Sorry I Haven't Posted Today Or Yesterday Yall! I Have Been A Bit Busy Irl But The Next Post In Dead

Sorry I haven't posted today or yesterday yall! I have been a bit busy irl but the next post in Dead Man's Diner should be coming out sooner rather than later!

Everlasting Trio Nobody Knows AU DP x DC Part 4

Part 3

(Tim POV! This is a long one 😅)

 Tim almost has it. He's so close to cracking this file he can fucking taste it. He's been fighting this thing for two weeks. It's the most incomprehensible and infuriating code he's ever faced off against, which is fitting considering who gave it to them.

The engineer. THEIR engineer. The engineer they didn't ask for and Tim still isn't sure how they got, and the single biggest mystery in Tim's fucking life right now.

See, a significant amount of Bat gadgets at this point are Tim's brainchildren. He imagines them, he designs them, he workshops and tests them.

A few months ago, he'd had a pouch on his utility belt full of experimental pellets meant for slowing down fleeing vehicles. They were designed to break when run over and the compound inside would expand into durable, sticky foam that would ensnare tires.

He'd tested them in the cave.

He had not been prepared to take one hit to that side and have to frantically divest himself of that pouch before he became Gotham's latest foam based cryptid. 

His family had laughed themselves silly at him even as he broke off in pursuit of the drug runners he'd been fighting.

When Tim had doubled back expecting a mess to clean up and pellets to rework? It had been gone. All of it. The foam, the pellets, the pouch of his utility belt.

A serious problem, because who knows who got their hands on that?

Then it had shown back up.

That is to say, Gordon had called them because he found a pouch with a note labeled ‘for Red Robin’ sitting on the stand of the Bat Signal and didn't dare touch it.

After making sure it wasn't a bomb or some kind of biological weapon, Tim had opened the pouch - his own belt pouch - and found pellets. New pellets. Different pellets.

The note just read, “As funny as that was to watch, I fixed them for you. No more premature sploogage on the job. :3 P.S. here's a recipe for solution to dissolve future intentional discharges.”

They'd been right, too. The new pellets were tested (in case THEY were a bomb or biological weapon) and they'd been just strong enough to safely transport but still break when under the pressure of tires. Even the foam was more effective, and the spray Tim synthesized from that stupid recipe had worked like a dream.

What. The fuck.

This person not only improved his design and came up with a dissolution agent from scratch in days, they'd been watching without him knowing and made off with the original pellets without anyone noticing.

This was either a rogue in the making or someone they wanted on their side, and either way they needed to be found.

So Tim had done the obvious.

He'd put together a lockbox of money for the product they'd been given, loaded it with no less than ten (10) bat trackers and a note thanking their mysterious benefactor and requesting to meet up. He'd exploded a foam pellet on a rooftop and left the box on it in the hopes they'd notice and find it, then hung around far enough to not be seen and close enough to beat feet as soon as the trackers started moving. 

They did not start moving. They all went offline simultaneously. 

Tim has never moved so fast in his life, and yet by the time he got to the rooftop there was a pile of foam and nothing else. Not even a trace of whoever took the lockbox.

The next day, there was a ping of one (1) tracker that led them to a note thanking him for the money, refusing to meet, and asking if they'd considered certain improvements to their grapples with schematics for said designs.

Thus started the most bizarre and infuriating chase through notes, money, helpful designs and disappearing trackers Tim has ever been a part of.

Last time, the engineer had left them a USB stick and a note claiming that since they really wanted to know about him so bad, they could have the information on the USB if they could crack the encryption on the zip file inside.

Obviously they screened heavily for viruses or backdoors, but long story short Tim has been trying to crack the fucking thing for two weeks and refuses to let Oracle help. It's personal. It's a matter of pride. 

He could swear the code itself has actively been sabotaging his attempts to hack it, which is, you know. Impossible. 

Ping!

Tim blinks, looking over at the map on another monitor of the Bat computer. 

“Motherfucker-”

He taps into Duke’s comms. This is the first time this has ever happened during the day shift, he wasn't expecting it.

“Signal! I need you on the roof of the warehouse on the corner of Fifth and Everest - a tracker just came online.”

Another thing that infuriates Tim. You can't just turn Bat trackers on and off. They're activated, and then they either stay active or they're destroyed. They can't be turned off and then reactivated.

And fucking yet.

Duke groans, but his own tracker starts making its way in that direction.

“Dude. He's gonna be long gone by the time I get there. He always is.”

“He can't run from me forever,” Tim insists. “I'm almost in this damn file, and I am going to find him and dangle him off a roof from his ankles for giving us this runaround, so help me God.”

“Uh huh,” Duke deadpans. “Sure you are. I'm almost there, and- oh look! A note. What a surprise!”

Tim hears Duke touch down on the rooftop, eyes on the code on his screen while his brother clears his throat and reads aloud.

“Ahem- ‘Good morning, sunshine!’ - guess that's me - ‘I hear some bats and birds have been murdering tires at an alarming rate with the way they drive their bikes-’”

Tim freezes. He's not listening anymore.

“Signal.”

“‘- and that just can't be good for business. Nobody wants a bald tire ruining a chase. So boy do I have the thing for you-”

“Signal!”

“What?”

“I got it.”

“Huh? Got what?”

“I cracked his file. I got it.”

Tim is staring, wide eyed and full of a mixture of elation and trepidation at the contents of the zip file. It's a single text file titled, ‘Wow! You did it!’

“Oh, shit? Well? What's in it?”

Tim swallows, mouse hovering over the file. He takes a deep breath, then double clicks.

The file opens.

Tim blinks.

“Red Robin? What's in it?”

Tim scrolls slowly down, disbelief and horror dawning across his face. “Oh my God.”

“What? Come on, man, talk to me.”

Tim scrolls further.

“Oh. My God.”

“Red? Red Robin, you're scaring me, man.”

Tim puts his face in his hands. Voice muffled, he responds.

“Duke.”

“...Red? You okay?”

“No.”

“No?”

“It's the entire Bee Movie script.”

Silence reigns for a solid five seconds before Duke breaks and descends into raucous, hysterical laughter.

Even muffled by his own hands, Tim's scream of rage scares the bats in the cave into a tizzy.

Not DDD but some tooth rotting fluff with Dadwing that I had written a while ago.

Dick had always had a kinda 6th sense when it came to Damian, they had been Batman and Robin together, *the* dynamic duo! So he knew when his little brother was upset, more so than usual.

It started after a failed capture, the Riddler had been out of Arkham for over 3 weeks, the longest that he had been out for quite some time.

Bruce had finally found Eddie's hiding spot and was staking him out for some time, trying to determine whether the Riddler was truly there or this was once again a decoy safe house.

Bruce regretfully has the communication skills of a particularly grumpy slug and failed to properly give Damian the brief on what he was doing after joining his father from a round of patrols with Dick.

It really truly wasn't Damian's fault that he rushed in and only really succeeded in flushing out the Riddler and driving him to ground once more.

And once again, Bruce the grumpy slug scowled, let out a grunt and demanded Damian back to the cave, further not explaining why Bruce tried to stop him from taking down the Riddler and why he didn't pursue.

---

Dick was surprised to come out of the locker rooms of the cave to his youngest brother, practically shaking with rage as he not so carefully pulled off his suit, and what was the most concerning to Dick was the quiet, but still angry mutterings coming from the boy.

Dick felt a pang in his chest at the words, his Arabic was not the best but he could tell more than a few foul words slipping from Damians lips, taking a small breath to prepare, Dick slowly approached his little brother, holding his hands up in surrender even before speaking.

"Hey Babybat? Dami? You okay kiddo? What are you-" Dick stopped mid sentence at the scathing glare that was leveled at him, blinking a few times as his brother collected himself enough to speak clearly, but his voice was rough with emotion, and his accent that was usually hidden away came back harder. (Something that Dick realized that Jason and Damian shared, the angrier they are the more they go back to their roots.)

"Do not attempt to placate me Richard, I am not playing your foolish games nor am I wanting to speak of my feelings, so I simply ask you to leave. Me. The. Fuck. Alone." At the end the boys words were ground out as he threw down the Robin chest plate and stromed past Dick, heading to the showers.

---

Dick knew it was a little bit risky, but something was clearly upsetting his little brother greatly, so here he was, standing outside of Damians room, letting out a small sigh, Dick softly knocked on the door.

Two short, one long: U

Three long: O

One long, one short, one long: K

Morse code, one of the first no vocal languages that all the birds and the Bats knew, Dick and Damian had used it more than a few times on the field.

The only thing that Dick received from that was a dull thud of something being thrown at the door and the much softer sound of it falling to the floor, but the rest of the room was an inky black.

Letting out a sigh, the oldest of the Wayne children grabbed onto the doorhandle and slowly turning it, pushing the door in as he popped his head in, seeing the sacrificed plush animal laying on the ground where it was thrown

Dick felt guilty being glad it wasn't a knife.

"Dami? Little D? Kiddo I am going to come in..."

Opening the door more, Dick slipped into the dark room, spacial awareness helped Dick circumvent the few basic traps laid around his little brothers room, and made his way over to the boy's bed.

Eyes adjusting to the dark quickly, Dick could see the small outline of his brother shaking under the covers, looking so small in the king-sized bed, sitting on the edge, Dick laid a hand on where he thinks Damians hip is, feeling his heart break a little at the small jump he felt as he did.

"Can you talk to me? Please? I want to help kiddo." The only response he got was a shaky drawn in breath and the form under the blankets shifting, sitting up and revealing his younger brother.

His jade green eyes practically glowed in the dark of the room, Damians glare more tired than angry.

(It was times like these that Dick had to force himself to believe that Damian was just his brother, that the boy was not his son, wasn't the boy he raised for a year and a half as his own)

Shuffling closer to the center of the bed, Dick softly placed his forehead on the boy's own before pulling back after a second, he had learnt that little touches of affection got him a lot farther (and a lot less stabbed) with Damian.

Sitting back Dick watched as Damian crawled over, closing the distance between them and leaned his head onto Dicks shoulder, his eyes fluttering closed as he took in several deep breaths, calming himself even further.

Dick didn't dare move while Damian re-centered only snaking his arms around the smaller boy once he felt Damian go slack against him, softly cradling Damian in his arms as he pressed a soft kiss to the boy's spiky locks.

They stayed that way for a while, Dick gently rocking them both as he held his younger brother, silently waiting for Damian to speak first.

"...Father is an idiot..."

Blinking at the words that finally came out, Dick took it in stride, "For a man that is called the worlds greatest detective he can't see two feet in front of him when his loved ones are involved."

Silence lapsed after a little while, only breaking again as Damian pulled back from the hug, staring into Dicks powder blue eyes,

"...is it bad that some days I hate him Baba?" The words crush him, hitting at Dicks heart far worse than anything he had felt before, throat raw and itchy suddenly, Dick tried to not let Damians choice of words affect him.

(Dick has never heard Dami call Bruce Baba, only a ever respectful Father.)

"I-I, Um...I have felt way about B more than a few times Dames...He tries his best but sometimes...some times I do" There was a shine to Damians eyes as he looked into Dicks as the man continued softly "But I don't think it's bad...no I think you are just growing up...It...it's the beginning to when your seeing B how he can truly be like." (A scornful son of a bitch, only that Martha was a wonderful woman...)

Damians face grew distraught, and the shine pooled until soft tears ran down the boys face, "I do not wish to hate Father, but why can he simply not...speak to me? He has not spoke to me outside of case work for over three days and even during that no more than a few words..." leaning his head against Dicks shoulder, the boy's words were muffled slightly as he continued

"Is...is it wrong to expect more from him Baba?"

Dick didn't have any words for his Damian, because he sure as shit isn't Bruce's at the moment, sweeping the boy up into his arms, Dick hled him close while laying the two of them down, Dick on his back and his boy on his chest.

Running a hand through Damians soft hair, Dick thought hard of what to say, "I will speak to him...and maybe Tim...I know you two still have disagreements but honestly for some reason he listens to Tim more than even Alfred...you deserve so much more than that kiddo..."

Dick felt the soft shakes as Damian cried ontop of him, it broke the man's heart to smithereens that even while overwhelmed by emotions his boy still felt the need to try and be as quiet as possible.

Once he felt Damians shudders slow, an the boys breathing came back to a normal rate, Dick reached into his pants and pulled out his phone, "I think we both gotta unwind a little bud...have I ever shown you Bob Ross?"

---

(They watch till the sun peaks through the black out curtains, well, it plays that long, but the two where asleep for a lot longer than that.)

(Bruce gets a very long talking too by his kids, and gets the cowl taken away from him until he gets therapy)

(It only works a little.)

(He made a new one)

I was wondering, did you notice that you used different tags for parts 2 and part 3 of Dead Man’s Dinner

“Dead Man’s Dinner” and “Dead Mans Dinner”

(And that part 1 doesn’t have either of those)

I only noticed because I was trying to read all of the parts without having to hunt down the parts on your blog. (I had part 2 pop up on my dashboard, and was looking for part 1. I found them in the end though, great story so far)

I did not! Thank you for telling me, I will change them to match and add one to the first chappy!

DP x DC: The Dead Man at the Diner

Danny has a hard time maintaining regular jobs. At this point he’s pretty much nocturnal after years of being attacked at night, and possibly just part of his ghostly nature. He’s odd, and a basic google search brings up various news articles about him getting into fist fights with the mayor of a small town. He barely passed high school and college was out of the question, so who in their right mind would hire him?

What’s a job that would work with his odd hours, doesn’t require a college education, and a possible criminal record and a tendency to be ready to throw down is NOT an issue?

Danny is a cook at a 24hour Diner in Gotham

The man just needs to be able to flip a burger and make breakfast food and doesn’t mind a gun in the face because he’s well used to it. So what if the robber was dumb enough to pull that shit next to the fryer. If he didn’t want something to end up extra crispy he should have stayed out of Danny’s kitchen

Just think of all the folks he would meet.

Sure, the vigilantes of the city would be obvious and you can’t tell me spoiler isn’t dragging folks there to eat. Maybe they notice some weird things about the cook, like he doesn’t breath, his eyes reflect light like an animal’s, or the time he accidentally cut off a finger and it was fine the next day, or maybe the time a robber shot him and he just... didn’t react

Something is weird about that guy

And of course the person I think would love a jersey style diner breakfast at all hours: Harley Quinn

Technically she’s not supposed to bring the hyenas in, health code and all that, but everyone else is to freaked out to tell her and Danny doesn’t care. Frankly he spends his break petting them and they like him because he smells like food.

Batfam playing dnd cus why not

Tim, the dm because fuck Bruce being it: I swear to God Damian, for the fifth time, no you can not be a half Demon half Angle assassin that is 20th level, we are starting at level two and just pick from the common races!

Damian, crossing his arms: than I shall play a 'teefling' and I demand to the Rouge, Drake.

Tim: Well tough shit brat, Steph already chose that, be a paladin so Bruce can't take it.

Damian: Tt I shall kill brown and take my rightful class...but for now I shall play a paladin.

---

Tim: Cass, honey, darling. Sweet summer child...what?

Cass, grinning ear to ear :roll to seduce dragon?

Tim:

Cass:

Tim:

Cass, playing a bard: ;3

---

Dick: okay so I hope up on the table, over this guy and then try and hit the big bandit dude?

Tim, questioning God as why he was born: Dick. Your playing a Barbarian. You have a dex bonus of 2.

---

Jason: Alphandrill the wise will draw her oaken wand, it was taken from the same tree her grand father planted many centuries ago that was stuck by lighting, wielding it with determination, she points it at the bandit leader and shoots out a blast of molten flames! They glimmer with a sparkle of electricity as it strikes out against him!

Jason: does a 12 hit?

Tim, so done with this: no

---

Bruce: okay so I just roll right? With the...short sword?

Tim: ur actually Batman how is dnd stumping you.

Bruce: I played second edition growing up with Harvey and Ollie, I hardly ever got past the first fight

(Que Bruce having Vietnam flashbacks to his carefully crafted characters dying in the grind stone that was Dnd 2e)

---

Tim: Thanks for joining Alfred, I know that you probably don't even know how to play but it's making Bruce really happy to have everyone together

Alfred, who was an actor for so many years: worry not master Tim, I think this old dog can show you pups a few tricks~

(Alfred pulls out a pre-made mini, it's made out of bat grade materials, he knows the rules front to back)

---

Duke: this...is a lot? Tim I have Dm'ed a bit if you want me to...why are you looking at me like that.

Tim, frothing at the mouth: you...you wanna take over? Does this mean...I can play?

Duke, seriously reconditioning becoming apart of the wanye family: y-yes?

Forever Dm Tim: sweet baby Batman your going to get fucked Duke, but thank you so much for this...