Take one.
Micah is strong. More magic runs through his veins than any other student his age. He’s a little too human for Shadow Weaver’s tastes but she’s sure that it can be trained out of him. Then she doesn’t train it out of him fast enough.
She pays for that. Dearly.
~
Take two.
Catra is angry. She’s full of desperation and rage and Shadow weaver can understand that completely. She hopes at first that the anger can be turned into drive, into a need it be the best. It works, sort of. Shadow Weaver can see that she needs greatness like Shadow Weaver craves it, but she buries it. Buries it under her need for connection.
It’s pathetic, Shadow Weaver thinks. Pathetic and childish. She writes Catra off as a failure perhaps a little too early.
~
Take three.
Adora is perfect. Start to finish. She’s Shadow Weaver’s magnum opus. But she’s also not quite right. There’s not enough doubt in her for her to belong to Shadow Weaver, and if she doesn’t belong to Shadow Weaver then she can’t control her. And at that point, what is the child worth? Really?
~
Take four.
Glimmer is untrained and messy and has just had far too much responsibility thrust upon her for someone so young. It’s the perfect breeding ground for dependence. Her magic is just like Micah’s and Shadow Weaver is reminded that if she’d just had a little more time with the boy then he could have been exactly what she wanted. She’ll have that time with Glimmer, she thinks.
She’s wrong.
~
Take five.
There is no take five.
It’s probably a good thing.
“Y’know, sometimes I get jealous of you.”
Bruce hopes that the look on his face communicates what a ridiculous notion that is. From the way Clark snorts a little he’s sure he manages it.
“I know, I know, it’s silly. It’s just.” He licks his lips. “Your secret identity is just so not you. I feel like Superman and Clark Kent get further away from each other every day, but they’re both still me. Is that dumb?”
“No.”
“Okay. That’s good. It’s just that it’s getting harder, y’know? But it’s also getting easier. Well I guess you don’t know. You’ve probably never had an issue with separating Batman and Brucie Wayne.”
Bruce looks at Clark, “I have trouble separating my identities. Just not those two.”
He frowns before catching himself. “Oh right. Sorry, sometimes I forget you have three. I’m pretty sure you’re the only one.” He pauses, looking at Bruce as if asking permission to continue. Bruce doesn’t give it but Clark goes on anyway. “You have problems splitting up Batman and Bruce then? They’re both you?”
“Of course.” He says, answering the second question. That’s a fact he’s always been sure of. Then, in reference to the first, “I know what you mean about being able to feel the two people you are drift further and further apart.”
“Really?”
Bruce smiles and it’s full of self loathing. “Bruce is a father, Batman’s a partner, a mentor. There was a time when those things all meant the same to me.” He pauses, thinking. “It’s strange, I can barely see the overlaps any more.”
If Mrs. Monroe, head of maths at Gotham Prep, had to describe Dick Grayson in one word it would be ‘prefect’.
If she were allowed two she would say ‘worryingly perfect’.
She didn’t keep up with the media storm around Bruce Wayne’s ward as it happened, but when she heard that the kid would be in her class she decided that she had better catch up with it. She reads about how the boy came from a travelling circus and how his parents died in an accident (or was it a murder? She isn’t quite sure). She reads that after coming from a working class background he’s just been placed with the richest man in the city during a particularly traumatic time. Everything she sees worries her to no end and as she walks in on Monday she braces herself for a boy to turn up made up of grief and fear for being in this strange, strange place that’s nothing at all like the circus where he grew up.
Instead, Dick Grayson walks into class seeming like a perfectly well adjusted young boy who she would never have guessed had endured anything particularly awful in his life.
All lesson she waits for him to slip up, to show that he’s going through something terrible. Then he doesn’t and she waits for the rest of the week. Then she’s left waiting for the rest of the month and, after that, the rest of the year.
Dick Grayson never slips up. He has plenty of friends, even though he never seems that close with them, he’s the best in her class, even though he never had formal schooling before, and he never seems at all out of place at Gotham Prep.
She’s mentioned it to the other teachers, that something about how good the kid is bothers her, but none of them seem to pick up on it. They all just offer testament to how well Dick’s getting on at Gotham Prep and how it just goes to show how much potential the boy has.
So Mrs. Monroe waits for Dick to slip up and tries not to worry too hard.
~
During the summer after Dick’s first year of school (having placed first in all his classes, naturally) Mrs. Monroe sees him outside of school for the first time.
It’s a nice day and her husband is away on business so she decides to take the time to go on a walk by herself. As she’s turning onto one of Gotham’s nicer streets she almost runs directly into Dick.
He’s with three other boys. They all seem older than him but it only surprises her a little since one of the many things on Mrs. Monroe’s list of ‘reasons why Dick Grayson is a very worrying boy’ is that he’s oddly mature for his age.
When Dick sees her he stops and smiles, and Mrs. Monroe can’t help but smile back.
“Hi Mrs. M,” he says. She notices that he’s leaning closer to the boys than he does with any of his school friends.
“Hello Dick. I hope you’re having a good holiday.”
“Totally Miss-” he starts, but then one of the boys, with brown hair and a confident gait, stops him by landing a heavy arm around his shoulders.
“Sorry to interrupt, but we’re having a boys night.” he says, “So we’ll just be on our way.”
The other three let out long-suffering sighs and Mrs. Monroe feels like she’s missing out on something.
“One, it’s daytime.” says another of the boys, black with close cropped blonde hair, “and two, the only reason the others aren’t here is because they’re actually having a girls night and kicked us out.”
The only one who hasn’t spoken yet nods seriously.
“Well I wouldn’t want to keep you,” answers Mrs. Monroe, not quite sure what else to say, “I’ll see you again when school is back in session, Dick.”
Dick nods happily while the rest of the boys wave goodbye to her and make their way onwards.
As Mrs. Monroe walks home she thinks about the encounter. She knows that none of those boys go to Gotham so they must be friends from something else. The way they had acted around each other though, well, she doesn’t think that she’s seen Dick that close with any of his friends at school.
Thinking about it, he’d seemed a little more human in that group. Less like the perfect student and popular kid he always was at school.
Whatever it was seemed good and after that encounter, Mrs. Monroe worries about Dick Grayson a little less.
Amity Blight is perfect.
She has perfect grades and a perfect family and is exactly the kind of person that’s going to grow up and fit in perfectly at the Emperor’s Coven. When Lilith isn’t busy being proud of her she can’t help but feel a little jealous of the child for never having to be second best to anyone.
That’s all until the human arrives.
Before Lilith can even begin to process the situation Amity is deviating from the careful path of perfection Lilith has so painstakingly laid out for her. She still has perfect grades and she’s still the youngest daughter of the Blight family, all that prestige and none of it tying her down, but suddenly her allegiances are questionable.
She’s spending too much time with the human. Too much time with Eda. Too much time with people who could steer her away from the path she must take.
So before things can go too awfully, before Eda can ruin this perfect little girl like she ruins everything else, Lilith makes a proposal.
“How would you like to become the youngest member of the Emperor’s Coven?” She says, all warmth and approval in the way she knows the girl’s parents never are.
Amity’s face lights up and Lilith tries not to think too much about how the guilt churning in her stomach makes her feel a little like when she cursed her sister.
Damian: Father make them stop
Bruce, fucking with him: what’s got you throwing a hissy? You’re whistling dixie son. Put a kibosh on the gobbledygook it’s time to break
It would be very funny to me if the Batkids started using slang from the eras they were created in. Like this doesn’t change their ages it just makes them all seem weirder than usual
For example-
Dick Grayson: And the old geezer was an eager beaver who helped us find the glitterati who was throwing the party. We all cut a rug but I tells yous clams he may have but Bruce is a dead hopper if I ever saw one. Anything he tells you is floy floy
*Everyone staring at him like he’s lost it*
Jason: Gag me with a spoon. I’m hella done you’re wiggin me out Dickie. Aight imma motor out of here dweebs
Steph: yeah not so much. gonna bounce with Jay.
Tim: That made sense...not. Dick you’re bugging out
Damian clutching Duke’s arm in a death grip: Thomas what is happening should we leave?
Duke: Bet little D we should dip. This is a big yikes
“Hobie did more for Miles after knowing him for ten minutes than Gwen did” my brother in christ one of these characters was presented as having very little fondness, one might even say some derision, for spider society while for the other it was their entire support system they are not the same
big fan of the genre that’s just “what if there was a fucked up city”