Making my own reverse Robins au because I have thoughts:
Ok so order of robins is as follows:
Damian, Steph, Tim, Jason, Dick
And i will be talking about my feelings about Tim and steph later on in the post so.
Oldest Robin! Except, because Robin is dick graysons childhood nickname, none of them are Robin. I think its a good idea to stick with the bird theme, I do quite like shrike for damian but I dont think it fits the others. I was thinking something more corvid based, maybe rook or jackdaw? Or perhaps crow? I think I like rook best, especially since its also a chess piece.
Anyway, damian is still raised as the heir to the loa, still raised to believe being by batman's side is his birthright, except there is no sidekick precedent, Bruce is like 10 years younger, and he can focus all his energy on damian since he doesn't have any other kids. I think damian in this au is a lot more stable and easier to de-brainwash, because Bruce stops to focus all his attention on his son, kinda the way he did with Dick, which means he also kind of doesnt know how to parent. There's probably a lot of trial and error and also calling talia and being like 'listen I know we aren't really on good terms right now but damian did this thing today and I need help-'. I was thinking about dismantling the loa court of owls style but I think it needs to stay in place for steph and Tim's story lines so. Maybe damian can dismantle some of it. Maybe he can improve some of it. He does something with it, or maybe with another assassin group.
Anyway. Damian is stern but kind, very similar to Bruce himself. I think he could still become nightwing, especially if we reverse the super order and have Jon be his best friend still, but I think it would be a very different type of nightwing. Much closer to his Robin costume and using a sword. I also think that damian deserves a crash out period a la discowing dick grayson so I think he needs to move out and really despise and not get alone with Bruce for a bit. Maybe he, like dick, gets a bit sick of being kept on a leash. Maybe he just decides he needs space. Who knows. Anyway, he could go to live in bludhaven, or I could have him move in with Jon and be elsewhere. Thats not really an important detail right now.
I dont have many thoughts about damian, mainly because idk much about dicks Robin period so idk what parallels i can draw. Damian kicks ass for years but idk what he does. Maybe he gets trained by deathstroke. Maybe he sneers in deathstrokes face and says he's better than him already. Who knows. Damian makes his own destiny.
I think for this au Steph's introduction to Bruce is similar to her introduction to tim in cannon. I think she's out spoilering because her dad's still cluemaster, and she hits Bruce in the face with a brick and makes him laugh. He discovers she's maybe homeless??? Or maybe living with an addict mother????? Or maybe her mum dies in this one???? Anyway Bruce snatches her up and is like. Vigilanting by yourself is dangerous, here's one I prepared earlier and let's her take over damians old identity.
Damian has a crash out of monumental proportions because like. There isn't precedent for this. Its not even like cannon where dick is adopted. Damian is his biological son and then all of a sudden Bruce just picks up this random girl???? Why did you do that???? Am I not enough for you???? What did I do wrong???? Why are you replacing me???? And I think he'd be a bit condescending to steph at first too, because he'd been trained before he took up his mantle whereas steph is being trained for it, which puts a bit of a damper on their relationship. They eventually reconcile and balance each other out, steph reminding damian not to be too serious and damian keeping steph on track.
Also girl dad Bruce. Moment of silence for early girl dad Bruce Wayne.
I dont think for this au steph would directly mimic jason; I'm still trying to decide whether to give her Jason's death or do her fake death from black mask but have her actually be killed. Actually yeah I think im going to use black mask because that way Sheila can be Jason's origin story the way stephs dad was hers. So she dies, ends up waking in the morgue (i dont want her buried so she just wonders out of the morgue. The morgue gets so sued by Bruce because wdym you LOST my daughters body????) And getting snatched up by someone but im not sure if I want it to be Talia? I might want it to be someone else. Maybe david cain and then she can rescue cass. Or maybe lady shiva. Or maybe she does get snatched up by talia. Anyway she gets an eensy weensy bit manipulated and heads back to Gotham several years later with a bunch more training and has a tremendous crash out except she uses spoiler as her name still and Bruce thinks he's being taunted by someone making fun of his daughter and ALSO has a crashout of epic proportions. I dont think I want the titan tower to be a thing in this au though just because I want Tim and steph to be friends and while Tim is fairly untraumatised by that I feel like beating someone half to death does put some strain on a relationship. So I think steph mainly ignores Tim (also helps that I have some different plans for Tim in this au) and goes after Bruce and taunts damian instead. I cant decide whether or not I want her using guns or something else. If harley quinn wasnt already occupying the niche I'd give her a massive hammer. What about an axe? A great big fuck off battle axe??? I like that. Steph gets an axe because I say so. And she's awesome and she works with the gotham sirens ALSO because I say so and she helps to keep the mafia and the rogues in check. Because I love her.
I have SO MANY thoughts about reverse Robins tim. So many people make him take red hoods role but it just doesn't really work because tim was created to be the polar opposite of Jason. Also because Jason runs on emotions, not necessarily anger but he decides with his emotions which tim doesn't, he works on cold hard logic so I think it would be significantly more difficult for tim to do things Jason as red hood did. Not that tim is a better character because of this, I just think he wouldn't act like that.
I think the thing about tim is he fills his niche so nicely. He's such a good third Robin, he's such a good crutch for Bruce after Jason dies. Thats his role, and I dont think any of the other Robins work in that role so I have to keep him in that role BUT! In this au I want him to do something different. Because in this au babs is younger, is dick's age, I want to make tim Oracle.
I think he discovered batman's identity still (maybe through damians very distinctive speech patterns???) And went to blackmail damian who refused to go back to Bruce and suggested that tim goes to help. And tim does, and he forces batman to let him help, and I also think he goes through the training he did, aka Paris and lady shiva and all of that. But I think when he gets back, instead of taking an active role he decides to do more tech support. Not because he cant fight, but because tech support is so important. He still goes in as backup but he's a last resort, he helps mostly through managing the tech and creating gadgets and hacking things to get information, as well as going back to his roots and stalking. My tim is less of a vigilante and more of an informant to batman. Is this very self indulgent because I love this idea? Yes. Tim knows everything because he is always in everyone's business. He has blackmail. Don't cross him.
I do think he took damians mantle briefly before going to Paris. I think he learned or found something during his training that made him change his approach to his problems.
Also I want to be totally clear tim still fights in this. He's still a good fighter. He just prefers to manage the tech side. Anyway.
Idk whether to keep him as Oracle or call him something else. I like Oracle but I also like other things. Ive read a fic where he's called augury which I like, its more roman which I think suits him better. Augurys did things like sacrifice lambs and read the entrails whereas oracles saw a glimpse of the future and interpreted it in a very vague way. I also like him being called shutterbug (my favourite example of this is Gotcha, Bug by Mgootd) but I think its not quite so. Awe inspiring. I kind of want to call him Big Brother like in reference to 1984 but that might be too obvious. I might call him aegis because thats the name of athena's shield which i think fits him quite nicely? Ill decide on a name later.
Anyway since he's my equivalent to babs his nest is like the watchtower. I also think he got emancipated early after his mum died since his dad was in a coma, I think he was fostered by Bruce for a bit but asked Bruce if he could be emancipated because after being essentially left alone for years the actual care was kind of stifling and so he built his own Base of operations. Actually I might have his dad die and his mum be in a coma (and then not get murdered) because I like Janet drake more and I think her fuelling his corporate takeover of WE would be really funny.
This is kind of just turning into me writing tim the way i want him to be written. Oh well. Its my au and you cant stop me.
When steph re-emerge I think he'd be immediately star struck (i think he'd have a crush on her from before she died when he was stalking the bats) (although I dont think they'd date in this au there's too much stuff going on) but eventually become friends with her after the dust settles.
I also think since he's my equivalent of babs he'd end up taking care of cass although I think in this au cass would end up becoming (insert the name of the mantle here. I really need to decide on that) since batgirl doesn't really exist, although I do think tim would help her a lot with that, like passing his old role onto his successor. I think she probably moved on from it relatively quickly though, becoming black bat. Also yes ik cass is older than him but its a reverse au so in this they're the same age and also no tim is not equipped to take care of a whole ass teenager. He can barely take care of himself. But unfortunately fucked up things happen sometimes and so he ends up taking care of her for a bit. Also the fact that they are the same age and stayed together means they are basically twins. You can pry very similar cass and tim from my cold dead hands. (Bruce does step in and take care of cass, her being with tim was temporary).
Ive talked so much about tim oh god. Time to move on. (I have Thoughts about his relationship with damian too but I might make that into a separate post because this is so long)
(Also I have Thoughts about tims brucequest when he has a different skillset and a different role in the team)
(I also ALSO have thoughts about young justice but if i thought about superhero teams I might actually cry because there's so many characters so im saving that for later)
Jason's kind of difficult in this because I let steph have her og origin story but I dont think Jason's origin story would work with Bruce post steph's death and I also dont think he would do what steph did. So there's that.
Im kind of making this up but I think. Since stephs origin story involves her being friends with tim. I think tim finds Jason. Maybe while he's out stalking people???? And tim basically picks him up by the scruff of the neck and dumps him on Bruce's doorstep and goes 'I found a new robin (not Robin but yk what I mean) for you'. Since my au of tim does not at all go the way that og tims does (if Janet drake survived rather than Jack I dont think she'd have the same response to tim being Oracle, and also Since he's Oracle not Robin I think it'd be different too. Also because cass had the mantle but moved on.) Maybe Jason got into trouble with one of the gangs??? Not joker yet because I need that to factor into the fake death thing that steph had going on. But yes I think tim or maybe cass found him and basically just went 'yeah this is ours now.' It sort of also fits with the fact that steph sort of got pressured into being Robin by tim (idk that much abt stephbin so forgive me if my info is wrong) Jason does get a choice but he also feels a bit like if he doesn't do vigilante stuff he'll be back on the streets, and so he gets kind of pressured. I dont think that would be true at all, Bruce would love it if he could have a child that didn't want to be cape, but I think that would be his perception, especially since I think tim picked him up through Oracle business. However I also think he would grow to love it and end up staying a cape, maybe becoming red robin or maybe still being red hood. Maybe red hood because I kinda want dick to become robin. Or maybe he could be a different bird. Not blue Jay. Nothing that involved the initials bj please. But he might go for something else.
And then he 'dies' via the hands of the joker. Im giving him his normal death i.e. betrayed by his bio mum but in Gotham not Ethiopia and not actually staying dead, being revived on the operating table. Idk what really happens after that with stephs run, something about tripping tim out. But im making this au slightly less toxic to tim so im just making Jason return after being 'dead' for a bit as a sort of fucked up protection where Bruce decided that if no one knew he was alive no one could kill him. Which Jason rebels against so he comes back as whatever identity he chooses, red hood or whatever just to spite Bruce. Then someone makes them have a conversation and Bruce apologises and shit, and Jason works with them again.
I think dick gets the same origin story except instead of just Bruce being there i think he took his family out for an outing and went to the circus, so all the bats were there and witnessed dick's origin story. This results in dick being spoilt positively rotten by just about everyone.
Dick stays like 12 year old og dick grayson: climbing chandeliers, hyperactive, deciding that school is less important than vigilante stuff. The only difference is that the Bruce he gets has had many children and so can deal with it slightly better and also dick has older siblings to help him with his shenanigans.
I dont know that much about dicks Robin period tbh. However one thing I do think is that since this dick has so many more people on his side, willing to defend and help him, he goes through less traumatic things over his time with the mantle.
I also think dick eventually leaves damians mantle and becomes Robin, since that's his childhood nickname. Although it would be differently to og him, as this Robin wouldn't be batman's sidekick.
Also, Bruce 'dies' in this period, which means dick gets parented a lot by damian, who has no fucking clue what he's doing but he's trying his best ok. He does a pretty good job all things considered. He helps a traumatised 12 yr old (although he does kind of make him a vigilante since he doesn't know any other way of helping him, but its ok because dick was kind of sneaking out to get revenge on his parents' killer anyway, and also he has so much fun doing his little flips off buildings) and when Bruce gets back (tim rescues him a la the red robin comics with only slightly less crashout as he's more trusted as a free agent rather than a sidekick) dick gets the weird coparenting from his dad and his brother that damian gets in cannon.
Anyway thats it!!! If you read all of that, here's a medal because that was really long: 🏅
Im thinking of turning this into a fic but I dont really know how because its kinda long and I dont want to write all of that.
Thank you for reading and please ask me if you have any questions I would literally adore to yap more about my au and pls lmk if you have any name suggestions for the mantle, tims hero name, etc.
Also I haven't talked abt babs yet bc i dont think she'll appear for a little while. Honestly I just dont really know what to do with her but I will include her promise!!!!!! She just might have a slightly different role.
Duke i also dont know what to do with; i really dont know very much about him. He might just be the signal and appear when damians younger and then continue working with Bruce as the day shift all along.
