Muse

There could also be episodes dedicated to each individual member of the Dead Poets. I feel Meeks and Pitts are underrated and we don’t know much about them. It would be cool to have episodes dedicated to them all, learn more about their internal struggles (if they have any) and their family situations, maybe meet Todd’s brother, stuff like that. I also think it would be interesting to learn more about Cameron, possibly even why he ratted out on Keating.

Jason: yeah me and B are on ok terms now,

Dick: oh you guys are getting along-?

Jason: well we’re doing ok, I’m not mad at him anymore.

Dick: thought you wanted him to kill the Joker?

Jason: i did, but then like last week i went to the manor and i saw him smash the coffee machine with a hammer because it didn’t fill his mug enough; and i just don’t think he’d be a good killer.

Dick: *light wheeze* because he broke the coffee machine?

Jason: well it was just- *cracked grin* he gets- he gets angry, you know? and he’s not good at self control? like that machine did nothing and he just destroyed it. and i was just thinking about how, like, he decided that adopting kids was an acceptable thing to do, and now he has like eleven of us,

Dick: *silent cackles*

Jason: like he can’t see a kid without thinking ‘wonder if i can draft this one’. i think if we managed to convince him killing was ok it wouldn’t go well. he’d just keep doing it.

Dick: *through laughter* because of no self control?

Jason: yeah, like once he crosses that line he’d probably step over it at any minor inconvenience. he gets addicted and he gets mad at a lot of things.

Dick: so B shouldn’t kill?

Jason: no.

Dick: but you can?

Jason: well i- *wheeze* i have practice honing the rage, i don’t kill for stupid reasons. *pause* apart from that one time.

Dick, audibly amused: what time?

Jason: i sneezed and accidentially pressed the trigger.

Dick: *loud cackles*

Jason: i felt bad, man, like his cat was there-

Dick: *falls off his chair*

Jason: how are you this apathetic.

Dick: is that where Damian’s new cat came from?

Jason: it’s not like i could just leave it there!

Dick: i thought i saw trauma in it’s eyes. it had that wartime stare.

Jason: the blood spattered right across its fur. i had to bathe it.

Dick: Damian thinks it has anxiety

Jason: anxiet- dude it has more than anxiety, it has fucking PTSD-

*Damian and Jason, four hours into a stakeout*

Damian: Jay, hand me the mango pieces.

Jason: *plastic crinkling* ayyy, I’m Jason again!

Damian: *snorts*

Jason: what was with that, by the way? I just showed up in Gotham and found you referring to everyone like they’re your professor. Like, that’s not a ‘you’ thing, I don’t know why you started doing that.

*audible chewing noises*

Damian: do you want the genuine honest answer?

Jason: please god do tell

Damian: so- and you aren’t allowed to laugh. but when I first came to Gotham and I showed up at the manor, father obviously had to give me a tour of the place, right?

Jason: yeah.

Damian: and they wanted to do a DNA test to check that my mother wasn’t pulling a fast one by claiming my birthright, so the first place he showed me was the cave, which was also where Tim was.

Jason: *hums*

Damian: and you know that place- the first time you went to the cave, it was wild, right?

Jason: oh, like walking into the tardis for the first time. insane.

Damian: exactly. all high-tech and shit, and I’d just come from the desert compound I’d spent my entire life in- like, my first time going into the kitchen at the manor I saw Alfred loading the dishwasher and my first thought was ‘oh my god what the fuck kind of machine is that-‘

Jason: *abrupt cackle*

Damian: -so the fucking cave for the first time? as a little desert-boy ten year old? I was a little distracted,

Jason, chuckling slightly: ok, fair,

Damian: and so I’m zoned the fuck out, looking around this cave and not paying attention to anything father’s saying, and then I finally tune back in just to hear the words ‘-ackson drake’ while he like, tries to introduce me to Tim.

Jason: *slowly starts laughing again*

Damian, raising his voice to be heard over Jason’s increasing beats of laughter: -and so I’m fucking standing there, ten years old, no clue what this kid’s first name is, and everybody’s looking at me like I’m supposed to be the one fucking talking right now, and ALL I can think of is my mother, who before she shipped me off to Gotham completely alone kept fucking telling me ‘Damian you have to be strong and show that you deserve to be the Batman’s blood son. show no weakness and take the mantle you were born to have; show no fucking hesitance.’, so I’M panicking,

Jason, still cackling: *a clap* NO I DO- I DO REMEMBER, LIKE, BACK IN THE LEAGUE-, holy shit back in the league when your only coping mechanism for not knowing the fuck was going on around you, was literally just to pretend you knew what the fuck was going on around you and bullshit till you make it,

Damian: WELL IT WAS LIKE THE ONLY FUCKING THING MY MOTHER TAUGHT ME-

Jason, through tears: -that’s why I didn’t say shit when I came back to Gotham and found you fucking, doing all this blood son bullshit! You started calling me Todd and speaking in old english and I was just like ‘bless him he’s terrified, just leave him be’

Damian: *cackles* and I did- I did appreciate you going along with it, because back when this happened I panicked and just started calling Tim ‘Drake’ because I was too embarrassed to ask him for his first name, and then by the time I heard somebody else call him Tim in passing, everybody had just assumed this was a thing I did. and I was too socially awkward to clear it up and switch back, so I just had to stick to Drake.

Jason: *wheeze* a-and Grayson?

Damian: well at first I just went along with the surname thing out of awkwardness, but then I’d gone too deep and I had no way out- AND THEN- and then Batman fucking died-

Jason: *wheeze*

Damian: -and I went from being parented by the gymnastics version of the dark lord to being gentle-parented by fucking Nightwing-

Jason, choking: holy- holy shit-

Damian: do you know what it’s like to go from *gruff voice* ‘Damian we don’t fucking kill, give me the katana or I’ll put you in Arkham’ to *high pitched, sweet voice* ‘oh hey Dames, obviously I can’t stop you from killing but I really would appreciate it if we discussed all our options and came to a mature decision together on what’s best in this scenario-‘

Jason: *crying, silent wheezes*

Damian: so DURING all this I’m trying to subtly switch back to using peoples actual names, except it fucking backfired because people just assumed I was calling Richard Richard because we had that special parental mentor bond, and Tim had pissed off to- whatever he was doing in the desert for six months- getting a hysterectomy or whatever the fuck happened-

Jason, amused: hysterectomy- he lost a spleen, Dames

Damian: well whatever happened he wasn’t AROUND for me to shift to calling him Tim! and when father was back I’d made no progress and was back to square one, except this time I was stuck calling one brother Richard and the other Drake!

Jason, still laughing: and this is where I came in?

Damian: I felt BAD! I’d already taken Robin from the guy, I didn’t want him to feel like he was lesser of a brother to me than Richard. So I demoted you to Todd so he wouldn’t feel alone.

Jason: very thoughtful.

Jason: we should probably get you a therapist, dude. I think everybody forgets that when you showed up you were literally just a very confused immigrant child with no experience of normal social interaction apart from me at the league.

Damian: oh I was like, 60% into an anxiety attack consistently for the first two years I was in the city.

Jason: *snorts*

Damian: the first time I was left alone with Tim we were in the kitchen and he said ‘do you want wifi?’ and, y’no, coming from the league, barely any tech and the only normality was the concept of fighting to the death over everything, MY instinctual ten-year-old thought was ‘oh shit, wifi must be slang for brawl here, we’re about to fight’-

Jason: *laughter* you’re fucking kidding

Damian: -so I’m like, so be it, and I say ‘come on then’ and get ready to start punching, only for him to turn around and grab a piece of card stuck to the fridge and hold it out to me,

Jason: *cackles*

Damian: and he goes ‘here’s the password so you can connect, I’m assuming you have a phone or something’-which I fucking didn’t by the way, my mother gave me a shitty flip-phone to call her in emergencies but it didn’t use wifi-, and he’s holding it out to me and I had to like, subtly shift my posture out of the defensive position I’d been in-,

Jason, delirious from laughter: this is the fucking best. thing.

Damian: -and I take it from him, and he gives me this weird look like he has no idea how to communicate with me, and I was just like ‘shit I might have to kill this one, it’s the only way to get out of this interaction’.

Jason: *wheeze* if we go through the timeline, every murder attempt on Tim’s life has just been an occasion where you’ve felt socially awkward and didn’t see any other way out of conversation,

Damian: pretty much, yeah. I should have been on xanax for those first few years.

Jason: stories from your first years in Gotham are my favourite thing in the world.

*a few silent beats*

Tim: are you telling me I’ve been stuck as Drake for YEARS all because Damian’s fucking scared of social interaction?!

*crashing sound*

Jason: HOLY FUCK-

Dick: Circus kid. There has to have been a situation as Robin where he was with a kid and just pointed at another rooftop with a 8 story drop between them and was just like

“Just jump over there, you got this” and was extremely confused when Bruce yelled in his ear that no, there’s no fucking way that 8 year old can do that.

Jason: Street kid, would 100% shove a rusty pipe into the hands of a frightened civilian and was like “you got this, just protect yourself!” All cheery and grinning in his Robin suit.

Before Batman swoops in covering the civilian, and throwing batarangs at the goons. When it’s finally calmed down Jason got the scolding of a lifetime, since not every person in Gotham is able to fight.

Tim: Child prodigy, there is no way that he hasn’t been trying to help someone escape a villain’s plan, explaining all of the twist and turns of the building and how to avoid certain traps, and being more and more annoyed when they still not get it.

Batman then comes and shoves the person into a closet, throwing a tracker in as well before barricading the door, huffing slightly at Tim before moving on trying to find the big bad.

Damian: Child Soldier. It’s canon he finds everyone his age pathetic if they don’t live up to his standards. So I can absolutely picture him being completely confused, when on a rescue mission he gives one of his katanas to the man who was huffing and puffing about being ‘able to protect himself’ and didn’t need a child to rescue him. But when faced with danger he shook and scrambled behind Damian.

Batman then orders Damian to stay behind and protect the man, much to his dismay.

~~~~

Yes, he standing right there. But that means nothing for the brains of his traumatized children.

Bruce doesn’t notice at first, just happy that his kids would miss him… Mourn him if he were to actually die. Getting that bit of reassurance that his family loves him.

But he starts to notice they’re not just looking for him. They’re tracking his breaths, watching his chest to make sure it’s actually moving up and down.

Constantly looking at his vitals on their watches. Anytime he so much as even hitches his breath they’re snapping their heads to him, then checking their wrists.

They never vocalize it. They’re bats, they never show worry unless it’s in their own way. But Bruce knows his kids.. He raised them. He knows what worry looks like on their faces.

One day he takes a hit for Dick out on patrol. Nothing dire, but it was enough to make him lose consciousness for a couple minutes. But that was enough to trigger something in Dick..

He rushes Bruce back to the Cave, shoving him into the medbay. Bruce is trying his best to calm Dick down but he’s panicking.. All Dick sees is his father, slumped to the ground after taking a hit Dick should have seen coming.. Thinking if Bruce dies it’ll be his fault..

He’s starting to hyperventilate, the rest of the bat clan coming down to the cave because their watches went off after Dicks heart rate skyrocketed. Turning to see a bloody Bruce and a scared Dick, they think the worst. Bruce must be dying.. Again.

They all jump into action trying to do anything to help but Bruce is just trying to calm everyone down. And he can’t think with everyone freaking out and trying to do different things at once.

“STOP!” He shouts. Everybody standing stock still. Everyone but Dick, who’s still freaking out.

“Dick, chum.. Look at me. I’m okay. I promise I’m okay..” He whispers, Dick just shakes his head because he just can’t believe his eyes. He’s had hallucinations so vivid many times before.. He thinks what he seeing isn’t real.

So Bruce does the only thing he can think to do.. He takes Dick’s hands in his own, and puts two of Dick‘s fingers to the pulse on his neck. He doesn’t move.. He just breathes.

“Come on chum, you can feel my pulse right? I’m alive. I’m right here.” He grabs Dicks other hand and puts it to his chest. “You can feel my heart.. It’s in your hands.. You have it. Chum, I’m not going anywhere. I’m right here.”

And slowly.. Slowly Dick starts to calm down. He can feel every pulse of his father’s heart pushing blood through his veins. It’s so strong. The strongest heartbeat he’s ever felt. And he can finally believe what he’s seeing.

His dad’s okay.. His father’s alive.. and he’s just so relieved. He crashes into Bruce’s arms, and Bruce holds him with every ounce of strength that he has. Running his fingers through Dicks hair. Just letting Dick cry into his shoulder.

“I’m okay, I’m okay.. I promise.. I’m okay.” he says softly over and over again. Not letting go of his child. His first robin. The boy who brought meaning back into his life, a light that shines so bright that it blocked out some of his darkness.

Then Bruce feels another set of fingers, on the other side of his neck at his pulse point. Bruce turns his head to see Tim there, tears not yet spilled from his eyes. And he realizes just how scared they are to actually lose him.

Lose him in a forever kind of way. In a Thomas and Martha kind of way.

So he allows them one by one, they come up to him to put their fingers on his neck and their hands on his chest to feel his pulse, Dick shifting just enough so they can get that reassurance and feel that he’s alive.

After a while, Dick finally moves out of Bruce’s grasp. Not far enough to where he can’t reach Bruce; their legs still touching. But enough to where he can stand straight and look at Bruce’s face.

Alfred comes up after that just to give Bruce a check up. Make sure everything’s okay, and patch up where he’s bleeding. Nobody says anything, He just looks at all his children, grabs Dick’s hand and nods for them to follow him.

They are sleeping in his room tonight. Piled on top of him, Hands touching every pulse point on his body, just to feel that he’s still there.

And after that, it becomes a regular thing for them to just walk up to Bruce and check his pulse. No words are shared. No explanation needed. He can just look at them and know what they want.

He tilts his head a little bit and allows them to place their fingers on his neck, or their hands on his chest for however long, and however often they need it. It makes his kids feel better, and it’s a way that Bruce can actively take care of his children.

Alfred joins in after a while. Because even though he doesn’t show it, and would never tell it. He is always worried for Bruce’s safety. And yes, he’s the one that mends Bruce‘s wounds, and stitches him back together.