Arguing About Who Is Damian's Favorite Brother

Tim, [pointing his staff at the human traffickers]: YOU ARE OUTGUNNED

Jason, [hyping him up]: WHAT?

Tim: OUTMANNED!

Jason: WHAT?!

Tim: OUTNUMBERED OUTPLANNED

Jason: PAY YOUR FUCKING TAXES!

Tim: PUT YOUR GUNS DOWN ON MY COMMAND

Jason: HAND EM OVER!!

Tim: THIS IS HAMILTON MY RIGHT HAND MAN!

Jason, [getting his guns out]: PWO PWO PWO PWO PWO-

Goons: *shaking* what the FUCK are Batman feeding his partners--

I love the headcanon that none of the Bats are supers, but over time? Gotham is slowly messing them up, one by one.

Bruce smiles at Clark one day in the Cave, and his eyes reflect the light back like a wolf's

Jason suddenly has tiny fangs, but nobody has the nerve to mention it

Alfred literally doesn't die

Dick can jump higher and faster than ever before, but barely notices it

Tim is awake for three days straight and doesn't blink

They're all subtly, but noticeably different. Gotham-blessed, or cursed, or something in between.

Batman, dividing everyone up for patrol- Jason, you're with Steph, Damian, you're coming with me, Dick, you're with Cass. Tim, are you fine going solo?

Tim- Yup

Jason- Oh, come on! Why does he get to go solo?

Batman- Your brother gets to go solo because he doesn't have a kill count.

Jason- Oh, he SO does

Tim, whispering- It doesn't count if he doesn't find the bodies

Harmonies of the Multiverse

THEME

When Jupiter collides with autumn, a single moment is born between two entities. Equal harmonies with balance, dancing along a fine line of too far and too near, of brightest and dimmest, of perfect alignment. People say that on an equinox, the sky divides into two parts, golden light and silver darkness.

For Damian Wayne, it meant heading to the rooftop instead of sleeping peacefully in his bed, staring at the sky, but not seeing anything. His eyes would remain blank as they stared up at the twinkling stars almost covered by the rancid smog. He learned at too young of an age that life was not about myths and fairytales, but of monsters in the form of flesh and bone which held their smiles on their face and their daggers in your back.

The equinox meant facing the demons of his past.

He always knew he was never the best person. He wouldn't ever be as selfless as Dick, he wouldn't be as level-headed as Tim, or even as passionate as Jason. He wouldn't have his father's ingrained need to help the dying cesspool they lived in, and he would never have Alfred's heaven-bound level of patience. There would always be that selfish, rash, cold-hearted, narcissistic, impatient prince lying inside of him, waiting to rear its foul head. It surfaced every second he held a blade in his hand, at every mob member terrorizing innocents and criminals alike, every abuser, every villain. A voice inside him purred to rid the world of their filth, of their moral grime. And every single time, it grew louder and louder and louder and louder.

Each time a criminal escaped through his grasp was another chip in his fortitude.

Each time an innocent civilian broke a smile at him, only to die minutes later from an explosion was a stab in the wall between morally good and vengeance.

For every stabbing heart, for every gutless cry of a mother who lost their child.

Wouldn't it be so much easier to erase them before they could commit such barbarisms?

The cold kissed his cheeks, so much like a viper's poison, and he shook his head, banishing the thought from his mind. Ah, she's still inside my head.

Maybe symphonies are built on a beautiful melody. However, the melody would never work if they worked on different concepts. The one his father blasted into his mind was a righteous march, darker in tone than most melodies, but an overarching victory for Good reigned. It taught him patience, morals, ethics, light against darkness.

But, his mother taught him the cellist's devil nature. The darker tones, the echoing, vibrating puppet master giving the audience the illusion that the melody is in control, but in reality, all the melody can do is fall victim to the villainous, tragic whirlpool of misery, murder, and fascist brutality. She placed the blade in his hand, had him earn her love through feats of glorious atrocities, built him up from the ground up into the perfect weapon, too jagged and unpredictable to be used for Good, but whittled down, rusted and corrupted for far too long to be remolded into something useful.

Now, he didn't know where he belonged. Did his melody rise above the dark cello nurtured in him? Or will the melody drown under the alluring, tempest bass driven through his heart, buried deeper than the center of the Earth?

The wind, maybe sensing his demise, could do nothing but blow harder to calm his feverish head filled with questions he could not answer. The somber cold stung the sweet chapped lips all too used to the desert's ice and fire of his childhood, but it stung more bitterly as the North Atlantic ocean blew in the new change in season. Gotham was an outlier. A ghost town of improbabilities and plausibility all clashed together to create a cesspool of madness, hate, and impossibilities.

He wondered why his father, or his ancestors before him, would ever want to stay in a city like this for the rest of their rich, detached lives. Why they would ever choose to spend their lives in this miserable landfill, giving what they have to make the ever-draining city a better place. Why they gaze at the buildings and streets with fond gazes. Why they find it so easy to smile at a Gotham native without feeling like they will get a knife's edge poking their sternum the moment they show their backs.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he cursed God that he was not given this ingrained sense of belonging and mercy to Gotham like all of his family before him.

Pages rustled on in the breeze, and, by miraculous luck, the cover tipped open. Blue light shone through the darkness beyond his closed eyelids, but he did not notice beyond the salty river squeezing through the crevice.

"S'il te plaît, ne me dis pas que tu pleures." Please, don't tell me you're crying. Soft French carried over the quiet din. "I never know what to do when you are crying."

He pried his eyes open, and a vision filled his eyes. A girl, no older than he was, but with a more youthful smile cracked in sorrow, dressed in a midnight blue evening gown glowing in the darkness, blowing in the wind to its own rhythm as it reflected the stars ten times brighter than Gotham Fair's lights. She floated over the torn book of ancient Tibetan magic he brought with him that night, just like he did every solstice, her legs crossed underneath her in an informal squat. Cheeks blossomed like dusky luminescent wisteria, and constellations made of stars brighter than Rigel lost across the bridge of her nose. Her blue crown of hair burned a halo around her, framing bluebell eyes that looked older than a thousand of his lifetimes staring deep into his own green eyes.

The only word he could say was, "Marinette."

Her grin made his heart's symphony subito pianissimo. "Hi, Damian. Happy Autumn Solstice."

================

not me wanting to make this a full fic ;v; (hence the chapter title "theme")

for @jumpingjoy82 for the maribat gift exchange 2022 (i posted on time on archive, just not on tumblr ;v;)

the batkids will deliberately get jason into their favorite pieces of media so he’ll write fanfiction for it.

dick discovered this strategy when he forced jason to watch one of his favorite shows with him. he’d totally forgotten that the show ended on a cliffhanger before it was cancelled, but rewatching it brought back that feeling of dissatisfaction he had the first time around. so dick opens up the ao3 tag for the show and to his surprise, there’s a brand new fic addressing every single loose end, complete with beautiful prose and amazing characterization. dick practically weeps. it’s only when he realizes some of the things in the fic match up with the rants jason had during their watch of the show that he has barbara confirm his suspicions about who the author is.

somehow everybody but jason gets wind of this and they’re taking unashamed advantage of it. the next time they see a movie together, stephanie leans over to jason to whisper about the romantic potential between two characters. she gets like three fics for her ship out of that. when jason goes outside, barbara switches electronic billboards and redirects taxis with ads for her favorite show. and of course, every targeted ad on his phone and computer are for the same show. when he finally gives in and watches it, barbara ends up with plenty of content to get her through the between seasons break.

everybody in jason’s family is subscribed to the ao3 account that he doesn’t know they know he has. one day, they’re all chilling in the library, and at the same time jason publishes his latest fic (for a movie bruce of all people was very insistent he watch), everybody’s email notifications go off. he narrows his eyes suspiciously. “just some wayne enterprises stuff.” “got a package delivered.” “what’s an email?”

it’s fine. he’ll let them get away with it. besides, he does the same thing to damian to get fanart out of him.

At GCPD after a very busy night where Batman brought in like all of his Rouges, bringing Red Hood there (to show him a lesson, he'll break him out later and bring him home)

Batman, handing Red Hood a little cup: Here's some water.

Red Hood: Thanks, dad.

Red Hood, looks over to see all the other villains went quiet and are staring at him: Why is everyone staring at me?

Riddler: You just called Batman "dad."

2 Face: You said, "thanks, dad."

Red Hood; What? No, I didn't. I said, "thanks, man."

Professor Strange: *furiously taking notes*

Batman, knowing it's Jason but genuinely didn't think Jason thought of him as his father: Do you see me as a father figure, J-Red Hood?

*The other rouges not knowing it's Jason and that he's Batman's son, they just think he has an issue with authority stemming from his parents that he is projecting onto Batman*

(Joker, muttering to himself: Man, not even I'm that psychotic)

Red Hood, looking around at all the other villains then back to Batman: No. If anything, I see you as a "bother" figure, 'cause you're always bothering me.

Bane: Hey, show your father some respect.

Damian high on anesthetic after a minor surgery, in the Cave’s Medbay: You shouldn’t be holding my hand.

Marinette, sitting next to him: And why is that?

Damian, with an adorable pout: Because my girlfriend will be very upset… I’m upset. I don’t like holding hands that aren’t hers.

Marinette, holding in laughter, and trying to subtly film on her phone: Oh, I think your girlfriend will be okay with it. 

Damian: Really?

Marinette, smiling: Yep, because I’m your girlfriend.

Damian, eyes widening: No, you can’t be…

Marinette: Why not?

Damian: Because you’re too pretty. And nice. You’re holding my hand and making me feel safe. I don’t deserve a girlfriend that nice. I’m not nice enough.

Marinette, holding back tears, kisses him on the forehead: You deserve all the nicest things in the world mon cher.

Dick being zen and jason being jason:

headcannon that when alfred finally caves and allows the wayne family to get a roomba, the bat brothers just go nuts over it:

Damian names it, and gets disgruntled when people simply refer to it as “the roomba”. Like, no, that is Cerberus? Get it right please

Tim tampers with it on more then one occasion. Hooks up some motion activated speaker/microphone mechanism complete with a voice modulator so that he can speak to whoever it passes. Steph is convinced for a whole WEEK that the roomba is sentient

Jason puts a few knives sticking out from it at some point. The whole family can hear Bruce’s screams when it enters his study.

And Dick just turns the damn thing off every time he sees it. He thinks it’s the worst purchase of all their collective lives

Steph's college dormmate: Okay, fuck marry kill, Batman, Nightwing, Red Hood

Stephanie: I'm killing all of them, thanks

Steph: Hey Bruce, no hard feelings, okay? But if I ever kill you just know that it’s because I really, really don’t want to marry you.

Bruce: *is trying to unpack that statement*