I have a particular interest in the Oxford comma. I'm an adult, so you know. Pronouns are they/them. Multifandom blog, ao3 is the same as my username. ♠ Avatar from Draconis Siirexus dollmaker
My AO3 is here, I have an FFN that I am slowly moving to AO3, it is here
My Meta
Anakin murdering children is basically a repeat big lipped alligator moment
The past Avatars did not tell Aang to kill Ozai
The wasted potential of Leo Valdez in Heroes of Olympus
Meta Related Rambles
Obi Wan is kind of a dick and that’s okay (I plan to redo this in more detail at some point)
Rey in the Force Awakens wasn’t a Mary Sue (I wrote this in 2016)
Percy Jackson meta that I want to write and rambling
Just rambling about relationships in the Graceling books by Kristin Cashore
Why are there so many Leverage fics that think Hardison is older than Parker? (pretty mild, it’s just something I’ve seen a lot that bugs me)
LU Swimming Quibble (this is too mild to be discourse but it annoys me)
My AUs (there is only one right now)
Years Since Release (AU of Linked Universe, an AU of Legend of Zelda in which various Links meet. My AU is mainly that their age is based on what I think there age in their first game was plus however many years passed between the release of their first game and Breath of the Wild in 2017 because I needed an anchor year and it is the most recent new main series game currently)
Four years ago, Jason Todd died. Three years ago, Dick Grayson started having nightmares about it. Two years ago, the nightmares bled into the day time. One year ago, Dick finally got help.
For forty-nine weeks, everything was okay. The therapy was helping. The pain, the fear, the visions had all but faded, and what remained was more than manageable.
Three weeks ago, Dick saw Jason again. And his life has been a nightmare ever since.
Takes place after the appearance of the Red Hood but prior to the identity reveal.
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
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They see each other at the pharmacy. It's not a planned meet. They don't even know why the other is there. But that's where they see each other: the dilapidated CVS on Elmsworth.
“Uh-” Jason doesn't know what to say. He wants to cover his face. Turn around and run away and pretend that nothing happened. But he also has the worst cold. If he doesn't get some sudafed soon, he’s pretty sure he's gonna die.
“Fuck,” Dick says, earning himself a harsh glare from the mother standing nearby, who now has a small horde of children at her ankles echoing, “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” and pulling each other's hair. Dick doesn't care; he's clearly lost his mind. In fact, he considers, in that very moment, dialing 911 and getting himself admitted.
Maybe, Jason thinks, I can pretend I’m someone else. Yep, nothing to see here, just someone who looks a lot like your dead…
Well. They're not brothers. Dick isn't Bruce’s son. And honestly, Jason doesn't consider himself Bruce's son anymore either. (But maybe they're brothers from those facts alone.)
But it doesn't matter what Jason intended to do, because Dick shakes his head, grabs an economy-sized bottle of extra-strength Tylenol, and breezes right past him. Like he's not even there. (Because for Dick, he absolutely isn't.)
And this… This bothers Jason. More than he’d ever like to admit. Had he truly been so forgettable, taken up such little space in Dick’s mind that he doesn't even have the decency to remember him?? (Well… he had missed his funeral…)
But Dick keeps moving. He’d sprint away, but that's never worked before. He just needs to keep his head down. Block it out. Maybe take his psychiatrist up on that antipsychotic prescription.
“Hey!” Jason shouts after him. “You dick!”
The mother, still rocking an inconsolable infant and ignoring the herd of children who have just learned their new favorite word, looks at him with desperation in her eyes. “Please,” she says, meek but clearly pushed past her limits. “There are kids.”
Jason's face goes red. “Ah, fuck- I mean… That's his… ah, that's his… name…”
The mother does not look convinced.
“Sorry, ma’am.”
And meanwhile, Dick (because yes, of course that's his name; English was his second language, so how could he know that the name from all those 60s shows he learned English from was a modern swear word?) hears Jason’s cry clear as day. And it only serves to terrify him further. He practically sprints to the self-checkout, accidentally scans the Tylenol twice, pays the extra fifteen bucks, and runs out without waiting for the mile-long receipt to print out.
Logically, Dick knows that running won't do anything. Jason is in his head - has been for three years now - and he can't outrun his own mind. But he can damn well try.
And Jason… Jason’s just pissed. First, Dick acts like he’s not even there, and then, he accidentally teaches a poor woman’s children a new curse word, and everything sucks, and it’s Dick’s fault, the absolute dick.
So, in the only reasonable response, Jason sprints after him. It becomes a footrace through the parking lot, with Dick swearing and chucking the Tylenol at Jason’s head and Jason ducking and proceeding to tackle Dick to the ground.
Dick has seen Jason a lot in the last few years. He’s usually still that scrawny fifteen-year-old, sometimes whole and hale and sometimes burnt beyond recognition. More recently, he’s seen a different version of the ghost boy in the yellow cape: a more grown, more adult Jason with a streak of white in his dark hair. He’s always far away, always distant. Never speaks. But he’s there, and Dick hates it every time because he knows Jason never got to grow up. He never got to be the spectre in the corner of Dick’s eye.
But Dick will admit: being tackled by an adult Jason Todd is a completely new type of hallucination for him. It solidifies his decision to call a professional and get some serious medication. He can only imagine what it looks like to the elderly couple pulling into the parking lot, seeing some dude falling on the pavement and flailing around.
Honestly, Dick may not need to call 911. Someone will probably do it for him.
“Quit it!” Jason hisses as Dick attempts to push him off. And it’s interesting, because Dick looks concerned but not… haunted. He’s not shocked to see Jason. He’s nervous, not surprised, like someone going to their hometown and seeing their ex. Not unexpected, but wholly unwelcome all the same.
It only makes Jason angrier.
“I’m not arguing with him,” Dick mutters under his breath. “I’m not talking to him. I will not start talking to-”
“You better fuckin’ well talk to me, you heartless bastard,” Jason seethes. “Do you know who I am?” And he knows the answer already. Why else would Dick have tensed up when he saw him? Why else would he have run out of the store?
But Dick turns his head. Tries to push himself up like Jason doesn’t have a knee on his chest, pinning him down. And something closer to panic sparks in his eyes.
“Why-?” Dick mumbles, swiping at his chest. His eyes widen when his hand hits Jason’s leg. “Oh. Oh, fuck.”
Dick has absolutely lost it. He thought he was fine - thought that the therapy was working and he was doing a decent job taking care of himself for once in his life - but now he realizes just how fucked he is.
Dick’s psychologist explained the types of hallucinations with him a year back. She talked about the kinds he described to her: auditory - hearing voices, catching Jason’s scream and the clunk of a metal crowbar against the boy’s ribs - and visual - seeing things, watching as a decaying child wearing the tattered remains of the Robin costume (Dick’s costume) chokes on his own blood. She described a few other types: smell and touch and the like. The fact that Dick rarely experienced more than one type of hallucination at a time, she had explained, is a positive thing. It makes it easier to differentiate between reality and the misfiring neurons in his brain.
But Dick has to wonder what this means now. Auditory and visual hallucinations, he’s dealt with, but being able to touch a vision? To be tackled by it? This has… never happened before. It’s possible - absolutely it’s possible - but Dick doesn’t know what to do about it.
“It’s not real,” Dick mumbles to himself, trying again and again to sit up, but the weight crushing his chest never feels any less real. He knows it’s fake, so how does he convince his body of that?
“Dude, have you lost it?” Jason wonders. He’s… He’s furious at Dick for the absolute audacity to not care that Jason is alive, but the guy is also talking to himself and staring out at nothing and continually trying to sit up when Jason very clearly won’t let him do that. He’s acting… strangely to say the least.
“I’m not talking to him,” Dick says again.
“Then I’m not moving,” Jason decides.
And it occurs to Dick that, despite what his psychologist advised, perhaps he should play along with the hallucination. Maybe if he can convince the part of his mind pretending to be Jason to get off him, he’ll physically be able to move again.
“Okay, okay, okay,” Dick sighs, hands up in peace. “What do you want?”
Jason stares at Dick. Looks him dead in his cold, unfeeling eyes and comes to an unfortunate conclusion: Dick doesn’t feel a goddamn thing. He doesn’t care that Jason is back. There’s no shock. No relief. Not even anger. Just resignation.
“I want you to give a shit,” Jason growls. “I’m back, and you’re acting like it’s fucking Tuesday!”
“Well… I see you a lot, so…” Dick shrugs as best he can while pinned to the blacktop.
“You’ve known?” Jason roars. “You knew I was back, and you never tried to contact me??”
“I’m… not supposed to talk to you,” Dick says, looking away. “Sarah says it gives credence to a false narrative.”
“What? Who the fuck is Sarah? What the hell are you talking about??”
“She’s-” Dick shakes his head, trying once again to nudge Jason off. But Jason is even less willing to move now. “Doesn’t matter. This was stupid. I shouldn’t’ve tried to…” He stares at a cigarette butt next to his head. “Fuck. I miss him.”
Jason blinks. “Come again?”
“Goddamn it. I should not be-” Dick huffs out a breath. “Fuck, dude. I wish you were real, okay? I wish you were actually here. And apparently, I would rather live in this delusion than have to keep going like… like… Fuck.”
Jason doesn't know what he's talking about. Not even a little.
“Dick, it's Jason.”
Dick buries his face in his hands. “No, you're not.” He wants to scream. He really does. Because it's bad enough convincing yourself that a very real-looking, real-sounding, real-feeling hallucination of your brother is all in your head, but now he has to explain to said hallucination that he's actually dead and just a figment of Dick’s imagination. A misfiring pathway in his brain.
Wait. Fuck. No, he doesn't. He doesn't have to say shit.
“Get off me,” Dick orders, trying to push Halluci-Jason off him.
“If I’m not Jason, then who the fuck do you think I am?”
“You aren't,” Dick hisses. “You're a poorly managed mental illness, okay? Get off me.”
Jason sits back on his heels, letting Dick go. “Huh.” He scratches the back of his head. That's a… new one. He's heard plenty of insults in his life and the one before that, but he's never been called a…
Jason helps Dick sit up. “You're… You are Dick, right? Dick Grayson? I didn't just… tackle some stranger, right?”
Dick digs his fingers in his hair, nails sharp on his scalp. Considering they feel just as real as the fake Jason Todd, it does nothing to ground him. “I should not,” he tells himself. “I’m not going to. I won't.”
Fuck. How is he going to explain this to Sarah?
“You-?” Jason places a gentle hand on Dick’s shoulder. Dick thinks it feels like lava. Jason thinks it feels like his brother isn't eating enough. “Dude, you seriously… You're mentally… fucked. What happened? You couldn't handle being replaced a second time? Did Babs break up with you for good? Or-?”
Dick grabs the collar of Jason’s jacket. The leather is soft in his hand. “YOU DIED!” he shrieks, giving up on any guise of sanity. He's been lying in a parking lot for how long now? If someone's going to call the cops, they already have. “That's what happened! God-fucking-dammit, Jay! You DIED! And ever since, all I see is you! Every-fucking-where! The kids we help on patrol all have your face. Every towel on a clothesline is your cape. Each person I fail to save is you! It's your fucking body cold on the ground, and considering you are just a fucking hallucination, I don't know why you're making me explain it!”
Jason’s stomach drops to his feet. Dick looks at him with the intensity of an Olympic archer going for the gold. His eyes crack and bleed with a hopeless desperation, like he’s still clinging to a hazy fantasy world where Jason never died. His hands shake, expression far beyond grief, beyond desolation.
This is real for him. He really, truly believes Jason is still dead.
Jason almost feels bad. His sudden appearance has made the Golden Boy go crazy? Made him think he's seeing things? It's… pathetic, really.
As if to prove Jason’s point, Dick lets go of the jacket, hugs his own legs, and presses his face to his knees. “Just… please leave me alone. I can't do this anymore.”
He should be mad. Dick had missed Jason’s funeral. He was furious when Bruce replaced him. He resented that Jason was adopted and he wasn't. Jason has no reason to pity this guy who pretended to be his brother.
And yet…
And yet, here he is, pitying him anyway.
“Dick,” Jason says, voice softening to something kinder than his usual bark. “I’m not a-”
There's a siren approaching. Dick stiffens, head shooting up, red eyes panicked as he looks past Jason. (Past Not-Jason, Dick reminds himself. This isn't actually Jason.)
Red and blue lights shine down the road. A middle-aged woman with a bob and a bad hair dye watches Dick from the CVS entrance, a phone against her ear and a comically large pair of sunglasses perched on her nose.
“Shit,” Dick and Jason say in unison. (Well… Dick says it. The hallucination is just another part of him, so it's not like he's saying anything in unison with anyone.)
“Damn,” Jason mutters, wondering how good of a look the woman got of his face. Would she be able to give the cops a description?
Either way, Jason needs to get out. He climbs to his feet and holds out a hand to Dick. But Dick just stares at it. Stares through it.
“C’mon, man,” Jason urges. “You're not going to prison for something as stupid as this.”
But this isn't stupid. This is serious. Dick shakes his head. “I’m crazy, Jay. I’ve been rolling around on the pavement and talking to myself. I could… I could be dangerous, and I don't even… I don't know what's real anymore. Hell, I’m talking to you, and I said I-”
“Fuck that,” Jason interrupts. He grabs Dick’s arms and drags him up. “Come on; we're getting out of here.”
And, arguably inadvisably, Dick lets himself be pulled down an alley and into the depths of the Gotham streets.
Jason: I can't believe Bruce is making me write a CV when I am legally dead. What am I going to write? Crime Lord for three years specialising in garbage disposal and logistics?
Dick: I'll help. I am great at getting jobs.
Jason: No, you and your Barbie-ass CV can get out of here.
Dick: My what?
Jason: You have had more jobs than Barbie! And like bizarre jobs. A cop. A model. De facto Prince Consort to an alien kingdom. It's not normal. Ugh... basically the only Barbie job you've not had is being a pop star.
Dick: I mean, me and the Teen Titans did release an album under fake names. How do you think we paid for the Tower?
Oh my god. So similar to my other post where all the Wayne kids find out that Dick was never actually adopted by Bruce.
So imagine they’re all back at the manor, they’re interrogating Bruce on why he never adopted Dick, and Bruce insists he can still adopt Dick now even though he’s an adult, but Dick is getting nervous the more insistent he gets.
And it turns out it’s because he was already adopted by someone else. But it’s another Justice League member.
“What?”
Bruce is speechless. He’s bamboozled. He’s livid.
“HAL, I’M GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU!” he shouts as he zetas into the watchtower.
“Hal! Abort, abort! Code: Daddy Warbucks!” Dick screeches as he runs in behind Bruce.
Hal is scrambling to leave before Batman can actually beat him to a pulp.
“Dammit, kid, you were supposed to give me way more notice than this!” Hal screeches right back, and he’s already being chased by Bruce. He isn’t even in his Batman get-up, he’s still in his clothes from dinner. He has slippers on.
“You adopted my kid?? When did you adopt my kid?” Bruce is shouting at him.
“You’re the one who kicked him out!” Hal shouts back. “He wasn’t even 16 yet! He needed someone to sign the release forms for the Olympics!”
“HE WAS IN THE OLYMPICS?”
“HAL! THAT WASA SECRET!”
“YOU BATS HAVE TOO MANY SECRETS!”
Idk I just want chaos with Bruce finding out another league member adopted Dick. Hal is an easy target.
Dick: look dami, think of tim like... remember how a few months ago you rescued this injured opossum? try to think of tim like that opossum
Damian: you mean the one that we found in the garbage bin that had rabies, was malnourished and had to get his left hind leg amputated?
Jason: and was fucking ugly and stank
Dick: shut up jason yes! it was super cute, remember?
Damian: if you're trying to use my weakness for small abandoned ungainly animals against me—which is not a weakness—then you're wrong, for nothing about drake even remotely resembles a—
Tim: (digging through the kitchen's trash) has anyone seen my leftover muffins? they were only 2 weeks old, they were perfectly fine
"Batman gave birth to me" is just the longest running lie Dickbin conjured when trying to explain how Batman acquired a child while not revealing their identities. Other lies he told the Justice League include:
He won me in a game of 'go fish'
They were draining a vat of chemicals the Joker had and I was just lying in the bottom
A gargoyle delivered me to him as a baby and I have been raised in his cave by his humanoid batservants ever since
He's actually my son from the future but when a time traveller came back and murdered the man who trained me he had to come back and take his place so I could learn how to become so awesome that his warrior goddess mother falls for me and we can make him
Someone lopped off his arm. He grew it back and I grew out of the limb
I am mark 2 of the super soldier programme that made him
Gotham has this whole cult that worships him and I was given to him as a sarcifice and everyone thought he would eat me but he didn’t so the cult was bummed out and disbanded
He hit his head really hard one day so I got him back to the cave and convinced him I had been there all along
I am a lord of chaos sent to wreak destruction upon this dimensional plane but he said I could dress up in bright colours and beat up people and that sounded awesome so... don't let me get bored I guess. My chthonic master still calls me up every so often to ask how the how destory the world thing is going
I am actually one of a set of triplets Zeus fathered and he handed one to Wonder Woman and one to Batman (me) and now spends his free time trying to track down Superman to give him the third
The straps of my rucksack got tangled up with his grappling wire and it took him three days to notice he had been dragging me with him the entire time
I am actually Green Arrow's biological child but me and Speedy got accidentally swapped at a day care so Batman and Green Arrow raised each others sons
I am a pile of sentient bat guano
One time Batman thought too hard about justice that he magically impregnated lady justice with me. He either had to take custody of me or pay her child support and believe me she collects
When Batman was training on how to use magic he turned me from a dragon into a boy and kinda feels bad about the fact he can't turn me back
Batman found me eating from his birdfeeders
Batman is my dad's mum's step-sister's dogwalker's postman's cousin so he took me in when my parents kicked me out because I refused to do the second bit in the 'be gay, do crime' family motto
Batman bought me for seven cows and two bags of poppy seeds. Impulse purchases, am I right?
Garden gnome he spilled toxic sludge on
I am the crown prince from the mountainous country of Batalandia and Batman accidentally swore allegence to us by dressing in a version of our royal guard uniforms so when my overprotective dad told me I had to be watched by a bodyguard, I picked Batman. But like, just to warn you, people have been imprisoned by my father for annoying me so watch out
Ok genuinely why is it so hard for trans men to accept they are men and have a slightly privileged position compared to trans women within the trans community. I gotta stop repeating this but it's genuinely hard to understand, like is it so hard to just acknowledge that W? "Oh that's just cis men" ok why doesn't they apply to you then? Bending over backwards to go "nuh uh uh huh uh we are the most oppressed ever"
until you get V carded like we do genuinely shut the fuck up. Until your sexual assault stats compare to ours I don't wanna hear it sit down
Trans men and nonbinary people assigned female at birth have some of the highest rates of being sexually assaulted in the trans community, and this is ubiquitous across several studies, including some of the largest studies ever made on the trans community.
So will you listen now or are you more interested in telling an oppressed minority to shut up?
OP, why the actual fuck are you telling marginalized people that they need to either shut up or get raped?
Did you just not fucking process that was what you said?
Setting aside the fact that you are simply incorrect about how the imprisonment of trans men works???
Why the FUCK ARE YOU SAYING PEOPLE MUST BE RAPED IN A SPECIFIC TORTURE BEFORE BEING ALLOWED TO TALK ABOUT THEIR OWN EXPERIENCES??????
You are a fucking rape apologist out here claiming that being brutally raped by police using fellow prisoners as the tool is GOOD AND NECESSARY IF YOU WANT TO TALK AUTHORITATIVELY ABOUT TRANSPHOBIA?
Look I don’t care how implausible it is, I don’t care how ridiculous it is. Dick is eight years old when he becomes Robin. It’s the funniest fuckin thing and I refuse to ever make him older than eight when he bullies a grown ass Bruce into letting him go out at night with him.
Does Bruce take him on kiddie runs until he’s a little older? Maybe. Does Batman stand menacingly behind a brightly colored little bird to threaten the goons while Robin can’t see him? You know he does.
But Robin is still actually terrifying when he first appears on the scene, because he’s a teeny tiny fluttery little thing that does cartwheels and handstands and makes puns then launches himself full force to kick a man in the nose and then cackles when he bleeds. His laughter makes goons shiver, they hear it bouncing around warehouses and half of them bolt, because they learn very quickly what happens when a feral Robin appears.
The Gotham rogues all immediately have beef with a literal third grader because he took the bats attention away and also because he’s roundhouse kicked them all in the shins at some point and that shit hurt like hell, and then he laughed in their faces while making a pun about their villain name.
Majority of the rogues everywhere hate Nightwing because they all know he used to be the feral child that they all thought Batman should have put on a leash, half of them have been straight up bitten by him before he lost all his baby teeth, and they’re all so bitter about the fact that they’ve been beaten by an actual elementary school student. And now he’s all grown up? He’s fucking terrifying.
