When Nightwing tells Justice League members that Batman makes him laugh, obviously, everyone knows that he's joking, because that's Batman. How the hell does That make anybody laugh?
But then really weird things start to happen. Like suddenly, Batman starts making little quips that toe the line between sarcasm and puns. He begins to humor the stupid ideas that other heroes come up with purely for comedic purposes. He even admits things like "Jesus, I'm getting so old, if I hurt my back much more, spin class is going to be an issue."
And the thing is, Batman only does these things when Nightwing is around, and it literally always earns a laugh from the younger hero. Sometimes they high-five after Nightwing recovers from a fit of giggles. At this point, nobody knows that they're father and son, so this type of behavior is just really freaking people out.
more “had to be held back by multiple people to avoid a fight” in the JL except it’s a mess of powerscaling and awkwardness so when they do lose it, J’onn is holding Hal back by thinking really hard about yellow, Batman took Superman down to the floor one time and Superman let him because he was terrified of accidentally ripping Batman’s arm off, 4 separate League members tried to hold Diana back once from decking an asshole planetary ambassador and it only worked because Aquaman wedged his trident around her chest and it reacted strangely with her lasso. the speedsters just hold each others’ pinkies. no one is brave enough to try and hold Batman back except Superman and that always ends with him flying Batman somewhere high up so he can’t wiggle out and hurt himself. Etc etc
Constantine said that, right in the middle of a crisis, and then all but ran to the zeta-tube before anyone could have stopped him. Which, right, nobody gave a damn about because aliens and cosmic death rays are not up a magician's alley anyway.
Still, it was kind of disappointing. He could have at least tried, you know?
So, understandably, everyone up on the Watchtower was plenty surprised when the arrival announcement went off.
"D-4, John Constantine," and then, like that wasn't enough, it is followed with, "Unauthorized guests, G-01, G-02, G-03, G-04, G-05, G-06. Welcome to Watchtower."
The announcement system doesn't welcome anyone. Much less does it let in 'unauthorized guests' of any kind; anyone and everyone has to go through a registry process. Which naturally meant that everyone and their mother scrambled to meet whoever the magician brought with him.
What greeted them was a gaggle of teenagers following Constantine; the whole group looked a lot like mother duck with her ducklings. Only the duck in question seemed utterly resigned, and the ducklings were in the midst of a heated argument, never bothering to even look around.
"This is, like, fight fire with fire thing, you can't do that!" A tall, redhead girl throws her arms up, looking fed up with the conversation.
"Oh, I dunno, Jazz, it worked for me," the oldest of the teens offers with a smug grin, "Several times."
"That's different, though," the youngest girl catches up to him, wiggling her eyebrows, "You weren't fighting, really. You were burning down a pack of matches with a flamethrower."
The oldest one barks a laugh at that, and the redhead's — Jazz's — face sours.
"Can we please not compare the Justice League with a pack of matches?" Another boy, one that looks a lot like the other two (they could be triplets, if it wasn't for their very obviously different ages), cringes, rolling his eyes. "I feel like it's bad manners."
"Rich, coming from you," another girl in an alt-goth outfit deadpans, her eyes firmly down on her sketchbook, where she is furiously drawing something.
There's only one of them who doesn't actively partake in the argument — a black boy that is completely engrossed in whatever he is doing on his tablet as he follows Constantine on autopilot. The man himself doesn't speak up either, just leads them all through the corridors and towards the main control room.
It's only when they are a few feet away from the entrance that someone finally comes back to their senses, and Batman stands in their way, making the group halt. The youngest girl collides into the redhead's back, which sparks another wave of arguments.
"Constantine," the man says, and it's not really a polite greeting, but it's not much displeased either. If anything, Batman sounds a bit confused.
"Hi," the magician deadpans back. "I'm about to stop your monthly apocalypse event, so do you mind?" He waves his hand, like asking Batman to scoot over.
"You are about to stop the apocalypse?" The middle 'triplet' lifts an eyebrow pointedly. John rolls his eyes.
"Fine, the tiny terrors team are about to stop it. Semantics," he amends. The goth girl grimaces, making a so-so gesture, but none of them voice any other complaints, instead going back to arguing.
"Remind me, why did we even let you out of the thermos, Dan?"
"Because I'm inevitable, my darling sister. Also, I'm a charm."
"Was that a fucking Thanos reference?"
"You're so not allowed to make it, considering that you're the only one who's never dealt with the Reality Gauntlet."
"What's a Reality Gauntlet?"
"Oh, right, Dani hasn't seen it either."
"Wait, you're telling me the Infinity Stones are real? I want them."
"Great job, Tucker, you've revived the evil in him!"
"Technically, you can't revive shit about Dan. Or you, for that matter. Physically impossible."
"Considering our whole deal with 'impossible', I wouldn't be taking any chances. And, no, the Infinity Stones are not real-"
"Anymore."
"-you can't have any in any case. It's forbidden candy for you."
Constantine takes a deep breath in, tapping his fingers over the pocket where he keeps his cigarettes, but otherwise stays calm and completely, utterly done with the lot behind his back.
"Who are they?" Batman asks after a long pause. Somehow, that makes the argument stop, and all the kids and teens turn to stare at the man, unblinking. Constantine sighs, loud and clearly aching for something alcoholic and strong.
"In the order of descension," he points his finger, "Dan, the evil overlord from another timeline, but don't worry, he's fine, Jazz, the totally human older sibling who we keep around because she's the only one with braincells, Danny, the- you know, I'm not even sure where to start with you."
"My parents are chaotic good mad scientists, and I turned out to be a true neutral local hero," said Danny shrugs, which causes the others to snicker and hide their laughter with coughing.
"I'd say Jazz is the true neutral, and you're chaotic stupid, but alright," the black boy says quietly, and the goth girl elbows him with a huff.
"You've never even played DnD. I did, though, and I can expertly say that Jazz is lawful neutral."
"She's broken three laws — that I know of — this week," the boy argues, but his friend just shrugs.
"The fact that you don't know what law she follows doesn't mean she isn't following it."
Constantine doesn't seem to pay attention to it — and it looks like he does it on purpose — and keeps going, "Okay, then, Danny is the small town hero with a taste for drinking acid, Sam over there is an angry and rather vocal Wednesday Addams, Tucker is short for tech-fucker-"
"Hey!"
"Language!" Jazz makes an offended gasp, but John doesn't bat an eye.
"-and Dani is what happens when you give human form to a baking soda volcano." Then, the magician turns to look at Batman again. The man doesn't seem satisfied, though, so John grimaces, looks up to the ceiling, muttering something that sounds way too much like a prayer, and adds:
"They are my nephews. And nieces, I suppose. Can you step aside now so they can save the day and I can put them back home before their mad scientist parents notice?"
In a context where Batman is known and seen through his public League appearances, the misogynistic, homophobic, "alpha male" guys start using his image to illustrate their discourse of going to the gym, and seeking submissive women. They admire and misinterpret his traits as endorsements of their toxic masculinity. Online, they share images of Batman with stuff like "Be the Alpha, Be the Batman". They even use the word Batmen as a synonym to Alpha Male. "Real Batmen don't show weakness".
When Bruce becomes aware of this, he hates it. He despises them for all their messed up views, knowing they completely misunderstand his principles. Batman's true strength lies in his commitment to justice, empathy, and respect for all individuals, values that are fundamentally opposed to the toxic masculinity they promote. Bruce is determined to distance his image from their rhetoric, seeing them as nothing more than sexist and homophobic idiots.
So he decides to be a tiny tiny bit more Brucie when they appear in public. Not in form, but in substance :
When he's asked a question, he tries to go "I have no clue, I'd have to ask Black Canary.", or "I'm not sure, I'd have to see what Wonder Woman thinks about that", or "This time, we really couldn't have done anything, anything at all, without Supergirl."
Also, Batman becomes more visibly affectionate with Superman. During public appearances, if he senses a camera on them, he makes sure to be seen clinging to Superman. He would rather face dating rumors every day than be associated with those idiotic discourses.
(It's also a good premise for a superbat fake-dating fic !!)
the only acceptable usage of ai is in the DCU and it’s just the batkids using ai to fake patrol reports so that they don’t have to do it themselves, and Bruce is endlessly confused as to how odd these fucking reports are sounding. it ends up just being a game to them—seeing how far they can go before they get clocked by the big man. Damian and Tim are using bat ‘character ai’ sites to make up play-by-plays of fights. Jason and Dick are going one step further and handing in ai generated ‘body cam’ footage of fights so they can edit out injuries they receive (or kills they hand out, in Jason’s case)
they finally get caught when some of the footage Jason hands in is needed for a Justice League mission and Bruce shows it to them during a meeting. Diana bits her lip and awkwardly puts her hand up. “…uhm. Batman?”
“Yes, Wonder Woman?”
“Why does one of those criminals have eight fingers?”
Bruce slowly turns to the screen, zooming in on the obvious ai glitch. he stares. he continues to stare. slowly, dangerously, he turns to Nightwing.
Dick, who is desperately ducking his head down behind his glass of water, avoiding eye contact and obviously struggling to hold in his laughter, refuses to respond.
“Nightwing.”
Dick squeaks, gulping down his water.
“Dick.”
Batman never lives it down. when Dick tells the rest of the kids they laugh so hard that Damian gets a nose bleed and Bruce turns off the wifi out of spite.
