#I ALSO THINK IT WOULD MAKE BATMAN AND THE SIGNAL HIT HARDER. bc when duke accuses bruce it’s all crashing down around him but then IT’S NOT

[dukethomas]

y’know as much as i rave abt duke and bruce’s consistently positive relationship, you know what i would have loved to see if duke’s entering the family had been given more attention?? a teensy bit of distrust sprinkled into there. in the beginning of we are robin duke very much distrusts authority figures bc he’s been in the foster care system for a while at that point & says he’s gotta do it all himself and while by the end of that series he’s much more of a team player…. he’s probably still got that distrust of authority figures, because it’s all been up to him and the other robins. sure, in superheavy duke appeals to bruce going “you inspired me and the rest of gotham” etc and it worked and batman returned! but bruce taking duke in is right after that, how is duke not gonna look at bruce and see the guy who only stepped up last minute? he used to describe batman as “another adult who bailed” like bruce has let him down before & duke hasn’t forgotten that.

but think abt how cool it would be to see duke showing up, not abt to turn down an offer from the freaking batman, and yeah, at first he’s hesitant. he’s wary. he’s waiting for when life’s gonna screw him over, despite his best hopes. and instead bruce really commits to training duke & throughout the cursed wheel arc duke rlly feels more and more like part of the family. it’s a subtle, gradual thing where duke begins to trust bruce alongside his evolution into the signal. and that distrust of authority never fully goes away bc duke rlly does feel like he’s the one that’s gonna take on the world but also now he’s got bruce in his corner and he’s never gonna take that for granted, ever.