I was sick for all of Dick’s birthday, so it took me longer than usual to do this for him! Happy (one day late) birthday my most wonderful of boys, thanks for brightening my life.
AU where Bruce never turned off the GPS tracker he implanted in Jason after he died and one day he’s looking for Dick or something and just sees Jason’s body isn’t in his grave and is like
I know the popular take is Batman’s rogues getting their butts handed to them by Bruce Wayne, and I’m not belittling that, because that’s really funny for all stated reasons?
But how about a new take: most of Batman’s rogues call him off limits, because they find out he is their benefactor, when/if they try to reform?
Mr Freeze won’t touch him because when he’s in Arkham, Bruce is the one who finances the research to help Nora Fries.
Poison Ivy won’t touch him because he had been the one supplying her with plants, while in prison.
Harley won’t touch him because he’s just a great guy an’ gotham needs guys like that.
Riddler won’t touch him because he was the secret backer that time Eddie tried to open a detective agency.
Croc won’t touch him because he’s one of the few people who ever talks to him like a person.
Deadshot refuses any hits on him because he found out Wayne does a lot of secret work for people down on their luck who made bad mistakes.
Two-Face having a crisis in the middle of the street because, on the one hand, he’s just trapped Bruce Wayne inside of a bank, so he can get some serious cash outta this.
But also: Harvey is screaming at him like “f*** you dude, that guy was my best friend. Also, he visits me in Arkham and treats the both of us like a damn human being.”
And Two-Face being like “f*** it, that’s fair. i’ll flip a coin and see.”
Harvey: “you most certainly wILL NOT. Just walk away, man.”
The GCPD, shielded behind their cars, staring in shock and confusion: “what.”
Bruce slowly forming an amicable relationship with the Rogues is such a fun concept to me, because as much horror as these people have caused, Batman’s whole shtick is that everyone deserves a chance. So, while he doesn’t forget that these people are in Arkham for very legitimate reasons, he also takes the time to treat them as human beings
Riddler gets asked one day by a detective why he seems to explicitly avoid anything Wayne related, and he’s just like, “oh, he’s actually helping me draft plans for escape rooms and puzzle boxes and stuff as a positive outlet for my implicit need for attention and a constructive way of using my intelligence. It’d be just rude of me to bother him, ya know?”
Ivy: “how many billionaires do you know that seem to genuinely care about our planet and make actual, tangible efforts to create technologies to preserve what we have? The man is a rarity. Also, he convinced the guards to let me have a few plants with me—for comfort. Nice guy.”
Freeze: “he’s basically the only person who’s every given a damn about helping me save my wife. No way in hell am I crossing him.”
Deadshot, scrolling (or whatever) through his potential contracts: “Wayne? Oh hell no. I thought I blacklisted those ones. Delete. Begone. Live your best life Mr Wayne. Payday will come from somebody else.”
Harley: “I just think he’s neat. Also I know he’s Batman and he’s a cool dude, but I’m not gonna tell anyone that sooooo yeah.”
Waylon (Croc): “he saw my previous cell in Arkham and flipped made sure I got an actual habitat, and not a shoddy hole in the ground filled with sewer water, which made my stay there much more livable. He gives me food sometimes when he sees me in the wild. Nice guy. 10/10 will not eat.”
Damian: calls Bruce father but over time switches to baba
Jason: usually calls Bruce ‘old man’ and when talking about him will say ‘my old man’. Will call him dad in moments of high emotion
Steph: has called him ’daddy’ on multiple occasions just to annoy him
Tim: doesn’t use the title ‘dad’ with Bruce but will always acknowledge he’s in that role. Such as “just because you’re my dad doesn’t mean I’ll listen to you”
Dick: doesn’t call Bruce dad but also doesn’t correct people when they call Bruce his dad. Conversely, he loves when Bruce calls him his son.
Duke: still getting use to Bruce being in that role for him so he doesn’t call him dad, refers to him as his foster dad when talking to others. Has said “what are you my dad?” to Bruce and they just kinda stared at each other awkwardly.
Babs: never has and never will call him dad
This is fantastic, and I have one addendum.
Bruce: Won’t call Alfred dad, but has never missed a Father’s Day gift in thirty years.
Bruce Wayne has zoom meetings for WE because he’s not a shitty boss and has the company do remote work when the ‘rona hits and these are some things that have happened during his zoom calls
•there was a cow standing in the back of the office for the whole meeting. Someone asked about it, and Bruce’s answer was ‘my son is afraid my other son is going to eat batcow.’ No one asked any follow up questions
•Dick has climbed in through the window a few times. The first time Bruce asked why and Dick very loudly said ‘I have to stay in shape!’. Bruce has not asked since and continues to let Dick enter through the window
•Damian came running into the office with a live turkey. Bruce paused to say ‘good morning Damian. Good morning Jerry.’ then continued the meeting like nothing happened. Damian left shortly after, but left Jerry
•Cass sits in on his meetings sometimes. She doesn’t say anything, just doodles little pictures for Bruce
•Jason came in, slammed a tray of cookies on the desk, said ‘Alfred said I have to be nice and share’ then walked out
•Alfred the Cat walks across Bruce’s keyboard at least once every meeting, even though Bruce makes sure the cat isn’t in the office before he closes the door. He is starting to suspect the cat knows how to get into the vents
•similarly, Titus makes frequent appearances because he thinks he’s a lap dog. He is not a lap dog
•Tim barges in often and asks ‘can I help you yell at old white men?’ Bruce tells him no every single time
•Tim has also barged in asking ‘if I can give you physical proof that Kon doesn’t have the ‘rona can he come over??’ It is clear they’ve had this argument before
•Bruce once ended a meeting early with the excuse that Alfred the Cat was yelling at Bruce to feed him dinner. Alfred the Cat was sitting in his lap and purring, and it wasn’t even past noon yet
•Alfred has ended meetings early because ‘its dinner time, Master Bruce, and we are going to eat as a family tonight or so help me god’
•at least twice a week Bruce has to physically leave the zoom call because two of his children are fighting
Hi, Clair. I’d like to come in and talk with you. Would that be all right?
This is the Batman we need to see more often. The one who remembers what it was like to be a scared child, one who knows how to handle situations delicately.
One of the reason why I love batman so much. He is portrayed as a very careful and guarded man. But he is probably the most human out of anyone. It’s why he is the knight that gotham deserves.
Re: that last panel -
Batman, when he’s written correctly, is an extremely compassionate person.
I always feel the need to reblog this because it’s definitely something I feel was lost in the Nolan films.
The thing about Bruce is he believes he is not a good man, but he is.
“I’m stepping a little closer now, okay?”
That sentence means so much
I always see this post without the follow up, which is my favorite part
I’m sorry but you can’t convince me that Bruce Wayne doesn’t love his children with all of his fucking heart. I don’t know which comic writer has failed to understand basic human emotion and chose to portray Bruce as some stoic asshole who views the robins as nothing more than disposable soldiers, but they’re wrong. There is no way you can convince me that the little boy who lost his parents so young and in such a traumatic way, who then took it upon himself to save his city and the world doesn’t absolutely cherish and love his sons. And you can’t convince me that he doesn’t absolutely consider them as sons and as a part of his family. Nope. Sorry. Next.
hate the fact that batman could be about how people from the most different backgrounds can find each other, become a family, love each other even through difficult hardships and fight for each other and to protect other people but instead men just write it to project themselves onto bruce and also joker is there
agatha didn’t even like. initiate this. she wasn’t the big bad that i thought she would be, and honestly i adore it. she sensed this crazy-ass magic and was like “oh shit! that’s where i wanna be” and she just showed up and Caused Problems On Purpose for no reason other than because she wanted to.
what if it seems like batman has safehouses all over the country because he’s a paranoid maniac always ready to go into hiding in iowa, but actually he just goes on a lot of business trips for his day job and when he sees a cute house he buys it and stays there. he grew up in a big mansion with a butler, a house with only three rooms is like camping for him. he thinks it’s fun. he gets to play house and eat cereal for dinner. the flash accidentally committed some light treason and needs to lay low for a while so batman sets him up at this little place in maine. flash is like “wow he really does plan for everything” but no, he just saw an old queen anne with green shingle siding and white accents and he couldn’t help himself. it had a wraparound porch and a spire. a spire. technically it wasn’t in his carefully alloted ‘whims’ budget but he sold an extra yacht to make room. “geeze bats i get that it’s a safehouse but couldn’t you have stocked the pantry with something besides kix and peanut butter?” flash asks. “they’re shelf stable,” batman says, as if that is why he bought those things, as if this is not just What He Does when alfred leaves him unsupervised.
….i’m so into this that i took the liberty of looking up houses and like. coming up with headcanons and backstory I Hope That Doesn’t Cramp Your Style
This is one of the first houses. when lil Bruce was traveling around the world finding the best martial artists to train him or whatever he spent a lot of time going to and fro from Singapore. eventually it was just simpler to have a house there and that’s where the Domestic Campouts started. at first it suited his sense of drama and then later he was kind of embarrassed by how ostentiously dramatic it was and then he embraced with a kind of doubled-over irony. because reasons. 5 out of 5 batarangs.
The middle townhouse with the teal door was bought in London because it was a good idea at the time. It was a good idea at the time, and remained a good idea at the time, more’s the wonder. It’s got character, in that it smells relentlessly of strong tea. Bruce practiced his British accent a lot here. 4 out of 5 batarangs.
This is the house Bruce bought in Paris and where he really started getting into home maintenance. There was just always a project? A thing To Do Around The House? it was nice?? Alfred was in Gotham and he had to feed himself and he could eat and order takeout whenever he wanted? vacuuming once a week was cool? it started a long lifetime of house hobbying. 5 out of 5 batarangs.
It is literally a grownup treehouse, there was no way that twenty-five-year-old Bruce Wayne had the ability to tell fourteen-year-old Dick Grayson no on this one. They may have spent a week here. The interior may have been a wall-to-wall blanket fort. there may or may not be pictures kept in a scrapbook in the Batcave’s most secret of safes. they may or may not visit it in New Hampshire regularly. 7 out of 5 batarangs.
this is the first house he bought to consciously mimic a kind of domesticity. it’s in Ohio. it’s the kind of house you could live in with a romantic partner and a dog and be happy, the kind of house that would settle as you grew and wave goodbye as you left for a bigger one with your family. but it’s not a very nice house to singles, I think, and it’s never really forgiven Bruce for not bringing Selina over more often. 3 out of 5 batarangs.
look. if you’re going to go to Hawaii what is the actual point if you don’t have a house there? none, Bruce Wayne, Ridiculous Billionaire tells himself. none whatsoever. he buys this gorgeous lil bungalow and tells his neighbors that he’s Martin Black entrepreneur at large for a solid month of recovery from an injury on bedrest. it is not bedrest, but since he’s not in Gotham Alfred has plausible deniability. 4 out of 5 batarangs.
I love this, though, because my favorite thing about Superman is he isn’t Batman. I love Batman too, but Superman isn’t a dude who decided to live his life in pursuit of a vendetta against society when he was eight and then just did nothing for the next two decades but get super jacked, become the world’s greatest detective, and memorize every strategy used by every winner in every field of competition in history. Superman is a very good-hearted person who knows how to bale hay, use AP Stylebook, and break meteors into manageable bite-sized pieces by hitting them real hard. And I’m not saying Superman isn’t smart. He’s a bright guy, he’s just not like, one of the celebrated geniuses of the DC Universe. The best thing about Superman is he is basically a normal dude who happens to be orders of magnitude stronger than anyone else. Normal dudes have brain farts. Normal dudes are presented with a life-or-death situation they have less than four seconds to resolve and make a decision that is not optimal. Normal dudes aren’t typically asked to rescue a child from a 10,000 ton machine bearing down on him at 85mph, but if they were, they would probably sometimes panic a little and do dumb shit like ruin a train when they could have just whisked the child to safety.
I think sometimes Superman makes the wrong decision, not necessarily to the result of extreme catastrophe, but something like this, where everyone is standing around clapping and cheering and the kid’s parents are weeping in gratitude and they want to pose for a picture for the 6 o’ clock news with Superman and the conductor, and in the crowd someone is like “Why didn’t he fly the kid out of the way?” and rather than rolling with the fact that the emperor is naked his friend just says “Shut up, Drew, it’s Superman.”
And then, because I also love Batman for very different reasons, I imagine that later on the same day Bruce Wayne gets a phone call and Clark Kent is like “Hey, Wayne, I uh, need a favor.”
“Do you now.”
“Yeah, I, uh, kind of owe the Union Pacific Railroad $60,000.”
“Oh, and why’s that?”
“Come on, don’t do this to me. It was all over the news.”
“I’m prepared to write you a no-strings-attached check for the full amount on the condition that you explain your entire thought process from beginning to end.”
in average
are photos
are videos
are texts
are gifs
are audio