Finding Jason under a truth spell was infinitely preferable to the alternatives that had raced through Dick's mind when he got the distress signal. Still, to balance the spell he had to spill some of his own secrets and while he'd do anything to keep Jason out of pain, he didn't exactly keep secrets for fun.
Characters: Jason & Dick
Rating: Mature, mostly for the topic of the secrets being spilled here. Nothing graphic, but (spoilers) rape, underage prostitution, abuse and murder are brought up here.
A/N: This is not my usual fandom (I'll get back to that sometime soon) but I had this in my folders and the prompt came up, so here we go. Have fun.
Anticipation : things are alright. it's still pooling inside your veins.
Batfamily Week 2026
@batfamily-week
Day 2: Calm before the storm (quite literally)
or: the Bat-family, observed through an outsider's point of view (yours)
tremor's masterlist
Today there is no sun in the sky. Or, well, it's still there, obviously: this is no metropolis-threat-level where the sun would have disappeared unnaturally, it's just it's currently hidden behind a grey sky and still-small clouds.
Today's a calm day entirely, actually. There are some robberies there and there, obviously, some of the occasional physical assault, but nothing too drastic compared to what consists in Gotham's normalcy.
Calm enough that you get to sit around on a random roof and look at the people moving through the street. Just to chill, instead of being on a recon mission, or on the lookout for anything. It's a nice change of things, for once. It's been like this for the past few days, though, so you might not call this a change. It's nice. You're not even aching from your civilian job too much like you usually get at the end of the week.
Signal isn't out in the streets at all today. You're pretty sure you saw a flash of his suit this morning, but that was about it. No fun (or absolutely all over the place) conversations for you today. Aw.
You figure you're not gonna be seeing the Red Rood either, if things are so calm. Or any bats at all.
It's kind of funny, really, how the two fly around each other, the bats and the calm. Like the two opposite sides of a magnet, or water and oil. When it turns calm, the bats rarely stays.
When the bats gets there, calm rarely stick around, either. They have a capacity to turn silence into banter in a way you're simultaneously horrified at and amazed by.
Like, seriously. They'll insult each other in what you're sure is the most hidden fondness possible and then snarls cute nicknames like they're the most annoying words there are. You live for it, whenever you have the occasion to listen in to their patrols-conversations, in those moments where things quiet down.
Now you're kind of wishing things would turn hectic again, just to be asked to help them on their patrol and to get to listen in to the drama.
It's weird, that feeling of listening in, like you're intruding on a family dinner you wouldn't have the references of: like you don't know their favorite dishes or the ones they despite, but they're so passionate about it you still end up convinced by whoever's being the most skillful with their arguments. Like you're getting a glimpse into a dinner room people are not privy to. It's a metaphor that's becoming too long, but it's what you feels like, when witnessing their proximity. Puzzled, mostly.
But it's also entertaining, and you're thriving for it, really.
A tussle on the street puts a stop to your train of thought. They stay on alert for a full three seconds before you catch sight of the hand that's offered to the person who just got tripped. The boy stands up, and you're sure you catch a bright snort of laughter coming out of the blonde girl, even from your sitting place.
The dirt from the sidewalk that ended on his pants is swiped off. It drops back down, and you're pretty sure the boy's throwing one of the coldest stare there are at the girl.
You take it as your sign you've been lazing off for too long, then. If they were really fighting, you're not sure you would have intervened quickly enough.
You wait for them to leave, and then you're leaving your own spot, hopping off from the fire-escape. You'll allow yourself another break later, if things keep being alright. Hopefully you'll find an up-to-standard fire-escape, next time: the creaking of the rust was kind of starting to get on your nerves, even weigh on your mind.
It's probably not an achievable wish, though, if you trust your knowledge in Gotham and it's distress. It'd be nice if Bruce-rich as fuck-Wayne could look into that, instead of hosting galas for the elite's leisure, honestly, as nice as his various already existing financary-aid are.
The sun starts to drop. You know because you're back to gazing at the landscape, for one, but also because there is as familiar shape on one of the opposite rooftops. A cape and ears and a smaller figure standing loud and proud behind it.
They stand the same way. You wonder if this is because of how he might have been trained by Batman, sometimes, or if this similarity is of a different source. You haven't had the occasion to exchange with the youngest of the bats much yet. Talking with Batman isn't something you do a lot, too. Still. You've noticed the way their speech of patterns is alike, just like you've noticed how subtly protective he is to them all. You'd be kind of dumb, if you didn't.
But you don't want to assume anything, so you just stop looking into what they might be. It's not your business.
You don't have a sixth sense, or anything of the sort. It's something you'd honestly like, having a spider-tingle like Peter Parker does in the comics. Future rushing through your skin in a way that'd warns you of what's to come. It might have let you avoid some punches that ended up hitting you straight in the face (your nose hated you for weeks after this).
Here, instead, there is only an odd shiver that might not means anything, in the end. It's been a long time since anyone last wrecked havoc in the streets of your city.
Nothing's telling you it's going to change. It doesn't have to, really. The sky could stay clear. Something in your mind tells you it won't.
But everything is still clear and the Bats haven't contacted you for help, instead (you think) having some sort of tag game to probably pass the time, and you think this might be fine, tonight. And if it isn't, you're hopeful things will be, for once.
Jason is trapped in the back of Steph's car with a broken foot when she gets a phone call for an important pick-up from Il Palazzo Gotham, one of the city's ritziest hotels.
They end up taking the stairs.
4.4k for @batfamily-week, day one. prompt: firsts.
also inspired by @cherrytomoeto asking me if i'll ever write jason & steph being friendly again! the answer is yes, though i still don't know if i'm happy with this... or if it captures the feel from Altar Boy... 😅
rating: teen
warnings for underage drinking, mentions of parental neglect, mentions of Jason's death and the circumstances surrounding it, and some brief references to suicide/suicidal ideation.
read it on ao3 or under the cut!
Jason’s head slams into the roof as the mini cooper careens around a corner. The backseat is rapidly transforming into hell.
“Because it’s irresponsible, and immature, and we’re rewarding it!” Tim shouts from the passenger seat. “If he learns that he can call us to clean up his mess every time –”
“What? He’ll call?” Steph challenges. The light ahead flickers from green to orange, and she slams the accelerator. Jason lurches forward, crashing into the back of Tim’s seat. Jesus Christ. He’d have been better off taking his bike home, broken foot and all. He gazes mournfully at the boot around it. He’s done more with worse injuries. What the hell was he thinking? Accepting a ride? Maybe if Bruce hadn’t been glaring through him –
“You can’t keep treating him with kid gloves, Stephanie. He’s seventeen.”
“He’s seventeen,” Steph repeats mockingly, pitching up her voice and squishing the words together. A strawberry Sex Wax air freshener bobbles between the two of them, swaying dangerously with every turn of the wheel. “So he’s immature, but we can’t treat him with kid gloves. Got it.” Jason’s foot throbs. Perks of flushing the painkillers.
“Were we afforded that much?” Tim folds his arms over his chest. Jason wriggles, trying to get some more room. As he shifts, the top of his head grazes the roof once more. Steph’s knuckles whiten around the wheel. “Was Jason?”
Oh, no, no, no. Tim fucking Drake, of all people, is not using him as a cautionary tale.
“Don’t drag me into this,” Jason says roughly. Tim narrows his eyes in the rearview mirror. He’s got the same look as Bruce gets. Rich-people disapproval. The GPS breaks into the train of thought. Turn left in one mile.
“Maybe we should’ve been,” Steph says quietly, in the echo of the navigation system. “When you were seventeen, you never wished an adult would come and pick you up and take you away from all of it?”
Tim leans against the window, staring out at the city. Skyscrapers give way to the older, grander part of Gotham. Gargoyles wetly reflect the lights of the council chambers. Spotlights shine on dilapidated plaques. Jason’s good foot is starting to go numb in the cramped confines of the mini. When he was seventeen, the last thing he’d wanted was for a so-called ‘adult’ to come and rescue him. Even now the notion flares under his skin like molten rock. Jason hadn’t been a kid for years by then. If someone had suggested calling – what, who, Dick? Who would have even come? Who would’ve bothered? Who would’ve thought he needed anyone? – an ‘adult’, he would’ve laughed in their face.
Steph indicates and pulls into the entryway of the hotel. Il Palazzo Gotham is close to eighty years old, and the one and only time Jason’s ever been inside was when he was stalking down a dignitary. Staff stand outside with fake smiles and red uniforms.
“I never went to any parties like this,” Jason says dryly.
“They have a policy against them, but it’s not enforced if you can pay,” Tim chips in. Jason stares at him. Steph frowns. Tim turns his palm to the roof. “I went to boarding school. You meet a lot of people.”
“Are you staying in the car?” Steph says, pushing the stick into ‘park’. A valet trots up to the door. Steph unclips her seatbelt. Jason’s boots digs into the back of Tim’s seat. Gold lights shimmer outside. A slinky limousine pulls in behind them. Steph tosses the keys at Tim and opens the door.
“I’ll come,” Jason blurts. Steph ducks her head back through the door, strands of blonde hair escaping her loose bun. Tim turns sharply in his seat.
“Your foot –”
“It’s fine,” Jason says, shoving the empty driver’s seat. It doesn’t give. Steph clicks something by the headrest and it slides and folds forward. Under Tim’s dark, unimpressed gaze, Jason clambers out of the mini and drags his crutches with him. He gulps down a lungful of Gotham air. Metallic as blood and as damp as wet asphalt. Home. He stretches out as best he can on the crutches. It’s better than the car. Tim returns the driver’s seat to its usual position and switches sides, murmuring in low tones to the crease-browed valet.
Steph smiles at him. “Can I have a turn?” she asks brightly, reaching for his crutches. Jason leans his weight on his good foot and swipes at her with one. She dodges.
“Okay,” he says, tossing them. Steph makes the grabs just in time. Jason limps towards the glass doors and Steph follows awkwardly, swinging on crutches that come to her shoulders. On the next swing she manages to hover, held up by the rests buried in her armpits, and she kicks her legs back and forth like she’s on a swing. Jason pauses to watch, and –
Jesus Christ, there’s a reason he’s not meant to put weight on his right foot. Fuck.
Steph catapults forwards and lands hard on the pavement, knees taking the blow. One of the – what, welcome people? Why do they have a greeter rostered on at one in the morning? – rushes over to check on her. Jason’s seen Steph fall from a two-story building and wind up okay. Plates in your knees at thirty don’t matter so much when you don’t intend on living that long.
Jason bites the back of his tongue. He can’t speak for Steph. Is that even speaking for himself, in this moment? But he didn’t live that long. To thirty. And yet he will, at this rate. He rests against a faux-Grecian pillar, babying his foot.
“Shit,” Steph says, laughing, as the greeter returns to her coterie. “You’re tall.” She gives Jason back his crutches.
“You almost got your own,” he says. Steph leads the way again. Two gilt handles shine on the sparkling double doors. Curls escape the knot at the base of her neck, frizzing in the humidity. His mom’s hair used to be the same way. She said it turned her into a poodle. Jason had grinned at her and said he was lucky he got his dad’s hair.
What he’d give, in the end, to have to deal with inheriting her head of untamable curls.
Steph holds the door for him, a pill which lodges in his throat.
“I think it’s a wheelchair, for both knees,” she informs him, the door swinging shut. “I’d have to make Tim push me around.”
“Doesn’t he already?”
Steph stills in the lobby. A plush carpet bridges the way from the door to the elevators. Water runs behind the polished-wood reception, gently tinkling as it trickles down the faux-stone wall. A porter’s rack waits expectantly. Music drifts from where a cursive sign indicates the existence of a seafood restaurant. Where the upper-middle-aged upper-middle-class come to kill themselves. Steph’s slides squeak. Jason’s dirty moonboot leaves a heavy imprint on the carpet. Steph’s jaw works. Tension cords through Jason’s forearms. Standing is worse than walking.
“That’s what you think?” Steph says eventually. Her voice echoes through the empty entryway.
Tim has never wanted anything to do with Jason and Jason’s never been sure where Steph even came from. She lacks a creation myth. Dick, of course, was plucked from the jaws of tragedy to become a legend; Tim was the boy ingenue who put the pieces together; Damian is the inescapable blood son. Steph was Tim’s girlfriend, maybe, or her dad did something that put them in Batman’s way, or she was Cass’s friend, or she meddled with Batman’s contingencies, or something. There’s only the vaguest sense of a mistake. She slipped through the cracks. Jason wonders if she was glad when he showed up – because nobody could be less wanted than him. He doesn’t ask and nobody tells. She never asks him anything either.
“I don’t think about you at all,” Jason says.
Their eyes meet, and his gaze catches on something hard and flinty behind her irises.
“You could’ve stayed in the car.”
Steph’s shoes squeal and plop as she makes for the elevator. Jason hobbles behind on his crutches. Jazz swells as the restaurant door opens, letting a couple exit. They’re probably Jason’s age or thereabouts, but the woman’s wearing some seafoam monstrosity and her gropey boyfriend is bending in half just to squeeze her ass. She kisses him back, lavishing lipstick on his chin and neck and collar. His watch clinks against her chandelier earrings. Jason’s stomach turns, sternum burning. As they drunkenly stumble in his direction, he spots the twinned rings on their left hands. It slicks the sick in his gullet. His age, and married, and grossly, publicly obsessed. He could scream.
In a second, he’s limping towards the emergency stairs, indicated by a proud, up-to-standard squeaky-clean sign. His crutches thud across the floor. The doors are push-to-open, so he manages with an elbow and squeezes his way in. He blinks under the fluorescents. The stairwell is all gray, wide concrete stairs rising and turning sharp corners, up and up and up. Black marker squiggles across the glass case of the fire extinguisher. Who’s sneaking out of their plush room to go to town on the disused staircase with a marker?
“Hey,” Steph calls, coming in behind him as Jason contemplates the steps. She looks up and puts her hands on her hips, cocking her head to one side. “Why are we here? Aren’t you crippled?”
Jason shoves down the lump in his throat. He can imagine the couple staggering into the mirrored elevator, her hair coming loose and pressed up against one glass wall, the guy boxing her in, all strong hands and unyielding want. Jesus. You couldn’t pay him enough to be stuck in there with them.
“It’s a foot, not a leg,” he tells Steph. “It’s good exercise.”
Steph whips out her phone, swiping back. “He’s on the seventh floor.”
Twelve flights up.
“Then I’d better get started.” There’s a railing bolted into the wall. Jason hauls himself over, takes the railing firmly in hand, and tucks his crutches under his other arm. He lifts his left foot, gets it squarely on the first step, and heaves. Grunts. The moonboot is almost too big for a single stair.
“We can go back,” Steph says.
Left foot, step, heave, right foot, adjust the crutches. Left, step, heave, right, adjust. “It’s fine.”
“Then –” Steph bounds up the stairs with ease, jumping in front of him. Even with her two steps higher, they’re at eye-level. “Give me those,” she orders, reaching for the crutches. Jason twists to block her. His arm flattens against her collarbone.
“So you can break your knees?”
Steph ducks under and rips them from his grasp. Jason grabs a fistful of her sweatshirt, but she tears away, bolting to the first landing before he can reach the next stair. She grins at him triumphantly.
“At least let me carry these,” she says, waving her prizes. “You’re not using them.”
He should’ve stayed in the car. He would’ve, if not for the Tim factor. And the…
He’s not sending Steph in alone. Fuck knows what waits up there.
Jason drags himself up each step, blood simmering under his skin. The stark lights hum. It’s unnaturally clean for an emergency stairwell. He and his mom used to camp out in places like this – well, not like this, not in the back of a tricked-out hotel – when he was a kid, after his dad went to Blackgate. The cold had a way of seeping through. And they were never alone, not really. No matter which corner or which landing they set their blankets down on, there was some sign of those who’d come before. Names etched into stone, empty cans and belts and condoms. He finally makes it to the first landing and the ground is spotless. He grips the rail as he edges around to the next flight.
“Are you scared of elevators?”
“What?”
Steph shrugs.
“No,” Jason says. No, he’s not scared of elevators. He’s not twelve. What’s the worst that can happen – it falls and kills him? Why is she asking? One of the things he likes most about Steph is that usually it’s Tim in the firing line. She starts up the next set of stairs, carrying his crutches with her. It’s pathetic. At least in the car with Tim they could’ve argued about nothing and he could’ve gone to bed safe in the knowledge he hadn’t he humiliated himself.
Silence rings in his ears as he tackles the next flight. His thighs cramp. Steph waits for him on the next landing, still holding his crutches. His tongue flattens against the roof of his mouth.
“You don’t have to,” he manages, when he gets to the top. Steph frowns.
“It’s easy,” she says. As if that makes a difference. She’s holding his crutches and he’s – stuck, now, having to be nice to her, or to thank her, or something. Jason gets closer and she backs off, like she expects him to snatch them back. He freezes. The overhead lights flicker, dappling her face in shadow. A greenish bruise fades on her cheekbone.
No matter what patrol she’s on, no matter what case she’s been working, Steph’s face is bruised every time Jason sees her. Admittedly, that’s not often. But the pattern holds. It’s not down to her height – she’s still got an inch on Damian and half of one on Tim and they come away with their necks and shoulders and chests mottled instead. It’s only Steph whose eye regularly swells shut.
“I can’t believe you got him to call you,” Jason says quietly, beginning the next flight. Steph follows him up, moving slow.
“Me neither,” she says. “He must be in a bad way.”
Jason tilts his head back, taking in the nine remaining flights.
“Or maybe he just wanted to annoy me,” Steph adds, a little quickly. “Keep me away from Tim.”
“He does that?” Jason says, surprised. Even with Tim’s having a boyfriend, Steph and Tim are practically a matched set. Steph’s bun gives up entirely and her hair escapes in a blobby ponytail.
“Annoys me? Every time I see him.”
Jason swallows. “The Tim thing,” he says. His pulse beats nakedly in his throat. Steph looks at him and Jason stares at the wall. He should look at his foot. It’s less obvious if he looks at his foot. So he looks at his foot and catches her toes in his periphery, lilac polish flaking off the nails.
“Oh yeah,” Steph says, and adopts a comical grumble. “‘You’re a bad influence, Brown. You’re a liability, Brown. Brown, you’re a homewrecking whore --’”
Jason chokes and misses the step. His boot kicks into thin air. The railing sings with his scramble to hold onto it. Steph stops, her hand halfway to him. Like she could bear his weight, or help his balance. Heat boils the flesh from his bones.
“Sorry,” Steph smiles, mocking glee wracking the sound. “I didn’t know you were so PG.”
“Fuck off,” Jason mumbles.
“He didn’t really say that,” Steph continues, waiting on the step above him. Jason hefts himself upright and continues. “And I’m not a homewrecker, by the way. No matter what –” Steph cuts herself off, throwing her hands in the air. They make it to the next landing. She’s still holding his crutches, and Jason is still slowing them down, and somewhere up there, their charge awaits, apparently beyond the point of getting himself to safety. An ache gnaws at his ankle.
“I don’t care if you are,” Jason says quietly. Honestly. The rules of relationships were ironed out sometime between when he was dead and when he was buried.
“I’m not.” Steph tilts her chin up. “I can’t help it if people aren’t always honest with me.”
Jason wonders if people means Tim.
“What about you?” She drums the crutches against the opposite railing, peering over the edge as Jason makes his painstaking ascent. “Do you date?”
If he has to be asked a question, he’ll take one with an easy answer. “No.”
“Never?”
Once, and it’s more memory than fact, an impression on his skin and a general sense of the thing. He doesn’t even remember her last name, if he ever knew it. Rena.
Steph interprets his silence in one way or another. “Who was your first kiss, then? You must have kissed someone.” Must have, because? Wheels spin in his brain. Has it marked him, has it lingered, has it bruised?
“I don’t know,” Jason says. “I was a kid.”
Steph whistles low. Jason bristles. Does he sound like Tim? Steph’s ahead of him and he can’t see her face, can’t find the expression in her eyes to know if it’s hatred or amusement. Does Bruce remember every woman he’s ever kissed? Should he? Must he? He catches up to Steph on the next landing and she’s off again, probably ascribing Jason to the list of the reckless. Which is good. Better that she thinks Jason is careless and wanted and easy and firm, taking too many to know their names. He doesn’t need Dick’s fretful, serial monogamy or Tim’s list of pissed-off exes.
Steph’s ponytail swings, and Jason’s palms are clammy. His tongue is fat and covered in fur. A band tightens around his chest.
“I got hit in the head.” The words come from nowhere and fall out of his mouth, expanding to fill the chasm between the bottom of the flight and the top, where Steph turns. Jason can’t rip them out of her hearing. The rest stutters against his teeth, crawling through the gaps between his incisors. “When he was killing me. It’s – I remember, but it’s.” Like the faces have been scribbled out. Jumbled. Starched and ironed and pressed and flattened, thermal paper left in the sun. Whatever imprint remains is only of what was scrambled in the first place, what didn’t get sweat out in the fevers of nightmares and the years of sleeplessness. It’s only of what his brain registered in the first place.
It’s his theory, anyway. He’s never said it out loud.
Jason stares at the wall behind her. Her shadow ripples against it.
“I guess I have to give you a pass, then,” Steph says slowly, like she begrudges it.
Jason’s whole body eases. She waits for him to catch up.
“My first kiss was so shitty,” she announces, as they round the next set of stairs. They seem to go on forever. He clunks and clunks and clunks along. “He was like, a year older than me, and he tasted like backwashed peach schnapps. It was gritty.”
Laughter chases revulsion through his body. The muscles in his foot twitch painfully.
“It was spin the bottle, too, so what can you expect? And then I got wasted on Brittany Hauser’s mom’s wine coolers and I cried so hard I called my mom.”
Jason figures he’s earned a question of his own. “What’d she say?”
Steph snorts. “Nothing,” she says. “She was working. She never picked up.”
It catches him so off-guard that he laughs again before he can stop it, and the sound bounces off the walls. Steph grins at him anyway.
“My dad,” Jason says tentatively, “was meant to pick me up from school one day. Normally I walked home, but – I think he’d said we’d go to the cinema. Yeah. We were meant to see some fucking – Resident Evil, or something. So I was waiting. And waiting. And it started raining, just pouring, so I pulled my hoodie up and pulled it tight. It kept raining, and then it was dark, and everyone was – gone, except for these old hookers across the street. I started worrying something had happened to him. So I ran all the way home, through these puddles – the sole of my shoe came off –”
“Oh my God,” Steph interjects, at just the right time.
“Yeah,” Jason says, “and I bolted up the steps holding the sole in one hand, soaking wet, and shoved the key in the door and got in and – guess where he was?”
“Jail?” If Tim said it, Jason would knock his front teeth out. At Steph, he just shakes his head.
“No. Sitting on the couch eating these fucking Scooby-Doo fruit snacks. He just asked me I wanted any.”
Steph cracks up. She throws her head back and her face breaks in two, bruise and all, and she lets out the loudest guffaw he’s ever heard. And it spurts out of him in short gasps, breaking the surface between waves of guilt. The stairs come easy even as his breath shortens. Steph keeps pace with him.
When the laughter dies down, he can feel her eyes on his face again.
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” she says. Jason nods. His dad’s been dead longer than he was ever in Jason’s life. The cut always bleeds but the sting’s been sucked out of it.
“Yeah.”
“Do you miss him?”
He’d rummaged through the remaining fruit snacks and picked out the lime ones for Jason, the best of the bunch. He’d reached down the back of the couch until his fingers came out sticky and hairy and he’d given Jason a quarter for the dryers at the end of the street.
Jason just looks back at Steph.
“Yeah,” she says. “Me too. And mine’s still alive.”
At the next landing, she puts her hands on her hips and looks up. An exit lingers to their left.
“Over halfway there,” she says. “How’s your foot?”
The couple would be long gone by now. Ripping each other’s clothes off in a bed someone else made. A light glows beyond the reinforced glass of the safety door.
“Fucked,” he grunts.
Steph beckons him towards the door.
With a ding, the elevator opens in the middle of the seventh-floor hallway. Identical cream doors jut out from maroon wainscoting. His ears prick for the telltale bassline, or a round of cheers. Chirpy music cuts as the elevator shuts. With a whine, it starts its descent. Steph checks her phone again.
“Seven-thirteen.”
Naturally, it’s the furthest from the elevator, at the very end of the swanky corridor. Jason knocks and Steph’s phone swooshes with the sending of a message. Jason tries the door handle.
“You think they’re passed out?”
Steph raises her eyebrows. “No.” It’s Jason’s turn to raise his eyebrows. Steph rolls her eyes. “They’re –”
The door opens. A bored-looking girl with buck teeth, brown lipstick, and bronze piercings regards them with razor eyes.
“Are you lost?” she says, with an accent he can’t place. Her gaze guts him like a fish. He holds himself together, shoulders back, setting his mouth into a line.
Steph flashes a tight smile. “We’re here for Damian.”
“Oh.” She steps aside. “He’s in the bathroom.”
Jason follows Steph, and Buck Teeth wrinkles her nose at his boot. So this is where the teenagers of the rich and famous party. Oil paintings hang in neat frames, and glossy pairs of shoes pile up by the front door. The narrow entryway opens into a broad living area. Heavy velvet curtains frame the windows, and wine glasses litter the island that separates the kitchen, each decorated with its own set of charms. Five teenagers sit around a long wooden dining table, equipped with high-backed chairs and iron joinery. Between their heads, Jason spots a board game. Not poker, or some kind of vodka roulette, or cards to make you strip. Something with dice and little silver elves. Classical music pipes from an elaborate sound-system connected to a vintage turntable.
“You’ve been hard at it,” Steph says, taking in the scene. Purple candles burn on a bar-cart, dripping wax and stinking up the room with sandalwood. It’s so quiet. And the kids (because they are kids, even though they’re seventeen, because as they glance up one-by-one they have acne scars and patchy hairs on their chin and a swell to their cheeks) look so…
Well, they’re beaming.
“Oh yeah,” says one boy, glasses reflecting the candlelight. “We even had some port.”
“Wow.” Steph dips into a bow and moves her fist from the top of her head into the air. “I take my hat off to you.”
“He’s through there,” Buck Teeth says, gesturing to an archway. A curved one and everything.
“Thanks,” says Steph.
The archway, in fact, leads to a tiny space where three doors face them. Light only peeks out from one. Steph bangs her fist against it.
“Damian?”
A little groan of assent sneaks out. Jason’s foot hurts the longer he stands on it, so he leans against the opposite door. Quiet chuckles come from the living area. Jason peeks around the edge of the archway. One of the kids is standing, arms outstretched, making a proclamation before he rolls the dice.
“Can I come in?” Steph continues.
“Fine.”
The lock clicks. Jason turns his attention back to the matter at hand. Steph twists the handle and the room swings into view. The brown tiles practically sparkle and the counter inexplicably has two sinks. Steph disappears inside – the bathroom is big enough to disappear into – and Jason follows.
Damian groans, throwing a hand up to block his face. “Not him!”
Damian’s lounged between the bathtub (it has jets) and the toilet, one elbow propped atop the seat like he’s stretched out on a chaise. If not for the black hair sticking to his forehead and the sheen to his skin, he could be holding court in the green sitting room at Wayne Manor.
“Did you take anything?” Steph asks, crouching down beside him. Her voice is gentler than Jason’s ever heard it. Little blue seashells have been painted onto the strip of white tiles dividing the walls between their upper and lower halves.
“I’m not an idiot,” Damian retorts, his voice like scratched wool. “What is he doing here?”
The back of Jason’s neck prickles. Damian’s green eyes narrow expectantly. To shove my fingers down your throat, he could say. If his foot wasn’t screwed, he could probably hoist Damian up and throw him over his shoulder. Because I was in the car when you called. Because Steph dragged me. Because I wanted to take a picture to blackmail you with.
Jason makes the mistake of looking at Steph’s face.
Day 1: Firsts | Skeletons in the closet | Sunshine
or: some of the first times Duke was called sunshine by the people in his life
The first time Duke is ever called Sunshine by anyone, it's by his mom and his beam just gets even brighter. Kicking the rock he was playing with one last time, he hurries to join her.
She's waiting and he hops around her, so so excited. They're going to the library and he's finally getting to know what happens next in Wings of Fire! And library afternoons mean special snacks after, too, and it's just the best thing ever, to him right now.
His mom smiles back at him. "Come on Sunshine, before we get drenched, huh? It wouldn't do to bring back your books all wet."
"Uh uh", he nods, taking the offered hand into his with practiced ease. Switches to a ramble about one of the nice stray-dogs immediately after.
They keep walking, and he swings their hands around. The other stays carefully on the strap of his bag, just not to lose the books.
The sky stays merciful even after, when they were leaving the library. It was all dark, but there was still the smile on his lips. He doesn't remember what Elaine told him, when they were walking. Only her laughter. Her smile, too. Kind of, when he focuses.
The first time he's called Sunshine by someone else than her and his dad, after everything (after the joker, after the home-placements, after the rest) he startles, kind of.
Plays it off casually, if casually means letting out the most awkward, choked playful "shut up" he's ever said. It is not, indeed, any sort of casual, judging by the look in Dick's eyes. Like he's just accidentally insulted his grandma, or something like that.
"What? I just think it's absolutely too easy of a nickname. It's like I'd go around calling Damian something like Birdie", he points out.
"He'd have your head", Dick answers.
"Not my point. I'm talking about how you've been seeing my suit and powers and still immediately picked the easiest nickname ever. That's so uninspired. Honestly ain't deserving of the robin mantle anymore", he shrugs.
"Hey! I'd let you know I, quite literally, created it", he says like everybody in the vigilante world doesn't know the first Robin is now the only Nightwing.
"Uh uh," Duke nods gravely. "It's ancient. Like your puns." He adds.
Dick's gaze immediately turning seemingly-haunted makes it all worth it.
He grows used to Dick calling him that, then. It's not a big deal when he keeps alternating between equally cheery nicknames, or straight-up dumb ones for everyone he knows.
He's okay the first time the nickname leaves Steph's lips, too.
She says it with such ease he doesn't even realize until after she's stolen his bowl of cereals and eaten literal spoonfuls of it.
"Hey! You'd steal food from the literal sun?"
"Wow. Duke, seriously, the difference between the sun and sunshine is huge. I can't believe your ego would be so big as to mix them up", she sighs, mournful.
Seriously, all bats-related people should be drama kids or some similar thing. They should form a company. They'd do great.
"And I can't believe the pit in your stomach's so big you're depriving mine of its food", he immediately answers back.
"Our pits should fight to death I think."
"Bet?"
"Bet", she answers.
She keeps doing that after that one time, that being the way she'll adresse him with sunshine whenever she wants to tease him. He gets used to it pretty easily. Kinda like he got used to her teasing him quickly.
So he's also alright when Cass starts saying it, just as weirdly fond, the word being said easily by her once and then occasionally time and time again. Gets used to it too.
Might as well expect everyone to start doing it.
He wants to take it back. He's taking all of it back.
Sunshine escapes Bruce's throat after a way too long night where Duke had to go out and help the night-vigilantes and where they all kept calling him sunshine for the heck of it. (To be fair, he was calling them the most horrendous nicknames along with Tim and Jason's sort of fight/banter. He's there for the chaos too, sue him. Sue him and everyone else that made this situation possible.)
He freezes. Bruce freezes. Nobody else freezes because nobody else's in the cave, not even bats like he first believed there were. It might have been better, honestly. Way less awkward, and all. Yep, he'd take getting hit in the face by an army of bats over this any time.
Bruce makes a sort of throaty sound, or weird throat clearing and then turns to where the batarangs are kept.
And then keeps cleaning his current one a little too extensively not to be suspicious.
"Right. Uhm. I'm gonna crash into bed, it's calling my name", Duke announces, head cask still firmly held in his hands. He sets it down.
"Good night", Bruce grunts, avoiding his gaze unlike the full grown-ass adult he's supposed to be. Honestly, Duke's fine with that.
Win-win situation. He'd rather avoid the feelings him saying the nickname caused his chest to endure. No thanks. Not going down that path tonight. He'll think about role-models and parental-figures later. The biggest nap of his week awaits him right now.
"Good night" he echoes, then try not to think of it anymore. Keeps any thought of the sun farrr away from his mind.
If Damian ever says it, he's honestly going to lose his sanity.
We're hosting a week-long event dedicated to celebrating the flippier and quippier half of the Dynamic Duo!
Each day is going to spotlight a different Robin: Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown, Damian Wayne, We Are Robin, and a free pick!
The aim is to spread some love to Robins from all flights of life! This could mean anything from your favourite Robin bobbin' along in their very own cape, to focusing on their relationship with one of the other bats, to examining their relationship to the mantle itself, or something else entirely.
This event will run from April 20th - April 26th. Prompt voting is currently: OPEN.
If you have any questions, check out our Rules and FAQ, or send in an Ask to hear from us directly!
Robin Week Schedule
Prompt Submissions: January 1st - January 10th
Prompt Voting: January 10th - January 20th
Prompt List Posted: January 20th
Working Period: January 20th - April 20th
Event Posting: April 20th - April 26th
April 20th: Dick Grayson Day
April 21st: Jason Todd Day
April 22nd: Tim Drake Day
April 23rd: Stephanie Brown Day
April 24th: Damian Wayne Day
April 25th: We Are Robin Day
April 26th: Free Pick Day
For the free pick day (April 26th), you can make a fanwork for any Robin of your choosing! That could be one of the mainline Robins (e.g., Dick Grayson), an alternate Robin (e.g., Carrie Kelley), or even another DC character who has never been Robin before that you would like to try your hand at putting in the cape for a day!
The definition of a Batfam member is very loose, but anyone who is mainly in the batman/batfam comics and who is relatively friendly terms with everyone counts (e.g. Talia, Selina, and Jean-Paul count, Superman, Scarecrow, and Roy Harper do not)
Are ships allowed?
Yes, ships are allowed, but it is preferred that they are not the center focus of the fic as this is supposed to be batfam focused
(any ships are allowed, this includes batcest, on that note, I would also like to add that anyone who harasses someone because of the people they ship will be blocked)
What can be made for this event?
Anything can be made for this event! This includes fanfic, fanart, moodboards, playlists, combinations of multiple of these, ect. Whatever your heart so desires! So long as it is not stolen/plagiarized and not AI generated.
If anyone else has more questions regarding the event feel free to send me an ask!
