#Him and bruce were absolute menaces at galas

[just-more-pr0mts]

Consider an alternate universe (AU) where Danny is dragged along to a gala and introduced as Vlads heir. And instead of the classic meeting bat children, he meets a young Bruce Wayne.

The young Bruce is around 4ish and Danny makes quite the impression on him being the "cool older boy who can make snowflakes". Next thing he knows Danny is coming around the Manor 3 times a week to babysit Brucie.

They grow up together for 4 long years. Danny hanging out with Bruce and Galas and being an older brother figure for him. Until the fateful night of the Wayne family murder. Now there aren't any more galas and Alfred's busy taking care of things around the manor. Soon Bruce and Danny loose all forms of contact.

Skip to years later, when the Justice League summon the ghost king, intending to establish a peace treaty after a harsh scolding from contsintine and dr fate. And when Danny comes through the swirling green portal in full Ghost king regalia and swoops down and Hugs Batman. And when batman doesn't back away and proceeds to hug back.

Chaos, absolute chaos

[hana-no-seiiki]

this is prolly the only fem! reader i’m ever writing with batfam in this blog. enjoy.

(implicit) yandere batfam x dommy mommy! reader

— in which these men realize you were far more than just an assistant

Galas were fun at times. But when forced to attend such repetitive events in addition to their vigilante work — well it was safe to say, it was not boding well for their sanity.

You worked as a general assistant for the BatFamily. As Alfred’s daughter, you endeavored to ease your father and his employers’s lives. You were a sweetheart. An absolute angel. The loveliest lady to ever exist.

Until you were pushed past the brink of your limits, stress wise, of course.

The whole Jason coming back from the dead and Bruce being dead took a massive blow to your sleep schedule. The boys took it as an opportunity to blur the lines between work and personal life. Slowly inserting themselves into your day to day outside of what you tirelessly scheduled for them.

So when a villain managed to break into the Batcave while you were there all on your lonesome (took a while for you to schedule every single one of them so that they’d be too busy to bother you), you didn’t take it all too kindly.

By the time the boys got back home, they were only privy to the following things

(1) You were a lot stronger than what you appeared to be. If the footage of you absolutely decimating the man wasn’t already a sure sign there was also the fact that you managed to somehow replicate a lot of the moves the boys would learn during training. Must have been something Alfred drilled into you as extra measure.

(2) You were a lot more menacing and sadistic when stressed.

The intruder looked at you with pleading eyes. His face black and blue. Could you blame yourself? You only had one night of peace and this man ruined it.

You sighed. He seemed to be incapacitated enough. Pulling out the chair to the iconic Batcomputer, you took a seat and pondered.

Bruce gave you access to all the alcohol you would need to ease the stresses of life. Might as well you shrugged.

You slowly took off the stockings Dick gifted you a while back. It was a prototype of his merch he said. You knew it was just because he really wanted to see you in fishnets. Then, you used the tip of your toe to raise the intruder’s head to face you.

You paused for a moment, remembering how Tim would often look through the cameras old footage on his free time. His overworking and stalking habits are really be something you work on.

The thought of him seeing the way you act momentarily froze you.

But the alcohol in your system begged to differ.

“Make it up to me, and I’ll let you go.”

Eh, you’ll deal with Tim and Damian scolding you for your unhealthy habits later. And your dad’s sermons on professional behavior.

And whatever mess Jason makes you clean up for the night too.

The boys watched the footage with bated breath and tighter pants at your actions. This was a side they’ve never expected from you.

You poured a drink of your choice down your thighs and legs. The liquid slowly dripped down the skin of your calves and ankles before it reached the tip of your toe.

“What kind of an assistant would I be if I didn’t give a guest a drink?”

And (3)

They would kill to be that man.

[irisbleufic]

Hi! Just wanted to drop this real quick because I am but a simple lass who adores your powers of analysis.

I found this on Pinterest and what immediately struck me is that yeah, Jerome isn't the craziest version of himself here, but he's still highly dangerous, still decidedly not sane. Yet, his knife isn't even touching Bruce's neck, his hand is. Like a lover softly brushing their knuckles on a partner's throat. His left arm is wrapped around Bruce to keep him in place, but again, take the knife away and this is a tender embrace. And if I were being held tightly by someone holding a dagger to my neck, I'd be clawing at them. I'd be angry and scared, of course. And Bruce is afraid, very much so. Nonetheless, he's clutching at Jerome in a very peculiar way.

Nada, just thought you'd find this interesting. Hope all is going well and you're getting some sleep (writing And teaching, how do you do it?) !

Hi there, @shippinggirl2424!  The trick to this situation is just that: it’s a trick. At this point, Jerome is so eager to please Theo Galavan (and to be a star, which is what Galavan’s promising him via this holding-up of the televised gala) that he’s maintaining this as a measured, controlled performance. The audience and Bruce both need to believe Bruce is in danger, which he is to a degree—but it’s not immediate danger. At this stage, maybe after a year or slightly less of doing time in Arkham and then being freed by the Galavans, Jerome is willing to take directions since acting rashly on his own (i.e. killing his mother and getting caught) didn’t work out so well for him. He can’t hold onto Bruce too roughly and can’t risk letting the knife actually bite into his neck because he might actually kill him if he does that…but that’s not what Theo has told him to do, is it? All he’s really been asked to do is play the actions of menace in this context until Theo arrives to save the day. Jerome doesn’t know Theo is going to kill him; if he had known, Jerome’s actions in this context might have changed drastically. Casting an actor so physically intentional in this role was necessary. Those tiny, subtle distinctions need to be perceptible—and Monaghan delivers.

As for how Bruce carries himself in this scene, that’s not surprising, because Mazouz shares that capability with his co-star. Alfred has likely impressed upon Bruce that struggling in a situation like this carries no advantage unless you’re sure you have the upper hand. Bruce knows he does not; that’s the choice I see in how it’s acted. Keeping one hand over Jerome’s like that shows an unusual amount of poise under duress; he knows he can’t do anything to prompt Jerome to handle him more roughly, but he also knows he needs to have his hands in positions that could let him fight back at a moment’s notice. Like, jeez, they’re both just teenagers here (probably about 13 and 18, or 14 and 19, depending on how much time Jerome did in Arkham before the Galavans busted him and the Maniax out to cause all this trouble), and they’re both under the tight control of others around them. They both stand to lose their lives if they make one wrong move (and Jerome is going to lose his no matter what he does, but again, he believes if he does what he’s told, he’ll get what he wants).

This is all to say, there are absolute reasons why you perceive “gentleness” in the contact here. It’s not so much gentleness on either of their parts as it is restraint. They just each have completely different reasons for showing a measure of restraint. If you compare this encounter to the night of Jerome’s resurrection and the fun fair, which is another year or so beyond this incident, none of this restraint applies. Jerome wakes up thinking the desire to kill Bruce was conceived as his own notion, when really it was Galavan’s design, and Bruce by that point has lost many of his illusions and reservations surrounding his own use of violence. I always end up in a place, in my stories, where, out the other side of this hate that’s been set up for them, they realize they have a lot more in common than they’d admit—and it’s so interesting to make them cooperate in matters surrounding the fact they’ve fallen for each other’s “siblings” (Jeremiah doesn’t merit quotation marks, but Five does both due to the lack of specificity in canon surrounding his creation and to the manner of specificity I’ve built for my stories to fill those gaps in his origins).

Strip away the strings controlling Jerome and Bruce, or the remnants of strings, and they have the potential to end up in situations where they’re of more help to each other than hindrance (I mean, look at the diner scene in S4). They don’t have the same kind of complicating spark, by which I do mean a crush, that Bruce and Jeremiah form from the moment they first see each other. Get on the bad side of somebody you love or somebody you’re in love with and it’s far, far worse than getting on the bad side of somebody you’re just stuck with. Bruce and Jerome kind of just get stuck with each other, and after a while, every time they cross paths, it’s like, oh, right, you again. The first time you put Jeremiah in the mix with Jerome and Bruce is the one time it arguably ends worse for Jerome than it ever has before, and it’s at least partly because Jerome and Bruce each feel something far more complicated for Jeremiah than they feel for each other.