#The Batfamily investigated

[nelkcats]

Garage Sale

Well, when the Fentons decided to have a garage sale Danny didn't expect many to be interested. His parents were looking for a way to get money quickly to build more stuff, and he jokingly suggested they could sell some inventions, they took it seriously (Jazz made sure to remove all the lethal inventions, she tried with the ones that might be risky but then they wouldn't sell anything).

Danny knew his parents were strange yes, but he wasn't sure that justified millionaires in his backyard. Millionaires, he'd like to clarify, had never set foot in Amity Park before. He raised an eyebrow at the sight of Bruce Wayne and his sons checking out the appliances. None of them seemed to be interested in the "ghosts" but they hadn't backed down from taking some things either.

So yes, Danny was suspicious. Of course he had made sure the inventions in the sale were safe (although unlike Jazz, he simply decided to make them safe, a few modifications here and there), but the fact that they looked genuinely interested made him uneasy.

Were the Waynes interested in hunting ghosts?

He decided to try something, he crossed eyes with one of them and let his green eyes show before looking away, the boy looked alarmed. He approached him and asked, but Danny feigned ignorance, commenting that all the inventions were green and maybe he had been confused by the reflection (to be fair, most of his parents' inventions were green because of the ecto).

For his part, Bruce had received an alert from Justice League Dark, it seemed they had detected a strange energy, similar to magic, so the bats set out to investigate. They didn't expect to find a garage sale in a house in the middle of nowhere (Amity Park wasn't even marked on the fucking map). Nor did they expect advanced technology or mad scientists.

Bruce decided to pretend he had stumbled into town as "Brucie Wayne" and buy a few things. He shuddered to see that many inventions worked with Lazarus water. Jason, who had strangely agreed to come along, was also upset about the son of the scientists.

Bruce questioned whether he had found a family of villains in the making.

[wickedsmille]

Jason: You've heard of elf on a shelf, now I give you-

Jason with a dramatic arm flourish to Tim in the batchair: Tim Drake still awake!

[sisaloofafump]

Stephanie and Jason in makeshift disguises (they forgot their masks) (still remembered their guns tho) (and their matching hoodie vests)

Bonus:

[violent138]

Perhaps I should suspend more belief, but I think most of the Batfam probably get jobs that aren't that energy/intelligence intensive. The training, investigating, injury recovery that they need to undergo likely take up a ridiculous number of hours outside of patrol and it's never really made sense to me that any of them have jobs like nurses/paramedics with crazy hours and a need to be constantly thinking/moving. For information gathering purposes and money I can see multiple of them becoming journalists, PIs, freelance writers, bartenders, writers, scientific advisors for WE, librarians, et cetera.

[gothamitee]

Steph's room 💜

[cecexoxo]

Random things that happened to my Wayne Family sims today

Tim called Bruce and asked if he and Duke can stay over for a few days for some reason. He showed up angry and was talking about it to Duke

Later Tim and Duke went up to Damian's room and played video games with him and helped him with his homework until dinner was ready

While Jason was making dinner he got a call from Cass asking this

I have no Idea who she was talking about but Jason told her to think about it herself cause he doesn't know that person. THEN Santa called Jason and Jason just called him a weirdo and hung up lol

Later that day Tim asked Bruce for advice on what to do with his life and Bruce was very unhelpful lol

Then Damian also asked Bruce for advice.

Then Talia asked Damian to go to the theater with her

[superbat-lmao]

In a family full of detectives, the Bats must have each come across situations that absolutely stumped them. Especially given the fact a lot of them have dealt with alien threats, magic, and meta humans.

So I like to imagine that all of them would hate those dinner party murder mystery games. Because they’re too easy. But they hate them in the way they hate new Lexcorp tech, they know exactly what could be fixed to make it actually functional. Or in this case, actually a mystery.

The struggle comes from deciding who is the one writing the mystery and who’s the one solving it. Because all of them are detectives in their own right and would get a kick out of this kind of enrichment.

Because Bruce would get a kick out a group birthday present from his kids where everyone is at the manor playing a character that severely contrasts their own personalities but is still meant to be frustrating for him. And the Batkids had trouble deciding at first who to make the murderer, trying to determine which kid Bruce would be most uncomfortable accusing of murder, even as a game.

Tim’s murder mystery would involve a lot of orchestration from Babs. He asked for the hardest mystery they could think of, so Babs has fabricated digital footprints, the Batkids stealth their way across the globe and he has to play a life sized game of Carmen Sandiego trying to track down his leads.

By the time it’s Dick’s then to solve a murder mystery, the Titans have found out about the games and get roped into playing. He’s also the only one who solves an actual murder alongside the fake case, making a realization about one of the cold case files he’s been working on in his off time.

For Cass’s murder mystery, none of the players are given information to conceal. They wrote narratives for each character to have committed the murder and then had a blind selection of the story line so that none of the players would know if their character did it. It’s like Clue, Cass has to check her deductions against a sealed card containing the answers. It was the only way they could think of stumping her with their body language.

Jason’s has Alfred’s involvement written all over it. Yes, the detective work is an amalgamation of the Batfamily’s efforts, but Alfred makes sure that certain character relationships and motivations parallel pieces from classic literature. It’s a trip down memory lane and all of the books that Jason read during his childhood at the manor and Alfred does his best to make him sentimental about it as part of the misdirection that Alfred’s character is the murderer. It almost works.

Steph’s murder mystery involves magic and aliens. She has a lot of practice solving day-to-day crimes so the family puts together the most absurd and abstract space and magic related case they can. It’ll flex some of her muscles when coming up against irregularity but it was also crafted to make her laugh. After all, who would have imagined there’s a species of alien out there allergic to waffles? It’s monotonous to face that same threats of muggings, trafficking, smuggling, murder, and other frequent Gotham crimes. Sometimes, you have to mix it up and remember reality can be absurd as well as commonplace.

Duke’s murder mystery is part of his “onboarding” into the batfamily. It relies on key observations from game-changing cases that the Bats have worked over the years that Duke wasn’t around for. He takes point during the day and helps out with larger cases, but it’s his first real test of handling the detective work of a multi-rogue level case by himself. And he’s good, breezes through things that had tripped up Dick or Tim during their Robin years but still finds ways to work through the parts that have him stumped.

Damian’s murder mystery is similar to Tim’s in that it is transnational and involves several famous and unknown art museums. It requires a lot of very specific information to uncover forgeries, complicated motivations, different layers of interrelatedness. It challenges him to think from specific details to connecting big picture movements and motivations of individuals and groups. Art was chosen as a through-point so that he would have an excuse to view galleries he had mentioned previously while still posing a challenge. It was a shock to more than just Damian when everyone realized Talia had agreed to play the red-herring.

Barbara’s murder mystery mixes several generations of technology. There are several layers of converting analog tech and different types of digital tech that tests her knowledge of the limitations of pieces of technology over the ages. It also brings her back into the field for recon in some creative ways since each of the Bats is a character and not able to do investigative work on her behalf. She solves her case the fastest of any of the Bats not because it was an inadequate challenge, but because she delegated her tasks as Oracle to Bruce and Tim and was able to devote 100% of her capabilities to solving this one case as opposed to her insane level of multitasking she’s usually operating at.

Alfred’s is also contained within the manor and treated similarly to an actual murder mystery. Everyone gets a kick out of him playing the part of the detective but slowly they begin to realize that some of the ways he conducts questioning witnesses or makes deductions is just slightly off from how Bruce does things. At first they seem to think Alfred’s putting his own spin on Bruce’s procedures but they begin to figure out that he’s following MI6’s standard operating procedures. They also realize that a lot of the Bats operating procedures are derivatives of different MI6 protocols. Clearly they’ve been updated or altered, but it’s all foundational, as though Alfred is writing the rule book before their eyes. It’s immediately obvious where the World’s Greatest Detective gets it from.

[the-jason-peter-todd]

no one:

batman investigating murder:

Batman: Shadow of the Bat #71

[ghost-bxrd]

The Sandman is a DC character (as are the rest of the Endless, so Death included)

Jason learning to dream walk from an amused Death and a curious Dream would be interesting

Omg I LOVED that show! (I know they’re comics but I only watched the series >.<)

And that‘s such a cool idea???? Maybe even have Dream sympathize a little with the whole “estranged family“ thing so he makes sure to show Jason just how much his death impacted the family, and Death is subtly urging Jason to make use of that second chance he’s been granted.

Just, y’know, your two friendly neighborhood Endless entities trying to make your life a little less miserable 💚💫

[weirdheadcanons]

Batfam CSI

There should be a lot more of CSI level investigation with the Bats. Yeah, we are shown some of that, but most of the time what we get is 'go intimidate/beat up/persuade the witnesses'.

The thing is, eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable. Especially so when the witness is under stress.

It's not even that they lie consciously, it's that brains are weird and people can have false memories way more often than you would think. Our memories aren't as reliable as we would like to think.

So, hanging one of Penguin's guys upside down from a roof to question him would likely be very cathartic, but not likely to net you reliable info about what he heard his boss discuss.

Given Bats are supposed to be well versed in criminology, psychology and what not, they would definitely know this.

Would love love love to have a comic storyline that will go into this aspect.

[articusplaylist]

PI Steph for clear skin

[nelkcats]

Amity Parkers in Gotham

Casper High students graduated. As much as they loved their town (which now included ghosts as recurring residents) they knew they had to go. Not because Phantom didn't do a good job, or that ghosts attacked daily (on the contrary, after Phantom's intervention the destruction became concentrated in the Infinite Realms), but they had to go to a university. That's why most of them applied to Gotham University, it seemed right.

Sure, Gotham wasn't as cool as Amity, nor did it include dimension travel to the Realm of the Dead (Amity Parkers had access to the Infinite Realms as long as they abided by Walker's rules), but they had a great scholarship program, and the city was so chaotic because of its heroes and villains that it felt...like home.

The problem was that no one taught Casper's ex-students some basics: Feeling afraid, avoiding your attackers, not attacking back. Things that seemed like common sense did not go through their heads. After years of dealing with ghost attacks they had gotten used to it, and knew how to counterattack.

So, after their arrival they were knocking out rogues, stopping robbery, and looking bored at the prospect of dying. That made Batman suspicious of a secret society of young soldiers, although it didn't really make much sense, was someone training teenagers? The batfamily was worried at the prospect.

At some point, there was even an "undead" attack in what was called the Justice League; Of course, the Amity Parkers were the first to establish a secure site and prevent the invasion from advancing. At the end everything seemed lost and the undead epidemic was about to spread out of Gotham, but Dash snorted and said that he would "contact a friend that can help", which raised the suspicions of the League.

Danny, who was taking a year off before starting his university studies, raised an eyebrow at the group he had with his old classmates. He shrugged before transforming into Phantom and going to the place, in a few minutes the invasion was over and Bruce was 90% sure that there was a secret society training a teenage army.

[depressnt]

YOU CANT HIDE GOLD IN THE TAGS

Danny and Ellie had majorly screwed up. Now here they were in the hydro-electric car Danny had designed for applying to Wayne industries/whoever would give a fifteen year old a fat paycheck, sitting in the middle of Gotham, at night, surrounded by glaring bats.

Crap.

Time to bullshit his way out of this.

He looked at Red Robin and sheepishly grinned, "...hi dad."

Ellie, the little gremlin, didn't even hesitate before adding, "We are so grounded. I told you we shouldn't have messed with the broken time machine but nooo."

The bats were either taken about or cackling and Danny to this chance to put the petal to the metal and get out of there

Tim is now obsessed with finding his future kids.

[thebubblesareevil]

UNO Reverse

So we all know Danny is batbait right?? But what if after vlad the fentons have developed a method to combat billionaires trying to adopt Danny.

So the fentons are in Gotham for some reason or another and they refuse the let Danny’s grades slip so they have him at Gotham prep.

Everyone knows Danny’s parents are mad scientists but Tim is really concerned about his new classmate that keeps coming in with new bruises everyday that he barely tries to hide.

He brings it up to Bruce after doing some investigations and Bruce decides to look into it.

Next thing Danny knows he keeps running into different members of the Wayne cult and the batfamily. It takes him longer than he’s care to admit to figure out they were the same people but in his defense he was exhausted from school, helping his parents with their clean energy project and training with fright knight.

That’s also his excuse for why it took him so long to realize they were trying to assimilate him. Once he does realize he starts going out of his way to avoid them, trying his best to keep his parents from finding out but he realizes it’s too late when his mom gleefully hands him a card one night and sends him on his way.

The next time danny encounters Batman he completely ignores his gentle encouragement and promises to protect him as he pulls out the card and throws it at batman.

Danny sighs and says “I’m sorry it’s come to this, but I need you to know you’ve brought this upon yourselves.” He turns and leaves behind a confused bat holding an UNO reverse card.

The next day Wayne manor is invaded by Jack Fenton carrying a stuggleing vlad over his shoulder and a giant tray of fudge in his other hand while Maddie gleefully hugs alfred proclaiming how happy she is to see her family getting bigger while Jazz is dragging Danny in behind her by his ankle while reading a book. Danny is snoring.

The Wayne’s are confused.

When Vlad finally breaks free he gives Bruce a pitiful look and asks if he also tried to adopt Daniel.

Jack then yells UNO REVERSE!! Instead of adopting Danny we have adopted you!!!!

This just popped in my brain so I thought I’d share

[violent138]

I feel like Jason would wind up married for some reason and just not tell anyone. And then one of his henchmen, while fighting the Bats during one of their weekly ideological disputes on how to handle a shared problem would go, "No wonder he hates you guys, you're ruining his damn honeymoon!" and all hell would break loose.

[astorianyxkings]

There's always people theorizing how the Batfamily hides Jason disappearance and reappearance, but I literally haven't seen anyone use the best explanation: Witness Protection.

Like this literally answers every question. The Death Certificate? They had to fake his death. The empty grave? Obviously it had to be believable. The time when Wayne Heir "Richie Wayne" refused to step foot in Gotham and talk to his father? He was pissed about Jason's (non) death. Brucie Wayne's very real depression after his death? Well he lost contact with his son and he was under immense stress from the government.

Like this literally answers every question I can come up with. Why has no one said he was in witness protection? And if people have done it, send me fics and prompts because I'm obsessed.

And the best part is, the Waynes are so stupidly rich that they could pull it off. Lex Luther could try and conduct his own investigation but somehow he can never find anything concrete. And if he gets too close either Babs hacks them or Tim just calls up Conner for a distraction.

One time Jason gets cornered and asked how he felt about returning to his life after being in Witness Protection. Unfortunately, him and Bruce weren't on the best terms to explain the whole story but he comes in clutch. He spins the tale about how heartbroken he was to see his brother, father and grandfather grieving and how honored he was when he learnt his new little brother idolized him. Tim got ahold of a copy of the interview and will never let Jason live it down.

The media doesn't ask Bruce questions about Jason's death because last time they did he broke down and a suddenly furious reporter chastised them and reminded them that while Jason may be alive Bruce still mourned his death. The picture of Bruce in tears at the interview is currently one of Jason's favourite lockscreens.

Same goes for Dick. Any questions of his brother's death results in (1) Richie Wayne ready to throw hands at any and everybody, (2) his wife (well one of them) Barbara Gordon threatening the reporters or (3) That same Metropolis reporter chastising the whole community again.