midwesternvibes

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"nobody cares about tim drake--" LOUD INCORRECT BUZZER

I CARE ABOUT TIM DRAKE. I DO. LOOK AT HIM AND TELL ME YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT HIM

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when Damian has his hair down he also has middle part..he once ran out of gel and all everyone saw was an angry little Tim walking around the manor threatening people with death by his sword if they spoke about his hair..Tim found it adorable and took a picture to keep reminding himself that everyone in the family wasn't actually that different..

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You know those photos of little birds sleeping together on a branch, all cuddled up in a line? This, but its the Order of the Robins from Dark Knights of Steel, high up on some precarious ledge:

(The photos in question:)

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Spring showers are making me flair up so I'm inflicting my pain onto hiccup and toothless >.>

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Grief is so weird because why is the fact that the handwriting on the card is different than its been every other year the only thing thats made me feel anything at all

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AU where instead of throwing him off a cliff or whatever after shoving him in a Lazarus Pit, Talia takes Jason and hides him as a regular ass guard. No one is gonna connect the scrawny braindead kid with this intimidating fridge of a person, and Ra’s doesn’t tolerate people looking him directly in the eye anyway, so it’s not like he’ll notice the specific shade of green his eyes are. And it WORKS. Literally no one questions where this guy came from, because Talia gaslights them like “you don’t remember??? smh” and they’re like shit, I guess he’s been here the whole time and I’m just an idiot (he has, but he was basically an experiment during that time)

Anyway, they only get caught because Jason is stationed next to Ra’s in the throne room (he and Talia made a bet about how long it’ll take to get found out, since at least a year has passed like this and they’re starting to wonder about the man’s situational awareness), and someone like Ghostmaker comes in and Ra’s is all “how long has it been since you and Bruce trained here? Twenty years?” And Jason, because it’s Bruce, mutters “twenty slutty, slutty years,” under his breath because he literally cannot help himself. He then realizes he fucked up, as Ra’s and Khoa are just fucking staring at him, and he said that in English, and his New Jersey accent is really obvious.

Dealer’s choice for what happens next, but in my mind this is definitely a “Jason and Damian were brothers in the League” type of deal. Damian shows up in Gotham and tells Bruce he thought he’d be taller bc he’s used to being around Jason, and then when he first sees Brucie he makes some comment like “ahki did call him a slut that one time,” and everyone loses their minds because what do you MEAN your brother, and why was someone in the League slut-shaming Batman???

He refuses to elaborate on either point, other than saying that Ghostmaker was there and it’s the only time he’s seen him laugh.

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Bats down au idea

Batman dies with the Joker, and Gotham breaks into chaos. The Batkids are struggling, Alfred has cleaned the manor over multiple times a day.

2 months after Bruce Wayne's death is announced separate from Batman (Always one to protect his identity). A 20 year old Bruce Wayne, emerges in Gotham. Gotham needs her son, and she'll tear him out of time to bring him back.

Fresh out of the lazorous pit after a fight with Ra's. Bruce Wayne is sporting one too many greys for his young age, but that never stopped him from trying to save Gotham before.

Having left Gotham on bad terms with Alfred, he feels no need to visit the manor and continues his investigative work out of a variety of safehouses.

Meanwhile, the grieving Bats have to deal with a new vigilante in Gotham. One that sports a hauntingly similar grin to Jason, moves just too much like Dick, and spends his free time lurking over an abandoned opera house.

What could possibly go wrong?

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I want a season 1 yj fic where no one on the team knows who Batman and Robin are behind the masks. Wally is friends with Robin, but he only knows him as Robin, and he’s never seen him without the mask or without his sunglasses.

And Dick thinks they’re all friends. Sure, they don’t know his name or half of his life, but they know him. He thinks of them as some of his best friends. He doesn’t actually have a whole lot of friends. He has Barbara, but she doesn’t know about Robin. And he has Bette, but she’s his cousin, so she doesn’t really count.

So when he walks into the lounge area in Mount Justice one day and hears most of the team talking shit about Dick Grayson, who was just shown on TV with Bruce Wayne because there was a big charity gala last night, he’s trying so hard not to get upset. Because they’re making fun of him. They’re talking shit about him. They don’t even know Dick Grayson, but they’re saying such mean things about him.

“I’ve seen him around school, he’s such a snob,” Artemis complains. “His hair is always gelled so obnoxiously and his uniform is always perfect, and,” she snorts, “he’s captain of the mathletes. What a dork.”

Alfred insists on his uniform always being perfectly ironed and his shirt being tucked in. He gets the longest lectures whenever he gets a detention or a pink slip for his uniform being out of line.

And Bruce has been doing Dick’s hair before school since Dick started going to school. He’d been so nervous the first time, because he was eight and he’d been homeschooled in the circus and he’d never been to a real school before, so Bruce did Dick’s hair just like his, and it made him feel so much better. Dick does his own hair mostly now that he’s older, but he mostly sticks with how Bruce first showed him. It’s easy. It’s a classic style. It makes him feel a little less nervous.

And who cares if he’s captain of the mathletes? Bruce insists it will look good on college applications. You can never start preparing too early. Plus, Gotham Academy is full of nerds, it’s far from the dorkiest club on campus. He’s mostly only on the team because his math teacher insisted.

He’s lingering in the hallway, just before the doorway to the lounge, leaning against the wall as he listens in on their conversation.

“He’s obviously a publicity stunt,” Wally snorts, and Dick can hear him stuffing chips in his mouth. “Was Bruce Wayne getting bad press when he first adopted him or something? I always thought it was weird he just plucked a kid from out of nowhere.”

“I thought he was from the circus?” Conner asks, but he actually sounds confused, curious.

The question only makes Wally and Artemis laugh louder, and even M’gann is giggling now. Dick feels like his heart just dropped into his stomach.

“The whole thing is so weird,” Artemis laughs. “Bruce Wayne takes him out like he’s some sort of little accessory, it’s so weird.”

“They are a pretty weird pair, aren’t they?” Wally laughs.

“I mean, the kid seems like a pain in the ass,” Artemis says, and Dick can just tell from the way she says it that she’s smirking. “I don’t know if I’d feel that bad if their whole father-son schtick was all for the camera. Brucie probably treats him like a toy he can just put back on the shelf when he’s done playing with him. He’s probably nothing but a charity case.”

Dick can hear someone pushing Artemis into the side of the couch, but he can tell they’re still all laughing and joking around. Dick feels like his breath is caught in his throat.

“That’s a horrible thing to say,” Conner says.

“Oh, come on, Conner,” Artemis huffs. “I’m only kidding.”

“It’s not something to kid about,” Conner says. “He’s a real person. They’re both real people. You know nothing about them.”

“I know that he struts around school like he owns the place!”

“Does he really?” M’gann gasps.

He can hear Artemis, Wally, and M’gann all continuing to gossip together, to laugh about his photos that Artemis is pulling up on her phone. He can hear Conner mutter something about them being childish, and then get up towards the kitchen area.

The hand on his shoulder startles him, and he’s so mad at himself for not hearing Kaldur walking up behind him.

“Robin, is everything alright?” Kaldur asks, and his voice is so gentle, so concerned.

“M’fine,” Dick chokes out. “M’just, I - I’m gonna go, actually. Can’t stay for training today.”

“Are you not feeling well?”

“Just…feeling a little sick. I’ll be fine.”

Conner has since walked into the hallway too, and he’s looking at Dick all concerned now too. But Dick feels like everything is too hot and he can’t breathe right and he’s suddenly so upset, and he can’t stay here anymore knowing that half of his friends are sitting just a few feet away, making fun of him.

Dick rushes back home, and he finds Bruce sitting in his office going over some WE paperwork. Bruce is surprised he’s home so soon, but holds onto Dick tightly when he falls into his lap.

“What’s wrong?” Bruce asks, squeezing Dick tight. “Did something happen at training? Are you hurt?”

“People are mean,” Dick mumbles into Bruce’s shoulder. “They were watching something about the gala from last night. Didn’t wanna stick around.”

“Oh, Dickie,” Bruce sighs, because this isn’t exactly the first time Dick has heard people he thinks are his friends talking about him behind his back, even if this is the first time it’s people who don’t realize they know him talking about him.

“They called me a publicity stunt,” Dick says, pressing himself closer to Bruce. “And a charity case.”

“You aren’t either of those things,” Bruce says, his voice firm, leaving no room for argument. “You’re my son, no matter what anyone else says.”

“I know.”

Bruce sighs again, resting his cheek on top of Dick’s head. They’re both quiet for a moment, Bruce swiveling side to side in the chair a bit.

“I know it’s difficult,” Bruce tells him. “But how about I put these papers away, and we go watch a movie before Alfred has dinner ready?”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Or we can go down to the cave and we can train a bit, if you’d rather do that?”

“I kinda wanna hit something,” Dick mumbles. “But can we watch a movie after dinner?”

“We’ll do whatever you want, chum.”

Dick continues to cling to Bruce while he straightens up his desk, but he hops up and rushes over to the clock to go down to the cave. Black Canary eventually calls the cave to ask Batman if Robin is alright, because she missed him at training and no one could tell her why he left, but he just tells her that Robin wanted to train with him today.

Later that night after dinner, Dick is cuddled up next to Bruce in his favorite family room, a movie playing in the background, and Dick falls asleep like that. Bruce doesn’t disturb him. They both end up falling asleep on the couch, and Bruce decides to take the next day off and to keep Dick home from school so they can spend the day together.

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This idea just popped in my head so not super elaborate. But let’s have the Batfam out apprehending a rogue magic user when Nightwing gets de-aged to when he was in his first few months as Robin. And they’re all expecting a sweet little sunshine kid, a smaller version of how their brother currently acts.

Instead, they see the itsy bitsiest little kid imaginable in the original Robin uniform, and they’re all instantly so mad at Bruce for ever letting Dick go out and fight when he was literally a tiny little child. He looks like a strong wind will blow him over.

But then they see him in action and they realize oh no, their brother was actually a little monster. He actually growls at them at one point. They get back to the batcave and they see him just become an animal. He bites Damian’s arm so hard when he hears someone call Damian Robin, then screams and yells about how he’s the only Robin.

Then he tells off Bruce with the intensity of a pissed off teenager, except he’s not even four feet tall and he’s standing on a table so he can shout in Batman’s face. And Bruce just looks so exhausted.

“I’m in charge here,” Bruce starts to tell him, but Dick just puts his hands on his hips and huffs.

“It’s cute you think so,” he says in a snotty voice.

“Alright, time for bed,” Bruce says quickly, because he remembers very well how things worked back when Dick really was eight and a snot nosed little menace. And he knows all of Dick’s tells, and he can see that he’s getting overwhelmed and upset and it’s going to soon turn into a total meltdown.

“No!” Dick argues, but Bruce has already picked him up, and he’s flailing and biting Bruce’s arm. “Pumme down! You’re not my dad, put me down, you’re not my daddy!”

He’s screaming and sobbing before they’re even halfway up the stairs. It’s the tantrum of the century, and it’s making Jason’s ears ring.

“What the fuck,” Jason gasps once the door leading upstairs closes, “was that?”

“Was Dick possessed or something?” Stephanie asks, rubbing at her ears.

“I can’t believe he bit me,” Damian mumbles, watching as Alfred cleans the very detailed bite mark on his arm. Tim snorts from where he’s watching.

“I think you’re all forgetting a very crucial detail,” Alfred tells them all, his voice very patient but strained, “that Master Richard came into Master Bruce’s care during a very traumatic period in his life. While his behavior might shock you, I assure you this was all quite normal compared to when he was actually eight years old.”

And it’s true. Because they do all often forget that the only reason Dick came to live with Bruce was because he’d just watched his parents get murdered and fall to their deaths in front of him. Most of them don’t even know about the couple months he spent in juvie while Bruce fought to get custody of him.

So when they go upstairs and hear Dick still screaming at Bruce, they try to have a little more empathy. Especially when they hear him start sobbing I want my mommy over and over again, and they have to listen as Bruce whispers I know, I’m sorry, I’m here to try and soothe him.

They try to be patient when he gets so angry the next day that he screams and flings Zitka across the room to hit one of them in the head, only to start sobbing when he realizes a couple stitches popped on the leg he held to throw her and now the stuffing is coming out, and they try to calm him down while looking for Alfred to help stitch her back together.

They try not to get frustrated when he’s yelling at them, only to fumble over his words in the middle of his tirade because he can’t remember the words in English, and now he’s upset and tugging at his hair and hitting his head while they try desperately to hold his wrists and make him stop, to help him find the words he was looking for, but he’s speaking like three different languages at once and no one can follow and it just makes Dick so much more frustrated until he runs away to hide in his room.

They try not to get annoyed when he’s in the batcave and actually beating them when they spar (because he’s fighting way dirtier than he ever would if he was his normal age), only to have him taunt them and stick his tongue out at them.

They try to understand how the little brat that was just screaming in Bruce’s face is now clinging to his leg, sitting on his foot, and begging Bruce to let him sleep in his bed tonight. You have to keep the monsters out, he tells Bruce, and they all see the way that makes Bruce melt, makes him do anything Dick asks because somehow this menace has Bruce wrapped around his little finger.

They watch Dick swing from a chandelier one day, looking down and calling everyone some very colorful names in all sorts of languages, but especially Bruce. Then he’ll hop down and pretend like nothing happened, instead clinging to Bruce and making him carry him around all day long, acting as if he’ll be burned if his feet to touch the floor.

He goes from wild to sweet in the blink of an eye, and it’s a total mind fuck.

Then he turns back to normal and acts as if none of that was even out of the ordinary.

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Do I want good dad Bruce with magically brought back bad grandparents Thomas and Martha? Yes, yes I do. So anyway

The setting is season 1 yj, Mount Justice. Batman was on a mission with a couple JL members, and Robin was training with the team. Batman comes back from his mission, and he’s calling out, “Robin! Come here, please!”

And Dick is immediately on high alert, because that’s not Batman’s voice. Thats Bruce’s voice. Thats his proud dad voice, his Oh, yes, Dick is actually starting high school a year early. He’s a real prodigy, didn’t you know that? bragging dad voice.

“B?”

And Batman is there in an instant, his hands holding onto Robin’s shoulders, spinning him around to look at the couple standing there. And Dick’s mind goes blank. Because he swears he’s looking at Thomas and Martha Wayne. But that can’t be possible.

“Robin, these are your grandparents,” Batman says so softly, kneeling down, a big smile on his face as he kneels beside Robin. “Mom, Dad - this is your grandson.”

Dick’s heart is beating so fast and so hard in his chest, and he backs up so he’s pressed against Bruce’s chest.

“B?” Dick says, his voice a little strangled. He lowers his voice to a whisper, “Are they ghosts?”

Bruce is chuckling, and he can tell that all the others in the room are startled at Batman even being capable of laughter.

“It’s magic,” Bruce says softly. “They’ll only be here for a couple days. But I had to introduce you to them right away. We’ll go home in a minute for a proper introduction.”

Dick turns to his adopted grandparents, a nervous smile on his face.

“Hi,” he says carefully, holding one hand up to wave awkwardly. “B’s told me a lot about you. Agent A has, too.”

“How old are you?” Martha asks, skipping the pleasantries.

“I’m, uh, thirteen.”

She gasps, a hand in her chest as she turns her head to Bruce.

“You were twelve?” She questions.

Thomas looks livid.

“Who’s the mother? Is she in prison?”

Dick’s eyes are wide behind the mask, and he can feel Bruce go tense. He can also hear Wally asking no one in particular, Wait, does that mean Batman is only twenty-five?

“He’s adopted,” Bruce says quickly, carefully. “There was nothing - nothing bad happened or anything.”

“Adopted?” Thomas scoffs. “You adopted an heir? You better be planning on having an actual son!”

Bruce stands up now, but he keeps a hand gripped in Dick’s shoulder.

“He is my actual son,” Bruce insists, his jaw tight. “And if you have a problem with that-”

“Of course it’s a problem!” Martha insists. “You need to have an actual child, to give us an actual grandchild!”

Dick presses himself closer to Bruce, stepping slightly underneath Batman’s cape. He’s trying very hard not to get upset, but he never thought this was an argument he’d hear from the people who were supposed to be his grandparents. He’s heard it from the press before, from rude socialites who want Bruce to marry them or into their families, but Alfred and Bruce always said that Thomas and Martha would have loved him. And this is very quickly proving them wrong.

“You’re not going to talk about him like that,” Bruce says quickly, but his voice is very quickly turning back into his Batman voice, his You’re a dumb henchman who just hit my Robin, prepare to get your shit rocked voice. “He’s my son. He’s your grandson. Whether he’s adopted or not is irrelevant.”

“We’re your parents!”

“And in a couple days, you’ll be gone again,” the way he says it makes Dick so sad, because he doesn’t even hesitate. “And in a couple years, I’ll have had him longer than I ever had you. So if you have a problem with my son, I’ll find somewhere else for you to stay until the spell wears off, because you won’t be staying anywhere near him if this is how you’re going to act.”

“How dare you-”

“No, how dare you!” Bruce argues. “I’m your son. He’s your grandson. You should be thrilled to get this chance to know us, to know him!”

It quickly devolves into an argument, and Bruce decides that his parents will stay on the Watchtower while they’re here, because he won’t let them come back to the manor with them. He’ll visit them every day, and he’ll bring Alfred to see them, but he won’t let them around Dick again if they don’t start acting like decent grandparents.

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Lmao I’m dead 😭

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i tried

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But I think it would be so funny if, because Dick was so young when Bruce took him in, that so many people forget that Dick isn’t Bruce’s biological child. Like once Dick is older than say 16/17, most interviewers and reporters and journalists drop the “adopted” part of “adopted son,” and sometimes they might even comment on how much Dick looks like Bruce, how similar they both are.

And maybe sometimes Dick and Bruce even forget. Like Dick knows Bruce isn’t his biological dad, but maybe he thinks of his parents as like “mom and first dad” and Bruce is “second dad” and he sort of forgets that he’s not actually related to Bruce.

Bruce knows that most of kids are adopted. But the others were all older when Bruce first took them in (maybe they were all at least 13, so already in their teens) but Dick was an itty bitty little thing. He was only 8. And he didn’t go to school at first when Bruce took him in, because he had been home schooled and he’d been nervous about going to a normal school, so Bruce didn’t make him start going to Gotham Academy until the following Fall, and even then he was only in the third grade. Practically a baby.

Maybe when Dick is in his 20s, he and his siblings are being interviewed before a gala. And something comes up about being adopted, and the others all say their bits, but then when the interviewer turns to Dick, he’s just chilling with his arm around Damian, and he looks at the interviewer like he’s waiting for the next question. And maybe the interviewer is looking at his notes, looking for the next question, and Jason elbows Dick in the ribs and just says, “Dickface, don’t you have anything to add?”

And Dick hisses and swats Jason’s arm in retaliation, but he looks confused. And then he just, “Oh, I’m adopted too! I forgot lmao” and all of his siblings are so confused at how he can forget that, but Dick just smiles and chats with the interviewer (who’s looking very sheepish bc he also forgot). The only one who doesn’t look baffled is Damian, because Damian firmly believes that if any of his siblings turn out to secretly be his blood sibling, it will be Dick. He maybe sort of hopes it will happen sometimes.

Maybe when they’re around the Justice League as Batman and Nightwing, a newer member might ask how old Batman was when Nightwing was born. And they both sort of blue screen for a minute before Dick laughs and says, “oh, that’s right, I’m adopted! He’s only like 15 years older than me, give or take.”

“Don’t you dare age me,” Bruce hisses. “I’m only 14 years older than you.”

Dick just snorts at him. The other JL member looks so startled that Batman seems to actually have a sense of humor.

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Sum

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Hair gel 😅

I got the idea from twitter 🕺

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DC Twitter must have been INSANE when it got out that Superboy’s dads were Superman and Lex Luthor. Holy shit. The memes. The ship wars. The homophobes. The mpreg jokes. People would have lost their fucking minds. Lex Luthor releases a statement like “he’s a clone of me and Superman no birth was involved” and people are like KINDA GAY OF YOU TO HAVE A SON WITH ANOTHER MAN, LUTHOR. Lexcorp’s PR team locks themselves in a conference room and refuses to come out for love or money.

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Bruce didn’t expect anything today, and he was okay with that. 

Damian kept his head down but glanced up between Father and Grayson, eyes darting between the two. They’re waiting for him to say something. This was fair, considering he was the one to approach them. He doesn’t know why he did, because he was pretty certain he was still debating his actions a moment ago. But now it seemed he was forced to make a fast decision. That was probably why he did it, now that he thought about it.

So he stuck out his hand that was gripping onto the completely insignificant, folded piece of paper, aiming it at Grayson.

He ignored the surprised, “Oh!” coming from the man, before he turned it around, eyes quickly darting over the words. “Oh,” he said again, quieter. He looked at Damian, and Damian looked back, face burning from the two sets of eyes on him, but particularly his father's. “Thank you, Damian,” Grayson said, his voice steady. Damian nodded and walked away. 

Dick’s heart was pounding in his ears as he examined the paper in his hands. Damian was in fifth grade, so it must have been busy work for his art class. It was the end of the year, after all. That’s why Dick was holding a folded piece of paper that had a tie carefully colored in with a familiar shade of blue, and three key letters crossed out, for “Grayson” to be neatly scrawled under them. Holy shit. Damian had just handed him a Father’s Day card. In front of Bruce. Instead of Bruce.

So Bruce definitely wasn’t expecting that. Dick was barely glancing at him, the guilt practically radiating off of him. Bruce didn’t even know what to say, to be honest. It wasn’t Dick’s fault, but selfishly he couldn’t bring himself to actually put that into words for his oldest son to hear. 

It was plain to see what happened. When you opened the card, there was a short and sweet list of some things that any normal father would do with their child. Damian had read the list and realized… Dick did all of those things. Bruce didn’t. Well, at least that’s what their actions showed the 10 year old. It wasn’t.. it wasn’t Damians fault. It wasn’t Dick’s fault. Hell, Bruce should probably be thanking him. He should, but he’s still just standing there.