BEST BRUCE WAYNE/ BATMAN FICS I KNOW
ok so I’ve noticed a distinct lack of fic recs surrounding bruce as a focus and figured hey, I read a fuck ton of bruce fics to fix that!!
This is gonna be a mix of gen and shipping, for this list at least, I’m just gonna have all the longer fics with a more serious tone here- i lowkey wanna do another rec list for batfam or team bonding with the league and/or sweeter slice of life fics too (also all the other superbat fics, there were so many others but this list was already getting waay too long lol)
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I’ll Come Out Right On The Other Side
https://archiveofourown.org/works/21995317/chapters/52488031
A direct follow up to “Live While I Breathe” in which Bruce begins therapy.
His first major goal? Bettering his relationships with his kids, one at a time.
AKA: Bruce plans a bonding activity with each of his kids and generally makes a fool of himself. He thinks it might be worth it though, in the end.
Good Intentions and the Highest Hopes
https://archiveofourown.org/works/35013313/chapters/87205279
Bruce offers each of his children the chance to go on vacation with him, and they get to choose the destination. Jason chooses the one place he thinks Bruce will enjoy the least, out of spite.
That’s how the two of them end up going to Disney World.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/11035398/chapters/24597084
While trying to take down a drug cartel that deals with memory altering drugs, things go awry, and Batman wakes up with no recollection of the last five years.
As a result, his family must now race against time to find the antidote, while also having to deal with a Bruce who still thinks Jason is Robin. A Bruce who doesn’t recognise most of them. A Bruce far less jaded and cynical than the one they’re used to. A Bruce who still cares.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/14519379/chapters/33545871
It was a no good, very bad night all around, and it kept getting worse.
In which the writer explores some classic tropes, indulges in some BatFam feels, and explores the effects of nature and nurture on the psyche of one Bruce Thomas Wayne.
(^ bruce gets hit with a spell and goes through different ages and bonds with each batfam through every one- it’s really really good)
https://archiveofourown.org/works/7804285/chapters/17807005
Bruce Wayne deals with a serious illness, one that threatens the most crucial part of himself. He and the family try to cope with their own fears and expectations about it and then the aftermath. This is written partly as character study, partly as family drama.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/13515501/chapters/30999966
Damian Wayne is kidnapped and sent back years through time. Together, he and Father – who’s only been Batman for a mere six months –must figure out how to return him to his own time.
Over the course of the next week, Damian discovers that Mexican gangsters do not mess around, that social workers find Bruce annoying, that Bruce might be a little messed up, and that crystal chandeliers create the fondest memories.
Keep Your Head, Your Backbone, and Your Heart
https://archiveofourown.org/works/30878135/chapters/76242287
The last thing that Duke expected on what was supposed to be just a regular patrol was being suddenly thrown five years into the past, coming face to face with a darker, more violent Batman than the one he knew, a broken family, and a Tim who was a foot shorter than Duke, and not even Robin yet.
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https://archiveofourown.org/works/28374456/chapters/69587634#workskin
When Bruce Wayne comes out, he accidentally becomes the poster child of bisexuality and realizes his lifestyle of sleeping around needs to come to an end. Clark, being the supportive friend that he is, volunteers to pretend to date him for a year.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/9544220/chapters/21581087
With the help of an alien artifact Bruce is travelling to more universes than he ever thought possible. The only problem?
He can’t get back to his own.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/33784999/chapters/83984005
Martha Kent has lost her son; that’s something Bruce can understand. A friendship that blossoms from grief and loss? Bruce can be selfish this once and allow himself at least that.
But then Martha gets her son back, and Bruce? Bruce doesn’t. Living with what he’s done and has had done to him? Maybe Bruce needs a little help with that. And it seems both Kents are willing to give Bruce as much time as he’s willing to give them.
Until his son does come back. Both of them.
(A Superhero’s Amateur Guide to Saving a Life, Falling in Love, and Preserving the Space-Time Continuum Despite) Time Travel
https://archiveofourown.org/works/25137466
There isn’t anything unusual about the day Bruce dies.
Clark wishes there had been. He wishes he’d known it was coming; he wishes he’d been ready and waiting to stop it before it happened at all.
But having the chance to fix it after the fact is the next-best thing. He’ll take it.
Porridge (New and Improved)
https://archiveofourown.org/works/18916780
If there was no Batman, he would just have to create him. No matter what the cost. With the help of a Batman-inspired supercomputer that is close to the real thing (but not nearly close enough), Superman brings Batman to the world once more.
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https://archiveofourown.org/works/28287774/chapters/69318234
Hal is sick, and Bruce helps out, and illness has a way of showing you not just who you really are, but who someone else is too. It’s possible, Hal comes to realize, that he just might be the asshole. Possibly. Just maybe
https://archiveofourown.org/works/22137433/chapters/52840714
(not the summary, but a note)
It’s a “What if Hal came home to find out about Coast City’s destruction after the fact?” and a “What if Bruce, being his general awkward but well-intentioned self, stuck his nose in?” and a “What if, Hal got a little support from his friends - take that and shove it, Parallax” kind of fic
https://archiveofourown.org/works/3785038/chapters/8419681
Bruce lets himself push back a door of possibility he really ought to have known better than to try, and gets entangled in Ollie and Dinah’s complicated life. Hal Jordan has been there before, and offers him some free advice – and then quite a bit more.
(^ honestly, any batlatern fic done by this person, literally every one)
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not really rare but more I couldn’t justify them having their own section so here’s where all the other pairs go lol
https://archiveofourown.org/works/26624758/chapters/64921246
With the manor in flames, Bruce Wayne sets out into the world for a well deserved vacation. When he becomes separated from Alfred, Bruce finds himself trapped in a downward spiral he can’t recover from.
Or at least not without help, and help comes from the strangest of places.
(^ bruce/bane- i really like how they dealt with the more political side of things and asked some real questions)
https://archiveofourown.org/works/12459708/chapters/28354785
After she receives his gift, Diana invites Bruce to Paris so she can tell him her story. They are interrupted when a figure from Diana’s past returns with a message from Themyscira. Diana, with Bruce at her side, discovers that not all myths are myth and she is not as alone as she once was.
(^ wonderbat in my favourite flavour, protagonist diana and happy to be here bruce :))
When Another Clark Situation Becomes Something More
https://archiveofourown.org/works/40404015/chapters/101215623
This is the story of how Vigilante and Batman became an item. And it all started with Vigilante quoting Clint Eastwood in the right place at the right time. Golden Age of Hollywood cowboy movies played a huge role. And the batkids did too. But they aren’t aware of that.
(^ incredibly rare vigilante/batman but it’s also really good- the writer really knows what they’re doing)
https://archiveofourown.org/works/38102632/chapters/95179879
Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne; once childhood friends, former young lovers, seminal business partners, coinciding superheroes, now… what?
They’ve shared more than their honest need of fixes, shared more than enough of their afflictions, and shared far more than one lifetime together. Left with scattered memories of their relationship, they’re made to question whether they had too much together; if they still have too much remaining to answer for.
With their friendship stretched thin by matters demanding their alter-egos, failing romantic affairs, and inveterate personal burdens, they haven’t seen each other in a few years but, when Bruce shows up at one of Tony’s AA meetings, the pair rekindle their unremitting relationship in a way only they know how.
(^ tony/bruce- just two emotionally damaged, struggling, toxic billionaires who need each other so deeply they would rather die than be apart, yknow, as you do)
https://archiveofourown.org/works/5795281/chapters/13357042
Set immediately after “The Killing Joke”: Joker changes his mind on the way back to Arkham and agrees to Batman’s offer to rehabilitate him.
What follows is a mess of conflicting needs, emotional ugliness and a whole lot of bad decisions, but no one ever said it was going to be easy.
(^ i know its batjokes x-x I know how ya’ll feel about the ship so i get if you wanna skip this last one but do know, it is really good. (unhealthy? definitely, but good? very much so)