Been Rewatching Rtte

A Robin’s most important weapon is the ability to cry on command -

the second most important weapon is to sic dad on whatever villain made his precious child cry 😢

Kon... run

Gotta say I love me some timkon

This is how this would happen, Jason especially

Tim accidently referring to the Joker as Dad but those who know about Joker Jr aren’t present and so everyone is left with the ‘realisation’ that Tim is the son of the biggest nightmare to their family.

It’s probably Jason and Steph, her there to bother Tim but Jason went to the manor for food and the two naturally started arguing. Maybe Jason tells Tim to stop costing on his case and prove a point be made against blonde, but Tim just offhandedly goes, “Later, I think my dad broke out of Arkham again but the guards aren’t doing anything. Maybe they’re in on it…”

The two present naturally look at each other with confusion and for the first time stop bickering to peak over his shoulder and see what his case is because, holy shit Tim had a villain for a dad and didn’t tell us? Only to see numerous photos of the Joker in his cell and many reports over the last week of how he’s been behaving and Jason…

Steph pushes the man out of the room when she sees his face go from frozen fear to anger, thinking it’s towards Tim and his secrecy and, while she totally gets that, now isn’t the time.

Though when they get into the Jason starts a rant about how Bruce and Dick should have told him that the monster had a child, even if that child wasn’t Tim! Jason protects kids! Did they think he’d hurt him just because of who his father is?

No!

If anything, he’d become the kids full time body guard to stop that mad man from making Tim into another version of himself!

The two naturally go to tell the others, pulling Damian, Cass and Duke into a mostly unused room and telling them what they discovered, all while Tim stays in the library working on his case.

Cass is beyond worried but also confused because he doesn’t seem to have any physical characteristics of the Joker or Harley, but maybe the mother is different? Perhaps it’s still Janet and either she had a fling with the Joker or something far worse, which makes the young girl enraged on the woman’s behalf.

Damian makes a comment about him killing Tim, not in a serious manner but more as an option, but Duke shuts it down, saying that having a villain for a parent doesn’t mean anything about who you will be. He points out those in the family of that nature and other heroes like Superboy.

When asked why they didn’t get Dick or Babs involved, Jason says they defiantly know and lied about it.

It’s only after another three hours of working that Tim catches himself referring to the Joker as dad and shuts his laptop, making his way to Bruce’s room to hide under the older man’s bed like he usually does when that happens, only to overhear what his siblings are saying.

Tim presses his ear against the door to hear better.

“If that maniac had a kid, surely he’d have told everyone he had an heir or something.” That’s Steph’s voice, filled with worry that only he and Cass could detect as she hides it under a whiney tone.

Jason is next to respond, “maybe he doesn’t know? I mean, did Tim ever even interacted with him before he became Robin?”

It doesn’t take much more than that for Tim to realise that he must have been talking aloud again or absently answered someone earlier and misspoke in front of them.

Panic fills him as he avoids telling Bruce when he gets bad, even if it’s just a small thing, because the older man will start of being a concerned parent then go into Batman mode and only just stop himself from putting Tim in the confinement cell. Sure Tim came up with the idea of the cell so he wouldn’t hurt anyone if his conditioning got too bad, but he’s learnt the signs. He’s not a mindless drone, he still knows who he is and doesn’t hear someone talking to him or anything like that.

He just… sometimes forgets the Joker hurt him.

It’s not Tim’s fault that memories of watching TV with him and Harley, tucked between them with a big bowl of ice cream felt better than most memories of his real parents.

But he knows it’s wrong, always comes back to calling the Joker his enemy.

Bruce just doesn’t get that.

Tim hears them talk a bit more, theories about who his mother might be, if Tim is safe at the manor, if Joker knows he has a son…

Opening the door, Tim stands there and stares at them as all eyes snap to him in alarm.

He doesn’t let anybody speak, cutting them all off quickly, “He’s not my dad. Go the cave and search for file number 26557933301-JJ and put in the code AGELAST, all caps.”

With that he turns and leaves, walking at first before running to Bruce’s room to hide.

He goes to family dinner and pretends not to notice the quietness or how Jason is still there, eating his food quietly and waiting for the ball to drop.

Naturally, Damian is the one to say what he wants first, “So why is okay that Tim shot the joker but I got in trouble for stabbing Bane?”

Everyone groans.

dadwave

I really need more stuff on some Joker Junior angst, along with Jason finding out about Joker Junior. Even better if you wanna pull in the whole Red Hood (Joker/Jason) Attacking Robin (Jason/Tim), both times when Robin was 15 years old and was supposed to be with someone/somewhere safe.

Hmm... I agree that more content about that would be fabulous. I especially love JJ fanart (there's some really cool ones on TikTok).

Fuck it. Here we go:

TW: torture, Joker Junior, violence, blood, flashback, dissociation, derealization, hallucinating(?)

Tim hands fly to his throat in a desperate attempt to rub away the urge to giggle. He's biting his lips hard enough to bleed in order to prevent them from twisting into a panicked grin.

He's pinned to the floor by a man using one of Joker's alias.

Just like old times, eh?

A snicker slips out at that, which only seems to enrage the man in red.

"Something funny, Placeholder?" The voice modulator in the helmet does nothing to hide the clear disdain and wrath curling through Red Hood. His grip tightens over his holsters, but he doesn't pull them out quite yet. The crimson helmet just glares down at Robin.

Red, red, red. He'd look so much better in Green.

Fuck. Note to self, Tim. JJ likes Red Hood.

Robin locks his face down at this revelation to keep a calm facade. He could try to dislodge the knives holding him hostage, but not with the perpetrator towering over him like this. "Nope. My bad, Hood. Got a little distracted. Where were we?"

The crime lord takes a few steps forward until he's next to the trapped bird. Somehow, he makes even the action squatting appear menacing. "This is the part where I torture you. Where I cut off a little bird's wings so you'll never fly again. Maybe then, B will learn."

Robin watches as Hood draws another knife. The crime lord twirls the blade between his fingers and tilts his head. There's a considering glint evident in his body language.

In a sick mockery of comfort, Red Hood trails the knife down Robin's cheek. It's too close to Joker's signs of "affection" after a round of shock treatment.

Junior shudders.

The leather jacket starts to morph into a lavender lounge coat and Tim blinks rapidly to clear his vision.

A sigh of relief escapes his lips when he's able to see Red Hood again.

The crime lord pauses. He tilts his head once more. Tim can feel the gaze studying him, but he's not sure why. He can't tell if the man is genuinely curious or if he's inspecting Robin like a bug trapped in plexiglass.

When the knife leaves his skin, Tim feels his shoulders lose an inch of tension.

"Don't get too comfortable. I've got a few questions before I snap your legs."

Tim can feel a jolt of pain flash through his legs at the claim. He grimaces at the notion of months off field.

Hood leans back onto his heels, fortunately giving the younger teen some space. It doesn't seem intentional, but it's better.

"You've been Robin for two years now?"

When Tim initially refuses to acknowledge the question, Hood raises the knife. Robin sighs and gives a nod.

The man hums and brings the hilt of the knife to his chin. The weird thinking pose blares an alarm in Tim's brain, but he can't quite piece together where he's seen it before.

"About eight months ago, the clown disappeared."

Phantom feelings of electricity run through Tim's body. His muscles twitch under the memory.

Red Hood leans closer. "Where is he?"

Tim can hear -

"You know better than that, Junior. Where's the smile for your old man?"

A desperate giggle bubbles up Tim's throat.

"Come on, son. You wouldn't want to make your mother sad, would you?"

Joker leans over Tim Junior with a wicked grin. He grips a blade and gestures to Junior's lips. "Do you want your dear old Dad to teach you to smile? Again?"

Junior shakes his head frantically as trembling lips split open in a facsimile of a smile. The motion pulls at his stitches scars.

Scars?

That's not-

Junior's smile starts to fall.

Red Hood Joker crosses his arms. "What the fuck are you smiling at?"

Junior still has a smile on his face (it can't drop), but his eyebrows furrow. "Dad?"

Joker flinches back.

Amethyst cloth flickers to bronze leather and then back again. Forest green hair morphs into a cherry red helmet. Junior watches it peer behind its shoulder before Joker's face turns back to him.

"Batman isn't here."

A cackle erupts from Junior's lips and dissolves into a fit of giggles. Joker peers at Tim Junior in confused horror. The kid turns his head more towards the man. A smile stretches and pulls the corner of his lips, highlighting the faint scars.

Junior Tim hears the man take a startled breath in.

"Batsy isn't Dad. Dad-"

Tim frowns as his gaze drifts away from the man. "I killed Dad. He's dead."

He pouts exaggeratedly before Junior dissolves into a fit of giggles. "Bam!" Both of his hands point an imaginary gun Red Hood's Joker's way. "Bam! Bam!" The hands recoil back as if actually shooting the man.

Tears start to stream down Junior's Tim's face. He fights to bring his lips away from a grin.

"Fuck." He's still grining. "Fuck!"

Red Hood, the cause of all of this, is just staring at Tim. He's observing the teen try to bring himself back to sanity inch by stupid fucking inch.

Tim's eyes dart around the room. He takes a deep breath in and, on the exhale, list something he sees. "Chair. Blender. Staff. Kni-"

Several more deep breaths in and out as he ignores all the knives in the room. "Light. Jacket. Cape. Couch. Lemon. Counter."

His hands paw at his utility breath as he keeps breathing. He grasps one of the sour candies and works on opening the wrapper. He pops it into his mouth and continues the breath exercise.

Red Hood is silent as he watches Robin pull himself back into reality.

It takes several more minutes before Robin's breaths return to normal. He lays there looking at the ceiling absolutely drained and done with this whole situation.

Finally, Tim turns his gaze to the crime lord.

"Can you just kill me already or get the fuck out?"

Red Hood responds by pulling off his helmet.

Tim blinks. Sighs. Then starts up his grounding techniques again.

I have this headcanon that Duke is like… the only person who can shit talk Damian to his face and everyone else is flabbergasted bc like- its damian, but Duke lives with the guy and actually has no chill, so Damian allows it because… Duke’s like… his closest brother because they live together.. like-

Damian: *scowling around at people at a very important social event* Dick: *trying to get him to smile* Duke: *flatly, snaps his fingers twice in Damian’s direction* Fix your face Critter Dick: *ready to hold Damian back if he attacks* Damian: *bats Duke’s hand away, but smooths out his expression and almost looks… normal* ~ Duke and Jason: *having a discussion* Damian: *walks in* D+J: *laugh* Damian: What am I missing? Duke: *without missing a beat* a few inches of height Jason: *agog* Damian: *rolls eyes* ~ Robin: I need to get to the top of that wall Signal: You do? Damn. Thats a shame. *whistles* Damian: *scowling* Duke: Do you have something to ask, short stack? Dick: *ready to intervene on Duke’s behalf* Damian: *through gritted teeth*  Could you help me up the wall, Signal? Please. Duke: *smirks. Yeets him up* Dick: *gagged* Bruce: *used to it, sighs*

Jason, tapping his chin in thought: Right, so, Plasmius, super rich guy who wants to adopt you.

Danny: No, no, he also wants to fuck my mom. That's…EUGH DUDE. Like- that's my mom. No I don't care about how he wanted her since college that's still super gross.

Jason: How has he not moved on? Your mom has a whole kid.

Danny: A whole two kids. And a husband of over ten years.

Jason: Oh yikes. 

Danny, nodding emphatically: Big Yikes. And he has this whole one sided beef with my dad cause he has everything Plasmius has ever wanted and like honestly I dont give a fuck because in the timeline he does get with my mom - which Ew - he's a lying bastard and my ma isn't completely happy with him. 

Jason:...Other timeline?

Danny, waving his hand in a nonchalant manner: Vlad - who's Plasmius by the way - gave my friends fatal ecto-acne because he was having a ghostly acne flare up and basically said ‘find a cure or they'll die too’ and so I went back in time to figure some shit out and I kinda shifted things to the left and in the lab accident that gave Vlad ecto-acne it gave my dad ecto-acne instead of Vlad and then my dads life went to ruin but I fixed it by fixing the timeline so I mean everythings fine. Mostly.

Jason: what, and I cannot stress this enough, the fuck.

Batman, arresting Harley for the umpteenth time: You're going to prison, Quinn.

Harley: You know what I was thinking?

Batman: what.

Harley: That you don't send me to prison. *grins*

Batman:...

Batman: I have no idea what to say to that.

Harley: No, think about it! I could wear my sexy nurse outfit and you me and kitty could have some fun!

Batman: *sighs* As appealing as that prospect is,....

Harley: *low squeal*

Batman: No.

Harley: You need a therapist who can fuck you and tell you about your mommy issues at the same time

Batman: I don't think anyone ever in the history of humanity has needed that.

Harley: (begging) Come on, Bats. They drug me in there! It gets all...spooky sometimes. Not your kind of spooky, the bad kind.

Batman: *hesitating*

Harley: And they feed me pea soup! PEA SOUP!! *kicks a rock and starts crying*

Batman: Quinn, you should have thought of that before you ran away with Ivy and killed the CEO of FutureTech.

Harley, pleading: That was Ivy, not me!

Batman: Uh huh.

Harley: She said he was a plant murderer. And I gotta admit, I wasn't feeling too good myself about him dumping all that toxic waste in the Amazon.

Batman: When things like this happen, you come to me.

Harley: You've never shown interest in plant shit before.

Batman, pinching the bridge of his nose: I can handle it. I know how important 'plant shit' is to Ivy and you. It's important to me too. That's why, next time, before you murder someone, let me handle it legally by scaring the shit out of them first. Okay?

Harley: *hiccups* okay.

Batman: Now. I'll talk to the Arkham parole board about your early conditional release. But I will make sure they give you some truly, spectacularly, horribly disgusting community service.

Harley, desperate: No. Not the garbage route again.

Batman, smiling grimly: Oh it gets worse. Trust me. *begins typing into his phone*

Harley: Oh my god I think I'll just do my time. I'm not going into the trash cans, you don't know the kind of shit people throw out! I think I'll just take my meds and stare at the walls instead.

Batman, looking up from his phone: I'm afraid that ship has sailed. *smiles evilly*

Harley: Oh my fucking shit you monster!

Batman: Remember that feeling the next time your trigger finger itches to pop off a human being.

Harley, gritting her teeth: It's itching now, bitch!

Batman, smugly: Good.

Batman being aggressively secretive towards the Justice League is one of my favorite tropes, but it gets INFINITELY funnier when you take the younger generations of heroes into consideration.

Barry Allen? He doesn't know shit about Batman, still partially convinced he's not human, still a little bit scared to talk to him. But Wally West? That's Nightwing's best friend. He's been around Dick since both of them were kids. He's had sleepovers at the manor since he was thirteen.

I just think it would be hilarious if all of the younger generations 100% know that Batman is Bruce Wayne. They've slept at the manor, some of them have taken various Batkids to school dances, they've been offered Alfred's cooking. And all because they've gotten close to at least one Batkid and said Batkid wore Bruce down until he let them reveal their identity. But all of them manage to keep this information from their mentors. Either purposefully or completely on accident.

Then you end up with a situation where the younger generations grow up and join the League and the older members Very Quickly realize that they seem a lot more comfortable with Batman than they should be.

Bruce has come back from the time stream, and he has never been more disappointed in Tim than right now.

He was brought back by the Justice League, and when he finally got back to Gotham, Tim was nowhere to be found.

Tim hadn't even tried to bring him back.

In fact, Tim had abandoned the hero scene altogether.

Tim. The boy who had sworn that the only way he'd leave the caped life was if he was dead.

Dick is being tight lipped and refusing to say anything on the matter.

Damian clearly knows what's going on but, oddly, refuses to say anything either.

Oracle completely ignores Bruce when he asks, at one point just pretending like he wasn't talking at all.

Cass, however, isn't putting any effort into pretending he isn't asking and is instead completely avoiding him.

Alfred seems to be in the same boat as him, deliberately kept in the dark.

There has to be some sort of reason for it, and Bruce is certain that it's the same reason for all of the avoidance, lies, and Tim's disappearance.

So, against everyone's wishes, he investigates.

Tim isn't in the Manor. Tim isn't in any of his safehouses.

Tim is, in fact, in one of...Jason's safehouses?

After covertly watching from a distance, Bruce discovers three things.

First; while Jason does not appear to be on good terms with Tim, he does view Tim as someone under his protection.

Second; Jason must be getting feedback from Oracle, because Red Hood always finds Batman in five minutes or less when he starts a stake out on Tim.

Third; There are babies in that safehouse. Not toddlers; babies.

He saw one of them through the reinforced window, floating a good two feet off the crib before a panicked and exhausted Tim had snatched it out of the air.

Tim...what has Tim done?

Bruce had heard from Clark that Tim had tried to clone Kon, but had he actually done it?

~~~~~~

While raiding Ra's bases and preparing them to blow, Tim stumbled across three babies. Triplets.

Triplets with superpowers.

Triplets that he knows, beyond the shadow of a doubt, Ra's will find again even if he buries them in the Foster system.

Plus, he's heard the horror stories of vulnerable metas fed to the Foster system at a young age.

So.

Okay.

He'll raise them himself.

He's Tim Drake, the kid that blackmailed Batman into taking him on as Robin; raising a few kids can't be that hard. He'll just take care of them during the day, nap when they do, and go do hero stuff at night.

He reaches out to the one person even Ra's would never expect him to willingly work with.

He reaches out to Red Hood.

He hires Red Hood as a bodyguard. It's a purely professional relationship.

Red Hood sets him up in the best safehouse he's got; soundproof, lead-lined walls, hidden weapon caches, the works.

Dick, Damian, and Jason himself think that Tim actually did succeed in cloning Superboy and is taking responsibility for raising the kids.

Damian may not like Drake, but he's snuck into the safehouse and met the triplets, and he may or may not be a little infatuated with them. So he'll keep the secret for them.

Dick and Jason feel like Tim is taking on too many responsibilities, and think he's clearly hiding from the Supers in that safehouse.

Oracle gets her information from Cass, who is the only one who knows the full story.

Tim, meanwhile, is learning that children are exhausting, Cass is an amazing babysitter (as is Damian, but Damian if fickle and Tim has to pretend like he doesn't know when Damian is there), and hasn't had any time, at all, to go out and do heroing stuff.

He has so much fucking empathy for Anita, right now.

He's been so involved with the triplets that he's missed key events like; Bruce coming back from the timestream, Kon and Bart coming back to life, Ra's declaring Tim his One True Heir officially, and a throuple of mad scientist super villains dropping onto the scene and making a stir.

Or; Danny, Dani, and Dan got caught by the GIW, forced into their cores, and then stolen by a league of assassins, of all things. So naturally they put a rush on getting out of their cores, because, see, assassins, but they came out way before they had enough ecto to form their actual ages. They came out as babies. Babies that were promptly treated as treasures by some creepy cult assassin man. Babies that were stolen by that assassin man's...rival? Detective? They weren't sure. But they were taken by him. And now they're being raised in a very ecto-rich city, just waiting for the day they have enough ecto to go back to their normal age. Meanwhile, Jack, Vlad, and Maddie Fenton are some of the scariest supervillains the Justice League has ever faced, and no one knows why they keep targeting US government facilities. Bart, Kon, and Cassie are lowkey convinced that Tim is dead. Constantine has a new assistant who forced herself into the position, and Jasmine Fenton is deadset on learning everything he knows to find her siblings. Booster Gold has run into two new time police, but he has no idea which future they work for; a goth teenager and a techy nerdy teenagers that wear clock amulets and keep disappearing into green portals.