Junkdrawerfan-2 - @JunkDrawerFan’s Backup

A feast for kings

by Bannai Taku

“and the universe said…”

I genuinely love all flavors of superbats and will enjoy all of them in the same fic even though irl I would never date my brother in law/stepbrother because that level of familial integration can only lead to madness.

But at the same time…

Like at what point do the supers just go “well this new one just showed up and is about the same age as X bat so let’s just start saving for the wedding in advance.” While Bruce plays dumb and refuses to acknowledge the pattern in fear of simply imploding from the surrealism that is his life.

Both Tim and Damian dating their respective supers and Tim trying to mess with Damian by calling him his “sisterwife” and regretting it immediately when Damian double down and starts using it in public to fuck with him:

Damian: As sisterwives, we should get married on the same day. It will help father with the wedding costs and ensure a higher dowry from the Kent’s. Tim: **just trying to live his life** why do you like to see me suffer? Jason: **a massive regency fan** oooh! What about themed engagement rings?

Let it be known there is no game of chicken Damian Wayne-Al Ghul will lose unless unconscious.

I want Damien and Tim to be friends so bad. I want chaotic younger sibling energy team up to make everyone else’s life hell! They both have big gremlin energy and 0 chill and poor understanding of other peoples limits.

Stop being cowards @DC, let Tim and Damien wreak havoc!

If you have fics, pls rec and my life is yours!

Absolute CRACK BatFic Idea:

An AU where Tim knows Batman needs a Robin and discovers (somehow) that Bruce Wayne has a biological son and sets out on a quest to kidnap Damian into become the new Robin.

It’s like “Fine! Dick doesn’t want it and Jason’s dead. If Bruce Wayne needs a son to turn into Robin, I’m going to go get him one!”

Too competent, no awareness Tim Drake (very fandom Tim Drake I know but listen…. It’d be funny!) hacking into the League of Assassin computers (sneaks into the cave during Bruce’s solo patrols to connect his personal laptop to get access to the BatNet) so he can talk to Damian (small boi, very sweet, was never taught internet safety because who the fuck could be talking to him on the LoA’s intranet!) and get his location.

Tim waiting months, befriending Damian the whole time, until Talia takes Damian to one of the Leagues’ European safe houses, all the while promising Damian that he’s his friend and he wants to meet but his mom is too protective.

Tim: you can’t tell her. She’ll make us stop talking.

Damian: but what if I convince her we’re friends?

Tim: hmmm let’s wait until I can see you in person! That way we can convince her together!

Maybe they’re in Paris (it’s always Paris) when Tim meets and admits the reason he’s talking to Damian is because he knows his dad who sent him to bring him home (lie).

“I’m friends with his eldest son,” Tim says, you know… like a liar. (But he did snap a selfie with Dick for this exact purpose because oh holy contingencies Batman. “I can take you to your dad.”

And Damian is unsure and resists but than Tim points out Talia never tells Damian when he’ll get to see his dad. “And isn’t taking initiative something encourages by the LoA, Dami?”

Anyway, Tim gets Damian on that plane fast enough (and with Damian’s help and Tim’s tech savvy sneakily enough) to avoid the ninjas. Until it’s 8 hour later and Tim is knocking on the door (he’d tricked Dick into visiting for the weekend because he knows he’s going to need the older boy to smooth all this over) like “TA-DA! NEW SON ALERT!”

Cue fallout and Dick and Bruce quickly realizing they’ve got two new kids in the house because Talia is going to have to pry sweet baby, naive, adorably arrogant 6 year old Damian from Bruce’s cold dead fingers and also “Oh my god we need to fix this little stalker neighbor boy before he becomes a new rogue.”

(Side Note: this could so easily be a horror fic from limited POV like Damian’s :D where the audience doesn’t know who Damian is talking to while he’s being stalked and eventually kidnapped. Until the end it’s revealed to be Tim who’d have never hurt Damian and actually did bring him to Gotham to meet Bruce!)

I had a fun idea for a canon compliant Bruce & Tim ABO fic where Tim is presenting as an omega and he calls Bruce to take him back to the manor during the time Jack made him give up Robin.

Like Jack and Dana are in the other room but Tim wants to be with his pack alpha and that hasn’t been Jack in a long time.

And it’s painful because Jack isn’t the worst dad in the world. He’s been really trying lately, even before he found out about Robin, he’s been giving a real effort. But it doesn’t make up for all the years he was shitty and absent. He’s still got a temper and a tendency to threaten Tim with boarding school. And Bruce is who Tim feels safest with. He’s Batman but he’s also the guy who held him when his mom died and takes care of him after hard patrols. Who asks about his schoolwork and pets his hair when he’s tired during a stake out.

So he’s present as an omega and calls Bruce to take him home and Bruce shows up bc he’ll always do his best to never let one of his kids down again. And Bruce has already called Dick over (omega or beta I’m not sure) and Alfred is preparing the pack nest for Tim’s presentation. And he knocks on the door.

And Jack opens the door with a gun, demanding to know why Bruce is here while his son is in heat.

And Bruce has to tell this man who hates him, who feels emasculated by his very presence, that his presenting omega son didn’t feel safe enough in Jack’s home and called Bruce. And it’s made worse because Tim has his bags packed and he’s standing behind the two of them, swaying from the pain, and waiting for Jack to step aside so he can go be with his dad.

And Jack wants to rant and rave and force Tim back into his pack nest and cover his son in his scent and just get him to stay and be safe in his arms. But Tim is standing there waiting to leave and it is a reckoning. That even if Tim has agreed to let go of Robin to make him happy. Even if Tim says he loves him and calls him dad and pretends to follow his rules, Tim will never view him as a dad.

Maybe Jack will blame the coma. He’ll think it was the start of everything going wrong. Maybe he’ll remember, for just a moment, Timothy crying as they dropped him off at his boarding school — just 7 years old and so scared to be separated from his pack — begging them not to leave, clinging to his shirt asking why he didn’t love him enough to stay. But then his mind will reject it, not ready to face a reality where it was always this broken. And he will blame Bruce. He hates Bruce Wayne and everything this man represents as a threat to his family.

So he’ll move to raise the gun, to threaten Bruce Wayne, the prince of Gotham, off of his front porch, only for Dana to tap him on the shoulder and ask him to let Tim through. Because this isn’t about Jack and Bruce or even Jack and Tim. It’s about Tim. It’s about what his instincts need.

Jack will look at his son, really look at him and not the son he wished Tim was but the son Tim is. And he’ll see his son staring at Bruce with so much unmasked love and trust, a look he hasn’t seen since Tim was toddler in his arms. And he’ll step aside. Because for all his faults, Jack Drake loves his son. And it’s the single most selfless thing he’ll ever do as a parent.

And three weeks later, he’ll be dead.

A little Spoiler of something I’m working on:

Title: Will of Fire

Summary: Madara knows his sins and his faults. He knows, no matter what Hashirama thinks, there is no positive afterlife waiting for him. Maybe that’s why he’s returned to the past after bleeding out on that battlefield.

Still, there is nothing to do but get up and try again.

For Izuna.

For Hashirama.

For Obito and all those, he’s wronged.

He will take this chance and try again.

Ship: Hashirama/Madara

Tags: Politics, Slow Burn, Uchiha Family Dynamics

…

Madara wakes up to Izuna beside him.

He shouldn’t have. He should have died, should have walked forward into the pure lands all Shinobi knew awaited them: an eternal feast of friends and foes alike finally setting down their swords and kunai to eat and drink and laugh.

Hashirama had promised me a drink, Madara thinks mournfully as he takes in the rising sun creeping its way into the room, growing in strength. Hashirama promised him peace.

He lets himself mourn his death during the time it takes the late winter sun to drench the room in light. Fifteen whole minutes to regret and contemplate to consider what-ifs and almost. Fifteen minutes before Izuna wakes next to him, eyes narrowing at the sunlight and with such an amusing scrunched face that Madara cannot help but be reminded of the ornery cat he’d kept secretly within the cave.

(Obito had brought the cat because for all Madara and Zetsu had tried to break him, he’d still clung stubbornly to a love of life.

And god Obito… Madara has many regrets. More than any man should bear. Too many sins to atone for. But for Obito…. He will need more than fifteen minutes to mourn Obito.

He will need a lifetime.)

And then Izuna wakes up.

“Aniki ,” Izuna yawns, morning breath stinking up the space between them. With drool running down his chin and crust in his eyes, he looks a far cry from the Uchiha Beauty he is renowned for. “Why are you awake?”

Madara had lost count of the years between Izuna’s death and his own. Time makes things hazy, alters memories… alters reality. It isn’t until that moment that Madara realizes he’d forgotten the sound of Izuna’s voice. In his memories it is scratchy, broken by pain and suffering as he lay on his death bed while healers and medic-nin alike did their best to give him another day, hour, minute. Until there had been nothing left to save but a pair of eyes.

In his nightmares, Izuna’s voice is rough and booming, full of hatred, as he calls Madara for what he is: a failure, a betrayer, a liar, and--in his worst dreams--a murderer.

In reality, Izuna’s voice is soft and sweet, content to wake up next to his older brother and pitched at a low volume to avoid waking the household. Clinging to childhood, there is an almost squeaky quality to it. (As young as Obito had been)

A long-forgotten protective instinct flowers within Madara’s chest.

Madar looks away, tears burning in the corner of his eyes. But he cannot cry. The dead cannot do anything with his tears. He has no right to self-pity. Zetsu had led him to his grave but Madara had been eager to climb in and lie down.

He cannot be forgiven for his sins. There is no peaceful afterlife waiting for him. No drink. No Hashirama. He does not deserve it.

This is my penance, Madara thinks as he watches Izuna wipe the sleep from his eyes with the back of his hand, already scarred from a lifetime of struggle. I must make things right.

Madara stands up.

For Obito, for Hashirama, for the Uchiha he’d sworn himself to and then killed, for the village and Naruto and Itachi (and that strange, powerful boy who’d reminded him of himself and Izuna and all the best and worst of the Uchiha).

It’s time to get to work.

He will cry when it is all done.

.

COMING SOON TO AN AO3 NEAR YOU!

Why do people make Tim being “sent” to train under Lady Shiva a bad thing in fanfics?

UM… ACTUALLY! Everything about that sentence is wrong.

Bruce doesn’t send Tim to train abroad after “only a few weeks.”

Bruce doesn’t send Tim to Lady Shiva. Tim finds that trouble all on his own.

Point 1: Bruce doesn't send Tim to train abroad until after he's been trained by Bruce for months and has "earned" the robin suit by saving Bruce from The Scarecrow. Tim meets Bruce during Spring — as seen in the art during Tim’s time tracking Dick to Halley’s Circus during his intro comic — and is being trained by him until Christmas Eve where Tim defeats Scarecrow. That is a at least 7-8 months of training.

After receiving the Robin suit, Tim expresses doubt in his ability to be Robin to which Bruce says “You just need to gain physical prowess” and suggests a training trip in Paris.

Point 2: Bruce then sends Tim to Paris to train under one of Batman’s old teacher: a Tibetan monk who’s taken refuge in Paris and is a specialist in both healing and hand to hand combat. The monk is referred to **cringe** as “Lama.” Tim then gets caught up in a gang fight which spirals into a conspiracy and catches the attention of Lady Shiva all on his own!

(Total side note and I know it was like 1991 BUT SO MANY early Tim stories have awkward racism you can’t even squint past. You gotta just grit your teeth and keep reading. His parents are killed by an evil voodoo guy. He trains under a mystical Tibetan monk. He has some awkward run ins with a Chinese mob. He had to manage a couple of “angry black guy” characters. Like I’m sure lots of other DC properties were just as bad at this time. But then you remember that Tim’s Robin is one of THE MOST successful comic lines during the 90s and early 00s and it’s just awkward. And DC still won’t hire enough non-white male writers and artists when you have beautiful stories like The Boy Wonder written by brilliant POC artists. Like why?!??)

Look I'm not saying Bruce is a perfect mentor to Tim. His reactions to Janet Drake's death is not ideal. Bruce also tries to hide information from Tim when his parents are kidnapped and lets Tim think his parents are dead because "what if Bruce can't fix it". Bruce's control issues are on fine display for several issues.

But sending Tim to Lady Shiva is not a neglectful act on Bruce's part. Tim ditched Bruce’s safe training plan and gets involved with a DEA agent and Lady Shiva.

It turns out — as you find out at the end of the comic set about Tim’s training — Bruce has been lurking around watching and waiting to step in if things get out of control for a while sfter Tim ditches Paris but otherwise lets Tim think he’s alone until Tim has succeeded in his mission and defeated King Snake. Bruce does this is to help Tim gain confidence in the field, something he was lacking during the moment Bruce hands him the Robin suit.

It’s a really sweet arc actually and helps set up what kind of Robin Tim Drake is going to be! Plus it’s a fun read (ignoring the racism)!

There is no reason to treat it as one of Bruce’s failings. He makes plenty of those all on his own.