Malachaikn1ght

first time drawing primehood I’m scared.. it’s a little unpolished but wtv

So I imagine a situation in which the war is over, and maybe Optimus and Megatron have come to some sort of arrangement, both as leaders of their factions and just as people. And they are kind of in a not relationship, and it's driving Megatron insane. Because he can't keep himself away from Optimus, because he yearns so much for his company, to have that happy life after the war everyone seems to be building but him, and he keeps digging his nails in it and shredding it.

Optimus tries to get closer to him, he pushes him away, insults him, digs into soft spots just to make him bleed. He feels alone and he isolates even more. He wants to reconnect with the (very) few of his ex-subbordinates he considered close to him (like Soundwave) but he can't help falling back into the old rhythm of acting like he's commanding one of his soldiers. He keeps trying to fight even though there's no danger anymore, and at night he sleeps even less than he did on the Nemesis, because he was calmer with a war breathing down his neck

Y’all this is how s4 truly ended in my head.

Jason dies at 14 years + 8 months in April of Batman Year Twelve. He is 1 year + 11 months older than Tim, who appears in A Lonely Place of Dying, set in Late July, having just turned 13.

October of Batman Year 12: Jason revives. By his birthdate, he should be 15 years + 2 months old. But physically, he is still 14 years + 8 months. Winick retconned out his year-long coma from Batman Annual #25 (2006) in Red Hood Lost Days #1-6 (2010).

Jason spends the next 5 months on the streets, feeding other homeless people + fending off attackers.

March of Batman Year 13: Jason is picked up by the League of Assassins. By his birthdate, he should have been 15 years + 7 months. But physically, he is 15 years + 1 month old. Since he is not conscious of time passing + Winick's 'catatonia' does not measure up to any known medical condition (functioning instead like a fictional walking coma), his lived experience age remains 14 years + 8 months.

March-April (Spring) of Batman Year 14: Jason is dunked in the Lazarus Pit by Talia. The ultimate month is uncertain since Ra's only says he was with them 'just over' one year. By his birthdate, he should have been 16 years + 7-8 months old. But physically, he is 16 years + 1-2 months old. His lived experience is 14 years + 8 months, + only from here does that number start to go up.

Jason then spends the next 10-11 months training outside the League's purview. (He spends ~30 days with each trainer + Talia in RH: Lost Days (2010) claims that he killed only half, before listing 5 people. Therefore he probably trained with 10-11.)

March-April (Spring) of Batman Year 15: Batman: Hush takes place. Within this storyline, Talia turns from her normal self who helps Batman into the woman who sleeps with Jason in RH: Lost Days #6. This is b/c Batman: Death and the Maidens (2004) takes place, wherein she is tortured, killed, + revived numerous times by her sister, Nyssa, using the Lazarus Pit. At the end of this, Talia has been brainwashed into thinking that everything is a weapon to be wielded against Batman + the super-heroes at large. This is when she canonically meets her son, Damian, for the first time (when he is 8 years old. He will only turn 9 at the end of this year). This is when she sleeps with Jason + proposes that he collaborate with Hush since she has already learned of Batman investigating him. Jason appears in Batman #617-8 (2003) as covered in Batman Annual #25 (2006).

Batman: Hush (2002-3): Jason should, according to his birthdate, be 17 years + 7/8 months old here. But physically, he is 17 years + 1/2 months old. But since he has only been out of the Pit for around a year, his lived experience is 15 years + 8-9 months old.

Batman: War Games Saga (2004-5): in the first arc (WG: War Drums), Bruce canonically celebrates what would have been Jason's 18th birthday in Detective Comics #790 on August 16th. Physically, however, b/c of those 6 months he lost in the ground, Jason is 17 years + 6 months old. And since he has been out of the Pit for around a year + 4-5 months, his lived experience age is 16 years + 1-2 months. Under the Red Hood takes place at the tail-end of this saga.

So, how long does the War Games Saga (2004-5) last?

Personally, I refute fan-suggestions that the WG Saga took 4-5 months to unfold. That's almost as long as Knightfall + far more things happened in that saga than in the WG one. Common sense dictates that War Games must be shorter. The only difficulty comes from Steph's 71 day tenure as Robin (detailed in Robin #128 (2004)). Yet Batman: Secret Files & Origins Allies (2005) features a tele-broadcaster referring to the WG Saga by calling it "last summer's gang war". Not last summer and early fall's gang war. To rectify the 71 day tenure, I would backdate that to include pre-WG training.

Batman: Under the Red Hood (2005-6) explicitly takes place at the tail-end of War Games, concurrent with its final arc. UTRH takes around one month to resolve. Not several months + definitely not half a year. Thus, Jason's age at the start versus the end of Under the Hood (late-ish September to late October) is as follows:

According to his birthdate, he is 18 years + 1-2 months old. Physically, however, he is 17 years + 7-8 months old. In terms of lived experience, he is 16 years + 3-4 months old.

Infinite Crisis then crashes into existence. It must do so before Thanksgiving + Christmas b/c (amongst other reasons), Detective Comics #826 (2007) is utterly dependent on its depicted events taking place on Christmas of the following year.