#oracle!tim

“Mr. Wayne,” Steph says, because fuck it, if Tim’s only going to mess up his hair and barely slap some concealer over the dark circles under his eyes, she isn’t gonna maintain his identity for him. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Tim shakes her hand, looks her dead in the eye, never glancing at her guards or flinching at his name. A proper little businessman, in a ratty band t-shirt and a pair of old jeans. “I need a favor.”

“You? Need a favor from me?”

“Yes.”

“The great Timothy Wayne?”

“I didn’t come here to play games.” Tim glares. “Yes, I need your help. Yes, it has to be you. Yes, I am out of other options. No, I am not above groveling—”

“Really?”

“Steph.”

“Don’t,” she growls back, “try to play this like we’re friends, Tim.”

Tim crosses his arms and scowls off to the side. “…Fine. We’ll keep it professional.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. I wouldn’t be opposed to seeing you on your knees.” Tim’s eye twitches as Steph takes a sip of her drink. “What brings you to my humble abode?”

“I told you, need a favor,” Tim repeats.

“Well, that could be anything,” Steph says, rolling her eyes behind her mask.

“My little brother’s missing.”

Steph’s drink goes down the wrong way. She forces herself to swallow her cough. Steph clears her throat to mask it, and sets her drink back on the table.

Tim continues like he didn’t notice. “The police can’t find him. The Bats can’t find him. I have been leveraging every advantage I’ve got, but nobody has seen him in over a week—”

Ice slips down Steph’s spine as she remembers the invitation she’d thrown out right around a week ago.

“—but you have contacts they don’t.” Tim takes a deep breath. “I know you hate us, I know you…” His eyes flicker towards her guards. “…You’ve made your opinions very clear—”

“I should certainly hope so,” Steph mutters.

“—but whatever you think of me, or Bruce, or Cass, Duke, Damian, anybody, Jason’s innocent. He’s suffered enough.” Tim has a warning in his eyes: You’ve hurt him enough. Like she’d actually tried to kill the kid or something (if Steph wanted Jason dead, he’d be dead; honestly, she didn’t even leave any permanent damage. Her lesson was no harsher than anything any of them got on a bad patrol, she was just more open about the point she was making.) “He’s just a kid.”

“And yet, you keep letting him out into this city.”

Anger flashes across Tim’s face, but he visibly chokes it down. “I’m not having this conversation with you. This has nothing to do with Jason’s hobbies or field trips, or whether or not you approve of them. This is about a 15yr old kid, missing in Gotham City, following the biggest Arkham breakout in the last 10yrs. Are you going to help or not?”

Steph sighs, propping one elbow on the table and leaning on her fist. “What have you got for me?”

“Jason snuck out for a party nine days ago—the night of the breakout.” (Translation: Jason was in uniform, probably on patrol.) “We have a system where even if he doesn’t want Bruce to know what he’s doing, Jason still calls me to check in every 2hrs. He checked in a little before 2, because he said he was about to be ‘really busy’ and didn’t want me to worry. I told him to go home. He told me he’d be fine, that he wasn’t anywhere near the mayhem.” Tim’s expression is flat, dead. “He didn’t check in again. Nobody’s seen or heard from him since. There have been no ransom demands. Last sighting was outside of Genevieve’s in Burnley.”

The invitation arrived six days ago exactly.

Steph needs to go. Steph needs—Steph needs to find that letter, she can’t remember if it had an address or a time, she can’t—

“I’ll pay whatever you want,” Tim tells her, seemingly unaware of how Steph’s breath is caught in her lungs (remembering what it was like to be 16, tiny, and at the whims of a madman. Eight full days. Did Steph suffer that long? She doesn’t think so, but the time all blurs together under the pain…) “Money is obviously no object. Weapons? Name them. Tech? I’ll build it for you myself. I can wipe your record clean. I can keep the Bats off your back. I can—” Tim swallows. “My balance isn’t the best anymore, but if you want me on my knees, I can beg. If you need me to demonstrate my gratefulness or if you need someone to hurt, I—”

“Oh my god, STOP!” The table wobbles as Steph jumps to her feet, nearly spilling her ginger ale—but then, she doesn’t really want it anymore. Her stomach is one giant knot, and she’s really regretting those onion rings she had earlier.

“Please,” Tim says, soft and far more earnest than Steph can deal with right now. “He’s my little brother. I… it’s my fault he thought he could go out like this. If there’s anything you can do…”

Steph needs to get to her office. She needs to find that note, and if she can’t find it, she needs to find Joker’s delivery boy so she can beat the answer out of him. She steps away from the table. “I’ll get back to you.”

Tim grabs Steph’s wrist as she passes by. “Please—”

“I said, I’ll get back to you,” Steph snaps, yanking her arm out of his grip. She looks away from Tim’s wounded expression. “I can’t do anything if you’re dragging me down.”

Tim’s shoulders sag with relief. “Thank you.”

“…You owe me. Whether I find him or not.”

“Thank you.”

Steph walks away. She doesn’t look back.

(She shoots Joker in the throat, grabs the nearest heavy object—curved & metal, but much else doesn’t register—and beats the clown’s head in while screaming insults in League dialect. She strips down to her suit’s under layer to keep Joker’s blood away from Jason, tossing her gloves away without caring about fingerprints, and kneels down in front of Jason, making herself as small as possible. She undoes the bonds, checking his injuries, and when Jason collapses into Steph’s arms, she holds on. Steph cradles Jason in her arms, helps him rehydrate from her water bottle, and apologizes in every language she knows for not being there for him sooner.)

(Without the mask or the armor, with Steph’s hair pulling wild & sweaty out of its braid, she doesn’t look nearly so much like the villain who hurt him before. Jason wonders if he’s dead or dreaming, to finally have the hero he looked up to for so much of his childhood decide he’s worth saving after all.)

Batman: Zero Year

Joker debuts. (Duke’s parents caught in one of the attacks)

Duke starts patrolling/searching for his parents.

After running into Duke several times, Bruce makes Duke his crime-fighting partner to both train & keep an eye on him. Duke chooses the name “Moonbeam.”

Yara Flor becomes Wonder Girl. Bruce & Diana encourage their proteges to become friends, so that they have someone their own age who understands their vigilante problems to talk to.

Connor Hawke reunites with his father, and becomes Marksman (Green Arrow’s first sidekick.) Connor is also encouraged to join this friend group.

(Clark occasionally asks the teens to babysit his son Jon, when the adults are busy.)

Damian shows up in Gotham, making a huge splash & overturning the Batfam status quo. After killing a few criminals, Damian is forbidden from patrolling until he proves himself trustworthy.

(Damian does not join the group, but the others know about him because Duke complains. Damian does become friends with Jon after a little while.)

A ship crashes while the JL is busy. The teens go to investigate it, finding a single survivor who turns out to have speedster powers & complete amnesia. They use the Batcomputer to trace the ship, trying to help their new friend.

Damian sneaks onboard the shuttle the teens “borrow” to follow their trace, still trying to prove himself.

This team finds an illegal alien market and breaks it up, rescuing Pam in the process.

Upon return to Earth, the JL commends the kids for their work. A new team is formed with Yara as their leader, and named the “Teen Titans.” The lineup is:

Wonder Girl (Yara Flor)

Moonbeam (Duke Thomas)

Marksman (Connor Hawke)

Kid Flash (Bartholomew “Tolly” Taurus)

Menagerie (Pamela “Pam” Merlo)

Damian does not get to be part of the team, deemed too young, but he has proven himself enough to officially join Batman & Moonbeam on the streets. He goes by “Shadow.”

Arthur Curry asks if his protege, Kaldur'ahm, can join the Titans. Aqualad is added to the lineup.

Pam’s sister, Sonja, tries to get in contact. Whole arc occurs of Pam struggling with her own transformation and the two of them reuniting.

Chimera (Ra'ut L'lwer) joins the Titans.

Yara’s arc where she’s manipulated by Eros & Hera happens here.

Jon becomes Superboy, and joins the Titans.

Damian joins the Titans.

Tolly’s past comes to light, throwing his relationships with everyone in the community into chaos. The team barely manages to pull themselves together in time to mount a defense and keep him from being punished for the crimes of a life that was not his. 

Tolly still feels the need to pull away from the Titans a little out of guilt over what he’s done (especially to Pam.)

Barry Allen dies, and Tolly becomes the Flash.

Yara is at this point over 20, and feeling out of place at the head of the team. She starts to pull back a bit, trying to figure out where her life is going next.

Cassandra Cain is adopted by Bruce Wayne. Duke is the only one who can train against her, as his precognition lets him just about keep up with her body-reading abilities. They bond, and he introduces her to the team.

Spoiler debuts in Gotham. Batman tells her to go home.

Damian decides to make Spoiler his apprentice.

Anima (Courtney Mason) joins the Titans.

Yara announces she’s officially stepping down as leader of the Titans. Duke steps up, announcing his own change of name to “The Signal,” and officially passing his mantle to his little sister, Cassandra.

Anima & Chimera manage to figure out how to free Pamela from her swarm. Duke’s first official mission as team leader is facilitating this.

Pam leaves the Titans for a normal life with her sister. Many tears are shed.

[I’m just double-checking my current lineup.]

The Signal (Duke Thomas)

Marksman (Connor Hawke)

Aqualad (Jackson Hyde/Kaldur’ahm)

Chimera (Ra'ut L'lwer) 

Superboy (Jonathan Kent/Jon-El)

Shadow (Damian Wayne)

Moonbeam (Cassandra Wayne)

Anima (Courtney Mason)

Steph’s mom goes to rehab. Bruce fosters Steph in the meantime, and this is how she discovers their identities.

Damage (Grant Emerson) joins the Titans as community service, after his powers manifest by going completely haywire.

(Yara decides going by “Wonder Girl” is undermining her attempts to be an independent adult hero. She changes her name to “Diadem.”)

Damian introduces Steph to the team. Spoiler becomes a Titan.

Chimera announces she’s going independent and leaves the team.

Just like in canon, Grant’s trauma catches up with him and he has to step down from hero work. Connor takes Grant under his wing formally and they both leave the team.

Emiko Queen takes Connor’s place on the team, going by the name “Red Arrow.”

Duke is too overwhelmed by being Gotham’s only daytime hero and running the team, as well as feeling guilty for not giving Grant more support. He goes independent, leaving the team.

Jon & Damian step up as co-leaders of the Titans.

Roundhouse (William Wu) & Blue Beetle (Jaime Reyes) join the Titans.

Anima is stranded in another dimension on a mission with the team, in a dramatic act of self-sacrifice to ensure everyone else can make it home. Everyone is very upset, but they comfort themselves knowing she’s still out there being a hero, just... somewhere else.

After a lot of introspection, Aqualad decides to dedicate himself full-time to his studies & duties in Atlantis, and steps down from the team.

[Double-checking the lineup]

Superboy (Jonathan Kent)

Shadow (Damian Wayne)

Moonbeam (Cassandra Wayne)

Spoiler (Stephanie Brown)

Red Arrow (Emiko Queen)

Roundhouse (William Wu)

Blue Beetle (Jamie Reyes)

Damian & Jon decide to go independant together, becoming Bluhaven’s new superheroes as Nightwing & Flamebird. Damian formally passes his mantle to Steph in private before they announce the change to the team.

Steph & Cass take over as co-leaders.

Steph meets Tim at school, and they become fast friends. After a couple months of being study buddies, they start dating.

Jon introduces his adoptive younger siblings, the Super-Twins, to the team.

Vaporlock (Natasha Irons) joins the team.

Atom (Ray Palmer) is de-aged. He temporarily joins the team until he can recover his memories.

Argent (Antonia Monetti), Static (Virgil Hawkins), & Power Girl (Tanya Spears) join the team.

Atom goes back to normal and leaves.

Cass takes on Tim as her apprentice after catching him following the Bats around Gotham. Steph is a bit thrown by this discovery, but training together only stengthens her & Tim’s relationship.

Until Cass decides Tim’s ready to follow them on patrol (if not fight anyone yet,) and gives Tim the Spoiler mantle without asking, assuming it’s just a placeholder name and not realizing it has any special meaning to Steph.

(This is the beginning of the end, though they don’t realize it yet.)

Steph feels betrayed by the theft of her old identity and it compounds with her initial uneasiness over Tim befriending/dating her without telling her he knew their identities. She tries to put it aside for the good of the city, but can’t.

The sudden rockiness between Steph & Cass bleeds over into the Titans. When the team meets Tim, it becomes clear something about his apprenticeship with Cass is what has lead to the rift, though none of the Bats will clarify.

Emiko introduces her own apprentice, Mia Dearden, the second Marksman.

Steph & Tim have a really nasty breakup.

Steph has the same death she suffered in War Games.

The entire Batfamily are left reeling.

Tim gets fired.

Cass struggles to go on as both Moonbeam & the leader of the Titans, when she’s supposed to be part of a matched set. She ends up quitting both, and the team completely falls apart.

Cass puts together a new costume, made originally from old Batman suits, and gains the street name “Black Bat.” (She didn’t choose it, it was given to her; Batman has the yellow belt & circle, where Cass’s suit has neither. So which Bat is attacking? “The black bat.”)

Tim gives the family until after Steph’s funeral before dropping by (to argue his case, but if that doesn’t work, to pick up his stuff.) He sees Steph’s memorial, and is furious that Bruce would reduce Steph’s legacy to that.

After weeks of arguing, Tim throws on his own version of the Shadow costume (back to Damian’s original black, but the cloak is lined with Steph’s signature purple) and eventually forces his way into the role, refusing to let Steph’s dream die with her.

Damian is incensed by the whole mess that’s happening with Tim. That’s his mantle Tim is taking, and Damian’s still wracked with guilt that Steph died, blaming himself for not training her thoroughly enough. Damian demands that before Tim ever goes out as Shadow, Tim has to go to Bludhaven every weekend to train with Damian. 

The training is absolutely brutal, but Tim refuses to give up. Eventually, Duke finds out about it and goes to ream Damian out for taking things so far (and Jon, for not having already given Damian this same lecture.) Duke essentially tells Damian that Damian’s no better than the people who originally hurt Damian and storms out.

Duke tells Tim he doesn’t have to go back the next weekend. Tim shows up anyway. Damian stares blankly for a few seconds, then takes a very confused Tim out for ice cream.

(Damian spends years trying to be better, to make up for what he’s done, but he never manages to get over that double-dose of guilt. He veers hard in the other direction, being incredibly supportive whenever they’re around eachother, but also avoids Tim whenever Damian can justify it to himself, because it just... eats at Damian.)

Tim also pulls the Titans back together. Or, more accurately, he pulls Vaporlock, Marksman, and Blue Beetle back together, before he ends up recruiting... well, basically the Young Justice lineup to be his new team.

Tim’s parents die. Tim tries the whole fake uncle thing, but Damian rats him out.

(Somewhere in there, Tim ends up on Ra’s al Ghul’s radar.)

Jason tries to steal the Batmobile’s tires.

Jason manages to convince the family to let him help. They offer him Moonbeam, but Jason doesn’t want to be Moonbeam. First of all, Jason can’t do any of that weird precog stuff Duke & Cass have going on; second, Jason’s personal hero was always the Shadow with the Crime Alley accent.

Tim gives Jason Spoiler instead (Tim himself thinking Spoiler is a training-wheel mantle, but more importantly, it was Steph’s.)

During a public event, Tim is shot by an assassin who took a contract from Ra’s. Laying in the hospital, Tim all but begs Bruce to go out on patrol and Jason to put on the Shadow costume, not wanting Tim’s injury to be the reason their identities got outed.

Tim’s spine was clipped by the bullet. While he’s not completely paralyzed, he’ll never be able to walk unassisted again, and even with mobility aids, Tim suffers from chronic pain thanks to the nerve damage.

(Tim finds a get well card from Ra’s, inviting Tim for a dip in the Lazarus pit whenever Tim’s ready to admit he “needs” it. Tim borrows Jason’s lighter and burns the note. Only Tim & Jason ever know about it.)

Tim becomes Oracle.

When Jason joins the Titans, it’s assumed he’ll be their new leader, as Shadow and/or Moonbeam have always been one of the leaders of the Titans. He also suffers a lot from the comparison to his predecessors, and with how people perceive the speed at which he took up Tim’s mantle.

Jason does win that place and prove himself as a leader, but it is a rough ride to get there.

[Jason’s Titans lineup]

Inherited from Tim:

Wonder Girl (Cassandra Sandsmark)

Impulse (Bart Allen)

Miss Martian (M’gann M’orzz)

Joined while Jason was Spoiler:

Red Devil (Edward Bloomberg)

Ravager (Rose Wilson)

DC (Daniel Chase)

(Yes, Danny thinks hero names are stupid and only ever used one to fake his own death. But, frankly, Danny used his real name as his spy code name, which makes him mocking everyone else for having hero names just… so goddam insufferable. I’m cutting the middle ground here; it’s not a full-on alias, but it’s not just shouting his real name in a high-stakes/arguably undercover situation.)

Joined under Jason’s leadership:

Beast Boy (Garfield Logan)

Raven (Rachel Roth)

Cyborg (Victor Stone)

Halo (Gabrielle Doe)

Risk (Cody Driscoll)

Redwing (Carrie Levine)

Prester (Jonathan Levine)

(I found a pair of twins I both know & like better than Jade & Obsidian. Seriously, John & Carrie are the best part of the entire Team Titans fiasco, and given we do see some overlap between the timelines, I’ve no idea why they got wiped from reality but fucking Mirage didn’t.)

Steph comes back to life. 

Cue the Lost Days/Red Hood arcs.

Steph does try to scare Jason out of being a hero with the fight at the Tower. She shows up in her Death Mask costume and frames it as a fair duel--“More fair than any other rogue will give you.”--to prove that non-powered (non-ninja) kids like them can only meet a nasty end. The fight doesn’t stay “fair” long, as Steph fights dirty to make her point, and throws both her own history & Jason’s insecurities into his face. Jason adapts, but doesn’t win, eventually left reeling by the reveal of Steph’s identity.

The fight is interrupted by Eddie, who gets back early from an off-planet mission and therefore was not factored into Steph’s contingencies for the other Titans. Steph escapes by first holding Jason in front of her with a knife to his throat, then driving the knife into his thigh, forcing Eddie to choose between going after her and keeping Jason from bleeding out.

Red Devil stays behind to cauterize the wound, and Death Mask gets away.

.

After that, the chronology gets a lot more muddled.

Steph reunites with the family after saving Jason from the Joker.

Bruce takes in Dick after Dick’s parents die, but it’s a very rough transition. Then Bruce dies, leading to the family falling apart all over again, Jason getting the Red Robin (”Bluejay”) arc, Cass becoming Batman, and Dick becoming her Moonbeam.

When Bruce comes back, Bluejay joins the Signal as a daytime hero.

When Bruce can eventually no longer be Batman and Cass steps up again, she’ll offer Jason Black Bat if he wants it. He accepts, and everyone assumes Dick will be Bluejay when Dick graduates from being Moonbeam.