A Dænce Of Roëmænce

Repeat after me: Villain x Hero 👏 or 👏 Enemies to lovers 👏 ships 👏 aren't 👏 toxic 👏 because 👏 they 👏 hurt 👏 each 👏 other 👏 when 👏 they 👏 were 👏 E-N-E-M-I-E-S 👏 not 👏 when 👏 they 👏 were 👏 L-O-V-E-R-S. 👏

People think Steve doesn’t like Mike because Mike is mean to him but that’s not true. Steve loves that Mike is mean because it means that Steve can be mean back.

the one and only Acro-bat🦇

obsessed with like, Jason who absolutely refuses to reconcile with the bats. he wants no part in that family and will not talk to them under any circumstances. but he's legally dead with no friends and sometimes he gets sick of being completely by himself and wants to have company. so.

Bruce: hey Alfred have you seen my-

*comes into kitchen to see Alfred calmly preparing dinner while Jason Todd, Killer Red Hood, silently does paperwork while sat on the corner of the kitchen counter*

Bruce:

Bruce: uh-

Tim, doing homework at the table: don't mention it. if you acknowledge him he'll leave. he just likes being around people sometimes.

the bats have to start treating him like a stray cat, letting him go to them and acting completely unbothered by his presence because if they even make eye contact with Jason he'll jump out the window and they 1. won't see him for a month and 2. will start to see a lot more murders cropping up around gotham.

eventually it gets to the point where Dick will come to dinner to see the rest of the family wordlessly ignoring the brick shithouse of a man who is just sat on the floor of the dining area reading a book and he has to just. take a breath and pretend Jason isn't there. calmly stepping around him without acknowledging him. Alfred will silently place a plate of food by the guys elbow while speaking to Damian about school. When they decide to move from the table to the tv room for a movie night none of them can even look around when they hear him eventually follow just to sit in the corner of this room instead.

Bruce: I'm concerned, this is abnormal for Jason. what if he's been drugged with something? or he's trying to gain sensitive information?

Damian: actually he used to do this a lot after he came out of the Lazarus pit. he liked to sit in and watch me train, and occasionally we'd find him sat by grandfathers feet while he ran meetings. Mother says it's important to let him settle, because it's likely that he's simply craving human intimacy on his own terms for once.

Bruce, crying: oh

Jason still refuses to say a word to any of them unless it's in costume, and even then it's the same old 'i'm not your son! i'm not one of you! fuck off!' shtick like normal. they just have to accept him sneaking into the house every now and then too.

one time Tim needs Red Hoods info on a case he's working and since Jason's been sat on the floor against the wall of the bat cave for the past 45 minutes just. staring into space and vibing. he risks sliding the file across the floor towards him before pointedly turning back to the batcomputer, the info he needs marked clearly. five minutes later it's wordlessly slid back, info filled out and Jason refusing to acknowledge Tim's existence again. it's the only way he'll communicate with them.

after a while it gets to the point where Jason will straight up go to bludhaven and break into Dicks apartment just to silently sit in the corner of the room and Be Around A Familiar Person. Tim comes back from his lunch brake at WE to find him sat on the edge of his desk, working through a case. They work in silence for the rest of the day and when Tim leaves Jason just follows. They get a batburger together but the second Tim slips up and asks how his day was he's off like a shot. Damian regularly eats lunch at school on the roof while Jason plays mario kart on a DSI next to him. Batman will be 4 hours into a solo stake out when civilian Jason will silently slide up next to him with a crossword. they never talk. Jason still makes it clear that he's pissed at Bruce. Bruce doesn't know what else to do but let him be and hope eventually, with enough time, things will progress even further.

Dick, whispering so Jason won't pick up on the fact that he's being perceived: are you sure this is normal

Damian: is anything about any of us normal

Tim: he's got a point. at least we know Jason's watching us. I did this shit all the time before I was Robin, and none of you ever noticed me.

Dick:

Tim: sometimes its comforting to be in the same room as people you're familiar with, even if you can't handle interacting with them.

Dick, crying: ok

“I don’t know gang…”

“C’mon, you can’t leave us hanging!”

“Yeah, you’ll love camping!”

“I love plumbing. And a mattress.”

“The cabin overlooking the clearing has showers and everything, and plus, if it gets really bad we can just hole up in there for a while. It’s got three floors!”

“Really? That’s quite a lot for a camping cabin.”

“Yeah! The basement, the main floor and the attic!”

“…Excuse me?”

“What?”

“You booked a cabin in the middle of the woods with a basement and an attic?”

“Technically we can’t go into the basement, it’s like super locked.”

“Which means?”

“In the pictures there are three locked chains on the door, see?”

“THERE’S ALSO A FUCKING HAND REACHING THROUGH THE GAP UNDERNEATH?!”

“No, I’m pretty sure that’s just a trick of the light. Or the decor. It’s really gothic.”

“Gothic?! Yeah no pass your phone, I want to- gargoyles. Hunting trophies. Why not. Did you even- IS THAT A CLOWN STATUE?”

“Relax, it does a side gig as a venue for haunted houses. That’s probably where the hand came from: Halloween decorations.”

“…And nothing about this is giving you a red flag?”

“Ok, seriously, relax, you are so dramatic, it’s probably wine not an actual bloodstain-“

“I didn’t see a bloodstain?!”

“Oh see it’s right there next to the fireplace with the axes above the mantle.”

“Just no.”

“Hey folks, I did check the weather and it will be heavy storms so we’ll just have to tough it- what’s up with Red?”

“They are weirded out by the log cabin.”

“CLOWN STATUE. BLOODSTAIN. LOCKED BASEMENT. What does the attic also have to be a meat locker for you to give this idea any thought?”

“It says the owners only kept the meat cleavers after they refurbished it.”

“Ooo, that’s why it’s so spacious, old farmhouse.”

“Right? It’s so rustic!”

“We’re going to die.”

“Look Red, we don’t want to go on this without you. It’s only last freedom before uni, right?”

“If you say we’re out, we’re out.”

“I’m sorry, but it really gives me a bad feeling.”

“No that’s perfectly ok. You’re not happy, none of us are happy.”

“Tell me the deposit wasn’t non-refundable.”

“It’s fine, we got it for dirt cheap, this flyer showed up through the door and the number we called practically gave it to us for free.”

“It’s going to be tricky finding somewhere that cheap again. And when we booked it in person, the lady was so nice, she even gave us this cool themed skull key for the door!”

“Oh! I got an ad for an old castle that needs house-sitting! They’ll even pay us to be there and it looks really nice, and it needs a minimum of five people and we fit perfectly.”

“Let’s see?”

“I love those paintings in the hall, so lifelike. Skilled artists, you guys.”

“None of you are allowed to make decisions anymore. I pick where we go next.”

getting horror movie vibes from the trip your friends were planning, you decided to simply stay home.

bruce letting duke learn how to drive on the way to school:

bruce: signal.

duke: hm?

bruce: duke, signal.

duke: uh… yeah?

bruce (raising his voice): signal!

duke (gripping the steering wheel): WHAT??

bruce (bracing himself): SIGNAL!!

damian (triple buckled in the backseat): your TURN SIGNAL, imbecile!

later, bruce: i need to start calling it a blinker.

Bruce: Today I realised I'm old

Clark: What happened?

Bruce: I fell in the kitchen and instead of laughing, all my kids came running to see if I was ok

Clark:

Bruce: I saw fear in their eyes

they're so grown now

a nosy socialite at an event, leaning down: “Oh Richard, it must be so hard for you in that house, what with Bruce’s…proclivities for nighttime guests.”

Dick Grayson, fully aware at age 13 that Bruce Wayne is a Loser™ whose only “nighttime guest” is Clark Kent, who comes over to “review cases” with Bruce before/after patrol while both of them awkwardly ignore any and all tension between them: “Something like that.”

actually no, we're not "dating". we're bound together for infinity. like the stars. so, fuck you, actually.