You’re Immortal, And Have Passed The ‘hero’ Phase Centuries Ago. You Enter A Small Coffee Shop

I have absolutely no recollection of making this.

Just got my wisdom teeth out, I can see four pairs of glasses where there's two. Feel confused like I gotta concussion, but with the ice outside that's ceartinly an option.

Alfred: You are homeless right now? Please, stay with me.

Danny: I couldn't take up your time. I've hardly given you the time! I've never paid my child support, I'm a horrible father, I couldn't possibly take anything from you.

Alfred: If we're taling about time given, I am over a hundred years old. That seems like plenty of time to me.

Danny: Only a hundred?! Baby! My baby boy, I can't believe I abandoned my baby!

Bruce, quietly watching and losing his shit in the background:

DC X DP Prompt

Danny, on a time mission for Clockwork, drags an injured Alfred Pennyworth across the Beach to safety on D-Day. While performing first aid, Danny gets clipped by a bullet, but hopped up on adrenaline, he doesn’t notice and his blood, imbued with ectoplasm, comes into contact with Alfred’s wounds.

80 years later, on the run from the GIW and his parents, Danny runs to Gotham where he meets a surprisingly spry 100 year old man, not looking a day over 60.

"I don't even have a legal identity, how are you sueing me, you ignoble stinkwaffles!?"

Tim gets his hands on Jason’s helmet and hacks the voice modulator to sound like Hatsune Miku.

Feared crime boss Red Hood uses it anyway.

Guess what? Thanks to me and a friend, Who’s Old Now actually has a TV Tropes page!

Cool, I think. What's a TV Tropes page and where can I find it? Thank you for putting in the effort, even if I don't actually know what this is.

Oh wow. I would imagine Bruce giving Tim the Nth degree for this, because honestly? It could have been so much worse.

That part could've been so critical that they died on launch or reentry. They might not have heard the noise, and been too far out to fix it. Or what if the Watchtower wasn't there? It could've been a disaster. People could've died. Because Tim wasn't getting enough sleep and designing critical systems at the same time.

That's reckless and negligent, to say the least. The sleep deprivation isn't good for his own health, and they have been trying to help him. But someone can't be helped if they don't let themselves be helped, so they took a step back. And look where that ended up? A potential disaster. It's one thing to willingly endanger your own life, whether with vigilantism or sleep deprivation, it's another for the consequences of your own actions to have almost killed many people.

Just because he wasn't willing to sleep.

Yeah, I don't think Tim's going to get off light with this one.

The Pitstop

It was a normal day at the Justice League Watchtower Satellite. Heroes were milling about, Batman was monitoring Earth from the deck, there was an astronaut tapping on the glass, Flash was joking with Martian Manhunter...

What, what was that 3rd thing?

Batman looked up and saw in front of his view of Earth was an astronaut, wearing NASA's latest suit design. He stood up which alerted Flash and Martian Manhunter to the strange sight.

He tensed as the astronaut began to phase through the walls and entered the deck. Batman was able to activate the intruder alarm when the astronaut removed their helmet.

The astronaut was a caucasian male approximately in his early forties. There were bags under his blue eyes like many of his own cohorts, and he had black hair as well.

"We need to dock."

"Excuse me?"

"Who are you?" asked Martian Manhunter.

The astronaut's face brightened immediately upon noticing Martian Manhunter. "Oh! I'm part of the manned Mars mission! We just launched and were on our way, but something is making a weird noise, and we don't know what it is. Since we're so close, can we just dock one of your garages so we can figure out what it is and fix it?"

Batman recalled that NASA had launched less than a few hours ago.

"How did you get through the glass?" asked Flash.

"I'm the token metahuman crewmember. So can we dock or not?"

"Of course," said Martian Manhunter, looking at Batman. And what was Batman supposed to say? No?

In the parking garage, Martian Manhunter was talking the other crewmembers while the Watchtower's engineers and the metahuman astronaut, who they learned was named Danny Fenton, inspected the space shuttle and tried to figure out what was making the strange noise.

Batman watched from the sidelines as the others bustled about. They had been at it for an hour, and Batman wondered if he should ask Tim to come by and help. He had informed Tim of the development while the astronauts were docking. After all, he had been involved in some of the designs of this particular spacecraft that were done by Wayne Aerospace.

He was doubtful that Tim could help that much. After all, in all likelihood it wasn't something he designed that was the problem.

Then, one of the engineers fiddled with something and Batman suddenly heard loud rattling.

A crewmember who was listening to Martian Manhunter startled and their eyes widened. "That's it! That's the sound!"

"What it that?" asked Batman.

The engineer pulled out a piece of equipment that had the Wayne Enterprise logo on it. "This module is broken," she said, "it could be repaired but honestly," she inhaled sharply, "this thing is a hot mess."

Mr. Fenton jumped and landed on the ship like the artificial gravity didn't affect him. When he saw the logo on the broken equipment, he shook his fist at the sky.

"Of course it's something by Wayne Industries! We give them half our budget hoping they're share some cool alien inspired technology like whatever they did to build this satellite and instead we get half-assed garbage!"

Batman made a point to not share the latest gadgets with the US government (he didn't trust them), but he wouldn't call their products that weren't built using alien tech garbage. That seemed a little harsh.

"Seriously, was the person who designed this sleep-deprived when they made this?" Suddenly Batman found the walls and floor to be incredibly interesting and looked away.

"Oh that's par for the course when it comes to the stuff they give us."

"I am so sorry."

As they discussed how to improvise a replacement for the equipment quickly enough to avoid drastically altering the astronaut's flight path, Batman got a text from Tim.

So I'm free now. Did the astronauts figure out what was wrong or do they need me? - RR

He texted back.

They figured it out. The engineers have it handled. - B

He was- he was- ithurtithurtithurtithurtithurt- dying. The moments were ticking down, blood dribbling down his face and from so many wounds his vision swam.

How long had he been there? Too long. B was- he was coming, right? He had to be. His dad was coming for him. But... what if he was too late? There was a bomb, and Jason HURT and he could barely move or think or- he was crying.

He face screwed up at his sobbed, and even that hurt the cuts on his face, the J on his cheek where that-that LUNATIC carved it into him. Salty tears stung at his cuts, and his ribs ached as his breath stuttered. He didn't know what to do.

He didn't know what to do.

He didn't want to die. He didn't want to.

But he was just laying on the ground, bleeding out as a bomb tick tick ticked down.

Maybe it was reflex. Maybe the thoughts of impending death brought it to the forefront. Catherine came back for him. He wanted to stay for his dad. He could do that, right?

Jason began to pray. 'Please, let me live. I don't want to die. I don't want to leave dad or Alfred, or even Dick. I'm not ready. Please, please, please help me.'

His breath stuttered and his chest ached as cracked and broken ribs pushed painfully inside him. "Please..." He whispered. And then the bomb stopped ticking, and Jason knew no more.

---------------------------------------

There was a cacauphonus Boom across the empty desert, and Bruce almost felt his heart stop in his chest. No no no, he couldn’t be too late. No no nononono- his thoughts only grew more frantic as he approached the smoldering pile of rubble that used to be a warehouse.

Please let Jason be out, please not my SON-

"Robin!" He shouted, voice cracking across the smoldering rubble as he dismounted his cycle and sprinted towards the still smoking rubble. "Robin!" He yelled again, voice breaking as he started sprinting along the edges, ears straining to hear something, anything-

There. At the back, barely outside of the smoldering wreckage was an unmoving pile of red, yellow, and green.

Bruce knew he didn't have the meta gene. He had checked multiple times. But in that moment it felt like he teleported to Jason's side as he fell to his knees next to his baby boy. He was covered in ash and blood, face pale around a red, carved J (don't think about it, don't let your blood boil, Jason needs a father not a murderer-) and eyes closed behind his torn mask. Fingers to pulse fingers to pulse, where wherewherewhere-

There. There. Right there was his son's heart beat. The wheezing rise and fall of his chest. Alive. Alive. His son was alive.

Batman did not cry. But Bruce did. He looked at his wounded, broken son and cried as he called the Batplane on his wrist computer. It was better not to move Jason, he reassured himself as he checked for spinal injury. And if it was because he felt like he would undoubtedly collapse again if he tried to stand up was just a plus.

"...dad?" Jay whispered, and Bruce started crying all over again.

"I'm here, I'm here Jaylad,"

"He came,"

"Who?"

"Death," Bruce's heart jolted. "Told 'em I couldn't go yet. He saved me. He came and he saved me...," Bruce heard the roar of incoming engines and hastened to make sure it was safe to move Jason. Jason had passed out again after his cryptic words, and Bruce was trying to ignore the feeling it left in his gut.

Jason had his beleifs, and Bruce had always supported him in them. Bruce himself was Jewish by his mother. He had heard of Jason's Death God and helped gather supplies for Jason's small altar that he prayed at.

Bruce didn't really believe in any God. But in a world of monsters, myths, and aliens...

"Thank you for saving my son," Bruce whispered into the air. Even if he was wrong, and speaking to no one and nothing, it didn't hurt to say it.

Bruce lifted Jason into his arms and approached the already lowered stairs to the Batplane.

God-Brother

Jason Todd is pagan. His religion is not anything related to any pre-existing cultures, but something that's based on a throw-away comment by Catherine Todd after one of her worst trips.

"He was so kind," she said in between mutterings, somewhat delirious and dangerously dehydrated. "Didn't push me to follow. Just took my hand and guided me back."

Jason Todd, who knew that her mom had almost died that time, always thought that the Death God had granted Catherine more time to be with him. That is until she took too much and not even a soft-hearted God could bring her back to life.

That faith remained after he dedicated prayers to his God; the world seemed to tilt just right when he remembered to speak to Him. It was almost like having a guardian angel.

Jason wasn't aware how right he was.

ok i think what gets me about the kind of post that's like '[children's media] has child soldiers, where are their parents!!' is that those stories really and truly aren't for people who'll think about that, they're for the people the children's age, who don't, for the most part, want to be kept safe or told they're too young to participate in the world, they want to be given a sword

Please reblog this so that I can get a bigger sample size, but DO NOT include anything in the tags about the results, as that could influence other responses

the crushing guilt of being unproductive vs the exhaustion of being burned out. fight.