TMNT-Queen

He’s just resting his eyes. That’s all. The living room is warm and quiet, the fireplace humming softly. His book is still open on his chest, and the throw blanket Alfred left on the armrest somehow ended up over his legs.

He wakes up to weight. Small, shifting, warm weight.

Cass is curled up on one side of him, knees tucked into his hip like a cat. Tim has claimed the other end of the couch, feet in Bruce’s lap, earbuds in, head tipped back and mouth slightly open in the kind of deep sleep only caffeine withdrawal can produce.

Jason’s on the floor, back against the couch, sharing popcorn with Duke as they watch some loud, low-quality horror movie. Stephanie is lying facedown on the rug with a bowl of grapes beside her. She’s not eating them, just throwing them at Damian every few minutes. He catches each one without looking up from his book.

Dick walks in with bags from that bakery Bruce likes but never goes to himself, and says, “Hey, Dad.”

Bruce should say something. Tell them to go home. Or at least use coasters.

But he doesn’t.

Instead, he shifts slightly, careful not to wake Cass or dislodge Tim’s legs, and lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

This isn’t what he thought family would look like.

It’s louder. Messier. Theres's music playing from three different speakers. Someone else smells like gun powder and cinnamon. There’s glitter on the coffee table. There’s a dent in the ceiling no one will admit to causing.

But no one’s yelling. No one’s walking away.

They’re here.

They’re staying.

And Bruce… he’s starting to believe that maybe he doesn’t have to earn this over and over again. Maybe they love him just as he is, not as he was trying to be. Maybe he doesn’t need to be perfect for them to choose him.

There’s a pause in the movie. Jason asks, "You good?”

Bruce looks around at them—all of them, here, safe, alive—and nods.

“Yeah,” he says. “I’m good.”

their reasoning being that "we couldn't ban it even if we wanted to, every writer already uses it anyway"

"Every writer"?

Mikey: An emotional minefield.

Donnie: A neurochemical reaction.

damian covers to the press afterwards that its because of red hoods 'i dont hurt kids' rule and that he'd met the guy a few times in crime alley before he was dumped on bruce's doorstep. gotham's citizens are slightly concerned but honestly? the scary stabby child that's been glaring at them from the corners of parties since he got here with absolutely no backstory or history in gotham turning out to have a past with crime alleys most infamous protector/crime boss? it's a little comforting.

it's less comforting to the bats.

damian, getting out the car after the gala: I don't know what hood was thinking, making me his public ally. he's lucky the simpletons of this city bought that, don't you agree father?

damian: *turns to see the rest of the family staring at him with hard eyes*

damian:

damian: ...what did i do?

everybody's less than pleased that damian withheld the info that red hood is trained and from the LOA, but damian simply maintains that they never asked. when further questioned about why his relationship with hood was so familial and about what his identity is... they get

damian: hood was perhaps my favourite tutor back home, the only one i didn't kill. he taught me many things, from how to poison somebody to famous quotes and sayings from classic literature.

bruce: what. is. his. name.

damian: you know what one of those sayings was? 'snitches get stitches'

dick: *slams his face into the wall*

tim: well you did want him to be more childlike.

they eventually have to move past it because damian won't budge, unfortunately jason is finding this whole scenario fucking hysterical because holy shit he'd thought about coming back and pissing off his family through their secret personas but he hadn't even considered the beauty of coming back and pissing them off through their public personas.

and from then on the entire batfamily has to deal with pretending to be nervous or wary every time the red hood comes and crashes their very real wayne public events. it's fucking incredible. jason can't believe that he was gonna try and beat the shit out of tim to freak out bruce when all he had to do was grab a glass of champagne, walk up to the dude, and ask politely how stocks at WE are doing. 'brucie wayne' has no fucking clue what to do, and jason just poured the champagne against his helmet and let it all fall to the ground and everybody's too scared to say anything.

nobody else bats an eye when red hood becomes an occasional presence at these fancy events, apart from the people who know for a fact they could be on his shitlist. mostly because this is gotham, but also because they know he's a crime lord so like... riches and business running wise he kinda fits the bill for these things anyway? and if the stoic kid of brucie wayne eases up around him then the whole 'i dont hurt kids' thing must ring true so it's not like he'll cause too much trouble. also the guards are too scared to tell him he's not allowed in, so there's that.

the bats hate everything about this. they don't even know what red hoods game is, they have no idea why they're being tortured and they're getting paranoid about it. damian's absolutely no help because he's just happy to 1. get to see his brother on a regular basis again, and 2. get to see his brother find a less self-destructive outlet for the pit rage he's watched jason struggle with for years.

it's also just really fun to watch tim accidentally fall asleep against a wall mid-gala, wake up to red hood's helmet 2 inches from his face, and then almost break his own hand trying to punch it because he forgot that he wasn't in-mask and had to hold back last second.

dick is mostly just indignant because every time red hood shows up and hangs around near damian, damian immediately becomes a picture perfect public persona, interacting with the elites of gotham with the same expertise of tim or bruce. he's so mad that a crime lord can wrangle HIS little brother in public but he can't, that he completely disregards the whole crime lord thing and starts bugging red hood both in and out of mask about how to be a better older brother to damian. at one point he corners red hood on a rooftop mid patrol.

nightwing: ok, seriously, when I asked damian not to be rude to the new investors he told a woman her coat looked like it would hold up in a fight against two-face, but when YOU ask he becomes a model citizen, what is UP with that?

red hood, being an asshole: *gasp* y-you're.... YOU'RE RICHARD GRAYSON?

nightwing:

nightwing: ....oh my god you didn't know?

red hood: no i fucking knew you're just an idiot. and damian listens to me because I'm the only tutor he could never kill and he knows i'll beat his ass with my magic swords.

nightwing:

red hood: and also im the only one at the league who played Just Dance with him so i get special privileges, like telling him what to do.

dick asks damian to play Just Dance with him that night and damian just looks at him all forlorn, like 'it wouldn't be the same without the exhilarating thrill of knowing if anybody catches us hood will be stabbed and thrown in the lazarus pit again as punishment for corrupting me... it was really an unfair punishment considering he replaced grandfather's bed with a plastic pool covered by a sheet once, and the only punishment he got for that was being banned from the family dinners for two weeks'

dick stares at him. damian just adds 'he used to sit outside the window like a dog. watching and occasionally yelling about the injustice. mother gave him a plate of roast potatoes through the window once. grandfather disapproved.'

Tim, seeing ‘Jason Peter Todd’ as one of the names on the list:

Tim: *narrows eyes*

Lucius, spotting the name: ….oh. what do you want to-

Tim: give him the promotion.

Lucius: ….give the promotion to the person using Bruce’s dead son’s name?

Tim: if he gets the promotion he’ll have to attend the monthly board meetings. i want to watch whoever this is try and get away with that. we’ll tear him apart.

Tim thinks he’s being real funny up until Jason fucking Todd walks into the boardroom two weeks later and maintains direct eye contact just daring him to freak out in front of everyone. i like to think that Bruce is also at this meeting, but he fell asleep five minutes ago so he doesn’t even notice, and Tim spends the next hour glaring daggers into the passed out man’s head for daring to leave him alone in this situation.

the thing is, Bruce probably slacks off so much at WE that even if Jason was like. in the highest position he could possible achieve in his department. he probably wouldn’t notice. Jason and Tim come to an understanding filled with spite that leads Tim to keep quiet about Jason’s revival specifically because Bruce keeps palming his work off on Tim and he wants to get him back.

eventually the family find out who Red Hood is and Tim doesn’t act surprised in the slightest. betrayed, Bruce asks why Tim would keep that kind of information from him only to immediately get shouted down with ‘-WELL MAYBE IF YOU ACTUALLY SHOWED UP TO THE FUCKING STOCK MEETINGS YOU WOULD KNOW-‘

after like twenty seconds of shocked silence at the outburst Jason turns to clap Bruce on the shoulder, ‘oh right. also i run your marketing department. see you in a couple days for the quarterly report.’

(i think its also funnier if Damian was somewhat aware of the situation due to doing some kind of volunteer/internship thing at WE for school, and like two months after Tim found out, Damian was in his office with him when Jason waltzed in to hand in some papers and both Tim and Damian froze. Tim because he didn’t think Damian knew Jason and was afraid he’d snitch, and Damian because what the fuck is Todd doing in front of a family member without the helmet?!

Jason, after like a minute: Dami, i can explain

Damian, really doesn’t want to get dragged into whatever bullshit Jason’s doing, because he had enough of that in the league and doesn’t want to be held responsible by both Bruce and Talia when this inevitably blows up in their faces: you know what Todd? i actually don’t want you to.

Jason:

Jason: thats honestly fair

Tim, confused: …am i missing something here?

Damian: what about Todd?

Bruce: what about Jason?

Jason, over Bruce’s shoulder: *violently gesturing for Damian to shut the fuck up*

Tim: him coming back to life doesn’t count as being a meta, it doesn’t affect his abilities.

Damian, visibly second guessing himself while eyeing Jason’s face of promised murder: I was referring to the magic swords but… i sense i should not have…

Bruce:

Tim:

Jason:

Dick:

Bruce: his what now?

Jason, to Damian: see this is why Talia SENT YOU AWAY.