My Odyssey Book Is Coming Tomorrow And I’m So Excited!!

Interviewer, catching Damian in costume: Robin! Can you explain the process of picking up Robin or passing on the mantle?

Damian, mildly annoyed at Bruce at the moment: It's quite simple. Batmam steals young children from their bed, usually nine or ten or so. Then he takes you to his lair and give you a deal.

Damian: If you can beat him in a game of your choosing, he will train you to be Robin. If you lose, you are eaten. I beat him in a classic fencing game. He's quite good with swords, but he wasn't very good with the sport itself.

Tim, standing next to him: Yeah, I beat him at a memory card game. I like totally cheated, but I'm too old for him to eat now, so ot doesn't matter.

Damian, nodding: Yes. The worst part of the job is disposing of failed Robins bones. He usually sucks them clean and leaves them all over the floor.

Tim: Yeah, its messy. But after you hit, like 15 he stops trying to eat you, so that's cool.

Damian: I have not yet reached 15. I'm still in danger. If you have more questions, ask Nightwing, as he was the first to avoid being eaten.

-

Same interviewer, at a different date: Mr. Nightwing. Is it true Batman tries to eat potential Robins?

Dick, who has no idea what she's taking about: Yeah, it's really scary. His jaw unhinges like a snake.

One of my favorite sub genres is Asian assassins with questionable morals

My favourite thing about Talia's relationship with the batkids is that for half of them it's nonexistent.

Dick? He was there for all the relationship drama back in the golden days, and he's always been stupidly petty about it. Their rivalry is fun and lighthearted and both of them care about Damian enough to work together even if they'll never be friends.

Jason? An understanding. Kindness for the sake of it, a friendship offered in full knowledge of just how cruel the world can be. Two wary, wounded people tentatively reaching out. She remembers the sweet young boy he used to be. He remembers the time she teamed up with Bruce and Selina to fight the Gotham rogues. So much has changed for both of them, but at least when they look at each other they see that they haven't been damaged alone.

Damian? Her son, and all the complications surrounding that. Her son who was meant to grow up living a normal life and never knowing his biological parents. Her son who instead grew up just like she did, raised in a cult and expected to be the heir. She tried to save him. She failed. He couldn't save her. She killed him. It wasn't her, wasn't her hands, but it was her orders, but it wasn't her mind. They love each other anyways. They're willing to try.

The others? Well there's the other Robin. Timannie or something. Talia is pretty sure he's a boy but he could be a girl? And there's the Batgirls. Sandy or Barbie or The One Who Is All, whatever they're calling themselves nowadays. And the new mentee, Duke! He seems promising. Defeated her father along with Batgirl but Ra's seemed to respect their strength, which is always a good sign.

So basically Jason and Damian receive birthday gifts every year. Bruce receives one when he hasn't been an ass recently. Dick has never received one and never will. Tim, Cass and Duke get a present to share once a year addressed to The Other Child. It's normally some sort of training gear. Cass normally calls dibs. They're all completely fine with this arrangement. It's nice that she made an effort when she really didn't have to.

Ra's sends Bruce and Damian gifts. Occasionally sends Cass and Duke job flyers that they burn. Everyone else gets addressed as Detective because he can't keep track of their names. If Batman wanted Ra's to remember his children he should have colour coded them better. Blue eyes and black hair, he can't even remember which one Talia threw in the pit. He's a busy man with an empire to run and thousands of years of memories! They're all probably Robin, it's fine.

Alfred: Injury report?

26-year-old Bruce: All the blood is on the inside?

Alfred:

Some years down the road

Bruce: Injury report?

Tim: I left no DNA behind.

Cass: I can still beat the rest of you.

Jason: Haven’t died again.

Dick: No bones are visible from the outside.

Damian: I won.

Duke: I think I discovered a new power.

Steph: You’re not my dad.

Bruce:

Bruce:

Alfred: And how *is* Karma doing today, Master Bruce?

I need a fic where robin!jason is the only one to notice baby stalker tim while they’re out on their patrols and it gets to the point where he’ll occasionally address him when he’s alone & around the others and they think he’s low-key going insane

fast forward a couple years and tim refers to something he saw while he was stalking batman and robin and jason’s head just WHIPS towards bruce and starts screeching “I TOLD YOU I WASN’T HALLUCINATING THE TINY STALKER CHILD FOLLOWING US B!! I FUCKING TOLD YOU I-“ and he has to be dragged out of the room by nightwing, still loudly proclaiming his vindication while tim and the others just watch on with the pikachu meme face

the adventures of bennie and signal, vol 1

they’re best friends your honor

prev // master list // next

Bruce; Duke and Cass are my angel children. They tell me everything.

Batkids; glaring.

Cass who never told B she’s died twice and fr has done some of the most insane shit; smiles innocently.

Duke who blew up a warehouse last night and replaced Jason’s grappling gun with a slinky; Thanks B!

okay so post epic odyssey where odysseus and Penelope have surfaced from their room finally and he and diomedes are catching up I'm imagining the conversation going something like this

Odysseus: so then I gave up being merciful and became the monster.

Diomedes:....you tried being merciful?

Odysseus: Yes?

Diomedes: you did? You tried being a good merciful person? You?

Odysseus: Yah okay fuck off it was polties dying wish. I had to try.

Diomedes:.....90% of the war crimes in the Trojan war were suggested, planned out, and carried out by you. We literally stoned to death the guy you had a personal grudge against. We framed him for treason and stoned him to death. 70% of why Athena liked you was because she thought she knew all the ways to kill someone and then you'd suggest something insane and I'd see her taking notes. You literally gave Ajex a psyoctic break just being yourself.

Odysseus: shut up

Diomedes: I'm not wrong. Did you tell Penelope about your attempt to be a good person?

Odysseus: What? Of course I did. I told her everything.

Diomedes: did she laugh?

Odysseus:...shut up that's not the point

Diomedes: she did didn't she!!!

Odysseus: ANYWAY eurylochus wasn't appreciative of my return to monsterhood and he started causing problems so I

Diomedes: killed him? Yah saw that coming. No shit. I'm so shocked.

Thinking about Cass Cain, the world's biggest proponent of "nobody dies tonight" still taking the time to desperately search for Steph even as she's working overtime to save the rest of Gotham. Wondering what she saw in Steph's body language in those last moments together, when she feared Steph was lying to her but couldn't chase after her. Wondering if she saw the fear, the hurt, the regret, the overwhelming despair and desperation, all in the anxious and exhausted tremble of her body. Wondering if the reason she couldn't tell for sure if Steph was lying was because there was just too much there, too many feelings, the weight of them too great, for Steph's body language to make any sense at all. Wondering if she knew, somehow, that if left on her own that the panicked-rabbit thrum under Steph's skin would lead her directly into something horrible. Thinking about Cass Cain, the girl who killed a man and saw him die in a way no one else could, in a way that changed her forever; who saw the shock and fear and pain and then the nothing, hearing that Stephanie was dead. Wondering if she imagined Steph's last moments as something other than what they were, because she wasn't there and she wouldn't ask and Bruce certainly wouldn't tell. Wondering if she thought about Faizul and imagined Steph terrified in the instant of realization, Steph knowing she was dying, Steph knowing that she would never run rooftops or play tag or feel her mother's arms again and that everything she could have been would remain unwritten forever; Steph alive and afraid and then nothing, nothing, nothing. Just thinking about Cass Cain and her way of perceiving things that no one else could understand, and a grief so deep that she didn't have the words for it and probably never will.

Jason: The eternal victim. The murderer.

Cass: The eternal murderer. The victim.