for the quarantine prompt: DC, specifically the Batfamily. Talk about a bunch of people with too much energy and a tendency to clash dramatically. How are they coping???
(I definitely overthought this before finally deciding to just suck it up and write something lol)
I just stuck with coronavirus because Gotham is supposed to be in Jersey and they’re super hard hit anyway so…
It was all a horrible fluke, really. Dick had gotten a weekend off for the first time in forever, and had somehow managed to drag Jason along on his way to the manor to visit. They’d both arrived bickering but in one piece, just in time to hear the announcement that the governor was ordering everyone into lockdown. Now they were currently sparring in a corner of the Cave, hits landing just a hair harder than normal, while Tim gaped up at Bruce.
“What do you mean, no patrol?”
Bruce raised an eyebrow. “Would you rather I said it in Arabic?” he asked, in Arabic. Jerk. He must have been practicing with Damian.
“Bruce, just because everyone’s supposed to be quarantined doesn’t mean that crime will stop! Looting always goes up during times like these, we need to -”
“I will be patrolling. You will not.”
Tim whirled on his brothers. “Dick, back me up!”
Dick’s face was turning steadily redder from the headlock Jason had him in. He gave a kind of lopsided jerk of his shoulders - presumably a shrug - before twisting his torso like someone possessed in an effort to get his legs around Jason’s neck in turn.
Tim gave up with an exasperated sigh and turned back on Bruce. “You’re more at risk than we are, Bruce! Let us go with you!”
Bruce just stared him down. “Social distancing,” he said. His expression didn’t so much as twitch.
-=-
In the end, Bruce left alone. Tim sat at the computer and refused to watch him leave. Statistics were churning in his mind, death tolls and rates of infection and all the symptoms of a virus that could so easily turn deadly. He couldn’t get rid of the image of Bruce coughing up blood. He didn’t even notice Dick and Jason had stopped sparring until Dick tapped him on the shoulder.
Dick grinned down at him, mask already in place. “Suit up, Red Robin.”
“What?”
“We will leave without you,” Jason called. He was still at the other side of the cave, checking over his guns. “Hurry it up.”
“But I thought…”
Jason growled and stalked over. “You’re thinking too hard, Replacement. It’s no use arguing with Bruce when he’s like that, but that doesn’t mean we have to listen to him.”
“Oh.” Tim blinked, surprised he hadn’t thought of that already. Maybe he was thinking too much. But so many people were dying… “Uh. Give me just a minute.”
-=-
After another week of a rising body count Bruce finally relented and began wearing a full-face mask, specially designed to keep out pathogens. He couldn’t stop Dick and Jason from going out but he made sure they wore one as well. Tim found himself grounded with Damian. He didn’t even try arguing this time.
“Bruce,” he said quietly. “Please be careful.”
Bruce gave him a careful hug - nothing about social distancing now - but said nothing.
Damian disappeared to his room. But, after Bruce caught Jon Kent hovering outside his window for the third time in as many days, he forced Damian to move into Tim’s room. He called Clark too, just for good measure, to make sure that Jon was grounded.
(“Father,” Damian protested, “aliens can’t get sick like humans do! Jon is immune! It’s perfectly safe -”
“His father doesn’t get sick,” Bruce corrected. “His mother does. It’s too risky.”
“…tt.”)
They were still allowed on the grounds, thankfully. Otherwise, Tim had a feeling their bodies would be found dismembered and bloody by the police once this was all over. He wouldn’t have expected it, but Dick was going insane.
“I thought you lived in a trailer, Circus Boy,” Jason snorted.
“Yeah, only when we were travelling,” Dick grumbled. He fell over into a perfect handstand and walked a few feet before starting crunches - still on his hands. “Once we stopped I could go anywhere, as long as my parents knew where I was.”
Jason laughed, but didn’t say anything else. Damian had just entered the yard, Titus at his heels, and the big dog’s tail was wagging a mile a minute. Damian pointed, Titus took off, and -
“Ack!”
Dick fell over, Titus barking and licking his face. Damian was laughing.
-=-
Tim stayed in his room as much as possible. If he started feeling too antsy he would sit in the kitchen with Alfred, but on the whole it wasn’t too bad. Even sharing a room with Damian wasn’t as bad as it could have been, mostly because they both did their best to avoid each other unless absolutely necessary. As usual, his mind was his worst enemy. Tim kept tabs on the progression of the virus as best he could. It was horrific; bodies kept in freezer trucks, rushed burials in shallow graves, hospitals running out of equipment.
He missed having catastrophes he could fight. At least whenever the Joker broke out of Arkham he could punch him in the face.
-=-
After two-and-a-half weeks of quarantine it was Alfred, of all people, who snapped.
“This is unacceptable!” he sniffed. “No blood on my carpets, no property damage, nothing worse than stitches. Go!” He threw several nerf guns onto the living room floor and stalked out of the room. They all stared at the pile for only a moment before scrambling.
Tim got a knee to the shoulder, but he also got the best gun - mid-sized, large enough to hurt but small enough not to get in his way. He made a break for the stairs; there was a blind corner by the bedrooms that would be perfect for sabotage. Alfred hadn’t said anything about booby traps…
-=-
The war ended when Bruce shot Jason right between the eyes. He’d found Damian perched on top of a chandelier four hours ago, got Dick when he tried to avenge Damian, and worked his way through Tim’s booby-traps after that. Tim was proud that it had taken him nearly an hour to get through them all, and with the adrenaline fading from his system he was feeling pleasantly tired. When Jason stumbled into the kitchen, grumbling about the giant bruise blooming on his forehead, he thought he might actually be able to sleep peacefully tonight.
“So Father has won?” Damian asked. He’d been pouting nearly the entire time, up until Dick had set a plate of hummus and chips in front of him.
“Obviously,” Bruce smirked.
“Not quite,” Alfred said, and shot a nerf dart straight at his heart.
Bruce stared down at his chest in shock. The dart stuck to his shirt for a moment, but slowly peeled off. They all watched as it lost its grip, inch by inch, and fell to the floor.
Jason was the one to break the silence, nearly falling off his stool laughing. Dick joined in, burying his head in his arms, and Tim felt his own face split into a smile. Damian sniffed and grabbed another chip.
Instead of writing my final essay I edited this up and decided to post it.
Based off that one post about Jeremy Renner having played Barney instead of Clint 🤷♀️
Steve doesn't really see what happened. There's a flash of light, a scream, and then absolute silence. It's eerie and it reminds him too much of the silence of tired men tramping back to base after an op that cost more than they were willing to give. Immediately he finds himself looking around to locate Bucky but he shouldn't have bothered; he's there, as always, just behind Steve's left shoulder.
"You alright Buck?" he asks. Bucky nods so Steve continues his visual check-in: Spiderman is limping his way towards ground zero, T'Challa is gathering his own remaining warriors around him, and Sam is hovering overhead, just watching. Several women he doesn't recognize are approaching Wanda who has collapsed in the dirt. That…is probably a situation best left alone, at least for now. He keeps looking. He catches a glimpse of singed armor and a huddle of bodies, but before he can really take it in there's a hoarse shout of "CLINT!" and Hawkeye dashes past him, practically flying over the jagged earth, shedding quiver and bow as he goes. Steve follows before his brain can really catch up with his muscles. Call it instinct, but he runs after his teammate and nearly runs into him when he drops to the ground suddenly and skids the last few feet.
"Clint," he hears, muffled as Hawkeye's face is buried against some stranger's shoulder. "You futzing dumbass, I can't believe it. Clint. Holy shit. Holy -" he pulls back, eyes narrowed. "You didn't hear a word I just said, did you. What the hell did you do to your 'aids?"
The other man shrugs, eyes wide, and gestures vaguely over his shoulder. "Barney," Steve hears, "Holy shit, is it really you? Futzing magic man, what the hell…what happened? Where the hell are we? This isn't New York, is it? Dammit, I leave for…how long has it been? Futz, Barney, how long as it been??" The other man grabs Hawkeye by the front of his shirt and shakes him a little. Then his eyes go even wider and he jabs at the purple arrow with his finger. "The hell are you wearing my clothes for?" Hawkeye snorts and starts signing.
Steve blinks. He is not embarrassed to admit that he has no idea what exactly he's witnessing.
"OK, no, I get that it's magic, I just…oh my gosh. Sweet chili corndog. Is that Captain America?? Barney, what the hell?"
Steve feels more than sees Bucky come up behind him. The stranger swears again. "Isn't that the dude Nat was - hey, wait, where is Nat?"
The deluge of questions finally pauses as Hawkeye begins signing again. Steve's never seen him like this: slow and patient, but somehow still sharp and rough around the edges. His hands shake a little as he signs.
"No," the man says, and now that Steve's paying more attention he hears the rolling pitch of it, the way the words slur together. "No, that's not…you futzing liar, there's no way she -!"
And even though Steve is more lost than he's ever felt since waking up in New York City decades out of time, seeing this stranger crumple in on himself as Hawkeye's hands finally still and fall to his lap…it hurts. He wants to help. He has no idea how to help.
"What the hell?" Bucky mutters. Steve lifts one shoulder in a shrug as the sound of crying drifts over the desolate land: not from the man in front of him, as he would have expected, but from behind. Steve remembers this too, from a war now decades in the past. Every battlefield is the same.
"We should go," Steve says. "All of us, I mean. Get patched up. Sleep."
Hawkeye finally looks back at him. There's something hard in his eyes that Steve has only seen there a handful of times. "Clint comes with us," he says. His hands tighten around the other man's shoulders.
"Sure," Steve nods. The stranger doesn't seem to be much of a threat, and Hawkeye trusts him. That's good enough for him, even if he is confused as hell. "We can rendezvous at Stark's cabin. We uh…" he looks around at the ruins of what had once been an Avengers base. "We might need to borrow a ride, though."
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Teen Titans - All Media Types, DCU, DC Extended Universe, Titans (TV 2018)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Roy Harper, Donna Troy
Additional Tags: S2E2
Summary:
In S2E2 Donna took a call from Roy. This is how that call went.
I caught feelings from hearing Roy mentioned in ep2 so here goes
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
If anyone’s interested I’ve posted a new chapter! I’m really having a hard time writing Dick and Tim, but I think this one came out ok. Let me know what you think!
