Dreambo

where I hoard all the posts I like lol

[sanjiroo]

came back to the fandom to read some fics and it’s all memes about authors??? where tf are the writers at like can yall stop filling the tags with your complaints damn and find something else to do???!!!! after s3 i had so many options but i deadass cant see anything to read tf

yes i am aware of the irony but someone has to say it

[pomegranatelifethis]

Nobody Noticed

They never meant to forget you.

That's what you told yourself, in the beginning. When Bruce came home with reports about Gotham's crime rates spread across the dining table and his eyes passed over you like you were part of the furniture. When Dick ruffled your hair and said "Hey, squirt" on his way to somewhere more important. When Tim looked up from his laptop and said "Yeah, totally, I'll help you with that later" — and later never came.

You told yourself: they're busy. They're saving lives. You're not more important than Gotham.

You believed it for a long time.

---

You were six when Bruce found you.

Your mother was already gone by then — taken in a way that left marks on you that had nothing to do with bruises. You didn't understand all of it, not then. You just knew that the world was dark and cold and that sometimes men could do things that made you feel like you'd never be clean again, even when they hadn't touched you. You'd only watched. Hidden inside the closet, eye pressed to the crack in the door, too small and too terrified to make a sound.

That was your first fear: being trapped somewhere small and dark while something terrible happened and nobody came.

Bruce Wayne looked at you across a sterile hospital room and something moved behind his eyes — recognition, maybe. The shape of a child who had seen too much. He signed the papers three weeks later.

You had a home. You had a father. You had brothers.

For a while, you thought that meant you were safe.

---

Dick was twenty when you arrived, already Nightwing, already brilliant. He smiled at you like sunlight and called you little sister and the first time he did, your chest cracked open with something warm and desperate and enormous. You followed him everywhere. You learned his footsteps. You memorized the way he laughed.

He was kind to you. He just wasn't there. Not really. Not in the way that counted.

Dick existed in flashes — a weekend visit, a quick call, a laugh across the comms. He was the brother who said "I'm so proud of you" without asking what he was proud of. He saw the shape of you, the outline, and he loved that outline genuinely. He just never looked close enough to see what was inside it.

You stopped telling him things when you were nine. He always listened with one eye on his phone.

--

Tim was different. Tim noticed things — that was his whole thing, observation, deduction, detail. He noticed when Bruce's sleep patterns shifted. He noticed when Damian's training scores dropped two percent. He built files on everything.

He never built one on you.

Not because he didn't care. Because you were never a variable in any equation he was trying to solve. You were just... there. Present. Assumed. Like background noise that didn't require analysis.

You asked him once to help you with your combat assessment. You were twelve, newly suited up, still figuring out your footing. He said "Absolutely, let's do Tuesday." Tuesday came. He forgot. You reminded him. He said "Sorry, this week's bad, next week for sure." Next week came and went. You stopped asking after the fourth time.

What hurt wasn't the forgetting. It was that he never noticed he'd forgotten.

---

Jason.

Jason is a wound that never healed right.

Before he died, he was the one who saw you. Really saw you. He'd find you in the library at two in the morning when you couldn't sleep and he'd sit beside you without asking why, and somehow that was enough. He called you kid but it didn't feel dismissive — it felt like a claim. Like you're mine to look after.

He died when you were eight.

You grieved him in a way you didn't grieve your mother, because with your mother you'd been too small to understand permanence. With Jason you were old enough to know that gone meant gone. You put flowers outside his old room for a year. Bruce told you once, gently, to stop. It upset him.

You stopped.

Jason came back when you were thirteen, angry and sharp-edged and burning with something you didn't have a name for yet. You ran to him. You actually ran, across the cave, heart hammering, because he was alive, he was back, he was—

He stepped around you.

Not deliberately. Or maybe deliberately — you never knew. He looked at Bruce and the look between them was so full of history and fury and grief that there was simply no room for you in it. You stood there with your arms half-extended and slowly let them fall.

He never really came back. Not to you. The Jason who sat with you in libraries was buried in the pit somewhere. This Jason looked through you on a good day and said something cutting on a bad one — "Shouldn't you be in bed?" or "You're in the way" or once, terribly, "You're not actually his daughter, you know. You're just the latest project."

You didn't cry in front of him. You'd learned by then not to cry in front of any of them.

---

Damian arrived like a verdict.

He was Bruce's blood. His actual blood, and you understood immediately — with the cold clarity of a child who had learned to read rooms — what that meant for you. Not consciously. Bruce never said it. Nobody said it. But the shift was there, subtle and tectonic, and you felt it the way you felt changes in weather.

Damian didn't like you. He made that clear within the first week. "You were adopted out of pity," he told you, seven years old and vicious with inherited confidence. "I am a Wayne by birth. There is a difference."

You were thirteen. You already knew there was a difference. You just hadn't wanted to hear it said aloud.

You tried, for years, to reach him. You left his favorite tea outside his door. You covered for him with Bruce twice. Once, when he was injured on a mission and Bruce was unreachable, you sat with him in the med bay for four hours and held his hand when he was too delirious with painkillers to tell you to let go.

The next morning he told you to stay out of his room.

You did.

--

You became a vigilante at fifteen.

Bruce didn't exactly give you permission. You didn't exactly ask. You trained in the cave when nobody was there — which was often, because the cave was only crowded when there was something important happening, and you had learned you were rarely part of what was important. You built your own suit from components in the supply room that nobody had catalogued yet. You chose a name nobody had claimed.

Your first night out, you stopped a mugging and a convenience store robbery and helped a woman whose car had broken down on the highway find a signal to call for help. Small things. Unglamorous things.

You filed a report in the cave's system. Standard format, the way Tim had shown you once, two years ago, in a moment of actual attention. Case numbers. Location coordinates. Incident details.

Nobody responded.

You filed another one the next week. And the next.

After six months, you stopped filing reports. You just went out and came back and put your suit away and went to bed. Nobody asked where you'd been. Nobody noticed the mileage on the bike.

You had a symbol, a territory, a growing list of informants. You had a reputation in three of Gotham's worst districts. You had solved four cases that had gone cold in the GCPD for years.

The Batfamily did not know your case number. They did not know your informants' names. They did not know about the apartment you'd quietly rented in Crime Alley with the money from your trust fund — not to live in, just to have somewhere that was yours, somewhere your things weren't adjacent to theirs, somewhere you could breathe without waiting to be overlooked.

You were sixteen when you understood that you loved them and that loving them was making you disappear.

---

You tried, once, to say it.

Seventeen years old. Family dinner — one of the rare ones where everyone was present, even Jason, even Dick, even Alfred who watched everything with sad knowing eyes and sometimes touched your shoulder in a way that made you want to collapse.

Bruce was talking about a new lead on Scarecrow's operations. Dick was animated, leaning forward, offering tactical suggestions. Tim had his tablet out despite Alfred's pointed look. Jason was eating with the focused aggression he brought to everything. Damian was correcting Tim's analysis with the particular smugness of someone who knew he was right.

You had information. Relevant information — you'd spent three weeks building a profile on Scarecrow's new chemist, traced his supply chain to a warehouse in the Narrows. You had coordinates. You had a window.

You opened your mouth.

"I actually have—"

"The eastern route makes more sense," Dick said, talking over you without realizing it. "If we split the team into—"

You closed your mouth.

You sat there for the rest of dinner. You passed the bread when it was near you. You answered when Alfred asked if you wanted more water. Nobody else spoke to you directly.

After, you went to your room and sat on the floor with your back against the bed and breathed very carefully for a long time. Not crying. You'd mostly stopped crying by then. Just breathing. Waiting for the feeling to pass.

It passed. It always passed.

That was almost worse.

The accumulation of small things:

Tim promising to spar with you seventeen times over two years and canceling sixteen of them. The seventeenth time he simply didn't show up and when you asked later he said "Oh, was that today? Sorry, I had a thing."

Dick sending you a birthday message three days late with seventeen exclamation points, clearly composed in thirty seconds.

Bruce looking at your patrol report — one of the rare times he actually opened the file — and saying "Good work" with the tone of someone who had not actually read it.

Damian telling a visiting hero that there were "four" Batfamily members when you were standing six feet away.

Jason, once, when you were eighteen and tried to check if he was okay after a bad mission: "I don't need you to babysit me. Go back to playing house with Bruce."

The way none of them ever asked about your fear.

You'd mentioned it once, years ago, to Dick — that small spaces made you cold, that being trapped made your vision go white, that you'd had nightmares since you were six about a closet door and sounds you couldn't stop hearing. He'd said "Oh, that's rough, I'm sorry" and then his phone had rung and that was the end of it.

None of them knew. Not really. Not the shape of it, the weight of it, the way it lived in your chest like a stone.

---

You were nineteen when the Riddler's new syndicate took you.

It wasn't careless on your part. You'd been careful — you were always careful, you'd had to be, operating without a net, without backup, without anyone monitoring your comms. You'd tracked the syndicate for four months. You knew their patterns. You knew their safehouses.

What you didn't know was that they knew yours.

They'd been watching you watch them. Waiting. Patient in the way that only people with something to prove could be patient.

They took you on a Tuesday. Gray sky, cold rain. You were two blocks from your apartment in Crime Alley and then you weren't anywhere you recognized.

---

The room was small.

That was the first thing. That was the thing that split you open before anything else had even happened — the dimensions of it, the closeness of the walls, the single bare bulb, the door with no handle on the inside. The smell of damp concrete and something metallic.

You pressed your back against the wall and breathed.

They'll find me, you thought. They'll notice I'm gone. Bruce will pull up my tracker—

Your tracker was in your suit. Your suit was in your apartment. You'd been taken in civilian clothes.

They'll notice I'm missing from the cave. Tim monitors the system—

Tim had not responded to a single report you'd filed in six months. The system showed your last check-in as four days ago.

Dick will—

Dick didn't know your patrol schedule. Nobody did.

You sat in the small dark room and understood, with a clarity that was almost peaceful, that no one was coming.

Not because they didn't love you. Maybe they did, in the abstract, in the way you love furniture that's always been in a room. But love without attention was just sentiment. Sentiment didn't open doors.

---

They came eventually. Riddler's people, with questions you didn't answer and methods that made the room feel smaller. You held on to what you could. Your name. Your breathing. The memory of a library at two in the morning and a boy who sat beside you without asking why.

That Jason was gone. But the memory wasn't.

You held onto it.

On the third day you stopped counting hours. On the fifth day you stopped being surprised by the pain. Somewhere in there — you couldn't have said exactly when — you stopped waiting.

Not because you gave up, exactly. More because waiting required believing, and you had run out of the particular kind of belief that made waiting possible. You had spent thirteen years waiting to be seen. This was just the last version of the same thing.

You thought about your mother, in the end. Not the way it happened — you didn't let yourself go there. Just her face, which you barely remembered, which had mostly dissolved into impressions: something warm, something that smelled like cedar, something that had loved you before the world got its hands on you.

You thought: at least I know what that felt like.

The bulb flickered. The room was very small. The door did not open.

---

They found your apartment six weeks later.

Tim, actually — following a thread on a case that had nothing to do with you, a lead that happened to pass through Crime Alley and a building registry that happened to have your name on it. He stood in the doorway of the small apartment and looked at your things — the books stacked by the window, the mug on the counter, the suit folded on the table because you'd always been neat, always been careful, always cleaned up after yourself — and something shifted in his face.

He called Bruce.

Bruce came. Then Dick. Then Jason. Damian stayed in the car for a long time before he came upstairs.

They stood in your apartment and looked at your life, the one you'd built without them, the one that had existed in the negative space of their attention. There were case files on the wall. Years of them. Cases solved, territories mapped, informants catalogued. There were notes in your handwriting — careful, precise — cross-referencing their operations with yours. All the times you'd been working parallel to them, unseen.

There was a folder on the table labeled, in your handwriting: Reports — Unfiled.

Dick opened it.

It was everything you'd never said. Not a journal, not a letter — you hadn't written it for them, you'd written it for yourself, the way you wrote everything, because writing was the only place you'd ever been fully heard. Patrol notes. Case summaries. And threaded through them, small and unadorned, the record of being invisible: Tim canceled again. Dick called, didn't ask how I was. Bruce said good work without looking up. Damian said four.

And at the very end, dated two weeks before you disappeared: I think I'm going to stop waiting. Not for them — for anyone. I think I've been waiting my whole life and I'm tired and I think that's okay. I think it's okay to be tired.

I love them. I just don't think they'll notice I'm gone.

Dick sat down on your floor.

Jason stood very still in the doorway of your bedroom for a long time.

They found you three days later. What was left of you.

The Riddler's syndicate had moved on, left no living witnesses, covered their tracks with professional efficiency. The GCPD report was clinical. Bruce read it in the cave at three in the morning with Alfred's hand on his shoulder and did not speak for a very long time.

You had been afraid of small spaces. They had put you in one. They had known — somehow, because you'd never told your family but you'd mentioned it once to an informant who'd been compromised — what you were most afraid of.

You had died in the exact shape of your greatest fear.

Waiting for someone to open the door.

They held a service. Small, private. Alfred cried in the way Alfred cried — quietly, with dignity, with the devastation of someone who had seen this family make the same mistakes over and over and had never been able to stop them.

Nobody said we should have known. That was perhaps the most honest thing.

Dick didn't speak at the service. He'd tried to write something and hadn't been able to finish it. He kept thinking about the phone calls where he hadn't asked how you were. He kept thinking about how he'd loved the shape of you without ever learning the contents.

Tim thought about seventeen canceled sparring sessions. He thought about the reports sitting unread in the system. He thought about how he'd built files on everything — everything except you.

Jason thought about what he'd said. You're not actually his daughter, you know. You're just the latest project. He thought about it with the particular torture of someone who cannot take words back. He thought about a library and two in the morning and a small girl who had run toward him with her arms out and he had walked around her like she wasn't there.

He thought about that for a long time.

Damian stood at the graveside and looked at your name on the stone and thought about a mug of tea left outside his door. He had not thanked you. He had not acknowledged it. He had told you to stay out of his room.

He had been seven. He did not think that excused him.

---

Bruce went back to the cave that night. He opened your file — your real file, the one Tim had built after, pulling together everything, trying too late to see you whole. He read every report. Every case. Every small careful note.

He read the line: I love them. I just don't think they'll notice I'm gone.

He sat in the cave for a long time.

Then he closed the file.

He went upstairs. He stood in the hallway outside your room — your old room, the one you'd kept because you'd never officially moved out, the one with your books and your drawings and your second-best mug because your favorite was in the apartment in Crime Alley. He stood there and he put his hand flat against the door.

He did not open it.

He stood there for a very long time, in the dark, in the quiet.

And then he went to bed.

Because Bruce Wayne had always been better at grieving in retrospect than preventing it. Because the people he failed were always, in the end, the ones already inside the house.

Because you had been right.

They hadn't noticed until you were already gone.

[torvada]

How it feels to read fanfics from fandoms that you’re not apart of

[bitimdrake]

Complete Stephanie Brown Timeline & Reading Order

(*for the Post-Crisis/pre-Flashpoint era)

Steph spent over a decade as a supporting character, which means until she finally got her Batgirl run, her appearances are scattered across various bat-books, and hard to track (let alone order) if you don’t know where to start. Which is what I’m here for!

This will run through a basic explanation of Steph’s entire timeline up to Flashpoint, including every appearance in chronological order. (Well, minus some pointless cameos where she appears for a single panel/line.) If you’re just reading for Steph, there are many issues listed where you could just skim through the non-Steph portions.

For the very abbreviated version:

Steph first appears in Detective Comics vol 1 #647-649 as the Spoiler, working against her dad.

She returns and becomes a regular supporting character in Robin vol 2 (1993), which includes getting together with Tim, and going through a teen pregnancy.

Steph starts to appear more across other Batfamily books, particularly Batgirl vol 1 (2000) (while still being a regular in Robin).

For a short time, she is welcomed into the inner circle and trained directly by Batman, before being rejected again.

After Tim is forced to quit, Steph becomes Robin briefly.

Shortly after being fired, she is killed.

Steph returns with a very brief explanation, and floats around as a Robin supporting character again.

Finally, she becomes Batgirl and gets her own run in Batgirl vol 3 (2009), which lasts until the reboot.

Full timeline and issue listings below the cut! I’ve tried to make it possible to just grab the listed issues, ignore any (lower-case s) spoilers, and get a fresh read for yourself OR to read in full for a thorough timeline.

Keep reading

[ochibrochi]

💎 rogues are a bat's best friend 🦇 @brucewaynepinupzine

[juneorange]

bringing this doodle back as summer approaches 💔

[plagueislost]

quick pit stop on patrol

[pinkcanaryy]

Green Lanterns x new lantern! reader

Summary: You somehow managed to find your way into the Lantern Corps and all you're the bane of everyone's existence.

TW: Sex jokes. Lots. Halbarry mention? (nothing happened, reader's just teasing)

"Get your feet off the console," John growled.

"Can’t," you said, shifting your weight on the glowing green desk. "My thighs are currently stuck to the hard-light by pure friction. If I move, I lose skin, John. Is that what you want? You want to explain to the little blue smurfs upstairs why there’s human epidermis on the sector map?"

Hal rubbed his temples, staring at the floorboards. "How did you even get past the atmospheric shield? It’s designed to incinerate organic matter that doesn't have a ring signature."

"I slid in under the door while you were letting Barry out," you said, leaning your head all the way back over the edge of the console until you were looking at Hal upside down. "By the way, Hal? What were you doing with Barry in the hangar for six hours? Tactical briefing? Without clothes?"

You let out a loud, wet and breathless groan, rolling your eyes into the back of your head to give the others a visual of what you thought went on in there between the guys.

Kyle choked on his energy drink, spraying blue liquid directly onto Simon’s boots. He slammed his fists onto the desk, cackling so hard his knees buckled. "Tactical! Oh my god, the friction—"

"No! Guys, stop! That’s not true! No!" Hal yelled, his face turning an aggressively bright crimson. "There was a localized speed-force tear! We had to change into aerodynamic suits!"

"Yeah, skin-to-skin contact really helps with the aerodynamics, Hal. We know," you muttered. "Does he leave the mask on, or is that just for special occasions?"

Kyle shrieked, hitting the floor entirely. He was rolling on the metal grates, clutching his ribs.

"She is an absolute fucking pain, can we please focus on getting her ass back home?" Simon said, wiping his leather boots with a rag.

"Nice balaclava, Simon," you shot back, pointing an orange-stained finger at him. "What’s the vibe? Bank robber or just hiding a mouth-breathing habit? You look like a soundcloud rapper"

Simon blinked beneath the mask. "It's for tactical concealment—"

"It's for hiding that weak chin, we get it."

Guy Gardner walked into the bullpen, holding a box of space-donuts. "What the hell is going on in here. Who let the civilian touch the main frame?"

"Nice bowl cut, ginger," you said, not even sitting up. "Did your mom hate you?"

Guy froze. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me, Peter Pan. Go back to the kitchen." You turned your attention back to John, who was now standing directly over you, his ring flaring with a dangerous, sharp green edge.

"Alright, that's enough," John said, his voice dropping into the territory that usually made rookie lanterns cry. "You have five seconds to tell me why you're here before I throw you into a holding cell."

You squinted up at the massive marine, entirely unimpressed. "John. Serious question. Do you know Goblin?"

John’s jaw clenched. "Goblin who?"

"John, don't," Hal warned, still holding his face in his hands. "Don't do it."

"Goblin deez nuts!" you bellowed, leaping off the console to fall to your knees off of laughter "Got 'em! Absolute textbook! Put it in the archive, Kyle!"

Kyle was literally pounding his fists against the floorboards, tears streaming down his face. Hal was biting his own lip so hard it was turning white, trying to mask a massive laugh with a fake cough.

"This is a professional workspace," John said through gritted teeth, a giant hard-light hand manifesting above your head. "I am removing you. Now."

Before the green hand could drop, a sharp ping shattered the tension.

A streak of emerald light smashed through the window, zipping past Hal, looping around John’s neck, knocking Guy’s donuts into the trash, and smacking directly onto your right middle finger.

The room exploded in a chaotic glare of green energy that looked like absolute disrespect.

When the glare cleared, you were standing there in the full uniform. The suit was painted on, the chest emblem was massive, and you immediately used the ring to generate a glowing green lawn chair so you could sit right back down.

Silence fell over the room.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," Guy muttered.

You looked down at the ring, then up at the six legendary heroes staring at you with total horror. A massive, insufferable grin spread across your face.

"Well, well, well," you said, checking your nails. "The data is in. The consensus is reached. I am officially the hottest Green Lantern in the history of the Corps."

"The ring chose her?" Jessica whispered from the corner, hiding behind a pillow. "The Guardians allowed this?"

"The ring has immaculate taste, Jess," you said, floating two inches off the ground with the absolute worst slouching posture imaginable. "Look at this roster. Hal? Midlife crisis on legs. John? Too stiff, probably keeps his combat boots on during sex to maintain proper ankle support."

"Hey!" John snapped.

"Guy? Moving on," you continued smoothly. "Me? Perfect. It was about damn time they got someone without crippling mommy issues"

Hal looked at Kyle, his eyes wide with a mix of terror and profound respect. "I can not believe this is who we have to work with"

"I know," Kyle whispered, wiping a tear from his eye. "It'll be great"

You tapped the ring against the main console, sending a ripple of green light through their security system. "Alright, now that I'm a protector of the universe, who's taking the hottest Lantern out for tacos? Hal's paying, since Barry keeps him on a strict allowance."

"I am NOT on an allowance!" Hal shouted, already grabbing his jacket. "And I'm NOT fucking Barry!"

A/n: there is actually a severe deficiency of jessica fics in the tumblr community and I won't stand for this.

[venomsvl]

-The Hollow hours in between (Neglected!reader)

Summary: The silence does not hold. It spills beyond the manor’s walls, and what was once unseen is forced into the open where it cannot be ignored.

Chapter Warnings: dark themes, emotional neglect, grief, emotional distress, anxiety, isolation, media pressure, public scrutiny, invasive questioning, themes of abandonment, identity pressure, unsettling atmosphere

Pairing: BatFamily x Neglected!Fem!reader

Word count: 3272

A/n: Okay i never expected to write this fast i usually take months until I'm able to write something again but the creative juices are overflowing rn. this was getting waaayyy to long so i decided to just cut it into parts

A/n: So I have a few fics that I posted on AO3 that arent here so u can go and check them out if u want My account :)

A/n: If you find any spelling mistakes or any mistakes in general please tell me and keep in mind English isnt my first language

ACT I — ACT II — ACT III pt.1 (Here)

𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

Time changes things. Not the way fire does, ravenous and bright, consuming everything in its path until nothing remains but ash. Time changes things the way water does. Soft at first. A whisper against stone. Then patient. Persistent. Wearing down the sharpest edges one invisible layer at a time until the cliffs become shores and the boulders become sand. You do not notice it happening. That is the cruelest part. You wake one morning, press your palm to the glass, and the reflection staring back has forgotten the shape of the person who walked into the cave.

And yet, nothing here changes in a way you can point to.

That is what makes it unbearable.

The cave still hums in its usual language, screens cycling, systems refreshing, the low mechanical breath of something built to never sleep. Alfred is there the way he has been every day since it began. Same position. Same posture. Same precise attention to details that refuse to rearrange themselves into meaning.

Only the meaning never arrives.

You’ve stopped expecting it to.

He doesn’t look up when you enter. Not immediately. Not because he hasn’t noticed you, but because he’s already halfway through something that has no clear beginning anymore.

A report opens. Closes. Reopens.

A timeline scrolls forward and then backward, as if the direction itself has become unreliable.

You take your place beside him without speaking. There was a time when silence here meant focus. Now it just feels like repetition that hasn’t decided what it’s trying to become.

Alfred exhales once, measured, and the sound carries more weight than it should.

“You will see it as well,” he says at last, not turning.

Not a question. Not quite an invitation either.

Just continuation.

The screen shifts again. A map resolves itself into too many points of certainty. Too many confirmations stacked neatly on top of each other, all agreeing in a way that should have simplified things days ago.

Instead, it has only made them harder to read.

Your gaze moves across it the way it always does now, slowly, deliberately, as if looking long enough might eventually loosen something hidden beneath the structure of it.

Nothing does.

Alfred’s fingers pause above the keyboard.

A fraction of hesitation. Almost nothing. But enough that you notice it every time it happens.

He adjusts a parameter. Runs the same search again.

The results return unchanged.

He doesn’t react.

Not anymore.

There is a pattern in that too, though you haven’t named it.

Time passes.

Systems confirm themselves.

Nothing resolves.

And still

He tries again.

The search runs. The results return. The green checkmarks glow.

You are about to look away when the cave's intercom buzzes.

It is a sound so foreign now that you both freeze. The intercom has not been used in days. No one calls the manor. No one visits. The world outside has become a rumor, something that happens to other people.

Alfred stares at the speaker on the wall.

The buzzer sounds again. Longer this time. Insistent.

No one speaks.

Then Alfred stands. Slowly. Like his body has forgotten how to move. He walks to the intercom and presses the button.

"Yes?"

A voice crackles through. Female. Professional. Strained.

"Mr. Pennyworth, this is Margaret from the Wayne Enterprises front desk. I apologize for disturbing you, but there are reporters here. Dozens of them. They've been gathering since this morning. They're asking for a statement. They're saying if no one comes out, they'll start camping on the lawn."

Alfred closes his eyes.

"I see," he says. "Have you contacted the authorities?"

"They're already here, sir. The police are trying to hold them back, but there are too many. The board is asking what they should tell the press. No one knows what to say."

Alfred is silent for a long moment.

"Tell them I will be there within the hour," he says.

He releases the button.

The cave goes quiet again, but the quiet is different now. Heavier. The outside world has found its way in.

He turns to look at you. His face is pale, but his voice is steady.

"You should stay here," he says. "This does not need to involve you."

You stare at him.

"You're going alone?"

"I have handled difficult situations before."

"Not like this. Not with cameras. Not with the whole city watching."

He does not answer.

You look at the screen. At the frozen family. At the green checkmarks that mean nothing. Then you look back at Alfred. The man who has held everything together for as long as you can remember. The man who is standing in front of you with unbuttoned jacket and tired eyes and no one else to help him.

"If you go out there alone, they won't listen," you say. "They want a Wayne."

Alfred's jaw tightens.

"And what do you propose?"

You stand up. Your legs are numb. Your head is heavy. But you stand.

"I go with you," you say. "I don't know what to say. I don't know how to do any of this. But I'm not letting you face them alone."

Alfred looks at you for a long moment. Something shifts in his expression. Not relief. Not hope. Just a small crack in the loneliness.

"Very well," he says.

He does not move immediately. For a moment, it feels as though the word has settled between you both in a way neither of you knows how to pick up again.

Then Alfred exhales once, slow and controlled, and the version of him that hesitated a moment ago is gone before you can fully register it.

He turns back to the computer. His fingers move across the keyboard, and the main screen splits. Then splits again. Window after window opens, each one showing a different news feed.

Gotham Tonight. Gotham Gazette Live. WGBS Breaking News. Every channel, every outlet, every angle.

They are all showing the same thing.

The manor gates.

You step closer. The screens are filled with bodies. Reporters in pressed suits. Camera operators with equipment on their shoulders. Satellite trucks parked along the road, their dishes aimed at the sky. Police officers trying to hold back a crowd that keeps growing.

The gates are closed. They have always been closed. But you have never seen them look so fragile.

"How long have they been there?" you ask.

"Hours," Alfred says. "They arrived shortly after dawn. At first, only a few. Then more. Now..."

He gestures to the screens. You watch a reporter point toward the manor, her mouth moving in words you cannot hear. The camera pans across the crowd. Signs. Some asking for answers. Some demanding the truth. Some just watching.

You turn to Alfred.

"What do I do?"

Alfred looks at you for a long moment. Then he turns away from the computer.

"Come with me," he says.

He leads you up the stairs. Out of the cave. Through the grandfather clock. But he does not take you to Your room like you expected. He takes you somewhere else. Somewhere you have never been.

Martha's room.

You have walked past this door a thousand times. You have never opened it. It was always closed. Always off limits.

Alfred unlocks it with a key from his pocket. The door swings open.

The room is dark at first. Then he turns on a lamp. Soft light fills the space. A bedroom frozen in time. The bed made. The vanity set with brushes and combs and bottles you do not recognize. The closet door slightly ajar, revealing rows of clothes that smell of lavender and age.

You stop at the threshold.

"Why are we here?"

Alfred does not answer immediately. He walks to the closet and opens it fully. His hand reaches inside, touching fabric, hesitating.

"Because you cannot go out there looking like a schoolchild," he says. "They will not respect you. They will not listen."

He pulls out a dress. Dark. Simple. Elegant. Something Martha Wayne wore decades ago.

"Your Grandmother's proportions were similar to yours," he says quietly. "It will fit."

You stare at the dress. At the room. At Alfred, standing in front of a dead woman's clothes.

"I can't wear her things," you say.

"You can. And you will."

His voice is steady, but his hands are not. You see them tremble slightly as he lays the dress across the bed.

"She would have wanted this," he says. "Someone to carry it forward."

Alfred turns to the vanity. He opens a drawer. Inside are jewelry boxes. He selects a pair of small pearl earrings. A simple necklace.

"These were hers as well," he says. "You will wear them."

He sets them beside the dress.

Then he looks at you. "Sit," he says, pointing to the vanity stool.

You sit.

He stands behind you. His hands are gentle when they touch your hair. He combs through the tangles slowly, carefully, the way he used to do for the others when they were small and too tired to do it themselves.

You have never been on this side of his hands before.

"You do not have to speak much," he says. "In fact, it is better if you do not. Let them ask their questions. Let them shout. You will stand there, and you will not react."

His voice is steady. Controlled.

"Your face must stay neutral," he continues. "Not angry. Not sad. Just present. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"If someone asks you a direct question, you will say, 'The family appreciates your concern and will provide more information when possible.' Nothing else. No matter what they ask. No matter how many times they ask it."

He sets down the comb. He picks up a damp cloth and wipes something from your cheek. You did not know anything was there.

"They will try to make you emotional," he says. "They will bring up your mother. They will bring up the family. They will ask if you feel abandoned. You will not answer."

His hands pause.

"You will not answer," he repeats.

You look at your reflection in the vanity mirror. The dress is not on you yet, but you can see it behind you, laid across the bed. Martha's dress. Martha's pearls. Martha's room.

"Where did you learn how to do this?" you ask.

Alfred meets your eyes in the mirror.

"I have been preparing for this moment longer than you have been alive," he says. "I just did not know it would be for you."

His voice cracks slightly on the last word. He looks away.

He steps back.

"Stand up."

You stand.

He looks at your clothes. The school uniform you never changed out of. The wrinkled shirt. The scuffed shoes.

He stands.

"Now the dress," he says.

He helps you into it. His hands are careful, reverent. He does not look at you while he works. He looks at the fabric, the seams, the way it settles across your shoulders.

When he finishes, he steps back.

You look in the mirror.

Martha's dress. Martha's pearls. Martha's earrings.

You do not recognize yourself.

Alfred is standing behind you. His reflection is pale. His eyes are wet.

"You look like her," he says quietly. "More than I expected."

You do not know what to say.

He reaches out and adjusts the necklace slightly. His fingers linger on the pearls.

"She was kind," he says. "Braver than anyone knew. She would have loved you."

His voice breaks.

He turns away before you can see his face fully.

You stand there, in a dead woman's clothes, in a room that has been frozen for decades, while the press waits at the gates.

Alfred clears his throat.

"You are ready," he says. His voice is steady again. Almost.

You do not feel ready.

But you nod.

He picks up his jacket from the back of a chair. He puts it on. He buttons it. For a moment, he looks like himself again. Composed. Capable.

Then he looks at you, and the cracks are still there. Hidden. But there.

"We should go," he says.

You follow Alfred out of Martha's room.

The door closes behind you with a soft click, and the lock turns. The key goes back into his pocket. The room returns to its silence, its decades of waiting.

But something has changed.

The hallway feels different now. Larger. The ceilings seem higher than they were this morning. The walls feel further apart. Your footsteps echo in a way they never used to, each step bouncing off surfaces that have suddenly become unfamiliar.

You have walked these corridors every day for years. You know where the floor creaks. You know which doors stick. You know the exact angle of the light at every hour.

But now the house feels like it is holding its breath.

The portraits on the walls seem to watch you as you pass. Eyes following. Faces frozen in paint and memory. You have ignored them for so long that you forgot they were there. Now you feel every gaze.

The curtains are drawn in most rooms. The ones that are open show the gray afternoon light filtering through, casting long shadows across the floors. Dust motes drift in the beams. The house is clean. Alfred has made sure of that. But clean is not the same as alive.

The manor has never been quiet. Not really. During the day, there was always something.

At night, even when most of them were out, there were sounds. The thud of the grandfather clock closing. Boots on the stairs. Voices low and tired.

But now there is nothing.

The silence is not peaceful. It is not restful. It is the silence of something that has stopped breathing.

You pause at the top of the staircase. The portraits on the walls seem to watch you. You have walked past them every day for years. You never noticed them looking. Now you feel every gaze. The eyes follow you as you move, painted and frozen, witnesses to an absence they cannot explain.

The hallway stretches longer than it should. The ceilings feel higher. The walls feel further apart. Your footsteps echo in a way they never used to, each step bouncing off surfaces that have suddenly become unfamiliar.

You feel exposed.

Not because anyone is watching. Because the house itself feels like it is watching. The curtains are drawn in most rooms, but the ones that are open show gray afternoon light filtering through, casting long shadows across the floors. Dust motes drift in the beams. The house is clean. Alfred has made sure of that. But clean is not the same as alive.

You reach the bottom of the stairs. The foyer opens around you. The chandelier is dark. The marble floors are polished to a mirror shine. The front doors are closed.

Behind them, you hear it. A low murmur. Distant but growing.

Voices. Many of them.

The front doors are large. You have always known they were large. But you have never stood in front of them like this. Never had to walk through them toward something you did not choose.

Alfred stands beside you. He does not reach for the door.

"Once we open them," he says, "there is no closing them again. Not quickly. They will push. They will shout. They will try to get inside."

He looks at you.

"Are you ready?"

You look at the doors. At the wood. At the brass handles. At the light seeping through the cracks around the edges.

"No," you say.

Alfred nods. "That is honest."

He reaches for the handle.

The doors swing open.

It starts as something distant. A pressure at first, not words. A texture in the air that does not belong inside the manor. Then it sharpens, resolves, fractures into voices.

Too many at once.

The gates are not visible yet, but you can hear them before you reach them. The world pressing against iron, against order, against the last boundary that still pretends to matter.

And then you see them.

The crowd does not feel like arrival.

It feels like occupation.

Cameras lifted above heads. Microphones extended like accusations. Police lines bent into shape more by necessity than control. Bright flashes cutting through daylight in uneven bursts. Faces turned upward toward the manor as if it is now the only thing worth looking at.

The first reporter spots movement at the entrance.

Then another.

Then all of them at once.

The sound changes immediately.

“Can anyone confirm if Wayne Enterprises will be issuing a statement today?”

“Is there a reason no members of the Wayne family have been seen publicly this week?”

“Is the board currently in control of operations?”

“There have been disruptions reported internally, can you clarify—”

You cannot see faces. Only shapes behind the glare. The gates are fifty feet away. The crowd is pressed against them. Police officers stand between the gates and the manor, their bodies forming a thin line against the surge.

Alfred's hand is on your elbow. Not gripping. Just there. A point of contact in the chaos.

He guides you forward.

The steps are wide. You have walked them a thousand times. Now they feel endless. Each step brings you closer to the voices, the cameras, the questions you cannot answer.

You keep your face still. Neutral. Present. Just like Alfred taught you.

The flashes continue. You blink against them. You cannot help it.

Someone from the side shouts a question you do not fully catch. Something about your mother. Something about being left behind.

You do not react.

Alfred stops at the edge of the steps. Not too close to the gates. Far enough that the crowd cannot reach you. Close enough that they can see you.

The shouting intensifies.

You stand there, in Martha's dress, in Martha's pearls, on the steps of a manor that has never been this silent on the inside, surrounded by noise on the outside.

The cameras do not stop.

The questions do not stop.

You do not speak.

It is not hysteria.

It is escalation through absence.

Not what is said, but what is not.

Alfred continues forward.

The crowd reacts to him immediately, adjusting, leaning, recalibrating focus. Not because he is unexpected, but because he is insufficient for what they are trying to resolve.

A few names are called, but not with certainty.

Not yet.

“Mr. Pennyworth, can you confirm—”

“Is Bruce Wayne currently—”

“Has there been any communication with—”

None of it finishes cleanly.

Alfred does not answer immediately. He stops at a distance that is neither defensive nor inviting. Just structured.

Then, finally, he speaks.

His voice is steady, but it carries something measured beneath it.

“I understand there is concern regarding Wayne Enterprises and the current absence of public communication.”

Not denial.

Not admission.

Framing.

A few cameras adjust focus instantly.

A reporter steps forward, voice careful rather than aggressive.

“Is this a temporary withdrawal, sir? Should shareholders be concerned about continuity?”

A pause.

Alfred’s expression does not change, but something in the air tightens anyway.

“The Wayne family is not available for comment at this time,” he says. “Business operations are being managed through appropriate internal channels.”

That is not a complete answer.

And everyone here knows it.

Which is why the questions do not stop.

They simply refine themselves.

Less emotional now.

More precise.

Less speculation.

More pressure.

And behind Alfred, just slightly, the house remains visible.

Still.

Closed.

Listening without reacting.

As if it, too, is waiting for something it has not yet decided how to understand.

Taglist

@kohaiyuki @wisefuncherryblossom @suvivve @eas-8 @diamondnightsky23 @marcspectorondeeznuts @sleepy-toaster @lunabug135 @desolatelyperfectcreator @itonlyhastobetruetoday @pearlyribbons @ghostlyworld @diamondnightsky23 @delulustar @cjshimlyn @notnecessarilyenjoyinglife @artofarkham @iamaunknownsecret @elasticcitadelmatrix @nobuswife @actionshotcanon @nininehaaa @apodyopsisphilia @tt-empest @m3owsical @realhumanoidforsure @looha

A/n: Crossed out names are not working/letting me tag them 😭

[redheadedflag]

me when im on a "character x reader" tag but all i find is fics of every other character in that universe listed under the tag

[notonelover]

[hannrum]

Bruce and his baby

[satinandotherartificialmateria1s]

To Be Clean P.2

Batfamily x Vampire!Reader 1.4k words, graphic descriptions, use of [y/n], female reader

The frenzy in the batcave hasn’t ended since they discovered the details of the mugger’s death. Donner Lukas, that was his name. No kids. No known spouse or partner. His face took up half the batcomputer, below, the image of his corpse, printed and lying on Bruce’s desk. You should’ve felt worse.

The Bat hasn't noticed you yet. An unexpected plus of your vampirism is that your brain had rewired nearly every aspect of your subconscious, including the way you walk and hold yourself. You're quiet and graceful in every place you used to be clumsy. 

Bruce sits at the Batcomputer, he’s been at this since you came in. Damian was upstairs, you suspect, sparring with Tim, judging by the smell of sweat and hormones. You’re tired of their endless battle.

You think about your interaction with Bruce from last night. You’re almost embarrassed by how meek you became in front of him. You’d gotten so confident these last few years, so to be reduced to a quiet, stuttering, wide-eyed child? It was perplexing to say the least. You figure it’s because you were so shocked by the sudden confrontation, and like a fish out of water, you panicked.

Your gaze drifts to the picture on Bruce’s desk. You hadn’t actually seen the aftermath of the murder. You briefly falter when you realize that's what it was, a murder. Does that make you a murderer? The thought leaves a sour taste in your mouth, so you brush it away. You come forward, steps quiet, fingers gentle when you pick it up. 

He lies there, slumped against the alley. His body was hardly resemblant of anything human at all. His head was crushed, no features to be found. His body looked like it had been sawed in half along the frontal plane by a dull knife. His organs sprawled around him, half shredded. There’s a beige-pink stringy mush around him, you think it might be his skin.

The gun he originally held is gone, there's a chip in the mortar behind him, like he fired off in his panic and hit the wall. His hoodie is shredded. There are visible claw marks in the cement and in the remains of his body. 

You don’t feel disgusted until you remember that this was once a human. You imagine yourself, rabid, clawed, fanged, tearing a screaming man apart. You wonder if he was loud, if there were any kids outside playing that heard his screams, if anyone bore witness to what you did, if it scarred them, if they had nightmares. You wonder if mothers tell their children about what you did, if they use it to scare them. You wonder what kind of damage you’ve caused. How many people are scared to leave their house because of you. 

Do people ever feel empathy for the fox that kills the sheep? You’re only hungry. You have to do this to survive. It’s not your fault, you didn’t choose this life.

How many people have to die before you’re no longer a victim?

The picture is your undeniable proof, evidence of what you’d done. You’ve become one of the monsters of Gotham. Another thing that goes bump in the night, that haunts this city. Another thing for innocent children to fear, like you used to.

The picture is taken out of your grip. Hands place themself on your shoulders, carefully pulling you away. Bruce peers up at your face from where he’s sitting, his face pulled in an expression you hardly see directed at you. You think he’s worried. He stands.

“You shouldn’t have seen that.” He says quickly, his face pulled into an unfamiliar expression. After a brief moment of hesitation, he grasps the back of your head gently and pulls you into his chest. One hand smooths your hair back, the other rubs your back softly. He’s hugging you. Your entire body prickles, a strange cold-heat rises from your torso to your cheeks.

“Hey, hey..” He mumbles, stroking your head. “It’s.. uh- you’re fine.” He murmurs awkwardly.

After a moment, your hands lift and you cling to his shirt, the fabric bunches in your hands. It’s not the first time you've hugged him, but it’s the first time since he disappeared, the first time he’s attempted to comfort you since you were eight. Your cheeks burn hot in embarrassment. You take advantage of the moment and burrow into his chest. Soon you’re crying, and he holds you tighter, murmuring soft words you can’t decipher. He holds you there for a while, and you might’ve needed this more than you thought, because you don’t let go until he’s pulling back. He keeps one hand on your back, but the one that was on your head moves to your cheek. He pulls you away to look at your face. His lips are pulled into a frown, eyebrows furrowed

“I’m sorry.” He says. “You shouldn’t have seen that.”

You look delicate like this, he thinks, and he feels horrible. You were the only kid he had that never joined his crusade. Never begged for the cape, never had to. You’d never seen the brutality he had. This though, this case was beyond some of the things even he’d seen. It was grotesque. He was hesitant to let Damian work on it, and now you, unaware and clean, had stumbled upon it.

He leads you over to a couch. One that was only there because Dick had demanded it be so many years ago, when he still wore the cape. 

You’re still sniffling when he sits you down. Your eyes are red from crying, but besides that you look healthy, it almost makes him smile. Absent from you are the eyebags and dark circles that plague his other kids, your skin looks bright, you’re clearly taken care of, if your hair and physique are anything to go by. He’s relieved. At least one of his kids is okay.

He doesn’t know you didn’t always look like this. He doesn’t know that the only reason you do is because of the man in the alley and those traffickers in the warehouse and the thousands of other things you’ve used to sustain yourself.

“We’ll catch whatever’s doing this.” He murmurs, smoothing your hair back. It’s meant to be soothing. 

“You shouldn’t worry about it.” He continues. “But.. make sure you hurry home after school. It’s safer that way.”

You nod numbly. You doubt he’ll notice if you actually do, but the fact that for once he’s worried about your safety is enough to make fresh tears come. You feel silly, crying for that, but god you missed when they cared about you. He sighs softly and sits by you, tucking you into his side. 

Maybe all you needed to do was ask for help when you needed it, maybe you should’ve said something when you first turned. But it’s too late now. He’s seen what you’ve done, and when he finds out it was you, all of this will disappear. 

You feel disgusting, because you should be disgusted, you should hate yourself for what you’ve done and who you’ve hurt, but instead you’re elated.

A warmth spreads through your chest despite your anxiety. Bruce is here, hugging you, comforting you like you’re important, like you’re good.

You don’t really care about Donner Lukas. It’s what he symbolizes. What you really care about is what you are. You hate not being human, you hate that you know this makes you a monster. One of the things you hate the most is the fact that you’re not upset, not the way you should be. When did you lose your humanity? You should’ve thrown up when you came to. You should’ve wanted to die. You didn’t think about who the man was, you didn’t mourn him. You only mourned yourself. 

You must be very, very sick, but you push all those thoughts away and try to ignore what lingers, because here is innocence. Here is your worried father, deciding you were more important than this crime. He’s not disgusted with you, he’s not upset, he’s worried. So, like the leech you are, you cling onto him. 

Taglist:

@starrydustedwinter @blueberrymuffin-6 @rhyviier @artsukin @insideoutjulie @laced4her @raritygold @ninininini08 @hunter-hearz-all @sainz0fthetimes @iitsnotfj @oh-sheetcake @freakmonster690 @astrid-ash @br1shen @cinny3 @alephless @dreamndestiny @missmannequin @iloveescara @shinyp3bbles @taliaxlvrs @atransparentsoul @breedumps @1chaerry @barneyariktigra020497 @valentinehearts99 @idontgiveacrap @yukitannn @nisiriuss @inothuman33 @bemeochii @tifaaaaaaa @yachaejaz @mzmischief04 @willowas519 @yurikokats @teenagellamaangel @mitsukichiis @high-priestess-of-daydreams @supercoolgirl061 @tr8t0r @jaydensluv @cheryyyyyyyyyy6666 @womangago @w3llrested

@cookiepersona @crispybelieverworld @bat1212 @4rachn3 @kat0-twt @murdersofcrowbars @whyamihere96 @leilakeila @cj-ghostemoji-destielpie @willowkarmachance @fictionalbakery @sous-les-sakura-blog @alwaysunabashedduck @b1uff @shapeshifterexile @meeeeeeee-stuff

If anyone wants to be added or taken off the taglist let me know!

[aethirios]

Peter trying to open up to the Batfamily while hiding that he is Spider-Man by saying increasingly incriminating shit like:

______

“I mean,” Peter said with a shrug, “I used to sell pictures of myself for money. Maybe I should do it again.”

Tim nearly choked on his drink.

Steph blinked. “...What kind of pictures?”

Peter snorted. “The kind people paid stupid amounts for if I got caught in the middle of things.”

Duke’s eyes widened in horror.

Peter kept going, blissfully unaware.

“I mean, it wasn’t THAT bad. My... uh... sponsor made sure I was taken care of.”

Tim stared. “Your… sponsor.”

“Yeah,” Peter said casually. “Found me when I was fourteen.”

Dick’s voice exploded through the still-active phone call Tim had forgotten to hang up.

“WHAT.”

“Honestly, he kinda ghosted me after he was done with me though.”

Steph made a strangled noise somewhere between sympathy and fury.

Duke looked physically ill.

“To be fair,” Peter continued, “I DID crash his—”

He stopped.

“...Uh. I mean, I was involved in a plane crash. Uh. His plane.” Peter rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “He felt bad afterward and offered me a deal which i turned down?”

“What kind of deal?” Duke whispered.

Peter froze for a second too long before replying, “...An internship?”

Nobody believed him.

Not even remotely.

“After he died I spiraled a little,” Peter continued quietly. “Trusted the wrong guy.”

Tim’s stomach dropped.

Peter rubbed at his face tiredly.

“And then he uploaded a video of me to the internet.”

Jason’s voice immediately cut through Dick’s phone speaker, where he had been listening in on.

“HE WHAT?”

Steph slapped both hands over her mouth.

Duke looked ready to commit murder.

Tim had gone eerily still in the way Bruce usually did.

Peter noticed the silence and finally started looking uncertain.

Determining he should probably just finish the story, he continued, “I tried to fix it, but I screwed everything up and lost everyone.”

The room fell into horrified silence.

Peter looked around. Realized far too late that he had completely obliterated the mood. And promptly panicked.

“ANYWAY,” he announced way too loudly, “I’m broke again. Maybe I should start selling pics again, hahaha—”

“ABSOLUTELY NOT,” Duke said instantly.

“No,” Tim agreed immediately.

Somewhere on the other end of the line, Dick had gone suspiciously quiet with a darkened expression over his face that spelt trouble for the people that hurt his family, and Jason didn't feel like stopping him anytime soon.

And Peter....

Well, let's just say, maybe it might have been better for him if they found out he was Spider-Man.

[three-semicolons]

favorite head canon?

This is an incredibly minor one, but until the day I die, you will never, ever convince me that Lex Luthor killed Dick with a cardioplegia pill in Forever Evil. Lex suffocated him.

As a quick catchup for those unaware of Forever Evil: the Crime Syndicate, an evil version of the Justice League from Earth 3, captures and tortures Dick for a while, as well as reveals his identity to the public.

This leads to a collaboration between the remaining heroes not in hiding (namely, Batman, with some allies like Catwoman accompanying him) and the villains of main Earth (namely, Lex Luthor, and his merry band of accomplices).

At the end, when Lex, Catwoman, and Batman are breaching the Crime Syndicate’s compound, they encounter Dick strapped to what is aptly named the Murder Machine, a bomb set to destruct unless Dick’s heart is stopped.

The story goes that Lex shoves a pill in Dick’s mouth that stops his heart, stopping the bomb, and then he revives Dick with an adrenaline shot after.

HOWEVER. This is where I beg to differ. See, the sequence of Dick being killed spans 6 pages, a full quarter of the comic issue.

And for the entire time, again spanning multiple minutes, Lex’s hand never leaves Dick’s mouth. He is, to the contrary, depicted as roughly shoving Dick’s mouth and nose shut, only letting off when Bruce goes to beat his ass.

This sticks out for a few reasons:

One, Dick said to Bruce to get out and save himself, and later on to just let him die. He wouldn’t have needed that much cajoling to swallow the murder pill, even if he didn’t know Lex planned to revive him. He would’ve swallowed it, and thus Lex wouldn’t have needed to keep his hand pressed on Dick’s face for that long, let alone that harshly. In fact, regardless of how easy it was to get Dick to consume it, Lex could have let go as soon as Dick swallowed, which would be before he died, because he would have needed to ingest the pill for it to kill him. Hence, Lex should have let go before Dick died.

Two, when Lex prepares to explain what he did, this is preceded by him thinking that he’ll need Bruce on his side for whatever comes next.

Thus brings the explanation of the pill. The pill sounds great from a tactical standpoint. Lex wasn’t trying to hurt Dick, it was just a plan. Bruce gets those, right? He’d sympathize. Except, for this kind of pill, it would have taken at least 15-30 minutes for whatever medication in it to digest and dissolve. Smothering, however, takes around 4-5 minutes to work in a healthy adult. If a person’s health were compromised, if breathing was already partially obstructed by, say, a restrictive machine, or damage to the airways and lungs…

2 minutes and 51 seconds seems pretty damn plausible to me.

But if he needs Bruce on his side, why wouldn’t Lex use an explanation that is more humane, less painful, less brutish? Something that sounds far more rational and logical and well-planned. “Making him flatline” is such a better sounding story than “killing him”. Why wouldn’t he contrive that?

Anyways, TL;DR: Lex suffocated Dick, and in order to maintain his control of the situation, told people it was a pill by pulling some random pills from his pocket as an excuse. Dick was smothered. I dunno what to tell you.

[timdrakelonghairtruther]

DC give him back his white boy swag please

[batsandbirdbrains]

Bruce Wayne at the circus, seeing a shocked eight year old little boy kneel on the ground in a puddle of his parents’ blood, and rushing from the stands to wrap him in his coat and carry him away. Bruce Wayne tucking the boy’s face into his shoulder and whispering as calmly as he can, “Don’t look. You’re going to be okay, I promise you’re going to be okay, just don’t look.”

Detective Gordon, watching as he walks by, being transported to twenty years prior when he was a rookie cop first on the scene for the Wayne murders and finding a shocked eight year old little boy standing in a puddle of his parents’ blood. Remembering how he wrapped his jacket around him and carried him away in a hurry, tucking his face into his shoulder and whispering, “Don’t look. You’re going to be okay, I promise you’re going to be okay, just don’t look.”

Gordon watching as the supposed playboy billionaire Bruce Wayne does everything he can to comfort Dick Grayson, this little boy from the circus he’s never even met before, because he knows exactly the kind of pain he’s going through in this moment.

Gordon realizing that his moment of panic when trying to get little Bruce Wayne away from his parents’ dead bodies had more of an impact than he ever could have imagined.