Bruce finally seeing a baby photo of Damian that was taken when he's like two or so and just being so confused because Damian's eyes are brown. Not green like they are now or baby blue. Damian is confused when Bruce asks, "it was taken before the first time I died." And Bruce just stares at his eleven or twelve year old son, because what do you mean he's died before? Turns about that Damian has been seriously hurt or close to death enough times during training under the League that he's been dunked into the pits at least about ten times which as a consequence has permanently changed his eyes. To Damian it wasn't a big deal so he doesn't understand why Bruce has excused himself to either yell at Talia over the phone or to breakdown a little in private. That's his boy, his son, what do you mean these things happened and he couldn't prevent it or that didn't even know. He's a wreck for about an hour before pulling himself together to face his son only to find Damian just chilling in the living room, asking where Alfred went. Bruce is puzzled because Alfred was around a moment ago and didn't say anything about leaving. Turns out upon hearing the commotion, Alfred asked Damian what went on and Damian told him. Bruce just swears and starts for the Bat Cave, yelling for Damian to call Dick or Tim or anybody who can help him stop Alfred.
Meanwhile, at the League's base:
Alfred, sliding a new magazine into the gun and clearing the chamber: Now, we were at 7? Master Damian said he's been in the pit, ah, yes ten times. Let's crack on shall we?
Ra's, slowly dragging himself toward the pit over the bodies of all the League assassins who thought they could take on this old English guy, body like Swiss cheese: fuuuuuuuuck
Tim wasn’t put in the Lazarus Pit. But. That doesn’t mean they didn’t use it on him. The pit’s healing properties have been shown to work in small portions. Like, the healing is proportional to the amount of lw used.
The cave with the pit isn’t exactly a sterile environment. So either the pit was needed or it was an attempt to put Tim off balance, a psychological weapon. Though the White Ghost’s reaction to the assumption seems to dispute that. If the pit’s healing is proportional to the amount used it makes sense that the psychological effects are to, along with the duration of those side effects.
Ra’s had serious reasons to use the pit on Tim, between the additional room for emotional manipulation and Tim’s life threatening injury which wasn’t immediately treated and was in fact exacerbated like, a lot… yeah. Tim lost a lot of blood. He lost was stabbed in the organ that filters blood: meaning all your blood passes through your spleen. He was bleeding out, he should have died, he dragged himself and another person to a car, drove said car back to the city, and got them both up to the penthouse. Recovering from that would take a long time, he shouldn’t have survived at all. But he healed quickly and well, it isn’t an issue, it happened and it was over. I know we as a fandom like to have fun with Tim’s missing spleen and what that means but… canon didn’t and looking back I feel like there was a lot pointing at the pit being used in a much more insidious was, not just in the logistics of Tim’s recovery.
Ra’s was insanely trusting of Tim. Not just in his ability to do what he wanted but in his belief that Tim would ultimately come around to his way of thinking. Now, I can obviously see that Tim was in a very vulnerable position and if Bruce hadn’t actually been alive Ra’s could definitely have succeeded. But it feels like more than that, especially with Tim’s ensuing behavior. A lot of his time with the league is glossed over or seen from Tam’s perspective, but Tim was acting different. It’s easy to attribute this to the objectively terrible situation and the year he’s had, but his behavior isn’t the same as it was at the beginning of the run either. And the difference in behavior fades. As Red Robin Tim is more ruthless and pragmatic, mostly due to necessity. Even stealing from a museum and fighting for it makes him incredibly uncomfortable. He still did it. But he was still acting like Tim, making jokes and doing his best to diffuse the situation and keep everyone alive. After the surgery his focus gets even more single minded. He barely puts up a fight about leading the league. Of course partly for Tam, and he tried to keep killing to a minimum but cmon. He was leading the league of ASSASSINS. There were assassinations happening. People died when he blew all the league bases and he barely registered that beyond thinking that the council of spiders probably made it out, implying part of him knew death was a possibility and he didn’t care. But he didn’t think about the moral implications of that in a way that was very reminiscent of Jason’s selective morality. If he had stopped to think about it he wouldn’t have done it, but he was focused to much on beating Ra’s, on not compromising, that the complexity of the situation didn’t sink in. The obvious effects of his actions, the possible deaths and injuries of anyone inside a league stronghold wasn’t acknowledged while the underlying message sent to his opponent was the only thing he could think about. Just like when Jason attacked Tim at Titans Tower to send a message to Bruce despite his hardline stance against hurting kids.
So. The League did use the pit on Tim, just a little. Maybe two tablespoons in the wound to accelerate recovery and weaken his morals a bit. It would certainly make a lot of sense. And the writer did change when Tim came back to Gotham so it’s entirely possible that it was meant to be touched on later but was discarded.
Idk if this makes sense with the time line of things, but what if Stephanie actually died in War Games instead of it being retconned, and then, when Jason Todd comes back to life, he learns that Batman not only replaced him twice, but let another Robin die. This makes Jason furious, and to get back at Batman but also because he wants to not be the only one, he finds Stephanie's body and resurrects her in the Lazarus pit. The two of them then team up to haunt Bruce and the others.
A/N: Hey guys, this is my first Jason Todd imagine, and it’s based off this piece of fanart by the amazingly talented @careamorran. I hope you all enjoy it! Feedback and comments are welcome
MASTERLIST
He didn’t really remember how it happened. All he knew is when he came out of the pit everything was different. A few months passed and he learned something interesting about himself, he had powers. He had become a meta somewhere between getting blown up and coming back to life. And his powers were a little too similar to a certain red headed villainess of Gotham. The first time it happened he nearly shot a tree. He was sitting in a park with a copy of Pride and Prejudice he’d lifted from Bruce’s library soon after he was made as Red Hood.
The day was hot and he had taken cover under a tree in Gotham Park. He reached for his ice tea, but his eyes were glued to the page, his hand ended up knocking the cup over.
‘Stupid Humans!’ A gruff voice sounded in his mind.
The book fell from his hands as he reached for the secretly placed gun on his person. His eyes scanned his surrounding but came up with moot.
“I must be hearing things,” he muttered.
He tried to focus his mind trying to find where the voice had come from, that’s when he heard it.
“An idiotic species in my opinion, always littering here and there completely inconsiderate-” the same gruff voice ranted and Jason paled.
He turned towards the tree he was just leaning on.“The tree fucking talked,” came his hoarse whisper.
“Don’t be ridiculous human, trees don’t have mouths. We can’t talk.”
Jason didn’t know what to do he was losing his mind and simply was holding a gun to a tree.
“Go ahead shoot me. Prove me right.”
He couldn’t believe himself, he was being taunted by a fucking tree. Many rude comments and an explicit conversation later Jason had come to understand what was going on. He could telepathically communicate with plants, he could hear their thoughts. Once he even heard a vine judging this passing lady’s outfit. He slowly gained better control and began to use it more often.
He had been pretty secretive about it but Damian had been the one to catch him, of course, the entire Batfam had eventually found out and continued to bug him for details. They asked things like… does that ficus hate me? Or does that flower think I look fat? Bruce was the one to point out that Jason’s eyes turn a bright green when strongly concentrating on communicating or listening to the plants.
That was almost a year and a half ago, currently, Tim and Jason were trekking through Brazil trying to track down Harley Quinn. The pair had been searching day and night for the past two days. The sun was out and it was scorching.
“Can’t you, like, talk to the plants to ask where she went?” Tim suggested as they stopped for a moment.
“I’m a meta, not a fucking fairy, Tim.” Jason retorted pulling his glove from his hand. He had found that physical contact helped to focus better.
“I don’t talk to plants!” Jason added after.
And it was true Jay wasn’t talking he was telepathically holding a conversation out of thought through his mind. There was no speaking involved.
“Oh yeah? And what do you call what you’re doing right now?” Tim bit sassily.
God, that replacement infuriated Jay sometimes. Like he has a clue as to the huge blabber mouth this tree seemed to be. His extra chatter was unnecessary.
“I call it 'shut the fuck up so I can concentrate’,” Jay huffed aggressively.
One could almost hear the smirk on Tim’s face. Jason’s mind began to clear as he focused in on the tree, Tim could see his eyes illuminating in that bright neon green color.With a start, Jason drops his hand from the trunk and his eyes return to their natural blue-grey state.
“They say she’s heading to Rio de Janeiro,” he shares pulling his glove on.
“I thought you said they don’t talk.” Tim poked.
“I thought I told you to shut the fuck up,” Jason said walking past his younger brother.
I like the idea that Jason uses the fact that most of the Bats know very little about the effects of the Lazurus Pit over a long period and he uses it as an excuse for pretty much anything and everything.
Eating his steak so rare it's practically alive grossing out his siblings? "Sorry, the Pit makes me crave blood from time to time" says Jason. And his siblings call bullshit only for Bruce, who also enjoys a rare-ish steak which his kids always retch about, to say "he's right, from time to time, the Pit craves blood"
Or Jason is watching some film or TV show and having some reaction that's seen as an "over reaction" by some that don't understand that the new Wuthering Heights movie is a travesty. And he ends up ranting or yelling or screaming at the TV and the rest of the Bats and Bruce are like, "chill for fuck's sake, it's just a film/show" and Jason knows that, thank you very much, but they don't understand. But he just rolls his eyes, gestures to his head and shrugs, "Pit Madness." Damian, of course, backs him up because he too uses that excuse whenever he swings for one of his brothers because they're irritating him too much.
