Mercury

[they/she/he/it] welcome to my wonderful fhr obsession!! i'm part of an autistic did system & a writer who occasionally dabbles in painting! dms are open but i get distracted easily so patience is appreciated.

[giveemhales]

🦇 My 20 Favorite Batfam Fics of 2025 🦇

Last year was easily the most eventful (in a good way) years of my life so I read less fic than I have in the past, but I will not let that stop me from annual tradition of celebrating my fav fics of the year! You can also check out my 2023 and 2024 lists. As always, this is a way to express gratitude to fandom creators, so please leave a kudos and kind comment if you enjoy any of these fics! There are thousand of Batfam fics that came out in 2025 (literally 25k fics in the batman fandom) and I of course only read a small fraction of them, so I am definitely leaving many greats off this list. But here are some Batfam fics completed in 2025 that I especially adored. Tried to include a range of characters but Tim is my fav so he will be popping up a lot. Be mindful of the tags (although rest assured all have a hopeful or happy ending) and happy reading!

I Frew Up by @princessmossy (1k, dick-centric, dick goes to bruce when he has a nightmare while bruce is with the justice league, the league takes it in stride)

Truth by @byrambles (2k, tim & bruce, dick doesn’t understand why tim is convinced bruce doesn’t love him) (unofficial sequel to one of my fav one shots that hurts so good)

a new hope to live long and prosper by @iselsis (3k, tim & bruce & dick, tim is transported to a strange universe where batman isn’t evil and abusive, ft misunderstandings and Star Wars)

We Are Who We Choose to Be by @sohotthateveryonedied (4k, dick & bruce, baby talon dick goes after bruce on his first solo mission)

Brood Patch by @sunflowersandink (4k, damian & jason, reverse robins, jason has an accident and damian is kinder than expected)

The Best Cold Case in the Whole World by @xautunno (9k, bruce & tim, bruce learns of a horrific crime scene right next door and all signs to point to the neighbor’s kid being dead) (way less dark than it sounds)

Running Under The Radar by @quotidian-oblivion (10k, damian & tim & jason, reverse robins, damian and jason are stuck with the villain who tortured jason but not all is as it seems)

survival instincts by @civilbores (12k, damian & tim, tim is benched and damian finds there’s a lot more to the boy than he ever realized) *READ THE TAGS, heavy mental health topics but does have a happy/hopeful ending

Round Two by @remarcely (14k, bruce & his kids, bruce wakes up in the past before jason’s resurrection and proceeds to save all of his kids)

don’t wanna be alone (when these bones decay) by @mercuryisrobin (15k, tim & jason, jason realizes he has a stalker and tim joins the batfam early) (whole series is amazing but does have some rip-your-heart-out angst so be prepared. The series as is does not technically have a happy ending but is still a WIP and def worth the read)

Knee scrapes and stab wounds by @mentallyunawareofpapaya (16k, jason & damian + tim pov, batfam is alarmed to find out damian has a brother from the league in Gotham and it’s red hood)

Red Hood’s Shelter for Feral Kids by @dandelionlily (20k, tim & jason, red hood protects crime alley, so does alvin draper, this causes problems when jason attacks robin aka alvin aka tim)

Nine Yards by @muddells (21k, tim & damian, tim cannot standby when he finds his brother held hostage at school, it does not go great)

hand in unloveable hand by kitfornow (22k, tim & damian, damian starts to notice how different tim’s relationship with the family is than everyone else’s and has a hard time dealing with it) (most likely will have more chapters)

Words Like Poison by nightwalker (35k, tim & damian & dick, tim is more chill about damian poisoning his coffee than he probably should be and everyone is doing their best to be a good sibling)

We’re All Dead Here by @wingedflight (46k, tim & jason, reverse robins, red hood kidnaps jason and everyone has a bad time) (can you tell I got really into reverse robins this year)

I’m Still Alive (when everyone who loves me has died) by @shortandsnappyfics (52k, tim-centric, tim joins the batfam late, tim is a badass CEO detective but he’s also 16 and needs help when he discovers shady business at his company)

Identity Theft by @taralaurel (93k, tim-centric, tim cosplays too close to the sun and ends up joining the batfam early)

Wayne Family (And Tim!) Christmas Extravaganza by @pinkparagram (105k, tim & bruce & batbros, soooo fluffy, tim goes to his neighbor for help and ends up spending christmas with the waynes, none of the kids know bruce is batman and bruce is The Dad of all time)

buy back the secrets by @vinelark (113k, tim/kon, Batfam is also there, five times superboy saves tim and one time tim saves superboy) (timkon fic but batfam is heavily featured and this fic is phenomenal so I had to include it)

+5 WIP I’d love to see more of in 2026!

Fractured by @selkienight60 (14k, tim-centric, tim is being pinballed between alternate universes and just wants to go home, ft. mob boss bruce in the first chapter with more AUs in store (hopefully))

the worlds not perfect (but its not that bad) by @shutupkayle2 (29k, tim & jason, tim keeps hiring goons to kidnap so he can be saved by nightwing, but batman and robin keep getting in the way)

Seeking Shelter From the Storm by @auxchord (34k, tim & jason, jason saves tim in a blizzard, tim brings him home) READ THE TAGS, overall very fluffy but does have heavy themes

The Demon’s Head’s Treasures by @millytsworld (39k, damian-centric, dick dies in damian’s arms and damian will do anything to bring him back) (everyone is very protective and possessive, this is basically platonic yandere lol)

Something is Not the Same by @theskeptileptic (44k, tim-centric, tim is kidnapped and brainwashed by Dr. Oz and then dropped off in a gotham he doesn’t recognize; it’s been 6 months for him, it’s been 10 years for the batfam) *READ THE TAGS lots of funny and lighthearted moments but there is also major whump… this author loves to torture tim (and I love them for it)

Have a great 2026 (or as good as you can with the state of the world) and happy reading!

[goldfishinaplasticbag]

selfishly, just once.

[krasnoarmeyets]

the author's barely disguised longing to be a real person

[krasnoarmeyets]

the author's barely disguised longing to not be a real person

[byjove]

I wish they could invent a medical device that temporarily transfers your symptoms and pain to the doctor treating you and it worked like a shock collar. “I think light exercise would-.” and then bam they’re rolling around the floor clutching their stomach in agony and dry heaving.

[mercuryisfronting]

my 15 year old batman hyperfixation has resurfaced and i am, as always, defenseless against it. going to make a side blog for it specifically because i don’t want my love for fhr to get overshadowed but the hyperfixation wants to spread to tumblr so that’s what we’re doing 😂

SO. probably going to detour everything going on and all my current fhr fics because my brain needs to write batman fanfiction and i can do nothing to stop it! yay!

(i have no idea how long this will last. fhr i love you and i will be back to writing fanfic for you… as soon as possible)

[mercuryisfronting]

cw warning for medical talk

OKAY AGH.

so my eyeball started swelling a few days ago and yesterday i went to the eye doctor and he said the pressure in my brain he noticed last appointment (THREE MONTHS AGO BTW!! wdym you never told me about this??) has gotten worse so now i have to go to a neurologist and get an MRI to see if it’s a tumor or encephalitis and i am. losing it.

so anyways fics and responses will either be super frequent or very sporadic depending on how life and anxiety unfolds in the next few weeks

[dog-dayze-art]

Beginning Lines Writing Game

Thanks again @mercuryisfronting for tagging me! You rock <3

Rules: post the beginning lines of your most recent 10 published fanfics and then tag 10 people.

Uhhhhhh 10 people ok, so sorry if you've already been tagged for the game but here's to hoping i'm going random but people who i know are in the fhr fandom at bare minimum o7 @bardicjustice @crowshuh @disastersteps @darkfire1177 @firststrikerr @glitchy-npc @jpriest85-blog @just-a-tiny-goldfish @keltena @westealtoys

Listed from most recent to further behind in publish date.

[Knuckle Velvet: Chapter 13 of Anamnesis] It hurts. It hurts so much. Curled over herself, breathing heavy. Breathing? Not enough. Not enough, all the air leaves as soon as it enters and it's not enough. Gasping for more, blurry hand shaking, staining pink skirts red. It looks like a watercolor painting. Go away, Cora begs, Cora pleads, head hitting the wall, as Julia kisses her knuckles. She always looked so good with that lipstick shade. She used to let Cora put it on her. They would share it.

[take the plunge: Chapter 2 of Physical Therapy | NSFW] Hands on a warm body. The heat of sun-seared skin on their palms, the skin of someone who doesn’t shy away from baring himself against the world. His stomach, flexing with breath: alive, firm, soft. Real in ways Beck’s memory could never forget, living and churning with the hum of electricity in his gut. His words are a distant memory, a frosted and blurred background in a photograph of needle and thread as they stitch him back together. As they pretend to not glance at his lips.

[topple | NSFW ] Her hands are a little sweaty. She wonders if Beck’s hands are, too, tied between their back and the chair as they are. Don’t fuck this up, Julia. “We’ve been at this for too long,” Julia sighs, glaring down at Beck. Doing her best to play the role, keep the script in her head, wing whatever line she doesn’t remember from spacing out in the shower and playing the scene over in her head. “Are you sure you don’t want to cooperate?”

[holes in your head, little bit o' lead (shake it out and light a cigarette) | warning: probably discontinued, Chapter 3 of freefall ] He doesn’t have long. Four months. It’s been four months, and Heartbreak is back on their feet. Maybe his foot gets a little heavier on the pedal, and maybe a few cars blur past and the angry honks are mosquitoes buzzing in his ears before he reaches the underpass, but it doesn’t matter. Left turn, right, pump the brakes. Forced to slow down as the clouds start breaking and he has to turn on the windshield wipers when the light sprinkling turns to slow, heavy drops. It’s been four months, and it means that wherever Is– the fake is holed up in, they won’t be there for long once they have the opportunity to move. He knows them, for better or worse and whatever bitterness comes alongside it. They’re a paranoid bastard, and he’s running out of time.

[boiling in the pot | AU | NSFW, part 2 of the fic below, published separately. ] What is happening? You were being stupid. You were being reckless, and then you were being idiotic, high on {redacted for tumblr}. And you were loud-not-loud, but loud enough to wake up Roach. Roach who has you paralyzed on the rocks as they slink over. Eyes wide and curious and something else you dare not look into.

[test the waters | AU | NSFW ] This is a terrible idea. But you smile anyways, and you wonder if Tegan can tell that it's all bravado. Most people can't. Most monsters can't, either. You learned how to smile like that from the best. So you'd better not give him any reason to doubt it. You reach for your pant button, making sure to keep your smile steady as Tegan's eyes lock onto the motion. They're pitch-black, darker than the sea the night you two met. You'd found those eyes eerie, at first, and that was only natural. He'd tried to eat you the first night you met, and the way he still looks at you sometimes... it’s hungry, intense. Curious. Predatory. But you're no prey. You proved that to him with a right hook hard enough to shatter a frailer jaw and a fright he’ll remember for the rest of his life. Eyes the color of a new moon don't scare you anymore, not as long as you can respect what the person who owns them can do, and long as you don't give him the opportunity to do so. But it’s been months. You’ve shared meals. Been his meal, shared your blood. Shared a roof, shared the screams of your night terrors and the sounds of songs half-hummed in his throat in the wee hours of the morning when he thinks you’re asleep. 

[after the fall] “Is this supposed to be good?” She pauses. The stench of disinfectant lingers in the child’s nose as the cotton ball aimed at their face freezes. They don’t blink when it moves again, landing. Sharp, hissing. Pulling away with red and brown stains. “It is supposed to be better,” she says, placing down the forceps. The annoying wrinkle of polyplastic paper as she opens a bandage pulls the muscles of the child’s face into an even deeper frown. “How is this supposed to be better?” they sign, rapid, arms aggressive, far more aggressive, emotive, open than they should be. More intricate than she remembers. “You don’t even sign in our language.” “You too,” she signs back, movements short, clipped. The Language wasn’t made for many words. Not like theirs, supplemented and changed with ASL integrated and slipped in-between, mortar wedged in after the bricks have already been stacked. “Not same. Not true. Longer.”

[sargasso sea | part 2 of below fic, published separately] The tide sways. A kaleidoscope of colors, flashing and iridescent, mirror and foam. Light on water, moonlight and sun, rising and setting, brushing in a continuous dance. Their prisms ghosting the surface of navy and teal. Strands of kelp break apart the rainbow hues, their shades of brown spotting, marring, floating at the surface. They are caught listless and unanchored; drunken dancers at the mercy of the push and pull of the beat. It’s beautiful and terrifying all at once, how they twist and twirl, untethered and unbothered. Unanchored to a rock or a shore, unable to grasp something solid in case the seas turned sour and violent. Tossing themselves listlessly to the side, then the other. Bumping and untangling, joining and separating, fingers threading together and bodies swaying side by side until the uncaring tide tears them apart.

[palos verdes blue] How many times has he been here? Too many times. Too many times he’s stared into the watery abyss and contemplated. Weighed the freedom of oblivion against the fear of an unknown world that promises so much and gives so little. Is this what it’s supposed to be like? This outside world? So alien. He’s the one who’s supposed to be strange. Unfit. Ill-suited to a world he was never created for. A world that’s taken greedy bites from all of the crumbs he’s ever had. Too many times he’s come to the cliff side, wrung-out, dripping like a soaked cloth, salty droplets leaking from his eyes swallowed by the ocean below. Too many times he’s felt too soft, too vulnerable. Fragile. Frail. A butterfly in a hurricane. Everything he was never meant to be.

[new pavement | NSFW ] "Are you sure about this?" "Yes, I'm sure." Chen doesn't believe that, not really. Not with the way Cain bites their lip and glances apprehensively at his hands. He tries not to hide them. Cain's looks aren't in discomfort about his mods; they never are. Doesn't make old habits any easier. It may be the twentieth time he's asked them, just to be sure, but Cain is stubborn and continuously insists that they want to try this. Chen is uncertain why they're so adamant with him about it when it seems as though it's something that they've never brought up with Ortega. A selfish part of him wants to believe that, maybe, it's because they trust Chen a little bit more than Ricardo. That, maybe, they trust him just enough to ask this of him over Ricardo. Enough to trust him, who gave them grief for so many years, and still does, over the man who would overturn hell for them. The thought, selfish as it may be, still makes his heart twinge. It's a happy little feeling he pats down to focus on the task at hand.

[dog-dayze-art]

Seven Sentence FRI-Sunday

Sorry it took so long for me to get to this!! Been battling sickness and insomnia while moving places. Here's 7 sentences from the start of my very-soon-to-be-released Vera x Beck oneshot. Thank you for tagging me @mercuryisfronting !

It started out as a single fling. Something brief, between panting breaths and workout clothes. Beck hovering above her, their ebony hair a halo, a shroud, casting a shadow that closes her view to nothing more than their lips. Chapped, worried to blood where the cracks splinter. Dehydrated, probably. Rosy and tantalizing, and Beck has to know that she’s staring. Vera’s cheeks burn beneath the scrutiny of their sharp lime eyes, reason and rationality telling her that she should stop now.

I'll forward the challenge to @ladyshivs @deviant3lover @salem-wilde @westealtoys and @wonda-fhr ! No pressure as always.

[astrovvitches]

ortega....

[inthetags]

Reblog and put in the tags: In terms of controversy, discourse, infighting, ship wars, etc., which of the fandom’s you’ve been was the most stressful? Which was the most peaceful?

[mercuryisfronting]

Jack Daniel’s Whiskey

Flash prompt/ficlet from the fhr patreon server that got too long for a discord message 😂 Cyrus trying their vice (alcohol) for the first time.

584 words

~~~

Los Diablos, you discovered early, is loud. When people speak, their voices boom loud enough to make your head spin, and their minds… their minds are the worst. You’re used to the buzz now, mostly, but it used to wreck you.

Paralyze you.

When people would rush past you, a far younger you, moving fast but in no particular direction, you would touch your head and waver on shaky legs, trying to remedy your telepathic migraines with cold fingers and sheer willpower. When this didn’t work, and it never did, you would fumble into a shady alleyway and you would dig your nails into your shaved scalp, trying desperately to carve the agony out with keratin.

And then there was Jack.

You can’t fully recall the day you met him, but you know that a migraine had you curled against a dumpster, thumping your forehead mechanically against the cold steel. A malfunctioning robot trying and failing to bang it's gears back into the correct place.

You aren’t sure where he’d come from but he’d sat a few feet away from you, watching you with a sad kind of knowing. While his face and thoughts were friendly and harmless, you still found yourself instinctively searching for a weapon to defend yourself. You are nothing if not prepared.

“What’s wrong with you?” he’d asked, not unkindly.

You don’t think you responded, but you know that you hadn’t needed to. He had just known, like a sixth sense. This vagrant with shaggy blonde hair and dirty clothes, who spoke quietly in a loud city, moved slowly where everyone else hurried, understood pain, even if his was different than yours.

Damage finds damage.

He dug into his coat and retrieved a tall, brown paper bag with shaky hands. You had known it was whiskey because he’d known and you were unable to stop reading his thoughts as much as you wanted to. Even though you’d never tried alcohol before, you’d known what it was and what it did. You took it when offered, curling your fingers around the crinkling paper as you peered inside the sack with a nervous twisting in your gut. A narrow, square bottle, half-full of distilled grain, stared back.

Jack advised you to take three swigs and because you have always been good at following orders, you had done exactly as suggested.

It hadn’t tasted good, chemically and spicy, but you did not let yourself react to the burn. An instinct not to show weakness. When you returned the bottle a moment after, he’d downed the rest of the bottle and sunk against the brick wall behind him, sighing in a way you would come to understand in later months.

He’d told you his name was Jack, and even though you knew it was a lie, you didn’t pry. The Farm had drilled it into you to devour secrets, to categorize them away so you always had the upper hand, but the Farm was gone now, and you were trying to make your own decisions. Runaway re-gene, off the clock for the indefinite future.

Without a name of your own to give, you just thanked him.

He smiled and did not pry either.

After only about twenty minutes, the pain and your anxiety and everything wrong in your head and mind and soul had washed away. Unimportant. Jack hadn’t known it then, and you would never be able to find him again after he wandered away later that night, but he had just given you the greatest gift of your life.

Relief.

[ladyshivs]

@bardicjustice and @drymouther both tagged me to share seven sentences of my latest WIP!

Thank you both for thinking of me 💖

“Raw umber” Daniel had explained. With touches of either light sky blue or soft green. Earthy and warm. Distant mutterings of contrast and compliment and pastel versus…something. Flitted in and out of Richard’s head, making no small portion of him wish Danny was there in the room with him.

Daniel, who hadn’t shown him his own suit, but which Richard knew was in a beautiful blue indigo. Daniel’s thoughts had swirled and swarmed around the color all week.

I'll go ahead and tag @antigonick, @mercuryisfronting, @wonda-fhr and anyone else interested in sharing!

[glitchy-npc]

Seven Sentence Sunday

Thank you for the tag @mercuryisfronting.💚 Tagging @bardicjustice @euelios @cigarettesandinevitablebetrayal and anyone else who would like to. share seven sentences of your current WIP or latest work! I've been trying to chip away at the sidestep era villain fight prompt on the fhr community but its been slow going.

"Yeah, I really don't see us punching our way out of this one." You swing yourself off the back of Ortega's motorcycle as he kills the engine, taking in your surroundings. The air shimmers with heat radiating off the asphalt of the city streets but the cause isn't the unforgiving summer sun, but a 12 ft tall mass of what appears to be pure, molten lava — your villain of the week. "Remind me why we're the frontline guys for this again?" You roll your shoulders, trying to push down your doubts. Your fears.

The Marshal cuts a heroic figure next to you, back strait, head high, looking every bit a true hero, straight out of a comic book. Too bad none of the ones you've read had any bright ideas on how to deal with this particular situation.

[crowshuh]

seven sentence sunday

thank u for the tag @mercuryisfronting i'll pass this on to @camillathe6th @thecryptidenthusiast @rab-bitly if you’d like <3 share seven sentences of your current WIP or latest work

here we are… hesitating to add context because i would Like to finish this within the next day so. Just your average dina/ric interaction👍 #notsex #healthyrelationship #boundaries #normalcouple

All your unyielding armor and the wet heat of breath. You see him. Eyes snagging on a blood-covered mouth. You think you fight him for a moment, hands clawing for purchase on something, anything. Still, his back meets the ground again and he curses from the pain. Lightning-hot, burned off nerves and phantom pains. A body remade with metal. 

[mercuryisfronting]

Seven Sentence Sunday

I wasn’t tagged but I wanted to do this anyways. Tagging @darkfire1177 @trebuchet151 @dogueteeth-fhr @drymouther @crowshuh @glitchy-npc and anyone who sees this to share seven sentences of your current WIP or latest work!

Here are my seven sentences for my “normal” Sidestep AU WIP. Content warning because Cyrus ends up in the middle of a bank robbery.

Even if you could fight back, if you knew more than basic self-defense, the outcome against that many weapons is clear. Breaking News! Unenhanced Photographer Killed in Armed Robbery! Come See Their Portfolio Now That They’re Dead! You’ll be famous for all the wrong reasons until another Los Diablos murder spree renders you an irrelevant violent crime statistic.

A part of you still isn’t sure why you chose to settle down here, of all places you’ve been over the years. Must’ve been because of all of the beautiful sights and nice people.

[sakeofpower]

[nondelphic]

"just write a little every day" ok but what if i write nothing for 3 weeks and then suddenly type like i’m being hunted by god