#reverse robin au

I love Joker Jr! And I am in love with the idea that in a Reverse Robin AU where the second Robin always dies, Tim — breaking through the brainwashing for just a second — turns the gun on himself to keep from killing Batman. And Bruce has to watch his son commit suicide in front of him to save Batman’s life.

And when Tim comes back (maybe Talia or Ra’s or Superboy Prime idk), he’s not mad at Bruce. If the pit exaggerates your strongest emotion: where Jason ran hot with rage, Tim runs cold with logic. Tim has always been more reserved and non-confrontational. So the Tim that comes back is cold and calculating and focused on revenge.

Tim understands why Batman can’t kill. Tim is an idealist. He believes in Batman and Robin and the symbols they represent. To kill for Tim would be irrational.

But he still wants his revenge, his vengeance. After all, Tim is already a killer, right? What’s a few more?

The plan started with taking out the Joker but grows to destroying all gas based villains (PTSD. He can’t feel safe with gas based villains running around. But he rationalizes it. Just because he’s “cold and rational” doesn’t mean he’s lost his emotions.)

Tim is smart. He never reveals himself.

He’s aware of the third Robin, Jason. Batman needs a Robin. That’s why, after Damien left to spread his wings, Tim bullied Bruce into mentoring him. The city needs Robin. So he’s glad there’s a new Robin. He loves all of the Robins. So he can’t let this one get hurt during his revenge. He needs to keep Robin safe and Batman and Damian distracted.

So he kidnaps Jason and keeps him in a massive underground bunker (a coffin) he built in the caves under Gotham, modeled after the mazes the LoA favor with moving walls and puzzles (because you have to keep little wings entertained and Tim will never have the chance to train Jason properly so he might as well while he has the chance). In the end, the only way out — the answer all the puzzles lead to — is there no way out so Jason has to dig his way out.

All the while, Tim has been manipulating Bruce and Damien into capturing all the gas based villains in Gotham and sticking them in Arkham via puzzles and clues Tim plants around the city. The villains include Joker, Poison Ivy, Scarecrow, Mr. freeze, etc. And when the rogues are all safely tucked away in the cells Tim has ensured they’d be places in, Tim blows Arkham off the map.

BOOM

Batman’s symbol is intact and Tim is avenged. Tim’s purpose on this earth is complete. He’s determined to slink back into his grave. There is no reason to keep sticking around. What’s one more death after all that carnage?

And it’s Jason — who discovered Tim’s identity during the weeks/months he was held captive — who chases after Tim with Damian’s help (Damian so guilt ridden and desperate to fix all the wrongs he got right with Jason.) They’re going to bring their wayward bird home whether or not Batman wants it.

Dick was raised by the circus but it was always meant to be a cover for training him to be a talon. He spent time with talons from a very young age. Maybe he is a talon or just has their mannerism. Either way when Bruce took him in, the batfam did not know what they were in for.

Dick has a habit of just appearing when he wants something.

He appears on top of the bookshelf in the library when he wants Jason to cuddle with him.

He climbs up Bruce when he wants to go outside. He perches on his shoulder like a bird.

He pops out of the vents when he wants to ask Alfred when dinner is going to be ready or when Tim is about to call him to come to watch a movie.

He stares the same way Cass does. Tilts his head like he is studying everyone in the room. Him and Cass sometime have silent conversations.

No one showed him the batcave. No one told him their night time identities. They just found him one day, climbing the cave walls like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Damian avoids him, or at least tries.

Dick keeps popping up. He locks vents, windows, doors and yet this pest keeps appearing. Damian goes to tell him off again but Dick appears with two practice swords and a wide smile.

“I suppose no one else in this house is going to teach you”.

When he officially becomes Robin, Gordon wants to complain. He heard from Hood that the newest bat was only 9. Then he heard the crackle. He sees him slip from the shadows. He sees the way his body bends. He can’t be human. He seems the marks left on the criminal brought in. He sees the shift to long sleeves in July, the padding everyone, even the police start wearing.

It isn’t enough. The joker comes in covers in bites straight through the padding. So many marks.

He is not human. That is the only conclusion Gordon can come to.

Since Damian is the only birth child, and in the normal universe, it becomes a thing where he has to learn that blood isn't everything and Dick means just as much to Bruce as he does, even though he's not his birth son

but now that he's the oldest- does he deal with adopted kids the way you might deal with pets? treat them as lesser than?

I think it starts because damian tries to think of some cool name when he becomes a vigilante, but eventually people start calling him batman's shadow. It sticks and suddenly the vigilante shadow is named.

Damian hates the name. He doesnt want to be his father's shadow, he wants to be his father's equal. And the name shadow always makes him feel so young and small next to his father who hes never had a really good relationship with, even at the start. So hes doing all he can to prove hes a good partner for his father and instead hes batman's shadow. It feels humiliating it feels discouraging. So when damian leaves on his redemption arc after Bruce continues to distrust and always suspect the worst of him, he leaves the name shadow behind.

Duke has the name shadow very, very briefly and hates it the entire time. He spends the entire time trying to remove the name shadow from himself and find his own identity, and he finds an easier time removing himself from it. He doesnt want to be shadow because he does not wish to be batman's shadow, batman's his distant mentor who occasionally helps him in stopping crime. Hes certainly not batman's shadow. And 2 he certainly doesnt want some kids name who batman cant even think of without scowling. Can't be the shadow of a kid who's family painting is covered up in the manor because Bruce cant stand to look at it. So he removes himself easily from the name.

Steph doesnt really ever get the title of shadow. Its offered to her, but like duke, shes uncomfortable with the idea and is instead the first batgirl.

Tim on the other hand. Oh boy. Tim idolized shadow as a kid. Theres this kid, who's skilled, strong, and powerful. Who obviously knows well enough about higher elite etiquette and instead chooses to ditch it to speak his mind and encourage people gruffly but kindly. Shadow saves tim during one of the gala's that get taken over and shadow, who was like 13 to tim's 9, cheered him up and encouraged him to keep going. Even if it was through some not so nice words. He idolized him even more when he found out that shadow was damian Wayne and that he knew Gotham elite etiquette but was brave enough to stop doing it and just be himself. Damian was what tim wished he could be as a kid in not having to deal with stuffy galas or backhanded compliments from people, or weird formal language. So when tim becomes batman's sidekick, he eagerly takes the name shadow. And doesnt get why damian hates him so much. Damian doesnt trust him to be strong enough to help, always encourages him to quit, and is barely ever around. Damian on the other hand is grappling with his father taking a child from the streets, not even the streets, loving but somewhat absent parents and to damian my mother tries to kill me and my father would rather die then show any emotion of love wayne, that seems terrible . Then his father gives his old mantle that he hated, barely gives him any actual training (to damian, training from birth, wayne). And goes and adopts the kid, so now they were siblings! So damian just feels immense pity, worry and residual anger at this kid. While tim thinks damian hates him and has a never meet your heroes moment. So he adores the name shadow, still has the childish glee at being shadow, but has immense feelings over being shadowed by damian who seems to hate him.

Jason becomes shadow while tim is missing. Tims been missing for a while and has been being expiremented on by the joker to become joker junior. But nobody knows that yet and everyone thinks tim is dead. So Jason is not only in batman's shadow, but a dead man's shadow. The favorite son's shadow. Because while damian is Bruce's first kid, he'll always have complicated feelings over who damian is and who he was raised to become by his mother. Tim was basically Bruce's do over kid. The one he could actually train and teach and the duo that became dynamic. Tim was more of Bruce's shadow than damian ever was. So every time Bruce sees Jason as shadow, he seems a bit sad and angry, so Jason feels terrible every time he has the stupid title. And then he feels even worse when tim gets rescued and realizes that Jason replaced him as shadow.

I think Cass would like the shadow title. I think she would have it after jason gave it up after being batgirl for a while. But at this point damian is back in the family even if his gruffness hasn't changed. But when Cass comes into the family, little assassin kid raised as a weapon to do whatever her family said, damian takes her under his wing. As does Bruce, But damian gets it. Damian gets how weird their family is as an assassin. Damian gets how to talk to her and ends up teaching her better at how to be a regular person. While Bruce teaches her how to be the best vigilante she could be. Aka damian and Bruce's coparenting arc, except damian is very much big brother instead. Cass and damian get along well so Cass sees shadow as more of a redemption than anything else. Because thats how damian got his redemption. So she enjoys the title and feels high pressure to live up to it.

As Robin, Jason has always teetered that edge of being pro-murder or not. Whether you believe he killed Felipe or not, even in his Post-Crisis introduction as Robin, he almost kills Two Face. Those concepts of lethal justice have always been brewing inside him, just reigned in by Bruce. So if you have Robin!Jason witnessing Red Hood!Tim start killing people and quickly making noticeable change in the landscape of gangs in Gotham, Jason would take quick notice. I think Tim as Red Hood would still be lethal, but there'd be a different application than Jason's Red Hood. Heads in duffle bags isn't Tim's style, even if he kills. I think you'd see something much more akin to that time Tim almost killed Boomerang, where it's such an elaborately thought out set up, it realistically doesn't even look like Tim killed anyone. It'd take months for Bruce to connect this string of deaths as anything other than coincidental, let alone link them to Red Hood. And Jason is wickedly smart, even as Robin. Jason, putting those pieces together before Bruce does and witnessing the undeniable positive change for Gotham it's enacting? Robin!Jason would be incredibly drawn in by that, and then even more-so, a Red Robin!Jason who has to grapple with being replaced to make room for the next Robin would I think, in anger, turn to Red Hood. And Tim would push him away at first, his plans don't have room for a scorned teenager who's trying to get back at Bruce and Nightwing!Damian like this- but I think Jason would wear him down. Prove to Tim that Jason can think on his wavelength.

Slightly related, what interests me about Red Hood!Tim is how it'd implicate his closeness to Ra's. Jason is taken into the League by Talia in Lost Days and Ra's doesn't necessarily approve of Jason's presence, especially not of Talia dunking him in the Pit, but Ra's has always canonically been A Little Weird about Tim. I think in a world Tim dies as the second Robin, it would be Ra's who dunks Tim to preserve his mind that Ra's thinks shouldn't be wasted, and you have the potential for 'apprentice of Ra's' Tim wrapped up in it all, even without him experience the Red Robin arc. So when it's Jason as Red Robin, instead of him going to Ra's when he's scorned by the Batfamily, he goes to Tim. The person he once idolized, because I think Tim would've been Jason's Robin. Smart, competent, a strong legacy to live up to. And now he's back, and he's pro-killing, an edge that Jason has always teetered on and would feel even closer to when he's replaced by a young Dick. I think Tim wouldn't ever be able to get rid of Jason.

Then on Tim's side, I think his reaction to being replaced after his death would be a complicated one. Objectively, being the Robin who believes Batman needs a Robin, he'd respect the logic and know Bruce was always going to replace him eventually. But still, there's always going to be that instinctual emotional reaction of betrayal and replacement. I think he'd view Jason at first with anger and distance, but then, seeing Jason as this street kid with begrudging potential, I could see Red Hood!Tim testing Jason. Constantly throwing things at Jason, seeing how he reacts, if he lives up to being Robin. Tim has a need for analyzing people, understanding their strengths and weaknesses. And he seems the Robin mantle very uniquely, he'd need to have it proven to him that Jason can handle it.