Batman: First Teen Hero

Icon by @agents-of-fangirling The very small age difference between Bruce and Dick now means that if you wanted a couple of years between him becoming Batman, the formation of the JLA, and getting a sidekick Bruce would have had to have been 17 or 18 when he decided to start dressing like a bat to fight crime. All AU’s are adoptable for Fanfic Prompts

[yasyart]

Jedi Duke Thomas

[papayafromtv]

au where Jason is the one to deliver Damian to Bruce but he and Damian get into an argument on the drive over about how good at stealth missions Damian is and it ends in Jason double-dog daring him to skip the whole 'introduction' aspect of going to live with Bruce and instead to just sneak into the manor and see how long he can go unnoticed for.

Damian's claim is that the manor is so big and Damian's so good at remaining hidden that he could live in the manor without anybody else there clocking him easy. Jason just wants to see how long he can actually go because in his mind the longer Bruce goes without realising he has Damian in the house, the funnier the reveal will be. he's actually kinda rooting for Damian purely because it's funnier if he pulls it off for a really long time first. then Jason can snitch on him and the fall-out will be glorious.

he lasts about four months.

two weeks in and Alfred becomes suspicious, but chooses to believe that it's raccoons or pigeons in the attic because then he doesn't have to get involved. and he really doesn't want to get involved.

a month in and Damian almost gets caught by Tim while trying to steal some food in the middle of the night and getting cornered in the kitchen, but Tim hadn't slept in three days and was high on cold medicine at the time so he assumed that Damian was actually a hallucination of Bruce as a child, and all he did was stare Damian directly in the eye and solemnly tell him 'never ask your parents to go see a movie with you.' before going to pass out in the study.

two months in and Damian has gotten into a rhythm with it. feeling unchallenged, he starts waiting for Bruce to fall asleep in front of the batcomputer during hard cases so he can sneak out from the walls and fix whatever Bruce is getting wrong and solving the case before he wakes up.

three months in and Dick runs into him while sneaking in through a side door so he can grab some stuff from his bedroom without having to talk to Bruce, but Damian bullshits that he's one of Tim's school friends visiting to complete a school project, and Dick gives him twenty dollars to promise that he won't tell anybody Dick is in the building.

four months in and he gets cocky; starts ordering packages to the manor addressed to himself. Alfred asks Bruce at the dinner table why they've received an amazon package for 'Damian Wayne' and nobody knows what the fuck he's talking about. the next night the Red Hood snitches and asks how 'Damian's doing' and Bruce becomes convinced that Hood has the manor bugged. demands a full sweep of the building. Tim comes across Damian napping in a hammock in the attic wearing Tim's presumed-lost clothes next to a pile of supremely confidential files stolen from the batcave.

Damian wakes up and promptly tells them all that they aren't allowed to be mad because the statute of limitations for breaking and entering has passed already. Jason laughs so hard he cries.

[the-jason-todd-impreganator]

Tim, drinking a milkshake:

Jason: Ha, suck on that straw any harder and people will think you're gay.

Tim:

Tim: I'm literally married to Bernard???

Tim: And I give amazing head!

Bernard, from the other room, unprovoked: HELL YEAH HE DOES!

Bruce: Can we not discuss our bedroom habits in the dining room?

Dick: I walked in on you going down on Tim's Dad in this dining room once.

Tim: WHAT!?

Bruce: That was a while ago.

Tim: BEFORE OR AFTER MY MOM AWHILE AGO!?

Bruce:

Bruce: I don't have to answer that.

[haveihitanerve]

I think that, as a fandom, we have given Dick entirely too much grace when it comes to the crazy shit he can undoubtedly do.

Like. This man was raised by The Batman, way back when Bruce was terrified of having a child on the streets with him, so he taught him fucking everything.

Dick can identify what bone was just broken just by hearing it snap. He can do rapid fire math, calculating the weight of a person, their muscle mass, and their general balance and snap any bone he so chooses.

He knows every single gun based off of their gunshot. There's about five pretty common and reliably used guns in Gotham and every Batkid and experienced cop can tell the difference between the five of them, but for any new sort of gun, they turn to Dick and he rattles off how many bullets, how fast a reloading time, etc etc

He knows how to mostly painlessly dislocate his shoulders and hips in order to squeeze into tiny spaces

He can wield every weapon ever used dating back to the origin of man- he's not an expert at every one but he can wield them, and non weapon objects he can turn into weapons just by wielding them

He can genuinely meditate away pain while mid fight in order to keep putting pressure on that leg that has a broken kneecap because he doesn't want to lose his balance and still wants to throw a punch with that snapped right wrist

He spent an entire summer jumping from the trees behind Wayne Manor and training his body to accept the fall and not fucking die at increasingly higher and higher heights.

He once broke out of a Riddler trap using nothing more than an eraser and a napkin

He walked around the Manor with a blindfold on for two whole months in order to be able to distinguish when someone was around or watching him and how to maneuver without sight, and then had worn blind contacts to a Gala so that even under immense stimulation unlike the absence of any at the Manor he still got the training for recognizing the good and bad

If you can hear his laugh, he can see you.

[frownyalfred]

for the people who think it’s cliche to write Bruce going to galas in fics because they think it’s overblown: it’s not, I promise.

galas happen ALL the time. they’re fundraisers or silent auctions for non-profits or charities, they’re a networking event for club members, they’re for anniversaries or commemorating important milestones, they’re for police or military organizations to give awards, they’re for election campaigns or high profile donors in a certain charity league. hell, sometimes people have galas just to make money off the tables and schmooze.

the problem is assuming that a “gala” is one very specific thing. these days, a gala can refer to a variety of scenarios where people are dressed up and speeches and/or music feature at some point. it can be black tie, but it isn’t always. sometimes it’s an afternoon gala (yes these exist) or the environment is a bit more relaxed, so the dress code is “formal.”

so when I say that someone as important as Bruce Wayne is probably invited to a dozen galas every week, that’s not an exaggeration. the better question is, will he go, and why?

[prokopetz]

The Joker's iconic look is a fun little pop culture fossil. Like, he's not a circus clown or a birthday clown or a rodeo clown or any other kind of clown you might bump into today: he's specifically a vaudeville clown. We don't have those anymore, so that specific type of clown is now just "the Joker".

[saturdaymorningmemories]

I was wondering why so few clowns sport a tux with tails like he does.

[prokopetz]

Yeah, the kind of clown that the Joker's classic look is evoking is very much a clown for the stage. The idiom of the vaudeville clown has more in common with Charlie Chaplin than with Bozo.

[jackhawksmoor]

Nine year old Dick making extremely specific digs about the inferiority of vaudeville clownery and how pretentious someone would have to be to be a fan of vaudeville when they are CLEARLY the lowest and lamest form of clown. The Joker is being read for filth by a kid still in single digits and the true horror is that Batman gets the reference and is visibly smothering a laugh

[zaprowsdower27]

look, just because vaudville vanished a decade before clown eggs became a thing is no excuse for him to not get his own egg NOW this doesnt change that he's Doing It Wrong

[arcanistlupus]

Dick comes from a circus background. *Of course* he considers vaudeville to be the lowest form of clown.

[prokopetz]

Yeah, in my mind the humour of the proposed scenario is very much that Dick and the Joker are both being pretentious assholes about the history and practice of clowning, but, like, from opposite directions.

[papayafromtv]

no you know what you guys are right. reverse league son reveal. Jason comes back to Gotham and does his crime lord thing before tentatively starting a truce and returning to the batfam and one day Dick asks who Bruce’s favourite child is.

Bruce: i love all three of my sons equally.

Jason, without thinking: three? what about Damian?

Bruce:

Tim: who the fuck is Damian

Jason, freezing:

Jason:

Jason:

Bruce: *carefully* Jay, who is Damian?

Jason: I have to leave.

-

Jason, on the phone with Damian: so i ALMOST blew it-

Damian: ?! BUT I AM NOT READY FOR FATHER TO KNOW ABOUT ME YET-

Jason: shut the fuck up i’m older than you- and i said ALMOST. i told them that Damian was the name of my imaginary twin back when i was a kid and that i’d just gotten muddled up after the resurrection.

Jason: so you’re in the clear but when we finally do introduce you, we’re gonna have to say that Talia let me name you and i named you after my imaginary twin.

Damian:

Damian: Ahki please do not tell them that.

Jason: no im gonna. you called me a twat last week. so im gonna.

Damian: god forbid a boy try to expand his vocabulary

[papayafromtv]

Jason’s-alive-reveal-au where he decides that in order to fuck with Bruce on every level he needs access to both sides of his life, so not only does he become Red Hood but he also starts working at WE and accidentally slowly starts climbing the corporate ladder. he didn’t mean to be anything more than a low-level grunt but turns out he fucking rules at this job, and it all comes to light because thinking he wouldn’t be important meant he didn’t even bother using a fake name, and eventually Tim’s in his office like, running through promotions that he needs to approve for some of the higher positions.

Tim, seeing ‘Jason Peter Todd’ as one of the names on the list:

Tim: *narrows eyes*

Lucius, spotting the name: ….oh. what do you want to-

Tim: give him the promotion.

Lucius: ….give the promotion to the person using Bruce’s dead son’s name?

Tim: if he gets the promotion he’ll have to attend the monthly board meetings. i want to watch whoever this is try and get away with that. we’ll tear him apart.

Tim thinks he’s being real funny up until Jason fucking Todd walks into the boardroom two weeks later and maintains direct eye contact just daring him to freak out in front of everyone. i like to think that Bruce is also at this meeting, but he fell asleep five minutes ago so he doesn’t even notice, and Tim spends the next hour glaring daggers into the passed out man’s head for daring to leave him alone in this situation.

the thing is, Bruce probably slacks off so much at WE that even if Jason was like. in the highest position he could possible achieve in his department. he probably wouldn’t notice. Jason and Tim come to an understanding filled with spite that leads Tim to keep quiet about Jason’s revival specifically because Bruce keeps palming his work off on Tim and he wants to get him back.

eventually the family find out who Red Hood is and Tim doesn’t act surprised in the slightest. betrayed, Bruce asks why Tim would keep that kind of information from him only to immediately get shouted down with ‘-WELL MAYBE IF YOU ACTUALLY SHOWED UP TO THE FUCKING STOCK MEETINGS YOU WOULD KNOW-‘

after like twenty seconds of shocked silence at the outburst Jason turns to clap Bruce on the shoulder, ‘oh right. also i run your marketing department. see you in a couple days for the quarterly report.’

(i think its also funnier if Damian was somewhat aware of the situation due to doing some kind of volunteer/internship thing at WE for school, and like two months after Tim found out, Damian was in his office with him when Jason waltzed in to hand in some papers and both Tim and Damian froze. Tim because he didn’t think Damian knew Jason and was afraid he’d snitch, and Damian because what the fuck is Todd doing in front of a family member without the helmet?!

Jason, after like a minute: Dami, i can explain

Damian, really doesn’t want to get dragged into whatever bullshit Jason’s doing, because he had enough of that in the league and doesn’t want to be held responsible by both Bruce and Talia when this inevitably blows up in their faces: you know what Todd? i actually don’t want you to.

Jason:

Jason: thats honestly fair

Tim, confused: …am i missing something here?

Jason and Damian, simultaneously: no.)

[papayafromtv]

Damian Wayne gets caught by the press while sneaking away and hanging out in civilian clothing with Red Hood and Bruce finding out they know each other isn’t even his biggest problem. his biggest problem is that the interviewer asked what his connection is to the crime lord and why they have on camera the guy calling Damian ‘habibi’, and, panicking about whether or not Bruce seeing this interview could leak Jason’s identity, to throw him off the trail Damian said that Red Hood is his parent.

Interviewer: wait. but… i thought that Bruce Wayne was your biological father?

Damian, panicking even more because both Jason and Bruce would kill him if people thought that Brucie Wayne was the Red Hood’s identity: what, don’t you support trans people? Hood was my mother.

Jason only finds out what Damian did when after a week of confusedly nodding at the trans pride pins people kept wearing and pointing out to him on the street, and Damian refusing to look him in the eye, Nightwing shows up during patrol crying laughing about how Bruce Wayne got asked during a gala about his secret affair with a crime lord and held his champagne glass so tightly it exploded in his hands.

Bruce, on the other hand, got sent the interview clip by Tim halfway through breakfast, whereupon hearing the audio start Damian climbed out the nearest window to get away. after a slightly paranoid text to Talia about whether or not she was in Gotham wearing a face covering helmet every night, be proceeds to freak the fuck out. he has no idea who the Red Hood is, or how Damian knows him. He also has no clue that Red Hood knows HIS identity, and fully plans on showing up to Wayne events in the helmet to antagonise Bruce by stealing food and demanding they talk about the ‘custody arrangements’ of their son. all he knows is that Damian broke a window in his haste to Not Explain Anything, and that Dick and Tim are wheezing hysterically on the other side of the house.

[abcdfghjklmpqrobin]

I think anyone that studies medicine with Damian would lowkey hate his ass.

Not in a mean way, but in a petty why-aren't-you-struggling-like-me type of way. I mean, thanks to Robin and the league Damian is light years ahead of everyone on terms of experience and it would show.

Half the class is puking their guts out the first time they see a patient with an open fracture. Damian has been there, done that, seen that and worse. He's eating m&m's in the back.

They're all practicing making sutures until late. Damian is like "No, I don't need to join you. I could suture with my eyes closed" and then when someone is like "prove it, rich-boy" that mf actually blindfolds his eyes and sutures perfectly using four different techniques.

He also passes everything with flying colors! Because of course, the guy can't just be rich, good looking and famous, he has to be smart too.

And it just gets worse when he starts his actual residency.

Nothing shakes him! Thirty hour shifts? He doesn't even yawn. Extreme stress during a surgery gone awry? Damian is the one telling the other members of the surgical team to stay calm. Violent patient? They don't even get to call security, Damian has the guy pinned already.

And it would be easier to not get jealous of him if he somehow was a souless blood sucking asshole. But Damian is a good person, awkward and standoffish but always willing to help. He's there for whatever people need. He aids nurses, listens to patients, conforts victims. He sits with people for the bad news and when someone dies he gets this sad faraway look that shows he cares.

And it's just so unfair.

[iamthemess]

They're gonna lose their shit when they find out his connections.

Like, why do you have so much knowledge on psychology?

Damian casually: i studied with Dr Harleen Quinzel and Dr Jonathan Crane

You're not only an amazing surgeon but also great at Chemistry

Damian: I learned from the best (poison Ivy and Mr Fries)

Damian falling asleep listening to his professor talk about neuroscience and is one boring statement away from leaving to go find Jervis tetch

[harmleikurdraws]

[zeetannas]

sorry but the routes dc decides to go down when concerning martha + thomas coming back to life/even in the context of flashpoint makes me so mad, mainly because of all that wasted potential. like realistically it would be martha donning the cowl and being a touch more brutal than her son considering she was literally a vigilante who died protecting innocent children and was the thing that inspired bruce all throughout Batman: The Ultimate Evil (the literal last line of this comic is “I will fight in your name, mother.” with a note from martha that reads “when battling demons, aim not at their hearts.”) and it would be thomas who is hyper-pacifist and absolutely refusing to hurt anyone while he’s judging martha and bruce for beating the shit out of muggers, considering thomas was the person who taught bruce to never let anyone die, especially in The Long Halloween (among others). Don’t even get me started on the importance of thomas being a healer and how it’s one of the driving forces that makes batman, a contrasting symbol of fear and violence, want to constantly appease the ghost of his father. and also how his mother was ‘the only person who ever understood bruce’ canonically, how she was the one demanding justice and peace even with violence, how she was the one threatening monsters to stay out of her city or she would make them pay, you’d think there would be more stories where martha isn’t dumbed down to pretty rich housewife with almost no defining characteristic outside of “nice and empathetic” but nope

[faeriekit]

In every "the JL has never met the batfam" au in my brain, whether it's because the Batfam are murder-happy or pretending to be cryptids or are secretly the mob, whatever, it is always always ALWAYS funnier to have Nightwing still on the JL team. Like. Everyone feels so bad for him since he lives right next to demon town or whatever and then one day he just drops the information that they're all his baby siblings. Actually, that big scary guy? His dad. Yeah it's like a whole thing. What do you mean you're scared of Robin? He's like a baby! <- said baby almost killed Superman for sport like twenty minutes ago

[myth-myth-yeth]

We’ve had canon “Batman recruits Plastic man to the League”, but consider the comedic possibilities of the opposite.

The League desides to grow their roll, and ask the current members if they have any potential candidates. Not a lot of surprises - Superman brings Kara, Wonder Woman shows up with Big Barda, J’onn claims Booster and Ted just followed him in, but as long as they’re here…

It’s all pretty convivial. Nobody’s sure who Plastic Man is going to bring, maybe someone from one of the recent team-ups (Captain Marvel did laugh at all of Plas’s jokes, and Plas’s eyes literally popped out of his head when he met Power Girl).

Then Plastic Man squeezes through the door, turn the lights down low (“Aambianceee” he yodels), does a big dramatic “shushhh” and opens the door to reveal The Batman.

The. Batman.

The Flash nearly chokes on his drink.

[faeriekit]

IFNFHDIXJXJDBDHXJSKDJCJXJSJXNDJDJDNSHJSBXHDBXJXXB

💯💯💯 Big brained. Absolutely. One million percent

[morganbritton132]

There comes a time in every Robins life where they realize that crying will actually get them out of this.

[morganbritton132]

The funniest aspect of a child crime fighter is that sometimes they’re going to run into something that makes no sense because they don’t have the life experience. Because they’re nine.

Like Robin runs into a guy who works for The Penguin and the guy just throws his hands up like, “Don’t hit! I’m not an enforcer. I’m an accountant.”

Robin:

Robin, squaring up: I don’t know what that is.

[morganbritton132]

Hal, interrupting Barry mid-sentence: Hold up. You were in Gotham? Batman’s Gotham? ‘No-Meta-in-Gotham’ Gotham?

Barry: Yeah? Bats needed my forensic expertise. It was so cool. We traced-

Hal: Not fair. I want to go to Gotham

Barry: Ask Batman

—

Green Lantern, thinking about how he’s going to kill The Flash: You want me to go in there *gestures to open manhole* In the sewer. To fight an alligator.

Batman: Killer Croc is a man

Green Lantern: That looks like a crocodile and eats people.

Batman: Yes.

Green Lantern: What about him? Make him do it *gestures to Red Robin*

Red Robin: Can’t

Batman: He can’t.

Green Lantern: Why not?

Red Robin: Don’t have a spleen

Batman: He doesn’t have a spleen.

Green Lantern:

Red Robin, over coms: Did you guys hear that? Green Lantern just told me he wants me to fucking die

Coms: *explodes as everybody speaks at once*

[broosepayne]

Campaign: Part 1

Part 2 coming soon