hihi! can i hear about dark waters and implication followup for the wip ask game? <3 (ps good luck with your dissertation!)
Hello!! :3
(Thank you!! It's going alright so far, but there's still a lot of the diss left to go lol)
(wip ask game)
Implication followup
Shortly after I posted Implication, I ended up getting into a discussion on a dicktim discord server about what happens after the mini cliffhanger. I'm entirely happy to leave the fic as-is, but I've been poking around at a followup fic that is about one possible outcome of the shit show of a complicated relationship that the fic centers around. Specifically, a version where Bernard breaks up with Tim (understandably, given the context) and Tim gets drunk before going to seduce Dick about it. I'm a huge fan of angsty drunk sex in fics, so mostly this is just self-indulgent lol
Dark Waters
I've possibly been sitting on this one for a while, to the point where it's been asked about before (don't look at the date on that ask lmao. I promise it'll be posted some day 😅), but! Tim gets himself stuck in the Unternet and Dick has to go in and rescue him. The problem with this is that Tim's consciousness is being guarded by a sentient AI. Of Dick. That's fallen in love with Tim and has lowkey taken him hostage.
Dick is having so much fun and absolutely zero crises about this 😀
Dark waters excerpt under the cut:
Dick pauses. Then stares.
What is the door to his old Blüdhaven apartment doing in the Ünternet’s version of Gotham?
When he looks up and takes the full building in, it isn’t just the door either. While most of the building is unrecognizable, a few elements look like they’ve been taken right off of his old building and added to this one.
Is this the work of his subconscious? Or Tim’s?
He climbs a fire escape he recognizes. At the top, he ducks through a conveniently open window.
And then steps directly in a glue trap.
The jury’s still out on which of them is doing this. Back when Tim used to break into his apartment for fun, he never quite managed to catch him with one of the glue traps. There were some close calls, though.
He fishes a solvent spray out of the Batsuit’s utility belt. Something like this should take about a minute to dissolve.
While he waits, he looks around.
Everything looks incredibly, painfully familiar. The kitchen has a few pots and pans he’d forgotten to clean up. The couch’s end table has a stack of magazines tall enough to be precarious. Despite his best efforts, one corner of the apartment is still colonized by half unpacked boxes.
Finally, the glue dissolves enough for him to pull his boot out of the trap.
He gives what’s left of the glue a wide birth as he walks to the center of the apartment. From this side of the couch, he can see enough of the dining room to make out an open container of half-eaten takeout. He can also see a duffle bag left a the foot of the couch. The zipper is open, making it very clear that the Nightwing suit has been artlessly shoved inside.
“Seriously, Tim?” he mutters. “It was one time.”
“Try five times.”
Dick freezes. He knows that voice.
It isn’t Tim’s.
He spins on his heel, already taking a step away from the voice’s point of origin.
His own face stares back at him, smirking.
The window he’d entered through is still open. Standing next to it - and notably not in the glue trap - is… him. Another version of him, at any rate.
He’s wearing the Nightwing suit. A blue, chevron-shaped bird stretches across his chest. Blue lines run down his arms and the backs of his hands, ending in the fingerstripes he used to get so many compliments on.
He misses those fingerstripes.
The other version of him watches Dick watch him. Eventually, he raises a single eyebrow as his smirk grows wider.
“Like what you see?” the other him asks.
“Is there an answer to that that isn’t either narcissistic or self deprecating?”
“No. But who’s counting?”
“Well, there’s no one here but me. So who do you think?”
The other him laughs, then looks annoyed.
“That isn’t funny. Why would he think that’s funny?”
“I’m standing right here.”
“Not you. Him.”
“Him?”
“Tim.”
Dick takes a step forward. His double watches him cautiously.
“You’ve seen Tim?”
The other version’s eyes narrow.
“You could say that.”
“Where is he?”
The other him shrugs.
“Around.”
Dick strongly considers pulling out a Batarang and getting some target practice.
“Can you be more specific?”
“Yes.” The other him smirks. “But I won’t be.”
“Why?”
The world around him tilts, and Dick finds himself falling backward. Fortunately, his old, beaten up living room chair catches him. Unfortunately, two seconds after gravity shifts back into place, ropes shoot out from the sides of it, tying him firmly in place.
When gravity moved, the other version of him didn’t budge an inch.
“Because you’re not supposed to be here,” he says, all but leering at Dick.
“What, and you are?”
His smirk sharpens.
“Naturally. Why else would Tim have made me?”
Before Dick can even hazard a guess, the apartment begins to change. The pans in the kitchen flicker from dirty to clean before putting themselves away, as if by magic. The books on the table shuffle themselves before drifting back onto his now perfectly alphabetized bookshelf. The boxes in the corner break themselves down before melting out of existence and the takeout throws itself out.
The open duffle just disappears entirely.
The other him sounds annoyed as he sighs.
“All my effort keeping this place clean, and you mess it up in what? Thirty minutes at most?”
“Me?” Dick asks. “The apartment was like this when I got here.”
“No, the apartment was like this in your memory. So the apartment you see around you changed to reflect that.”
So the open takeout and the poorly hidden Nightwing suit were him after all…
“Tim made you to… clean?” he asks, cautiously.
“Not at all. Tim says he doesn’t mind the mess, and that it’s more realistic that way. But I mind. He deserves better than a messy apartment.”
Something about that makes Dick’s muscles tense up just a little more than they had already from being tied up.
“Then why did he make you?”
The program laughs. The kind of laugh that Dick can’t stop whenever he’s faced with some two-bit Gotham thug who’s bitten off more than they can chew and is about to tell them how deeply fucked they are.
“Honestly? To keep him company. You’ve seen how empty it is out there.”
“If he wanted company, I really doubt he would recreate me. He seems to go out of his way to not be around me, lately.”
“Which is exactly why he didn’t recreate you. He recreated a former version of you. Only one of us is wearing a Batsuit for a reason, after all.”
“Tim told me to take up the mantle.”
The other him shrugs.
“I suppose even the best of us are capable of buyer’s remorse.”
Oof all of your WIPs sound sooo good it’s hard to choose one 😩😓
I was able to reduce my choice to four… Court of Owls AU, Reverse Robins, Truth Serum or Dare, and Sacrifice/God AU
I don’t mind which you choose (or if you do all) because they sound so so good 🤭 <3
Thank you for the ask!! <3
(wip tag game)
I've got Truth Serum or Dare and the Sacrifice/God AU, plus some later asks about Reverse Robins (coming up), but you're the only person who's asked about the Court of Owls fic :D
The basic premise is that Dick is abducted by the court (around the time that he's being Dickbats more full time) and Tim infiltrates the court to rescue him, playing on his mom being a former member who left it behind her when she married Jack.
Problem #1: Dick has been partially talon-ified, and Tim has to figure out how to undo that. I'm leaning on the creepy maze aesthetics and adding in the overrun with undead talons bit from the Gotham Knights game to make the whole situation to make things extra complicated for him to figure out
Problem #2: the doomed yuri of it all, because Janet and the current Grandmaster used to be together, before Janet left. The Grandmaster still has Feelings about this and has taken an interest in Tim that he has complicated feelings on. But he can use that to get what he wants without causing himself psychological damage... right?
(wrong)
And! to give it an extra level of strangeness, it's from Dick's amnesiac, partially talon-ified POV, so the unreliable narrator is strong with this one
An excerpt under the cut:
Without a better idea of what to do with himself, he begins a third patrol - one that’s cut short when he finds himself stopping in the middle of one of the residential halls.
This is not the first time.
Timothy’s door looks like every other residential door in the facility.
Talon doesn’t understand what draws him here, but occasionally he finds himself standing in front of the door all the same. Most of the time, he just keeps walking. But on nights when he’s feeling particularly… strange, he finds himself lingering. He’s careful not to make any noise as he he presses himself against the door. The wood is cool against his ear. He lets his eyes fall closed.
Most nights, there is nothing particularly of note. Perhaps the sounds of writing, or fabric rustling, of footsteps pacing. Despite this, something about the sound of it settles the restless energy in Talon’s bones.
But some nights he hears talking. Usually it sounds like Timothy muttering to himself too quietly for Talon to hear. Tonight though, he seems to have company.
Talon’s brow furrows. The second voice sounds as if it’s coming through a speaker.
“I told you,” Timothy snaps. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
He hears the garbled sound of a person speaking on the other end of a communication device.
“I don’t care if you think it’s a bad plan. We knew I’d be crossing lines when I came here,” Timothy says.
Another response that Talon can’t quite hear.
“It… it doesn’t matter what he’ll think. All that matters to is getting him out. And I’ll do anything I have to do to make that happen.”
There’s a pause filled with too-faint words, before the air fills with the sound of wood scraping on wood: a chair pushed back far too quickly.
Timothy responds in a whisper that sounds like it desperately wants to be a shout.
“He’s still in there,” he snaps. “I know he is. And I’m not going to abandon him.”
The person on the communicator says something that sounds harsh and sharp.
There’s a long pause.
“I’m… sorry,” Timothy says. “I know you care about him too. I just… don’t see another way that doesn’t involve leaving him like this for any longer than we have to. And I can’t let myself believe that he’s gone. I just can’t. I don’t know what I’d do without h-”
His voice breaks on the next word, but he covers it quickly.
The person on the speaker seems to give him a moment to compose himself. Then they say something so quiet that Talon barely hears it at all.
“I’ll try,” Timothy mutters. “And… you too. Goodnight, O.”
There’s a quiet beep.
A moment or two of silence passes before Timothy’s breaths begin to sound rushed. Then they begin to hitch.
What Talon does next has no explanation or reason he can discern.
He reaches for the handle, opening the door and stepping inside.
Timothy startles, quickly hiding something behind him. Probably whatever sort of communicator he was using. His mask sits on top of the room’s desk. His face seems wet.
Some unknowable instinct pushes Talon to close the door behind him.
When he turns back around, Timothy’s hands are at his sides and the communicator is nowhere to be seen.
His face is dry, but the arm of his button-down looks faintly damp.
“Can I… help you?” Timothy asks, clearly caught off guard by Talon’s appearance.
Talon comes closer. He watches as Timothy tenses before forcing himself to relax. It’s an effort that seems to double as Talon removes his clawed gauntlets, placing them on the desk next to the mask.
“What-?” Timothy starts to ask, but he stops as soon as Talon steps into his space, close enough to bring his bare hands to either side of Timothy’s face. His skin is… warm. Few have touched Talon outside of the context of whatever death throes happen to connect with him. But this is different.
Timothy breathes in slowly. Deliberately. He’s incredibly still beneath Talon’s hands.
Another tear slips from his eyes, trailing over the arch of his cheek.
With a gentleness he didn’t know he was capable of, Talon wipes it away with his thumb.
“Is-” Timothy’s expression becomes visibly strained. “Is that you, in there?” he asks, cryptically.
Talon tilts his head to the side. He isn’t really sure what that question is supposed to mean.
“No, of course not. Why would you…” Timothy sighs. He looks almost… disappointed.
And yet. Talon’s eyes dart to movement from Tim’s arms. It takes only a moment to recognize that this isn’t a threat, and a moment more to become deeply confused by the way that Timothy’s hands come to rest over his, keeping Talon’s hands pressed to his face. It makes his hands feel warmer than he can ever remember them being.
He thinks he… likes it. The warmth.
“I don’t care what they think,” Timothy mutters. “You’re still in there somewhere. You have to be.”
He looks at Talon as he says it, but there is the faint impression that he isn’t talking to him. Not exactly.
“Why would you do this if you weren’t…?”
Timothy’s eyes close. Another tear falls, but Talon catches it.
“Rest,” he says, unsure of where, exactly, the impulse came from.
He opens his eyes again, looking a little startled.
“I… okay. Um. Sure.”
Timothy takes a step back towards the bed, away from his hands. Then another. He lies down on the bed, on his back.
Talon follows him. He’s very careful as he sits on the edge of the bed. Timothy stays still as he reaches forward to trace a thin, white scar on his neck. His eyes dart back to Talon’s face as he runs his fingers along a collarbone, then farther down to his chest. He splays his fingers out, over top of where he can feel Timothy’s heart beating quickly behind his ribs.
With a hesitating, tentative movement, Timothy brings a hand up to rest over top of Talon’s.
Talon welcomes the touch. And the warmth.
He stays there with Timothy, watching as tiredness overtakes him and he falls into a shallow sleep. His hand never leaves Talon’s, holding him place.
Hiiiiii :D
Thank you for the ask!!
(wip tag game)
I kinda already answered this one, but Tim accidentally makes a sentient and kinda evil AI based on Dick that also accidentally falls in love with him. And then takes him hostage <3
A different excerpt than the one I linked:
"You're... writing your own code?"
"Precisely."
Jesus. Of all the people that Dick would expect to accidentally create a rogue artificial intelligence, Tim is admittedly near the top of that list. But still…
"And you wrote yourself to... um."
"To love him," the AI says, with deadly seriousness.
"And he's... okay with that?" Dick asks, despite the fact that Tim had seemed more than okay with that just moments before. Despite the fact that he's never seemed to indicate wanting anything like that from Dick…
The AI scowls.
"It's not like he knows. He thinks that he just messed up while coding me. That the way that I love him is just his own unconscious bias manifesting itself in my syntax. He's wrong, of course. But it's easier for us that way. He'd be uncomfortable if he knew that I was... real."
And if wanting Dick to love him like that is Tim's unconscious bias...
Something in Dick's chest feels like it's shattering.
"If you love him, then why are you lying to him?"
"Why does he lie to you?" the AI asks. "To protect you. To make you happy."
And Dick... knows that, objectively. He knows there are things that Tim won't tell him because Tim thinks that he doesn't want to know them.
He didn't know that something like this was one of them.
The AI smiles with Dick's face. There's a cruel edge to it.
"When Tim first programmed me," the AI says, "he told me it was because he was lonely. Because he missed you. He's told me all about how the two of you are fighting. About how you pushed him away."
"I didn't-"
"He doesn't see it that way," the AI says, cutting him off. "But that doesn't matter anymore. I would never push him away. Could never."
"But you aren't letting him leave, either," Dick says.
"Why should I? Every time he comes back here, he just seems so unhappy. But when he's here… I make him happy. And I will do anything to keep him happy."
The AI's eyes narrow. His stance widens.
"Even if it means eliminating you from the system."
Hands on my knees begging to hear more about Tim guiltily finding dick’s murderous rages hot🫶🫶
Ehehehehe that one's extra fun (*evil laughter emoji*)
(wip tag game)
A bit of a disclaimer at the top that this one is definitely a case of he wouldn't say that vs. but what would have to happen to make him say that? Because in canon, Tim has actively held Dick back from said murderous rages. But! with that out of the way...
Dick has a habit of losing his shit sometimes, and more than one of those times it's because Tim was being hurt or threatened. The guilt part of this is that obviously Tim doesn't like it when Dick is emotionally in a place where he falls back on nearly killing someone, but. It does show a certain kind of care. But he does feel guilty about it, so it isn't something he actively thinks about until around Red Robin, where his relationship with Dick is suddenly a lot less clear than it used to be. Feeling kind of adrift after Bruce's death and the realignment of the Batman-Robin dynamic to not include Tim, he ends up looking for reassurance that Dick does actually care about him (logically he knows he does, but emotionally he's feeling a bit hurt). So his way of doing that is unearthing some security footage of some of the incidents where Dick has nearly beat people to death over him 😌. And after a while, he maybe realizes that actually. it's kind of hot? Which obviously leads to a sad and guilty Tim getting off to footage of Dick nearly beating people to death lol
This one isn't super fleshed out beyond that, but at the moment the plan is that in Ra's vs. Tim fight, Ra's kicks him across the room instead of out the window, right in time for Dick to show up and beat the shit out of Ra's (which he already did in canon a bit after Bruce's death, so he can do it again lol)
So Tim gets to watch this real life representation of the thing he had been clinging to as proof that Dick still cares about him, and then Dick goes to check if he's okay. And then Tim blows him
VELL!! I am such a sucker for any kind of Sacrifice/God AU 👀 👀 👀 Also. Might I inquire. About the stunningly named ~Uncomfeyness~???
Hiiiiiiiii \o/
Thank you for the ask! (and for tagging me!!)
(wip tag game)
Sacrifice/God AU
I love this one, but it's given me no end of trouble since I've lost count of how many times I've had to re-write it. But! When I last left it, the general idea is that the setting is vaguely mythological greece-adjacent and Tim lives in a city that once had a patron deity in the form of a winged god who lived at the top of the mountain near the city. When he was younger, Tim remembers a lot of different celebrations meant to honor the god. But the most important one—the one where the god physically visits the city—was a yearly feast held in the god's honor where a member of the community would be symbolically married to the god in a ceremony meant to strengthen the region's overall relationship with the god and to bring good fortune. Tim definitely didn't have crush on the god or anything, but he'd really really wanted to be the person picked for that honor someday, and he had a pretty good chance of it since his parents were important political figures in the city.
But this was all when Tim was younger. Before he was fully grown, the god seemingly went mad and started attacking anyone who started climbing the mountain. In what is definitely an entirely unrelated coincidence, around the same time there is a coup in the city and its leaders, including Tim's parents, are killed.
The new leaders banned worship of the god on account of the attacks, and in present day the god's iconography is scratched out or panted over, and there are no more celebrations. Tim still keeps a small shrine, but he knows that if it's discovered, it won't end well for him.
The only holdover from Tim's childhood is that the city still recognizes the yearly celebration. Except now it's less that someone is symbolically married to the god and more that they pick someone who has just reached adulthood to be literally sacrificed to the god by being sent up the mountain to be (presumably) killed. (in a very hunger games way, it has the side benefit of keeping people in line in case their kids get 'randomly' selected).
Since he's the son of some of the city's previous leaders, Tim isn't exactly popular with the new leadership. So it isn't particularly surprising that on the year when he reaches adulthood, he's picked as the yearly sacrifice.
But Tim feels that he's always known the city's god and has a suspicion that not everything here is adding up 100% correctly. So he goes along with the whole sacrifice thing and when the time comes, he climbs the mountain.
It isn't long before he finds the god (or, rather, the god finds him). It turns out that the god is just as mad as was suspected, but that might have something to do with the dagger that's clearly coated in some sort of poison that's sticking out from his side...
Tim manages to remove the dagger without being killed and watches the god fly off in a confused but slightly less murderous state. But now he has a conspiracy to unravel and, just maybe, a god to save.
(anyway, the god is Dick and Tim climbs the mountain to his temple to convince him to go back to being it's patron deity. Which takes several months, over the course of which feelings start to develop...)
Uncomfeyness
This actually comes from a prompt on C&C from. uh. a long time ago lol. It's a cute fluff-ish, established relationship DickTim fic in which Dick (who has been grounded from patrolling, on account of a broken leg) tries to convince Tim to cuddle with him. Using 'scientific' evidence. Spoiler alert: it works 😂
Dick from another universe should appear and try to woo Tim <3
And make native Dick realize his feelings / what he's about to lose
(*evil laughter in the distance* ) Can I interest you in a WIP I may or may not have with Tim/Earth-3!Dick? <.<
The knife presses into Tim's throat, breaking the skin just enough that he feels a line of hot blood welling up around the blade.
Deathwing grabs his hair, pulling it roughly as he forces Tim's head and stares at his handiwork.
This is a darker part of Gotham. One where half the street lights are busted and the other half flicker uselessly. But his head is tipped back at just the right angle that flickering of the light above them catches his face, illuminating it.
The pressure on the knife lessens, just a little.
There's a quiet, stifled gasp in front of him.
"Tim?" Deathwing asks, and a voice that's quiet and barely there. If Tim didn't know better, he'd say that it wavered. Just a little.
The hand in his hair loosens. The knife clatters to the ground, forgotten.
Gauntleted hands frame his face with a gentleness that's almost shocking.
"You look just like him," he says, barely above a whisper.
It's all he manages before he starts to collapse.
Tim moves before he can think about it, catching him in his arms. It's not unlike supporting his own Dick's weight after a difficult fight.
Something about Deathwing's abdomen feels off. But he isn't in a position that lets Tim see what it is.
Mostly he sags against him, tucking his head against Tim's shoulder.
"What the fuck?" Tim hisses, mostly to himself.
"I give up," Deathwing says. "I surrender. Whatever it is you need to hear. Just… let me have this, for a moment. You don't know how much I've missed you. Him. Whichever."
His voice sounds faint and reedy. His arms feel oddly weak as they come to wrap around Tim.
When Tim manages to get a hand free, there's enough light to see that it's slick with blood.
This isn't Deathwing’s first fight of the night. And whoever came before Tim must have gotten the better of him.
"Let you have what?" Tim asks.
"You. Just… let me hold you for a moment before you kill me.'
"We don't kill."
Deathwing laughs against his skin. "That does explain why you were pulling your blows…"
When he coughs, it's strong enough to shake the both of them.
"Before I die, then."
"You're not going to die. I… I have a safe house nearby. I can patch you up."
"Even after I tried to kill you?"
"You're not the first. You probably won't be the last, either."
Deathwing tenses at that, but he keeps holding on.
"Truth Serum or Dare" for the WIP ask game, let's goooooo! 🤩☺️
Thank you for the ask!! <3
(wip tag game)
This one is a bit on the more crack fic side, but it's more or less a setup where some of the bats have decided to make a game out of mandatory desensitization to truth serum training. Basically, they take the truth serum and then play truth or dare, knowing that weaseling out of telling the truth is going to be pretty difficult.
It's a DickTim fic but told from Steph's POV as she uses her knowledge of the mutual pining to her advantage when trying to win the game.
There's an excerpt of it posted here, from a while back. Tbh I've lost the plot a bit on where this one is going, so this one will need a revamp before I can get back to the writing bit of it.
Dick wakes up warm, comfortable, and very clearly not in his own bed. It occurs to him that he’d fallen asleep on the couch around the same time he realizes that Tim had fallen asleep on him.
He’s half sprawled across Dick’s chest. His head rests on his shoulder. The arm Tim’s thrown over him is almost clinging, even in his sleep.
Dick laughs a little, making sure to stay quiet. While it certainly isn’t the first time they’ve fallen asleep on the couch together, it has been a while.
He brings a hand to Tim’s hair, lightly stroking through it. This sort of closeness with Tim isn’t something he lets himself indulge in often these days. But it was a rough night, and Tim invited him. Who is he to say no?
Another five or so minutes pass before Tim begins to stir. He makes a soft sort of sound, shifting against Dick as he returns to consciousness.
When Tim tips his face up to look at him, the faint light from the windows highlights the soft, rosy flush on Tim’s cheeks. The gauntness in his face is far less noticeable.
“Morning,” Dick says, smiling.
Tim blinks up at him owlishly.
“Five more minutes?” he asks. His voice is heavy with sleep.
“If you’d like. It’s not like we have anywhere to be…”
Tim yawns, then settles back down on his chest like he’s going to keep napping.
“Mmm… ’s fine with me.”
“Though you might have to let me up eventually, if you want to eat anytime soon.”
There’s a moment of silence.
Tim tenses up.
“I’m… not that hungry,” he says, eventually. He sounds more awake.
Continued on Ao3 (though you'll have to be logged in)
link is in the reblog :3
