simulation and assimilation. (yan! batfam x neglected! gn! reader) (concept idea).
reblogs comments, and interactions are encouraged and appreciated.
thinking of something about a neglected reader, captured by a villain (with "good" intentions to bring "ultimate happiness to the world" through you) while you're still still at your prime era of yearning. not young enough to misunderstand neglect as simply being "busy," but not old enough to grow past the ache and flourish as a person.
when you were at your lowest, your already dilapidated life is taken away from you, body strapped to multiple tubes, wires connected to your body; trapped in some box room with only a hard mattress with straps tying you down. you're stripped of rights the moment the villain eyed you through the tv screen announcing your existence to the world.
the perfect victim for their foils, trapped in some vegetative, comastose state, is then forced to live in a simulation of your fantasies.
a loving family, who always smiles at you, notices you even when you've gone silent, brings you gifts whenever you're down, cheers for you the loudest when no one else would; a dream that used to be so distant, now overriding all your old memories of trauma, brainwashing you to think you've always lived with the batfamily for years, never knowing the taste of neglect on your tongue—
these falsified memories bring about huge waves of happiness, the simulation you live in felt too real, and too close; the machine holding you down literally milks away the intense emotions you feel, all in the expense of your degrading physical health.
so you're quite literally only sustained by IV drips, entire body hollow, cold to the touch. the villain believes that this is for the good of gotham, because the dopamine produced by you, their greatest invention, led to the creation of a product (maybe drugs, maybe a machine, a VR simulation meant to produce the same, fantastic results you've made).
and these products? they're successful enough when tested through their other lab rats, and it's great enough that many other contractors were willing to sweep off the fact that the bruce wayne's child is the main variable to creating the greatest invention yet.
your joy is mass produced, and ultimately, this product led to lesser crime in gotham, a sudden influx of happier people in the streets.
bad news in batman's eyes.
which leads to an investigation about these people, past criminals, now induced to simple, ordinary folks who act like they've never done or thought of bad in their life, stuck in a state of constant content and joy. digging through their houses, batman finds a prototype of the product, with the villain's logo sealed in the product; like they wanted him to find them.
the detective work eventually steered him to the villain's lair, who isn't aware of your relation to batman, only seeing as the depraved child of bruce wayne who's never known love— and when you give even the smallest bone to a hungry dog, they will feed on it without complaint, only gratitude that they even had food in the first place.
and this happiness in concept made you the person piece to be used as their personal lab rat.
thinking of batman, who hears all this from the villain's monologue realizing that it's you that he sees through the CCTV, his child, who he has to do a double take just to recognize your mother's features just to confirm you're his— who he's never met eye to eye, experimented on just for some villain's sick, twisted ideology of utopia.
his literal child, strapped to some bed, living a life they thought were real, a life you fantasized with a family who never entertained that simple dream.
just a tool for some villain to torture and keep permanently disabled in a boxed chamber for the sake of, what? gotham's good?
meanwhile, you're still left none the less wiser, trapped in the simulation for years that reality is no less than a distant hallucination.
with bruce and your once dead mother, now alive and thriving in this world, in a loving relationship with your father. the loudest to cheer during competitions, the ones who gently treat your old scars and silent battles. they love you in this world, bruce cares for you, he restlessly stays by your bedside when you're sick, protects you from paparazzi, sneaks in chips inside your snack compartment under your bed when your mom lovingly scolds you for having too much.
with dick who spends his weekends with you, always coddling you during dinner with jokes and kisses and warm advice, being the greatest older brother you could think of. when he's about to be away for bludhaven, he takes you to his apartment, promises to an exasperated alfred that, no, he won't burn down the kitchen this time; yet his day spent baking with you turned to messy flour fights and a sloppily made chocolate cake tasting like hot magma.
jason who never enacted revenge on you after his resurrection, who always teases you about your grades and awkward elementary days crushing on some boys who eat playdough and girls who pick you on, while you shove alfred's signature dessert into his mouth to shut him up, hot in the face, kicking him from beneath the table when he tells the entire family about the time you used to jump to bubbles with your mouth open just to capture a taste of its soapy flavor— then promptly running and crying to jason once the liquid invades your awaiting mouth.
tim who gives up all the time in his world to spend with you, never busy, never locked somewhere else you couldn't go. who brings you to watch him play skateboard, doing tricks so he could stare at your awed reactions, even laughing alongside his friends on the other times he's tripped on his feet and kissed the gravel path. with him, you're idolized by the people in your school for having such a cool brother with a... cooler sense of style, who always does your homework for you and even sneaks you out during classes just so you two could feast on street foods without bruce's knowledge.
you also have damian, who'd never pointed a blade at you at your first meeting, who immediately acknowledges you as his, lovingly calling you his older sibling towards anyone who asks. you share an atelier together, play hide and seek around the manor, vandalize tim's laptop with stickers of italian brainrot and pictures of him taken in 0.5 whenever he's just a tad too insufferable. you act like children who'd never been forced to grow up too quickly. when you want someone who'd undeniably take your side without question, without doubt, it's always damian who'd tell off others for you.
steph who you spill all your teen insecurities to. she teaches them to be braver, to be more reckless, to stick out of the goody-two shoes impression you show to the public masses and just be yourself. always sneaking out during curfews to eat at restaurants, have failed double dates, joke about the people you meet, wasting money on stuff you'll never even use. then when it's time to sneak back to the manor, you two would be greeted by the sight of bruce's blank ones and your mother's crossed arms, sneaking smug glances to one another as you're both eventually forced to listen to their sermons.
duke who takes you out for city trips during day patrol, taking you to the best, underrated spots in gotham where not even criminals could reach, just so the two of you could spend time watching over the city while talking about mundane topics. he even considers you close enough to bring you to meet his parents, even having dinner with them every week so you have more people to call family. with duke, grappling through rooftops are common, but being chased and subway surfing through trains after a prank is even more.
you even have barbara, who personally guides you through adulthood problems. she's the voice of reason when the childish arguments amongst the others on who gets to have your time becomes too much, the only one who doesn't actively seek you but offers open arms in every moment. but she's also the very same woman who takes advantage of the family's quarrels just to take you to the batcave and entertain yourself watching her scam scammers online, even plays a game with you on who can catfish people better.
and lastly, cass, who you always try to find when you simply want a shoulder to cry on. she's always been there in every moment: a watchful, invisible eye who's always been there to protect you. during classes, during dates, even when you think you're alone in the gardens, there's always a pair of eyes on your body. you've never had bullies because she takes them out quickly and efficiently. and you're always the first she tries to find in the crowd of spectators during ballet performances. whenever you need silence amongst a sea of chaos, she's always there to lend her presence.
all given to you in a silver platter, as long as you stay subservient to the whims of a machine.
so really, how could you even ask for more—? why would you even settle for less after?
the villain would justify to a heaving bruce wayne, a despaired father: why would you want to let go of this life, strapped to some bed and connected to machinery, comatose and depraved of sensation, sure. but is it not the very same thing that provides you happiness? that gives everyone in gotham the joy they deserve in this life of misery?
is that not the batman's goal? to reduce crime, to limit the depression that spills through the cracks of the city? the city won't need its dark knight anymore, the city won't even have any more crime.
and the batman himself could finally be no more.
the sound of the worried questions crackling in his comms blur into one disjointed symphony when he sees your convulsing body through the screen of the CCTV's monitor, the villain joking about how it's "just a minor blunder" which often happens when the simulation stimulates pain into your system to keep you active. how it'll fix itself.
you'll be back and running in no time. just like a machine.
batman— bruce wayne, your father, stares at the abject horror of his child's sunken body melding into the sheets, your flesh and fat and bones just nothing but a lump of fuel pumped and drained by machinery.
while this villain jokes that sacrifices are necessary for everybody to be happy— that even the batman deserves to know the joy they've created through you.
he could be just bruce wayne. he could be ordinary.
just like the child strapped and eroded in some hospital that he failed to save. the very child that bruce wayne failed to raise.
gotham could be happy, for the price of one withering life.
he could be happy. with his family, with his friends. with everyone who brought joy into his life...
as long as it is without you.
a/n: i realize i'm like shit as conveying my ideas something but this is the best i could do 😭 erm support chapter 6 btw if u guys haven't read it yet. and if u guys like this idea then tell me, send in some stuff in the inbox or comment why. interactions make everything brighter for writers, i promise 🙏
