Prompt: the batboys and their morning schedule! How would they all deal with waking up? Thank you,lovely! 💕
You’re the lovely one! It will be an honor to fill your request, you sweet perfect angel baby @spiderling-tom.
-Richard Grayson is naturally a 100% morning glory. He adapted to doing well at night through being raised in show business during his earliest years. This development was further honed during his time as Robin. All the same, his circadian rhythm has him up with the sun.
-When he was working on his own in Blüdhaven, transitioning to solo work was especially rough because of the extended hours and his lack of ability to catch naps while clocked in at the police station. A month and a half of consistent sleep deprivation in, he saved himself with ludicrously expensive black-out curtains. Now, they’re a must in every one of his apartments.
-Dick ideally sets his alarm for an hour and a half before he’s meant to turn up somewhere. That gives him time to roll out of bed, hop in the shower, clean up his stubble, and wash away any lingering resentment or disappointments from the night before. He likes to start the day clean, both physically and mentally.
-Meditation is a key part of his morning. He developed this aspect of his routine living in the manor with Damian. It was a nice way for them to bond that involved little speaking, as most conversation at that point inevitably became antagonistic.
-As soon as he’s out of the shower, he moves through a collection of six or seven complicated meditative yoga posses in no particular order. The family of soldier poses are his preference, but he’s not above a child’s pose or a downward facing dog if he’s got a kink to work out of his back.
-After 15-20 minutes of meditation, he’s usually got about an hour or so left to meander through a healthy breakfast of whole grains and fruits. For protein on everyday mornings, he usually downs a muscle milk, eats some cottage cheese, or prepares some quick poached eggs.
-When breakfast is finished, enough time has elapsed for his hair to go from wet to damp, and that’s the way he prefers it to be for optimum styling. He uses sculpting waxes rather than gels because they’re supposed to keep from drying hair out. Dick also prefers the softer, bouncier texture that he can get with sculpting wax.
-He tried pomades out in college, but with his course dark hair it made him feel like a grease ball. He swore off the stuff.
-Boy’s pretty vain about the hair, tbh. It’s the part that takes the longest after yoga and breakfast. (Honestly hard to blame him. Baby’s got some locks that are fine as hell.)
-He dawdles around his living room with any leftover time after slipping into most of his clothing, usually scrolling through social media or taking care of dailies on his mobile games. If he’s wearing more formal attire, he hangs around in slacks and his undershirt, waiting until the last 5 minutes to shrug on a dress shirt and secure a complimentary pair of oxfords.
-If it is a casual day or just a weekend, he’ll throw on some jeans or athletic pants and avoid a shirt all together until he tugs a t-shirt over his head on the way out of the door.
-Speaking of weekends, he mixes the breakfast routine up quite a bit depending upon what day it is. For the most part, Dick carefully monitors his diet. He’s a bit of a health nut, and though his physical conditioning demands a massive amount of calories to sustain his muscle tone and strength, he tries to stick with healthy fats, lean proteins, and plenty of fresh fruits and veggies to reach his daily intake goal. But the weekend is different, and breakfast (oh sweet syrupy breakfast) is his favorite way to splurge.
-Pancakes, waffles, french toast, cereals made of nothing but three kinds of sugar and neon dye.
-Sausage, bacon, ham, fried eggs, leftover sauteed chicken breast shredded for an omelette.
-All of the unholy, unhealthy breakfast food. All of it, and all at once too, please?
-Mornings are rough for him. He was born to live the night life. Running on empty, he can stay conscious and competent for upwards of 50 hours without many more side effects than a ferocious appetite and some crazy hair-trigger violence. (So uh… not all that different than his normal disposition, eh?)
-His snooze button is well-used, and he needs a new alarm clock every year or so because he doesn’t just press the poor button, he slams it with the full weight of his balled fist.
-The alarm clock is assaulted anywhere between 2-5 times before Jason admits defeat and crawls out of bed with all the cheery disposition of mutilated hell-spawn.
-Jay is a nighttime shower sorta guy. He prefers to scrub off all of the previous night before getting into bed. He feels no need to repeat the whole process out of the goddamn gate in the morning, even if he is waking up at a time that is technically considered the afternoon to average mortals.
-He does a quick wash up after that oh so satisfying first-thing-in-the-morning piss.
-Cold water. Wash cloth. Boom.
-Being clumsy and drowsy while he styles his hair works for him. He combs it out, drags some product into it, and wears it messy.
-The electric razor he uses to keep his stubble at a sexy 5 o’clock all day long is not employed until after he has been caffeinated. One of the scars on the corner of his jaw that he considers to look more bad-ass than several of his actual battle scars was placed there by said razor biting into his flesh while he yawned and half-dozed at his sink during the process.
-Depending heavily on whether or not there was drinking the night before, Jason drags through getting himself some coffee or mixing up some hair of the dog. He likes his coffee strong and black, but if there’s a hangover looming, he’ll pour a hearty shot of Baileys into it.
-Boy, does he get some looks from the local liquor store clerk. A big o’ boy built like a brick house in leathers with the occasional bloodied nose and a shit eating grin on his face buying a delicate bottle of Baileys Cream Liqueur at 4 o’clock in the morning turns some heads, okay? Especially around Valentine’s Day when he stocks up on the delectable strawberries and cream flavor they keep stashed away outside of February.
-Fuck Grant, though. He’s a fifty-something dude working graveyard shift selling alcohol in a polyester-blend polo. Who the hell is he to judge Jason’s love of delicious, sweet Irish cream?
-Breakfast doesn’t sit very well on Jason’s stomach, particularly if he’s had shitty dreams. Occasionally, if the tangles of sleep that usually linger in his mind for an hour or two after waking up miraculously dissipate soon after coffee, he’ll eat some cereal or fry up some eggs.
-He likes them with runny yolks and lots of black pepper. Crunchy sourdough toast and an ungodly amount of butter. Maybe some cinnamon applesauce on the side or a Greek yogurt. Something zingy and tart to balance out the fatty components of the meal.
-All things considered, Jason usually gets through his morning routine in under an hour. He doesn’t stress too much about clothing, throwing something on somewhere between coffee and the episode or two of whatever meme-birthing show Tim’s spamming him about that week.
-Shockingly, Tim doesn’t have a hard time waking up. He is a dreadfully light sleeper, and resents the ever-loving crap out of every creaky board in the manor’s second story grand hall where a lot of the bedrooms are located.
-He lives in a house full of ninjas, goddamn it. Why is Alfred the only person under the roof capable of avoiding boards 17 and 34 out of respect for the tired and excellent-of-hearing?
-He wakes up before his alarm most times, whether aided by the stomping of a family member or not. He rarely comes to with enough time left to feel the sweet relief of glancing at his phone and seeing that he’s got over an hour to return to blissful unconsciousness.
-These glorious occasions are celebrated, cherished events that he will keep in his heart always and recall on loop with the dulcet sounds of a Mariah Carey love song coloring the scene.
-It’s usually more like he gets 5 or 10 minutes to stare incredulously at his lock screen, personally offended by the universe as the absolute injustice of the world overwhelms him for a handful of minutes until the plucky melody of The Great Fairy’s Fountain chimes his doom.
-Whatever. It’s a bit dramatic, but whatever. Mornings suck, he’s tired, his body is bad at sleeping, and he has a mountain of tasks to tackle each and every day of his ludicrously busy life.
-His sleep schedule isn’t as jacked up as everybody makes it out to be, by the way. He just pulls an all-nighter once or twice a week on average.
-That’s not outrageous, it’s simply routine at this point.
- Tim washes his face and dresses efficiently with very little fanfare aside from blaring some music to lighten his frame of mind. He showers right after waking up every now and then if the mood strikes him or he feels a headache coming on.
-Alfred, perfect, perfect Alfred somehow always has breakfast and their preference of fresh tea or coffee waiting for each of them in spite of their widely different schedules. Tim eats and drinks to rectify his opinion of the universe, though he usually needs at least a coffee at home and a coffee to go before he is ready to consider the petty, complicated snarl of the cosmos as a neutral body rather than a personal foe.
-When he’s in his own safe house or apartment, he sleeps deeply until he wakes up without an alarm and proceeds with essentially the same routine that he follows in the manor.
-Check phone. Sigh. Introspective pause. Hygiene needs. Start Pandora station. Clothing. Coffee. Peaceful enjoyment of food stuffs and joyous caffeination. Wonder why Steph added Garfunkel to Pandora station. (Is it a joke? Is it for serious? Who can know.)
-Though willing to sacrifice sleep on certain, necessary occasions, Damian is a stickler about his health. Sleep is as crucial a component in one’s physical upkeep as food or water.
-Because Damian is so rigid about the whole “my body, my temple” thing, far more so than Dick, he’s never too terribly cranky when morning rolls around.
-That is to say, he isn’t crankier than usual.
-He doesn’t use an alarm of any kind. Damian has a remarkable internal clock. One of the first things that he was trained to do was effectively curtail his circadian rhythm in order to loosely control the depth and time of his sleep sessions.
-This guy can time his naps and morning wake-up to within ten minutes of the goal he mentally sets before sleep.
-Honestly maybe a low key metahuman thing.
-Every morning at precisely 6:15 am, out of courtesy, Alfred knocks at the door to tell Damian that his breakfast is in the process of being prepared.
-Damian has been awake since 5:30 and worked through a vigorous morning fitness routine that focuses on crunches, lunges, and chin-ups to get his blood flowing and beat any dreariness from his mind.
-When Dick lived in the manor, he happened upon Damian meditating in the sun room while Alfred put the finishing touches into breakfast. He saw the obvious benefits of daily reflection and asked Damian if he could join him.
-Of course, Damian saw no need to deny him. After all, they were partners at the time, and sharing silence wouldn’t exactly disrupt his process.
-Until his father resumed the mantle of Batman, Damian and Dick would meet every morning, exchange a rough estimate of the poses most beneficial to their aches and injuries, and silently work through a handful of positions until breakfast was on the table.
-Now that Dick is back in his own apartment, Damian meditates on his own in the crisp, bright room. He enjoys the absolute quiet, and Titus is always there keeping him company.
-Damian prefers to focus on proteins and starches for his first meal, selecting rice or quinoa bowls with eggs, soft cheeses, and usually some chick peas or savory black beans.
-His classes don’t start until 9, so he has plenty of time to return upstairs and shower. He goes for constrictive cold showers to cement his senses in an alert mode, and he meticulously flosses, brushes, and swishes as he waits for his hair to lose some moisture.
-The gel, you guys. The GEL.
-This boy has a freaking collection of stupidly expensive gel. There’s even one with flecks of actual, literal gold.
-You think I’m kidding, but I’m not.
-This is his favorite gel to use because the understated, finely ground precious metal does not appear as garish shards of glitter, but as a nearly invisible sheen that compliments his rich skin tone and the subtle, smoky undertones of warm browns that hide in his dark, dark hair.
-He maybe knows this in fewer words with less keen observation. In actuality, he probably just likes the hold of the gel and the way that it looks in the sun.
-Damian takes a while styling his hair too (we blame Grayson). Depending on how dramatically he wants to spike the lengthy crest of his pompadour fade that morning, he can be at it for up to 20 minutes. (Full porcupine, or a slicked-back clean look with tousled bangs?)
-Once dressed and ready, Damian uses his spare time to discuss any current casework with his father and inquire about the company. If Bruce isn’t in a verbal mood, Damian will either read a book or play with his pets until Alfred summons him to the car.
