#bbb 2025

“A hero who is questioned and then is able to answer is more compelling than a figure who is so powerful that he is never doubted.” — Susan Orlean

~~~

Stephanie hums and taps her fingers idly. “Harls. Can I ask something?”

Harls pushes the bowl away. “Stephanie. You have taken me and my boys in when you didn’t have to, when all o’ Gotham was bayin’ for our blood, and given us food and shelter.” She shrugs helplessly. “At this point, you could ask me almost anything and I’d do my best to answer.”

Stephanie makes a face. “Let’s just… put a pin in that for now. And it’s Steph, not Stephanie.”

“Okay, then. Steph.” That’s going to be an adjustment, but if she can come around to thinking of him as her abuser, to thinking of herself as Harls instead of Harley, then she can think of Stephanie as Steph.

“Right. So. Hypothetically. If you could have brought your abuser to justice, would you have done it?”

That takes Harls aback. “If I could’ve brought him to justice…” She double blinks. “That’s a loaded question for this early of a mornin’. Wait, is it still morning?”

Steph looks at her watch and winces. “Close enough.”

Probably not then. “Okay. So… I think that my answer depends on if I knew I’d be believed, and sometimes not even then.”

Steph hums again and sits back, looking thoughtful.

Spoiler takes Harley home. It’s about as dramatic as everyone (by which we mean Harley) expected. (But then, Harley is perhaps not the best judge of danger.)

~~~

Jason honestly does want to catch Dick after he gets out of the hospital, when they finally get back home, to find out what that muttered comment about the Joker finally staying down actually means.

But wishes and horses and all that.

First, as soon as they’ve sorted out their vigilante things thanks to that stupid GCPD deadline, his brother disappears into his room and, like, stays there for the rest of the day – yeah, definitely a headache Dick’s been hiding, the idiot – and then Jason himself gets corralled by Damian and Duke as they want him to show his “magic swords”.

And he lets them, god help him.

It’s nice to be wanted, even if he does have to explain to them that his swords don’t really work like that. He can’t just pull them out because he wants them, or because it’s convenient.

Like all magic, there are rules. (Just like Zatanna’s magic only works for her if she speaks backwards, his magic only works for him under certain conditions.)

The most important one is that he has to be in front of something that’s evil for his swords to be able to manifest. It’s an absolute pain in the ass, especially when he’s in the middle of a gunfight and he could do with the extra boost, but he’s learned to work with the ability.

Not around it.

So, yeah. He doesn’t get to talk to Dick that first day.

...

Some things just keep on giving. And the fallout from the acid attack (from those damned files) just keeps going.

In other words, a knock at the door is now never not going to be scary.

~~~

Some things just keep on giving. And the fallout from the acid attack (from those damned files) just keeps going. In other words, a knock at the door is now never not going to be scary.

Especially when it’s one that they don’t expect.

Knock knock.

Dick tenses at the sound, heart thrumming in his ear as he glances around for signs of danger and he can immediately tell that he’s not the only one having a reaction.

Okay, looks like you really can get PTSD from someone knocking on a door. (Though a part of him does wonder if it’s any door or, you know, just this door.) Thanks but no thanks, Joker.

No one moves.

“Someone is really going to have to answer that,” Tim says.

Jason scowls. “Don’t look at me. Last time I tried that shit, it killed me.”

“Language, Jason!”

“Sorry, Alf.” A beat. “Still not getting the door.”

Knock. Knock.

Steph pulls Cass up. “Jeez Louise. Fine. I’ll get it. C’mon, Cass.”

...

Jason wakes up. This is both a good and a bad thing.

~~~

Jason’s dreams are discordant things.

Chaotic.

He dreams of flashes of light and sounds that come and go.

There’s no peace to be found here.

No silence, no darkness.

No peace. At least there’s no pain. When he wakes, he’s not sure that he’s woken at all.

He can hear beeping, but he’s fairly sure that he heard that earlier. And voices, speaking softly. No, there are other voices, talking loudly, but distant. Not close.

Antiseptic. He’s smelling… antiseptic. The strong stuff, the kind only hospitals use, to cover over the otherwise pervading smell of illness and vomit and death.

It’s so strong he’d swear he can taste it.

Shut up, Jason, you’re getting maudlin. Open your eyes if you want to know where you are.

The family is now officially a victim of crime. So, instead of swooping in and saving people and then immediately leaving, they have to face the aftermath of what happened. Which is… different. No one likes Different.

~~~~~~

Of course, the first thing they do on leaving the hospital is not, actually, go home.

Because that would involve going to the colonial in Gotham Heights, and apparently even though they’ve been declared innocent, the GCPD hasn’t released the house back to them.

It also doesn’t escape Jason’s notice that for all his family looked cheerful in the hospital, in the grim lighting of Gotham’s streets and the even more worn lighting of the family room of the motel they land in, well, his family looks… worn. Stiff. Tired.

Hurting.

He’d be lying if he didn’t say that Dick looks to be carrying the worst of it, his hair matted with blood and deep bags developing under his eyes. (Head injury. Jason’s been in the game long enough to know the signs.) But he also doesn’t really like the way some of the other kids are carrying themselves. Like the way Damian is even stiffer than normal. Particularly in the torso, like the last five years or so of emotional development never happened. (Yeah. The kid has either broken or bruised his ribs and is doing his best to hide it, or he'll chew his hat.)

Which is not to say that the others aren't feeling it too.

(And also, when did he become familiar enough with these people that he could tell when they’re hiding things? He's grown soft.)

Clark, Diana, and J’onn – Superman, Wonder Woman, and Martian Manhunter – call Batman to the JLA for his Tribunal. It… goes about as well as they expect.

~~~

For the record, actually holding the Tribunal takes some scheduling, since this involves one of the main Founders of the JLA. And they always seem to be busy with something or other.

And it hasn’t escaped Clark’s notice that Batman has been basically operating as if everything is normal. Like nothing has changed when everything has. He’s holding down shifts on monitor duty; taking part on missions; spending time in his city; you know, doing the usual Batman things.

The only difference between now and Batman’s usual habits is that he’s just a little bit gruffer on comms. But given Bats' usual taciturn nature, well, that’s a bit of a moot point.

They’ve discussed getting Batman up to the Watchtower through various means, from deceitful to subtle, but in the end, they settle for something much more direct. They send him an encrypted text through JLA channels.

Chapters: 14/? Fandom: Batman - All Media Types, Batman (Comics), Nightwing (Comics) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Stephanie Brown & Cassandra Cain & Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Alfred Pennyworth & Duke Thomas & Jason Todd & Damian Wayne, Batfamily Members & Dick Grayson, Dick Grayson & The Titans Characters: Dick Grayson, Alfred Pennyworth, Jason Todd, Stephanie Brown, Cassandra Cain, Damian Wayne, Tim Drake, Harley Quinn, Batfamily Members, The Titans - Character, Justice League - Character, Gothamites, Original Characters Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Whump, Emotional Whump, Angst, Angst with feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, YMMV but the comfort WILL be there, Unreliable Narrator, Trauma, healing process, (bc healing is a journey and sometimes we have to take a step back before we can go forward), (and sometimes we hit rock bottom BEFORE we can go up), PTSD, Suicidal Ideation Mention, Therapy, Permanent Injury, Injury Recovery, injury aftermath, Past Eye Trauma, Implied/References to Past Abuse, Found Family, (sometimes found family is the people we find along the way… the people who CHOOSE to take us in), Consent Issues, (in that people learn what consent means. and hop aboard the consent train), Which leads to, the joker dies, (that is very much a thing that happens in this fic), Canon Typical Violence, Hurt Dick Grayson, Dick Grayson Needs a Hug, Dick Grayson Gets a Hug, Hurt Jason Todd, All The Kids Need Hugs, All The Kids Get Hugs, The batkids are siblings and I will die on this hill, sibling shenanigans, Awesome Alfred, Bruce Wayne is not present but he does haunt the narrative, (all these are not tangentially related tags btw), do not copy to another site, in this house we stand against AI, Batfam Big Bang 2025, Batfam Big Bang, Past Rape/Non-con, (Dick has flashbacks to Mirage/Tarantula) Series: Part 8 of Stones In Glasshouses Chapter Summary: The family finally watches the contents of a few certain thumbdrives, that hold certain stolen files. Or that is, they try to, because they wouldn't be them if they didn't keep getting interrupted.

~~~~

Duke is the first to admit that he’s nervous, sitting on the couch in the living room and waiting for everyone to arrive. They’re going to watch the files Tim has gathered for them – or rather, that Tim has grabbed from Batman.

He’s not sure why he’d be nervous, because it’s not like he’s got much to hide. Or, well, to hear Tim mutter about things, it’s not like he’s died. And that’s what most of the files are about, right? That Batman has chosen to hoard footage of their deaths, and isn’t that just… weird.

Yeah, that’s one word for it.

Ghoulish. That’s another.

It makes him uncomfortable, honestly. Duke can’t… he’s not sure he can explain why he doesn’t like it, even now, even after leaving the Cave over it. (Just like he’s not really sure where he stood with Bruce. With Batman. Apart from being the day shift… and maybe even the token meta and black kid, to tick the diversity boxes.)

But he does know where he stands with Alfred, with this… group of people that he’s coming to call his family. Well, adopted family, considering that his actual family is still alive. (Sorta.) He knows that Alfred would happily claim him as his grandson… and he’s starting to realize that it’s mutual, that he’d claim Alfred back. Even if that means claiming everyone else as his brothers and sisters, who seem equally as intent on claiming him as family even though he’s had very little interaction with them before all this.

Not gonna lie, having Alfred kill to keep them safe went a long way to, well, killing his doubts. Pardon the pun.

Duke feels safe here. He knows they’ve got his back, and the least he could do was have their back in return, right?