recs and links

“I like your kitty ears.”Bruce stared at the girl blankly for a moment, before reaching up to touch one of the points on the cowl.“Thanks,” he rasped, then coughed, clearing his throat. “It’s actually a bat, though. Like this.” He pushed back the edge of the cape to give her a better look at the symbol on his chestplate.

A man wakes on a cold and desolate moor. He knows he is hurt. He knows he is alone. What he doesn't know is what he is, or where he came from. He doesn't know even his own name. But there is something else that this man knows, and that is that if he doesn't get help soon, he is going to die. And on this strange new world, there are so many dangers.

“Thomas Malone.” he introduces himself with a polite nod.“Alfred Pennyworth,” the young man replies, eyes narrowing when Bruce startles and squeezes his hand a little too tight. Holy shit.(Bruce gets sent fifty years into the past and meets a familiar stranger.)

PC Peter Grant is dragged back out of London into the wilds of the Herefordshire countryside to deal with a report of supernatural vandalism in Stirling Lines, the beating heart of 22 SAS Regiment. But supernatural vandalism is just the symptom, and within the blind patriotism and paranoia of the regimental high command is a much darker sickness, that flooding Wye intents to wash clean.

After rescuing Bruce from floating around the past, Tim is Not Okay.What comes next after losing everything that really matters?Tim’s got some thoughts. So do the rest of the family.And Ra’s al Ghul.…And the Joker.

When Bruce and Dick get transported to an unfamiliar Gotham, it only takes running into a different Batman and Robin for Bruce to realize two things: one, they’re in the future; and two—in the future, Dick Grayson is dead.

“I was made to be like you,” he says. “You died saving the world. I was—don’t you get it? Kal, I was made to die saving the world. I was made to die. And I did. So—” His voice cracks. “So why am I back?”

Jason doesn't think much of it when Tim needs his help, or Damian moves in, or even when Dick turns up looking beat all to hell. But at some point he realizes that he might be the best option his brothers have to recover from the cycle of violence that Batman has set up, and all he can think is that things were much easier when he was the villain.

Bucky is doing fine after the Blip. He has his amends, he has his exit strategies, he goes to therapy. Steve's gone, but that's fine, Bucky can deal with that, even if he can't deal with feeling like a ghost in the apartment that Steve left behind. But when Steve returns, they'll both have to deal with how to rebuild a friendship and a home that are haunted by the ghosts of who they used to be. Their methods of doing so are perhaps less than ideal, what with how they involve more sex and stealthy surprise interior decoration than any actual communication. Maybe that's all they need to make a new home together.

No matter how good his disguise was, she could always spot him.

The email itself seems innocuous, if annoying: Bruce has sent some kind of invitation out to the family and other assorted family-type individuals. Jason would have hit delete without even opening it if Dick weren't rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet in anticipation.Jason's curiosity wins out. He opens the email.

The "Pit Rage" isn’t actually a side effect of Jason’s dip in the Lazarus Pit. Or… not entirely. It’s a tool that Ra’s carefully developed before deploying him to targeted effect against Batman. Unfortunately, its intended results wore off too quickly, once away from his influence. This time, he plans to get it right.

Batman has a long, hard week and clinging to the mundane is sometimes the only way to get through.That's just how Gotham always is, though.

Sometimes, your community is you, a seal you've never actually met, a number of late-night service industry workers, 2 former grad students, and a lady who’s a leggy killer whale on land.Sometimes, that’s plenty.

It starts with the Make A Wish foundation, and ends with a funeral.   Which, Bruce supposes, is unfortunately how things involving the Make A Wish foundation usually work. But what happens in-between catches him completely off-guard.

Jason finds a new coping mechanism post-resurrection, and it changes a few things.

As far as alien invasions go, this one was pretty smooth. At least it was right up until the aliens demanded a sacrifice. A child sacrifice.Batman's child.