Mystery Inc. Meet Holmes And Watson!

Thank you for the 10 years and thanks Bells Hells for this adventure!

Updated this 8th anniversary piece to include Braius and did some small fixes.

the campaign i was playing my archfey warlock, Kairos, ended this past sunday so i decided to draw her post-game after her twins were born.

the imagined context for this drawing is that Kairos was returning home from a guild party and in her not so sober state, tackled her husband the moment she saw him. the twins decided it was fun and joined in

lil notes for any curious:

her husband's name is Gul'iard Wynfina, kids are unnamed however

Kairos was born human and named Helena Rivers, got isekai'ed (with her phone) into a half drow woman by her patron and took on the name Kairos Clerosis, wound up as Kairos Otsut after kinda becoming a demon and only got the name Kairos Wynfina post-game

Gul'iard was actually the first enemy the party really fought and killed together ( don't worry, he got better!)

the twin in the sprigatito pjs is male, the one with the cape is female

during the game, thanks to magic bean shenanigans, Kairos actually had a sprigatito hence the pjs; Gul'iard had a little hamster/gopher familiar that was dressed as a lil knight

if she looks familiar that's because the art i used for Kairos' token post becoming a demon was Ines from Arknights

AU where in order to be able to secretly hang out with his favourite league bro, after he gets to Gotham Damian creates a second secret identity which is literally just him in a voice modulated motorcycle helmet so he can be Red Hood’s occasional sidekick without the bats knowing it’s him, except the issue is that Damian has a lot of ‘old man’ energy surrounding him. from his weirdly mature posture, his manner of speaking, to the odd knowledge he possesses that a child of his age should NOT have; when you can’t see any part of his head, theres pretty much nothing pointing towards the fact that he’s a little kid. this leads to Hood’s subordinates instantly assuming that Hood’s sidekick is not, infact, a child, but instead a very small man/somebody with some kind of dwarfism.

Jason honestly isn’t sure whether or not he should correct his men, because on one hand its kinda funny to watch Damian awkwardly interact with this group of people who clearly think he, like them, is some 30yr old geezer with a possible wife and kids at home, not to mention its a secret identity for a reason he doesn’t want to leak information for no reason-

but on the other hand they keep offering his kid brother beers and cigarettes. which.

Goon: hey man, you see the game last night? fucking wild.

Damian, spent last night letting Tim teach him how to play with Pokémon cards but doesn’t want to seem immature: …yes. i did, indeed, watch that game.

Goon 2: fucked up that that last play wasn’t called out; the bar practically rioted. hey you should come with us next week for the next game, let us buy you a beer or somthin. Hood tags along with us sometimes, should be fun!

Damian:

Jason, struggling not to laugh:

Damian:

Damian: i have prior engagements.

Goon 1: haha, let me guess, your s/o dont want you out late?

Damian:

Damian, leaning in to Jason to whisper: what… what is an ‘s/o’

Jason, coughing to cover laughter: they uh, they think you got a wife or a husband waiting for you at home.

Damian:

Damian, turning back to the goons: i… have no idea what to say right now.

Jason: *pats him on the shoulder* alright buddy, you go finish up the weapons shipment, dont worry.

Jason to the goons, after Damian leaves: recently divorced, sore subject.

the goons: *empathetic hums of understanding*

~

Goon: here man, have a drink to take home with ya *tries to pass Damian a bottle of whiskey*

Damian: um.

Damian: *slowly edging forward to hesitatingly take the bottle, for lack of knowing what else to do*

Jason, bellowing from across the warehouse: OI!

Damian: *freezes, bottle in hand*

Goon:

Damian:

Damian: *slowly, ashamed, passes the bottle back*

Jason: THATS WHAT I THOUGHT.

Goon: uhm…

~

Goon: hey, boss? why wont you let the new guy drink?

Jason:

Jason, doesn’t want to out Damian’s identity: he’s a recovering alcoholic. im his sponsor.

Goon:

~

Damian, on the way back to Jason’s apartment: Todd.

Jason: mm?

Damian: one of your men asked if i had any chiropractor reccomendations for back pain.

Jason: *bites lip*

Damian: how old do they think i AM?

Jason:

Jason: i may have implied somewhere in your fifties.

Damian:

Damian: WHY WOULD-

Jason: IT SEEMED FUNNY.

Oishi Park, Fujikawaguchiko, Japan by Masami Shirai

Modern AU meetcute where SY gets into an argument for the ages on a shitty webnovel forum with some guy with a super pretentious username/pfp combo.

Their rants back and forth spawn so many copypastas. All eyes in the fandom turn to whatever the fuck is happening other there, people are taking sides, it's getting intensely personal. Two trolls, both alike in indignity, in fair Verona the Discord where we lay our scene. The comment sections are a warzone, and friendships are ending in DMs.

The mods want to ban them, but this is also the most active the community has been in a long time, and frankly, it's more interesting than the current arc of the actual novel, so...

They eventually meet in the course of them both trying to dox each other. It's the most confusing whirlwind romance any of their family or friends have seen in their lives. They announce out of absolutely nowhere in the forums that they're dating.

It does not end the argument that started this.

It goes on for another three weeks, completely dominating the forums and comment sections and community servers, until they both get banned for Shen Jiu making a "credible threat of violence" for saying he's going to shove SY down some stairs alongside a photo of SY's actual stairs at his actual apartment. (That wasn't even the point of his comment! It was 8k about how SY was misinterpreting the themes, why was everyone being so sensitive about that one silly little throw-away sentence?! Ridiculous!!)

The next anyone hears about either of them, they're fucking married. They are, baffling all, very happy together.

Wizard: Oh, I like your Goblin detecting sword! That's funny.

Goblin who thought they just had a cool glowing sword: ... My what now?

I absolutely love the genre of posts of Damian making up an excuse of how he knows of a Jason Todd to hide the fact he is alive and knew each other in the LOA.

For my take Jason Todd is now the name of the pet fox Damian has at home.

Damian under his breathe: Jason Todd you are the biggest fool to ever live.

Dick magically hearing him: What did you say Damian? Jason??

Damian panicking: I-I uh Jason Todd is the name of my pet fox.

Tim: You have a pet fox?

Dick: You named it Jason... Todd?

Damian: Yes... I was learning English at the time and thought it was amusing to call an animal a name that meant itself. Of course he needed a first name so I named him Jason as I had recently finished the Argonautica.

Not wanting to question his new brother Dick: That's very cute Damian 😀

Once Bruce hears about it.

Bruce: Damian why don't you ask your mother to bring your fox... Jason over?

Damian: uhhh no. He is quite old and would not do well with the long trip. He is very comfortable back home and I do not think he would like any of you.

Jason on the other side of Gotham sneezing.

Later in a safehouse.

Damian: Todd I need you to acquire a fox and send it back home to mother so that I have photo evidence.

Jason: What?

Damian: I may have accidentally send your name in the presence of Grayson and then fabricated a lie that I was referring to my pet fox named Jason Todd.

Jason sighing: What type?

Damian: A melanistic fox. To match your choice in hair color.

-🐳

THIS IS SO FUNNY. batfamily are absolutely concerned and freaking out on the background, which Damian is not aware with—

Dick: that's so scary. why would he name his fox like that? is that what kid do now?

Bruce: ...maybe Talia told him stories of our family, so he wouldn't feel alienated once he joins us, and he took an inspiration?

Tim: oh, come on. had you guys never had a weird obsession with your predecessor and just formed a strange unhealthy connection with him to the point of creating tulpa?

Dick: what.

Bruce: ?

Tim: uhh, anyway. i had seen Damian chatting with Jason Todd contact on his phone. but that's probably these character ai chats, yk?

Bruce and Dick: ?????

*a few weeks later*

Damian, calling Jason in panic: i demand you to work on your revenge plan FASTER.

Jason, in the Red Hood attire, slurping slushie, while playing Uno with his goons: gee, what happened this time?

Damian: i am waiting for my appointment to the child psychologist as we speak.

Jason: excuse me?

Damian: they think you are my... tulpa. whatever that means.

Jason: *dies out of laughter*

The Batfam definitely has a group chat called "Official Mission Communications ONLY" that Bruce created with the strictest instructions about its purpose.

It lasted exactly 12 hours before Dick sent a meme.

Now it's just chaos, but Bruce never leaves because secretly it's how he keeps tabs on everyone.

Every few weeks he'll respond to 74 messages of nonsense with a single "Focus." and everyone behaves for approximately 5 minutes.

The real mission communications happen in individual texts directly to Bruce, who feels a tiny spark of relief each time his phone pings with "OFFICIAL MISSION CHAT (217 unread messages)" because it means they're all still alive enough to be annoying.

Occasionally in the middle of arguments about cereal rankings and who stole whose equipment, Bruce will just type "Status?" and everyone immediately responds with their location and condition. No one ever comments on this ritual, but everyone participates without fail.

Even Jason, who once replied "bleeding out in an alley but the cereal argument is worth it" which resulted in five vigilantes converging on his location in under three minutes.

The most treasured screenshot in Tim's blackmail folder is from the one time Bruce accidentally sent "proud of you all" at 3:42 AM after a particularly rough night. No one has ever mentioned it directly, but Damian has it printed and hidden in his sketchbook.

when jason died, they buried him with the possessions that he carried on him all the time. there was a pocket knife tucked into his sock, the bracelet on his wrist from catherine that he never took off, a tangled pair of earbuds in his back pocket, and, in the top pocket of his jacket, the cellphone that bruce bought for him after he was adopted.

that cellphone stayed with jason in his grave. went with him when he dug his way out. somehow stayed on his person when he was taken by the league, and he managed to convince talia to let him keep it throughout all his training.

he doesn’t know why, maybe as a grief thing or maybe just because bruce forgot and it’s not like the bill effected him in any way, but he never stopped paying jason’s phone bill. his number’s still active, still working after all this time. even weirder, but dick started adopting the tradition of adding his dead brother’s phone number to each and every family group chat any of them created after ethiopia. again, jason doesn’t know why. maybe it was dick’s way of carrying his memory with them; including him in family conversations even if they all thought the number was connected to a long buried phone in the pocket of a long dead boy.

the point is that jason wasn’t dead any more. and all throughout his time at the league, he gets to watch the family chats. the mission statuses, the arguments, the rapid spiral every chat went through where they started off using it as a serious bat communication centre only for dick or tim to send a meme and instantly spiral into nothing but chaos that bruce would neither take part in or attempt to stop. jason spectates it all, always fingering the keypad but never actually typing out a message. he came close when there was a heated debate between steph and dick about the best donut types and he knew they were both absolutely fucking wrong, but luckily tim came in to educate them on the right choice last second and jason was saved from having to reveal himself.

the closest call was when little damian got a hold of his phone, attracted to the bright colours of the block game jason had been absently playing out of boredom while ra’s droned on about whatever had pissed him off that day. he’d let the kid play, sat on his lap and eagerly jabbing at the screen, and jason had only looked away for at most a minute before he’d turned back to find the screen open on the family chat, damian having accidentally clicked on the camera button and taken a selfie of the two that he’d been about to send through. luckily, jason deleted it in time, but he became much more careful about letting the kid play with his shit after that.

this is all just a long winded explanation and backstory for and au i think would be funny where jason’s reveal is literally just him deciding to fuck with his family by randomly dropping in through text like:

-in the chat-

bruce: status report.

dick: hungry :( but good!

steph: seconded, im fine

tim: drug bust went to plan, on way back to cave uninjured

cass: ^ same answer

babs: everything seems calm from what i can tell

jason: a little claustrophobic but the coffin’s kinda homely so ig no complaints from me

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several people are typing…