Elowenp - It's Bullshit Central Baby

yeah i love romance (the insatiable longing for god)

Red light, green light 🌗

To be Batman is a job that should have been impossible. A job that should have required more than what any one man is able to give. Somehow Bruce had managed to do that and keep the company running well enough to use it to fund practically every programme helping keep Gotham safe.

Dick thinks Bruce was about three people. The vigilante, the businessman and the father.

When Bruce dies Dick and Tim are forced to divvy up his responsibilities. Who else is going to do it? Cass is in Hong Kong and Jason hates Bruce far too fully to contemplate becoming any aspect of him. Steph and Barbara are staying in the business but they never really belonged to Bruce. Not like Dick and Tim did.

Damian is a whole separate issue.

So that leaves Dick and Tim to slice Bruce into pieces small enough for the two of them to swallow. Dick takes on the mantle of Batman. Obviously. It’s the heaviest burden to bear and Dick’s the oldest. He’s been doing this the longest. Tim takes on the mantle of the businessman. He’s always been the smartest. Dick knows that he’ll be the best fit for tricking a boardroom full of sharks into pretending they're something benevolent.

After they finish tearing off fistfuls of their father's legacy, Tim looks at Dick with something exhausted in his eyes. Something that makes him look like he's given up. “I can’t be your Robin, can I?” he asks.

Dick knows that Tim must already know the answer. Dick also knows that his little brother deserves the closure of hearing it out loud.

“No” Dick confirms, refusing to look at Tim. The air of the room, already saturated with grief, grows heavier with a new type of loss. “You’re my little brother." Dick says haltingly. "I couldn’t be him, not for you.” He hopes that Tim can understand what he means, even though he knows the words aren’t quite right.

Tim nods and Dick feels the bittersweet lifting of some of the burden from his shoulders. Neither of them talk about how to split the final third of Bruce's responsibilities, the ones he'd taken on as a father. That's a legacy the two of them let slip into a grave unspoken.

In fairness, that particular role of Bruce’s wasn’t essential to fill. It’s not like he’d even been that good at it.

~

Dick doesn’t think any more on it for a while, not until the first time he sees Damian wearing the Robin costume and looking so much more nervous than Dick had expected.

“Are you okay?” he asks, fighting the urge to shift under the weight of the suit. It doesn’t fit quite right yet but he’s sure it will suit him better with time.

Damian's eyes narrow. “Yes.” he responds far too quickly.

Dick hesitates for a moment, trying to remember what he wanted to hear when he filled the same role as the boy stood in front of him. He tries to remember what Bruce had said, wearing the same suit Dick does now, and looked at a nine year old kid ready to twist his childhood into a crusade.

“You don’t have to be flawless." Dick starts, thinking of how imperfection is a luxury Damian has been unable to afford in the past. "You can make mistakes and you can do things wrong and I promise that it won’t change anything.” He leans down so that he’s on Damian's level, praying that he used to be similar enough to the boy in front of him for these to be the right things to say. “I’ll be right here to fix things if anything happens.”

Damian huffs. “As if I would ever display such amateur behaviour.” But Dick thinks he might look slightly less tense than he did a moment ago.

Dick isn’t meant to have to act as a father. That wasn’t the deal. He’s meant to become Batman, to handle this part of Bruce so that the world can keep on spinning. He wasn’t meant to have to become Bruce. He wasn’t meant to have to give more than what he has.

But Dick has always been good at taking on a little more than he should be able to handle. So he touches Damian’s shoulder and uses all his best words and hopes that maybe this will be enough.

“What do you want?” Barbara asks, voice crackling with static.

It’s a silly question. Tim wants crime rates to go down. Tim wants Gotham to be a safer city. Tim wants to be a part of making that happen.

“A code name that isn’t stupid.” he says instead.

Barbara sighs. It doesn’t sound like a sigh though. It just sounds like the static’s getting louder.

~

“Bernard Dowd, scholar of the ages.” Tim laughs, arm slung round Bernard's shoulder. “I thought you were meant to be the fun one?”

“I am.” Bernard groans, “as soon as these exams are done I’ll be back to the usual student life. Getting drunk, going on dates, Gotham won’t know what’s hit it.”

“Going on dates?” Tim asks jokingly, even as a well hidden part of him turns slightly panicked. “Any successes an old friend should be hearing about?”

“Not really.” Bernard shrugs, jostling Tim’s arm. “Just a couple of girls I was better off friends with.” He pauses, thinking, before continuing with his voice involuntarily going a little higher. “Couple of guys too.”

“Huh.” Tim suddenly becomes very aware of all the places where his arm is touching Bernard. He doesn’t move it. “Better luck next time.”

Huh.

~

Tim’s been avoiding Dick. He’s been awkward around him lately, Tim thinks that Barbara must have said something. He’s not stupid enough to have done something to send Dick spiralling without noticing it.

“What do you want?” Dick asks, curious, without warning.

Tim wants to ask if Barbara put him up to this but he knows it’s a genuine question. Dick isn’t manipulative like that, not with family.

What does Tim want? Isn’t it a little late for Dick go be asking that question? All the things that happened after Bruce’s death put a canyon of distance between them. It’s slowly been growing smaller but it hasn’t disappeared. Neither of them have had time enough to spend together for that to happen.

An awful, bitter part of Tim that hasn’t stopped screaming since Robin wasn’t his any more wonders if Dick would even be asking if Damian wasn’t out of town right now.

“For us to go train surfing.” Tim says. Petty. Just so Dick will say no and his anger can feel righteous instead of ill-deserved.

“Okay.” Dick says instead. Easy and confident. Himself.

“Oh.” Tim’s anger fizzles into non-existence. “Okay.”

The canyon grows a little smaller.

~

“We should go to a skatepark.” Bernard says, a little giggly from the beer in his hand.

There’s a matching beer in Tim’s hand although it’s still practically full. If there’s an emergency he’ll be of no use drunk. “What? Why?”

“Why not? You were so good in high school! And you had fun doing it.” Bernard’s tone turns a little less giggly. “You should do more things you find fun.”

Tim is surprised enough that the “Okay.” slips out of his lips unbidden.

So maybe the beer bottle is a little less full than he’d like to admit.

They borrow a board from one of Bernard's flatmates and catch a bus to a skate park Tim remembers using when he was younger. As they go Tim tries to remember why he stopped. He tries to remember when he stopped. He can’t recall the answer to either question and annoyance rises in his chest over it.

Then Bernard is saying something and it has Tim snorting with laughter and he forgets his irritation.

Once they arrive Bernard settles himself at the top of one of the ramps like it’s a throne. “Entertain me!” he calls, “Impress me with your wheel-board magic.

Tim manages a kick-flip on his first attempt and Bernard makes a loud noise of approval.

A lot of stuff comes back to Tim fairly quickly. Most of skateboarding had been muscle memory for him and that’s something that being a vigilante hadn’t exactly hindered. As things return to him he regains some faint memories of why he’d stopped. Nothing specific, just that feeling of not having enough time. Of thinking that going to the skatepark wasn’t a particularly useful way to spend his hours while there was still real work to be done.

Tim’s always been a vigilante first, but he thinks there must have been a point when that wasn’t the only thing he was. Well, when it wasn’t the only thing he was that mattered.

“Come on!” Bernard shouts, teeth flashing white against Gotham’s grey-black sky. “I was promised entertainment!”

Tim laughs. He seems to do that a lot around Bernard these days.

He starts moving on the skateboard, deciding to leave the existentialism for another day.

~

First Dick and now Bruce. Tim’s family has really been making a habit of being weird around him lately.

He would normally think that the Bruce was worried about him, that Dick had passed along some bullshit about his mental health and Bruce was practicing some silent vigil. The problem with that theory is that Tim’s been getting better recently, so there wouldn’t be much point. At least he thinks he’s been getting better. It’s difficult to tell sometimes.

Bruce has definitely been acting weird around him though, so maybe he isn’t getting better. Maybe Bruce spotted something Tim didn’t and he’s on the road to insanity.

“What do you want?” Bruce asks one day as they’re both working in the cave. Not Batman. Bruce.

It’s a far stupider question than it was when Barbara or Dick asked it. Bruce is the person who made Tim’s desires what they are. He’s the one who took Tim’s obsession and carved it into a goal.

“What?” Tim asks, loud and confused and maybe a little angry. “What do you mean ‘what do I want’? I want the mission! What else am I supposed to want?”

Bruce stays silent for a moment and Tim imagines him turning the words over in his head. “Nothing else?” Bruce asks. He sounds sad and it makes the anger drain from Tim’s body. “Just the mission?”

“I don’t need anything else.” Tim says hollowly.

Bruce just nods, thinking. It makes Tim want to scream even as satisfaction rises in his chest.

It’s always been a point of pride that he can to lie to Batman. He’s hardly going to change his mind about that now.

~

“People keep asking me what I want.” Tim says, sat on Bernard's bed. “I don’t like it.”

Bernard's turns away from the laptop on his desk so he can look at Tim. “You ever tell them the truth?”

Tim shrugs. He isn’t sure what else to do. “Ish?”

Bernard smiles. “Anyone ever tell you you’re impossible, Tim Drake?”

“Only everyone I’ve ever met.”

Bernard barks out a laugh before sobering up and looking at Tim with ill-disguised curiosity. “Do you want to tell me the truth about it? Or did you just want to say the thing out loud?”

“I’m not sure.” Tim admits, and he has to stop himself from acting taken aback by the fact he actually said that. Tim never says when he’s uncertain. There isn’t room for it. Bernard must know that too because he looks at Tim in surprise, then scoots his chair closer to the bed so that he and Tim are almost touching.

Bernard looks very cautious. “You know that’s okay, right?”

“I-“ Tim starts, because is it? Is uncertainty the kind of luxury he can afford? “I want to want things. But it feels like I’ve forgotten how.”

“You’ve had a rough couple of years.”

“How do you-“

Bernard smiles knowingly. “You’re not as hard to read as you think, Tim. Well you are. But it’s not difficult to tell that some bad things must have happened since I last saw you.”

“Yeah.” Tim says hoarsely, thinking back to the burn of his muscles as he dug up Kon’s grave, the stinging of desert sand in his eyes, the moment of confusion when he woke up in a league of assassins base unsure if he’d had to die to get there. “Yeah. Bad things happened.” He shakes himself a little, because those aren’t the thoughts he wants lingering. He focuses back on Bernard who’s closer than Tim had realised, worry creased between his eyes. “What about you?” Tim asks, trying to exert some measure of control over the conversation. “What do you want?”

“Thought we were talking about you?” Tim might have let it go with that if not for the note of nervousness in Bernard's voice and the red creeping up the back of his neck.

“We can talk about both of us.”

“It’s not important right now.”

Tim reaches out then. He takes Bernard's hand in his because Bernard makes him laugh and he looks so nervous and Tim wants to. Bernard looks down at their hands in surprise and Tim doesn’t actually feel worried. Just expectant that Bernard is going to squeeze their fingers together more securely. He does. “You sure?” Tim asks.

Bernard just looks at him. Mouth parted with shock. He seems to come back to himself though and his expression of surprise turns into something more confident. More familiar. “What if I wanted you?” he asks, hesitancy and confidence rolled into one voice.

“Give me some time to remember how to want things, and I think I’ll want that too.” Tim replies, just as unsure and utterly certain.

Bernard tangles their fingers together a little more firmly in response and Tim feels more hopeful than he has in a long time.

Paige leaves behind Carpenter and Faulkner in search of a new god.

She doesn’t really know how to go about such a thing. She’s more than well versed in strengthening a god, years of practice have made her far better at cultivating worship than any preacher, but the search for a god is something she lacks background in.

At a loss for what else to do, Paige drives.

She keeps the silence for a while. Hoping that being alone with her thoughts might lend her mind to some form of holy revelation. She manages to keep that up for almost twenty minutes before she sighs in anxious boredom and starts fiddling with the radio dial.

Static gives way to whispering voices gives way to a prophet of some new religion. Paige turns the sound up in sudden interest.

“-dream is to create. Dear listeners, we have reached a new stage. An apotheosis, if you will. I have metamorphasised from a decaying, droning worker, asleep to all the things that matter, to a new man with new purpose in my heart. I have gone from a sacrifice to something sacred. Something new. My god saw me about to devote myself to a deity of unholiness and was so gracious as to call me to something deserving of my worship. And, in answer to that calling, let us sing our next hosanna-“

Paige keeps listening to the radio, fighting against the tiredness nipping at the edges of her consciousness as she does so. There’s banging in the background, the soundproofing of the room the host is in quieting it enough that you don’t hear it at first, but it’s certainly there. Sometimes it drops away, presumably when whoever’s trying to get into the recording booth succumbs to the sleep that Paige is fighting so valiantly against. It keeps coming back and Paige thinks that a lot of people must be very desperate to get this man to stop worshiping his god.

Coming to a decision, Paige pulls over and gets a map out to try and find the radio station this prophet must be broadcasting from. She wants a new god after all, a gentler one than any she’s been provided with so far. And even if this man's god is not her god, and Paige suspects that it is not, then maybe he’ll still be able to tell her how to birth something she can worship. Just like he did.

So I enjoyed the batman a normal amount

small doodle

Tim is walking to his house after school when he spots his parents car in the drive and feels a flash of panic. He runs through a checklist in his mind of how he left the house and whether he’s done anything lately that his parents could be here to pick him up on. After a moment he’s certain that everything should be fine and the worst thing that’s about to happen is a far too formal conversation about whatever areas his parents feel he’s slacking in and he opens the door. When he doesn’t see either of them waiting for him he heads up to his room, dismissing the unease he feels when his door is slightly more ajar than he left it.

His initial flash of panic is nothing compared to the alarm he feels when he walks in to find his mother holding the robin costume in a perfectly manicured hand.

The look on her face is a sight to behold. Her normal expression of mild disdain suits her, it turns a face that would normally be described as pretty into something beautiful. Something that could be carved from marble. Now her face is twisted with enough anger to make her ugly.

Tim is struck for a moment by how this might be the first time she’s cared enough to look at him with real anger since that night at the circus when she told him to stop crying and he couldn’t deliver, no matter how hard he tried.

“This was not the plan Timothy.” she hisses through gritted teeth.

Tim takes the subsequent verbal thrashing with all the grace expected of him as a Drake. By the time it ends he thinks there might be a couple of cracks in the facade but he manages to keep it under control.

The only reason he doesn’t break down is because during her whole scolding Janet never once tells him to give up Robin. He can tell from the curl of her lip, the set of her spine, that she wants to. That she aches to. But Janet Drake has never once entered a battle knowing she would lose.

So she doesn’t tell him to stop. And in the face of such favour? Tim can handle anything.

"No, I didn't know what I was getting into"

Me neither Jacobi, me neither

brb crying about the fact that vaughn did NOT get to choose the thing that ate them