AU Where The Justice League Havent Revealed Their Secret IDs To Each Other Yet (or At Least Batman Hasnt)

AU where the Justice League haven’t revealed their secret IDs to each other yet (or at least Batman hasn’t) and the League, after several coincidental run-ins with him, know that Bruce Wayne is much more intelligent and calculating than he acts in the media. Except they don’t know why—they just think he acts that way because he hates working and wants to get out of dealing with responsibilities or smth

Clark Kent the reporter happens to be attending a gala Bruce is holding when it gets attacked by some rogue or other, and all the guests are being held hostage in the room, and there’s a bomb and everything, it’s all very dramatic and Gotham-typical. Clark and Bruce are hiding behind a table, coincidentally where the bomb is, timer slowly counting down. Clark can’t become Superman without blatantly blowing his secret ID, and Batman’s not showing up for some reason, so he (preparing to just fuckin jump on the bomb and tank that shit, consequences be damned) kinda frantically as a last resort asks if Bruce knows how to disarm a bomb and Bruce (who knows that Clark is Superman and is kinda messing with him) just pulls out a whole belt of tools like “As a matter of fact, Mr Kent, I took a course on bomb disposal back on my self-discovery journey!”

“A what now.”

“A self-discovery journey, Mr Kent, I’d be happy to tell you all about it after this.”

“No, I meant—you took a course on what.”

PJO Hogwarts AU! Notes below:

- Kronos is Voldemort. Obviously. He was vanquished by Zeus years ago, but is on the rise and can only be defeated by the “Chosen One” (for neither can live while the other survives yadda yadda)

- The “Chosen One” is one of the Big Three’s children—not even just the first to turn 16, just one of them

- The whole point of the AU is people trying to figure out which one out of Percy, Nico, and Jason is the “Chosen One” while all of them are secretly hoping for it to be one of the others

- Death Eaters tracked down and targeted the kids after hearing the prophecy, resulting in Bianca’s death pre-enrolment to Hogwarts. She fended them off while telling Nico to escape 🥲

- Thus, Nico shows up to Hogwarts already having lost faith in the system and edgy and sad asf. But there’s no real reason to blame Percy so they don’t have that complicating their relationship further

- Thalia turned into the Whomping Willow. No idea how or why. She also turns back at some point. No idea how or why. Drops out of school to become an underage Auror? No idea how or why.

- I fully researched Hogwarts house qualities before sorting them. I was so deep into it. Percy’s loyalty speaks for itself. Jason was difficult but I shoved him into Gryffindor. And a friend suggested Nico be in Gryffindor but just be really disgruntled about it, so that’s where he is. He has to deal with the passionate reckless assholes while in denial about being a passionate reckless asshole. (Also Nico & Jason bonding opportunities :D)

- Due to Slytherin being now inhabited practically solely by Hermes kids (who are not all related in this AU), Slytherin has totally lost its reputation as the “evil” house, and now proudly carries the tag of “Prankster House”. They’re like Fred and George Weasley except the pranking is a house-wide phenomenon

- Jason attended Durmstrang where he was held to insanely high standards as a model student/leader. After the Tri-Wizard tournament he decided to transfer to Hogwarts instead (all the Camp Jupiter kids are at Durmstrang.)

- Jason becomes Quidditch captain. Percy is duelling club captain. Percy is a god awful flier and it’s safer for everyone if he never touched a broom. Both constantly try to recruit Nico into their respective extracurriculars.

Some bonus character houses:

Gryffindor: Nico, Jason, Clarisse, Calypso, Grover, Piper, and “the Stoll brothers are in Gryffindor solely due to their lack of fear for consequences”

Hufflepuff: Percy, Will Solace, Meg

Slytherin: Annabeth (fucking fight me on this I dare you) (I’m joking I’m sensitive and I’ll cry) (but I won’t lose bitch square up), Thalia, Luke, Ethan Nakamura, Drew, the whole of Hermes cabin (minus the Stoll brothers)

Ravenclaw: Leo, the whole of Athena cabin (minus Annabeth), probably most of Hephaestus cabin too, I wish there were more specific characters but I cannot think of any rn tbh

(I probably missed some characters but anyway 🤷)

I wanna eat your art style

Can’t keep his eyes off him

Well, a genuine tear slid out of my eye as I read this, thanks

“What are your parameters for loving me?”

Careful to keep her head locked forward, Naomi glances over at her son. Will’s picked-bloody fingernails scrabble at the worn bandage around his wrist, twisting until his knuckles turn white. The car shakes with his violently bouncing leg, out of time with the shuddering engine and rumbling dust roads under the wheels.

“There aren’t any.”

“There have to be — some.” The bandage is longer than she thought, unspooled in his lap. He winds it back up again quickly, hands blurring; darting around his wrist, tapping on his knees, flexing and locking, flexing and locking. “I mean, what if I became a misogynist?”

She snorts. “I think you’re good, honey.”

“No, Mom, what if? Think about it for real. You’d stop loving me, right?”

“I might knock you around a bit, but it’d pretty hard to stop loving you completely,” she teases. She pinches the stubbornly-clinging baby fat of his cheeks between her knuckles, ruffling his hair when he ducks away.

“Seriously, Mama.”

“I dunno, Will. I’d send you to work for your Auntie Di for a while, probably. Reckon she’d straighten you out good.”

“Okay.” He nods, twice to himself, chewing on his lip. The bandage is wrapped around his elbow, now, pulled tight enough that she can hear the groan of his joints. “Okay. What if I killed someone?”

“Be a pretty hefty secret for the two of us.”

“An innocent person. Cold blood, just because I wanted to.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I could, Mom. People are — unpredictable.” He picks at a hole in his shorts until it’s wide enough to slide three fingers through, pulling the bandage in after them. It looks yellowed next to the green of the fabric, worn. “Sometimes you think you know someone but you don’t.”

“I know you.”

She pushes on her turn signal, slowing to a near stop. Will’s twitching fingers unconsciously synch up, cri-tap, cri-tap, cri-tap. The rusted rims groan as her tires amble around the bend, quieting as she lurches forward. They both duck as she hits a pothole, narrowly avoiding the warped ceiling.

“Cold blood, Mama.”

“I’d — it would scare me, I guess.” The next few potholes are smaller — she can avoid them with some manoeuvring. A mouse darts out onto the road, rushing out from the surrounding cornfields, and she slams on the break, thrusting her arm out to the passenger side. Will’s hands come to cup over her forearm as he slams into it, grunting softly. The mouse sprints across the rest of the road, tail swishing behind it, disappearing into the stalks. She settles back into her seat, brushing across Will’s seatbelt as she does, and presses the gas again. “More for you than of you. For what would happen if someone came knocking.”

“You wouldn’t report it?”

“No I wouldn’t report it, Will, Jesus.”

“But I — but I did something evil.”

“This is a hypothetical, baby.”

“And in the hypothetical. You’re —” He scrubs his hand down his face, eyes squeezing shut. “You’re a good person. You have — morals.”

“I’m a person, Will.” The GPS beeps at her — twenty-five miles to the Tennessee border. “And I’m a mother before that.”

“So if I — you would just — just like that? You’d — forgive me?”

“I’d love you,” she corrects.

“But you wouldn’t forgive me.”

She shrugs. “Honestly? I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it.”

“So how do you know you’d still love me?”

“Because there’s nothing you could do, baby. I mean it.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

“Not even if I was a bully? Or a landlord? Or if I — liked boys?”

He says it quickly, or tries to, but he stumbles over his words, tripping over the syllables. Naomi sucks her bottom lip into her mouth, biting it hard.

“You would still love me, if I — if I —”

Keeping her movements steady, she removes her boot from the gas. Will glances, fast, at her tightening knuckles on the steering wheel, looking quickly away. She guides the car to the shoulder of the road, pulling into park, and kills the engine, unclipping her seatbelt and turning ninety degrees to face her son. Will crowds into the corner of the seat, hunching in on himself, shoulders tense and curling, hair failing over her lowered head.

“Oh, Will.”

His body shakes as she pulls him into her, hands trembling so bad they spasm, twitching out of the fists he makes. She shifts until both of her arms wrap tightly around her torso, ignoring the burn of the trench, tucking his forehead into her collarbone, dropping her lips to press against his temples, his cheeks, the crown of his head.

“It’s okay, baby.”

“It’s — not. I’m still, I can still —”

“Sh.” His tears drip onto her shirt, her skin. He chokes back a sob and she tightens, reflexively, pulling his whole body even closer to her, somehow, making space for his too-long legs, knees hitting his chest, feet dangling off the seat, gearshift shoved into his thigh. His chest heaves with the effort of keeping his cries locked up in his throat, hidden behind clenched teeth, squeezed shut eyes. His fingers cling onto her shirt, twisting the fabric so hard it warps. Her own fingers clutch desperately at the ridges of his spine, the inside of his elbow; squeezing, holding, bruising. His voice is rough as raw grit and reedy as pond scum, barely above a whisper.

“I like boys, Mama.”

“I heard you.” She rests her forehead on his shoulder, her own breaths shuddering. “I heard you, sweetheart.”

“I like — a boy.”

“Okay.”

“For a long time.”

Her swallow constricts her throat, shoving the air back in her lungs. How long, she cannot bring herself to ask — when was it, exactly, that he decided he could not trust her with this? When did she lose that privilege? Was it when he started protecting her from the pain in his life, or before? When he lost everyone close to him at once, or when he broke down and told her about it? When was she no longer the person he ran to when he was scared, nervous, afraid?

He used to come to her for everything.

“I love you,” she whispers, voice wet as it slides against the lump in her throat. She squeezes him again, and this time, he squeezes back, pressing his face into her skin. “Will Solace, you are what keeps me going, do you understand that? Come up here, baby, look at me.”

His eyes aren’t hers. He takes after his father, really; after his older brother once upon a time. But he speaks like she does and smiles like she does and stands like she does, and when he cries he gets that same look, like the ocean has emptied itself inside of him. She cradles both palms to his wet cheeks, thumbs pressing under his eyes, kissing his forehead, his cheekbones, wiping the tears away.

“Fifteen years long you’ve been the light of my life. I need you to understand that, Will. I have never loved anything like I love you and there will never be anyone who comes even close. There is no hypothetical, no situation, no anything that could change that. There are no parameters. None. You understand me?”

“Everything stops,” he croaks. “Everything has a limit.”

“Not me,” she says firmly. “You ain’t a baby no more, baby, but you’re gonna have to pretend for a moment that I know everything again. I am telling you that there is no boundary. And I am not giving you the option to disagree. You are my son and my sun and that’s final, Will. That’s final.”

His face crumples. She pulls him close again, sighing, letting him curl up in his lap like he’s ten years younger than she should be, instead of the ten years older he acts. She runs a hand through he knotted hair and another down his back and presses her lips to his temples, holding him every place she can reach, and rocks them, even though there’s no room to do it, humming slow and low under her breath.

“We’ll get there,” she promises, tapping a beat on his shoulders, pressing a kiss to his hair. “Okay?”

He nods into her neck. “Okay.” His voice is small but not cowering, thankfully; small like he’s hiding in her instead of from her. She fights the urge to sag into him, to burst into tears of her own.

“I love you, Will. No matter what and forever.”

“I love you too, Mama.”

More on Tim Drake’s Research Project ID Reveal AU

(Original posts)

1 / 2

(Inspired by the comments above)

Tim, after skipping a few grades, is in Jason’s class (before his death obviously). They’re partnered up on this assignment (to propose who Batman’s secret ID could be). Jason tries to get ahead of the game by very jokingly suggesting Batman is his adoptive father Bruce Wayne (backed up with some extremely ridiculous and frankly made up evidence), sorely underestimating Tim’s innate conspiracy theorist, who proceeds make shockingly accurate leaps of logic and come to the correct conclusion

Jason: Get this, Bruce Wayne is Batman because he likes fruit and you know what else eats fruit? Bats.

Jason: Haha sike, as if—

Tim: No I think you’re onto something

Jason: *incredulous panic* Wait no what

Jason tries to distract Tim from independent research by simply taking up every available hour of the day. He accidentally very aggressively befriends Tim this way. Unfortunately, Tim doesn’t sleep and Jason can’t control what Tim gets up to in the dead of night.

Eventually Jason gives up and fully embraces the hilarity of the situation because Tim is in too deep and at this stage he’s like “Bruce is an asshole anyway he deserves to have his secret ID revealed by a random 13 yo ha that’ll teach him to be a stupid stuck up—” (etc etc). And then the presence of Tim somehow acts as a sort of intermediary and improves Bruce and Jason’s relationship enough so Jason doesn’t end up running off to Ethiopia alone and dying, hooray!