#b) the Batkids are kids and the things kids will do is way more unpredictable and they're terrifying

[violent138]

There comes a time when the criminals prefer being taken in by Batman, because his kids go a little overboard:

Goon: "You won't kill me."

Cass: "You ready to bet your life on that?"

Duke: *tosses her the gun they took off the guy* "I would do what she says."

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Random thug: "Hey Batman doesn't kill--"

Damian: "Not like he's here. You're certainly not going to be able to tell him."

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Tim: "Well, accidents do happen. Shame." *starts to let go of the rope*

Guy dangling off the building: "No, no okay, okay, I'll tell you!"

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Steph: *clears throat*

Gang members: "We surrender!" *multiple guns fall to the ground*

Steph: "I see my reputation precedes me, wise choice."

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*Bruce gets chewed out by Gordon by the Batsignal because the rumours have spread so much, it kind of sounds like Batman's kids have been going around murdering people*

Bruce: "In my defense, it's only one of them."

Gordon: "What."

Bruce: *realizes he never filled Gordon in on Red Hood*

[codenamed-queenie]

Okay okay. Headcanon for you. So Bruce just being Done With Everything is damn hilarious, especially to his sons. My headcanon is that they have their own secret little competitions to see who can get him the Most Done. Surprisingly? Tim has won twice in a row.

Bruce being Done is my favorite! 😂 I like the way you think @nxxttime

—

Unsurprisingly, it was Dick and Jason who started the game with the simple question: ‘just how many Space Jam references can I fit into this League Briefing before B loses it in front of all his Super Friends?’ (answer: 13)

And from there, it all just sort of escalated.

Batman is Tired™ and Done™ 105% of the time, but getting a rise out of him is surprisingly rare. Cracking the stoic man like an egg is one of the kids’ favorite pastimes, but while it’s fun to see their dad Lose It…bonus points are given for the I Give Up Face.

What is the I Give Up Face, you may ask? Simple: It’s what happens with Bruce Wayne has transcended anger and annoyance completely and is now on a whole ‘nother plane of apathy. It’s a beautiful thing to see.

And every Batkid has one objective–to be the first person to get the poor man to make that spiritual transition.

As a rule, Dick goes errs on the side of subtlety–little buttons that he just knows to press in order to get a rise out of Bruce. Thrown-in references, irksome words and phrases (i.e. moist, slurp, lugubrious, etc. Alfred got him a dictionary for Christmas, and Bruce’s jaw almost popped out of alignment.) But when he’s in the mood for something a little more noticeable, he sings pop songs off-key over the comms or in Bruce’s ear while he’s trying to study case files. (The most effective ones include Toxic, Call Me Maybe, Mama Mia, and anything by Ke$ha) He’s also not above poking Bruce when he’s being ignored.

Jason, though he can be subtle when the situation calls for it, absolutely thrives on brute force. How many times can he shove Damian off a roof or toss Tim out a window before Bruce busts a blood vessel or five? How many times can he go ‘undercover’ wearing nothing but street clothes and a stick-on dollar-store mustache before he makes his dad look into the camera like he’s on the Office? How many times can he leak ‘confidential information’ to the press in the form of macaroni art and Cut-And-Paste notes before incurring Bruce’s wrathful frustration? The answer might surprise you.

Barbara’s method involves strategy and finesse. For instance, why send Bruce that data he asked for right off the bat (pardon the pun) when she could send a blank file with this:

Or even with this gif, if she’s feeling particularly devious:

Admittedly, Barbara’s the one who gets the least I Give Up Faces out of Bruce. But she gets bonus points for getting him to scream the loudest. The man’s lost five phones to the Gotham City Streets after throwing them in blinding fits of rage.

Damian is like a cat, in that his strategy involves metaphorically placing his finger on Bruce’s metaphorical coffee mug and slowly edging it off his metaphorical desk.

Never. Breaking. Eye. Contact.  

He does this with almost everything. Deliberately breaking rules or bending guidelines in just the right way. Pressing that button. Flipping that switch. Diving off that building. All as he makes absolutely certain that Bruce is there to watch him do it. For Damian, it’s all in the eye-contact. The forceful, yet silent declaration of ‘I can do whatever I want, and there’s not a thing you can do to stop me, father,’ is one of the most surefire ways to get Bruce to Lose It.

Cass is Bruce’s sweet angel child, and would never do any of this to him!

(She totally has, but nothing they can prove. Nothing’s ever been successfully traced back to her.)

Duke’s backtalk is usually Guaranteed to get the I Give Up Face. Not that it’s disrespectful or overly snarky–quite the opposite, in fact. No, no. It’s phrases like ‘I see your point, but why do we have to jump off a roof. Wouldn’t jetpacks make more sense?’ or ‘Maybe I’m wrong, but the giant dinosaur’s kind of an eye-sore, don’t you think?’ that send Bruce off into a dissociating silence.

Duke is 100% aware of what he’s doing, but he gets supreme satisfaction from the ‘naively innocent’ routine. The key is to say his piece at just the right moment. Duke is exceptionally good at gauging Bruce’s level of volatility. So much so, that his new siblings will often  come to him to ask just how far away Bruce is from the tipping point.

Stephanie is a ‘Jack of All Trades’, you might say. She picks and chooses from her siblings’ strategies and methods. And then she amps up the ante. To Steph, ‘bigger is better’ isn’t just a turn of phrase–it’s gospel.

Dick’s blasting ‘Dancing Queen’ over the comms? Cool, cool, but what if we broad-casted it over the League’s party line at ten times the volume? Jason’s coated the batarangs with pink glitter? Let’s set a spring-loaded trigger in the Batmobile, rigged with forty-eight pounds of the stuff. Barbara’s screwing with Bruce’s data feed? Hack his visual feed with an eighteen-hour loop of Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up.

Out of all of them, Stephanie is the one with the most I Give Up Face wins.

But Tim?

Tim is a force of chaos that is not to be trifled with. As unpredictable as the elements, and twice as frightening when the occasion calls for it. The only reason that he doesn’t have the most wins is simply because he never actively participates in the game. But he’s done everything from sleepwalking, to publicly embarrassing Bruce, to T-Posing in places where he shouldn’t. (i.e. on top of a GCPD patrol car or barrel of toxic chemicals.)

Twice, Tim committed acts that triggered the I Give Up Face so quickly, so completely, that the others could only gape, and declare him the winner.

The first was during a bank robbery. The gun-toting thieves pointed their weapons at Batman, Nightwing, and Red Robin and screamed, “Don’t move or we’ll shoot!”

Tim proceeded to Fortnite Dance enthusiastically.

Bruce could only stare off into the distance (the thugs were watching, transfixed, with expressions of horrified fascination) and contemplate his life choices. After the fact, Dick swore to anyone who’d listen that he’d never seen Bruce dissociate that quickly.

The second time it happened, Tim was once again on Live Television (a foolish decision that the Wayne Enterprises higher-ups have finally learned from and vowed never to repeat). He was supposed to be giving a speech, but instead, blankly stared at the crowd, and proceeded to recite the entire script of the 1975 cinematic classic, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Tim refused to be removed from the stand, and managed to fight off security while somehow keeping his mouth close to the mic.

Bruce came to terms with the fact years ago: he may lead a dangerous life. He may put his life on the line daily, nightly, and every moment in between. But it won’t be the villains or the thugs that finally kill him–

–it’ll be his children.