Bruce is a manipulator, and half the time I don't think he even realizes he's doing it. He's spent his entire life learning how to control situations and nudge outcomes in the direction he wants.
Sometimes it's over serious things, of course, but sometimes it's over the smallest, most mundane stuff.
Clark notices the way he'll phrase a command so it sounds like you came up with the idea or how he'll steer a debate until everyone agrees with him without realizing how they got there.
At first Clark lets it slide because he understands why Bruce is like this, but that doesn't make it any less exhausting...
I think that's one of the primary sources of conflict in their couple : Bruce often doesn't realize he's manipulating a situation because, to him, it's just how he interacts with the world. Clark does realize it, and eventually he starts calling him out on it.
Bruce manipulating people so he can control what emotions they’ll feel. So all he goes through are predictable situations that he knows how to deal with. Because he grew up in isolation, never learned how to answer to people’s emotions in a way that validates them and makes them feel listened to. But he can practice a conversation, and he can steer people into the emotions that are safe for him, emotions that he can answer to correctly, even if that isn’t how the other person genuinely feels.
He’s not malicious at all. He just wants to get it right.
A sequel for the post in which Damian chose to stay with his father? The consequence, the way other heroes, Batman's friends, react, and how slowly Dick start to feel sorry but didn't know how to repair thing with Bruce? Thanks 🥰
This
CW. Ableism
"Dad, dad! Did you know," Jon stage whispers, projecting his voice across the canteen, and Dick stiffens. "Did you know that sometimes disabilities are actually disabling?"
Hal gasps, scandalised, his objection of "No!" ringing out across the room.
Dick closes his eyes, pained, and doesn't turn to give them his attention. They've been at it all week, and his protests only earn him derision or another argument. He's tired of arguing, which is...it's why he left. It's why they all left, except Damian, then Cass, and now everyone has turned on them. He doesn't hate Bruce, like everyone believes, he just needed a break.
"It can't be!" Barry carries on, and Dick grabs his drink from the fridge, repressing a scowl. He gets it. He gets that they were wrong to leave, and not at least to try and talk it out, but this has been all of his last week, and he's tired. He lost his dad, he lost his brother who he thought was slightly more, his sister, all of his friends and mentors in one fell swoop.
The family isn't even talking to each other!
Jason is god knows where, Tim decided to sleep in the Nest anyway, even if it is still being repaired, Babs is practically mute on comms, Steph won't pick up the phone.
"Now, Jon," Clark drawls, the Kansas twang he gets when he's emotional out in full force. "Don't talk about that kind of thing. We don't like people with disabilities here."
Dick whips around, meeting Clark's glare he knows is waiting for him.
"Stop."
"Stop what?" he growls, rising from his seat. "Stop what, Dick? Stop throwing your mistakes in your face again and again and again? Stop reminding you of your flaws every waking minute? Stop reminding you of the ways you tore down your father every day just because you couldn't be bothered to learn?"
"Stop treating me like I don't know I fucked up!" He yells back. "I'm sorry, Uncle C! I didn't— We didn't mean to hurt B like that! We just wanted—"
"Him to be normal?"
J'onn's voice is monotone, and it feels like a death knell ringing over his head.
"Stop it. No."
"It's your thought. You've said it."
Dick tosses his bottle aside and digs his knuckles into his closed eyes. "I didn't mean it. Not like that, not in an ableist way."
"Is there another way to tell him that his disability makes him abnormal?" Diana's expression holds no space for friendliness, bitter and begrudging, rightfully so. "That sounds ableist to me."
"You know what sounds ableist to me?" Hal tags in again, forcing eye contact with Bruce. "Taking his son away because you don't think his autistic father can be a good parent."
Dick takes a step back. "You know— You know that's not it. I love Damian. I— I just wanted to—"
"Wanted what?" Hal snarls.
J'onn puts a hand out, and the two of them face off before Hal's chair screeches back and he storms out of the room, the door slamming closed behind him and the lights flickering as the electricity reacts to Green Lantern's rage.
"I thought of Damian as more than just a brother." His voice shakes. Tears wet his eyes. "I thought he saw me the same way. It had nothing— I didn't think Bruce was unfit I thought—"
"It doesn't matter what you thought, Dick." Clark's voice is tired, he sits slumped in his chair. "What matters is what you did. And how it looked."
Barry rubs his face, glowers at him between his fingers. "What matters is that Bruce doesn't know any better. You're telling us that isn't what you meant, but what about him? You're not telling him that. He thinks..."
He doesn't need to finish. Dick knows what Bruce thinks. It makes him sick to his stomach.
"How do I fix it?" he whispers. "I don't know how to talk to him."
Diana tilts her head, lips pursed with disdain. "That never stopped Bruce."
Dick inhales deeply, exhales slowly, and focuses on putting one foot in front of the other to walk out of the room. He does that all the way to the zetas, ignoring the green glow tracking him through the halls, and stops at the teleporters.
It's the hardest thing he's ever done, to input the Batcave's coordinates.
It's the easiest thing he's ever done, to input the Batcave's coordinates.
"Don't fuck it up," Hal warns, voice low, green crawling over the walls, closing in on Dick.
"I don't plan to," he promises.
The zetas flash, pulling him away, and he goes home.
I know it's touched on in the comics but I love the idea of when Bruce is alone in the Manor, he talks to the pets. He can just spill out everything he would usually keep inside or hide from the kids or Alfred.
Bruce talks to Ace about his day, sitting on his chair in the Cave, scratching him under his jaw the way he likes while he complains about how that guy at work was being such a jerk to him.
Asking Titus what he should do about Damian's recent bad behaviour after he storms out and slams the door and even if he just gets drooled on in reply, he feels a little better because he knows that if he can talk to Titus, Damian can too.
Bruce ranting to Jerry the Turkey about some nonsense the kids pulled at school while he's feeding him. Bruce is having a bad day, he's in sweats and socks, he was meant to have a lie in but no, one of the kids decided to blow up a school toilet and he got called over it. Jerry always gobbles as if defending the kids. Bruce vents his frustration arguing with the fowl before the kids in question get home.
Bruce heads out to the edge of the estate to give Goliath a pat where he's resting due an injury and Bruce sits with him, talking about his own injuries and how he knows to what is it is like to be hurt so badly and to be out of action but rest is important.
Bruce leaning on the fence outside of BatCow's pasture watching her munch on dandelions, telling her about a situation where he snapped at Clark on a mission and was harder than he meant to be and has so much guilty over it and eventually gains the courage to apologise for being an ass after talking to her.
Bruce laying on the sofa in the Cave, letting Alfred the Cat cuddle into his chest and admitting how much he misses OG Alfred, how much is death has effected him and how lonely the house as been since and if he cries, Alfred the Cat won't mind.
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