#Bruce because most of the older men he likes aren't Concerning

[dceuheadcanons]

Every batboy (just The Robins in this post) has their own Concerning Old Man.. It's like a theme at this point. Some can be seen as "ships", some are familial, some are just straight up abusers. Sooo buckle up!

Dick has Slade. We all know this. Slade literally abused Dick while he was his apprentice in canon, so.. yeah. They get together in the future in this blog's personal version of DC. I have a whole playlist of songs for them.. they are so unhealthy and codependent and I LOVE IT. I love some good fucked up angsty abuser x victim.

Jason.. he has The Joker. The guy that killed him. I think that they're sort of similar to Dick and Slade, but they never date and Joker doesn't even like Jason. But Jason has this weird love-hate for the guy. He was trapped with him and forced to obey him for two years before he was killed in this blog's personal version of DC. He'd gladly kill The Joker, but the second The Joker decides to give him orders again.. he's probably done for. Anyway I also think Jason sees Slade as a father figure but that's a whole other thing.

Tim has Ra's Al Ghul. Complicated. A lot of nuance but quite fucked up. Really really hard to explain? Especially since none of the people running this blog are like.. Tim superfans like we are with some of the others lmao. But you guys get it.

Damian has Luthor. Honestly hard to explain to anyone that doesn't know the full extent of our DC universe? But it's like a father-son thing. Luthor reminds Damian of his grandfather, that's why he gravitated towards him. Damian probably has a bit of an unhealthy kid crush on the guy too, but never says anything about it. Damian uses the fact that WE and LexCorp are connected as an excuse to see him. (Bruce very openly doesn't like Luthor, but they can't separate the companies completely. So Damian offers to go to meetings in place of his father.)

Anyway yeah!! Hope you liked this little Concerning Older Men post. I love how traumatised the babies are. It's so fun!! Poor them, but.. It's entertaining.

[br-uwu-cewayne]

I think pretty much as soon as they can officially (in capability, rather, not numerically) outnumber Bruce, the Batkids institute an official Old Man Policy.

Because they can't stop Batman from pulling overtime completely. They know this.

BUT.

For every night he works in a row past three,

("Now hang on," Bruce had whined. "The average work week is five days, I should at least be able to-" "Literally every study has rebuked that, and also quit your CEO job then.")

he is conscripted to a middle-of-shift nap on the couch in Gordon's office of at LEAST an hour.

It doesn't have to be smack in the middle, he's not expected to drop everything and head back to the center of town, just.

At some point in the shift (barring extreme or extenuating circumstances, confirmed as such by a majority batfam and/or justice league vote) he is contractually obligated to find a winding down point to pause and regroup or let someone else handle for a bit.

He of course, hates this.

Gordon's office couch was actually the compromise - the kids wanted him to come back to the manor or the tower to rest, but he put his foot down about needing to be somewhere he could be reached immediately and hop right back into action, and the GCPD was the perfect midpoint for that.

He's sheepishly explaining this to the Commissioner by the floodlight, flanked on either side by his various companions, and Jim throws his head back and just laughs.

He's wiping the last tear from his eye when, from out of nowhere, betrayal.

Nightwing wheels around on him, wagging a finger. "Don't think you're exempt from this rule either, old man. We've been clocking those triple shifts."

"Now you wait just a goddamn minute, son, no way I'm hell am I gonna agree to-"

So now Batman and Jim routinely have to schedule alternating shifts on the sofa in the Commissioner's GCPD corner office. Bruce intended to stubbornly tough it out on the ratty old couch until the kids felt bad for him and caved, but when they proved unrelenting (and after the first time both men were just so damn exhausted they collapsed on it together, and paid for it the next day in various aches and pains) he succumbed and bought a nice top of the line sofa.

With the touch button footrests and fully reclining massagey backs.

And okay maaaaaaaybe both he and Jim are starting to look forward to their allotted relaxation time. And maaaaaybe there's some cucumber slices and gel facemasks in one of the refrigerated armrest beer cooler compartments for when their timing lines up and they want to have a spa kvetching session.

But the kids don't need to know that.

In fact.

"No, Jim, I'm serious. As far as they're concerned, we hate this. It's unnecessary. It's insulting. The moment they think we aren't grumbling about it enough, they're gonna start getting suspicious. And soon as Dick finds our stash? You can kiss it goodbye."

"...you're still not over him using all your good conditioner, are you?"

"It was limited edition."

"Hey wait a minute. Why don't they enforce 'naptime' for Alfred, too? He works two jobs, and he's older than us!"

"One, I'd like to see them try and make that man do anything. Two, that man has never actually butlered for me a day in his life."

"...but he's always dusting around whenever I've been over-"

"Yeah no the snoop just grabs the duster and pretends to be busy so he can eavesdrop. We have a cleaning service that comes by for all the manor rooms, and the world's most expensive Roomba for the Batcave."

"-but... but your laundry-"

"Throws it all out at the end of the week and buys replacements. Unlike us, Al actually sleeps during the day."