck, but at the same time his heart is beating out of his chest, because what the fuck?
“Oh ancients that sounded rude.” The guy says, eyes widening like he can’t believe he said that. “I mean- I just- are you okay? You don’t feel okay. You feel really, really sick, like your soul got marinated in corrupted ecto, and do you want help?”
Jason keeps staring. The guy is cute, dark hair and blue eyes that seem just a bit too bright to be human, freckles disappearing behind an embarrassed flush.
“I don’t want to overstep, because you’re giving off a whole lot of “fuck off don’t talk to me”, but I didn’t wanna just ignore you because I’m pretty sure a lot of the anger and bad vibes are coming from the corrupted stuff and I’m pretty sure I can help with that? If you don’t want help just tell me to fuck off or punch me in the face and I’ll leave but-”
The stranger takes a nervous step away, and Jason lunges forwards before he can think, everything in him rebelling at the thought of his soulmate leaving, from his own thoughts to the pits themselves.
“Please don’t leave.” He gasps, hands squeezed tight to his soulmates arm despite the twinge of pain from his bloodied knuckles. His soulmate’s eyes widen in shock, mouth dropped open, before he breaks into a bright, amazed grin.
“I won’t, I promise.” His soulmate says, reaching up to hold onto Jason’s arms in turn. His touch is cold, even through Jason’s jacket. “I’m staying right here.”
Jason leans into the touch, sagging with relief. He can feel the pits receding, the anger and pain and fear fading as his soulmate gently runs his hand over his back.
He feels, for the first time in a long time, at peace.
“…seriously though, wtf happened to you, you reek of bad death juice.”
✨️❤️🧡💛💚💙💜✨️
my half of an art trade with @lirabuswavi ^_^
Reblog to give the person you reblogged this from motivation to work on their WIPs
4 days until wet rat wednesday
By LabradoriteKing on Pinterest
Yo! I'm Lira, she/her, LiraBuswavi on Ao3, and I'm just here to have a good time. The header is fanart I received for a fanfic I wrote! Check out @doodlesforfics, they're an amazing artist.
451 posts