#bruce is so awkward

[elizabethemerald]

Bruce woke up with the sound of two other people breathing next to him. He kept himself still and his breathing even as he tried to analyze his situation. He was definitely between two other warm bodies, both with their arms wrapped tightly around him.

While he wasn't wholly unfamiliar with a menage a trois from his wild playboy days prior to adopting Dick, his nights were never actually as wild as the paparazzi liked to pretend, and it had been a long time since he was willing to risk the safety of his kids by bringing multiple partners to his bed.

"It's ok, baby, we've got you." A deep voice murmured in his ear as the person to his left pulled him closer, then the arms across his chest tensed. "Wait, you're not Danny? Sam, wake up."

The person to his right, Sam apparently, snorted as she roused, and sat up a little to look him over. Bruce risked opening his eyes, he was trapped between two people, tangled in sheets and in a completely unknown situation, even with all his training this would be a bad situation if he had to fight his way out.

"He looks like Danny, Tucker, is he overshadowed?" Sam asked.

Sam was pale, with a black faux-hawk and purple eyes. She was completely naked and wasn't shy about her body. Tucker had dark skin and black hair. He had his hair styled in long dreads with multiple golden charms clasped to the locks. Bruce watched as his eyes flashed gold for a second before a sensation like sand gently pouring over his skin swept across his body.

"Oh, body swap. Looks like this soul is from a different dimension." Tucker said, declaring such an absurd situation with such certainty that Bruce could only guess that they had experienced something like this before. "Is your name still Danny in your universe?"

"My name is Bruce, Bruce Wayne." Bruce said, finally speaking and sitting up.

"Oh! Danny's alternate is rich!" Sam said with a cheer as she stood up and walked over to the closet. "Listen to that posh diction."

Bruce averted his eyes from his alternate's partner and looked ready to deny it when Tucker patted his shoulder.

"Don't worry, Bruce. Sam knows rich people. Her parents were millionaires." He whispered the last like it was a secret. "We've handled this sort of thing before, so we'll get you all sorted out and back in your proper body in no time."

Bruce jumped as an electrical charged arced across his body, he turned, ready to defend himself and he found Sam once more standing next to him, a small taser in her hand. Some how he hadn't even heard her approach.

"Sorry about that, our Danny's got some powers that we don't want you to hurt yourself with. That just disables them for a few hours." She had a sharp grin and still hadn't put on any clothes.

"You keep something to disable your partner in your closet?" Bruce couldn't help the question. Sam's smile grew even sharper, bordering on inhuman at the question.

"Of course! How else am I supposed to have him bound and begging before me?"

.

Danny had a sense when something strange was going on. It wasn't his ghost sense, or even from his accident. If anything it was a family trait. Jack and Maddie used it to find ghosts and haunted locations long before their tech could actually pick up on ecto, Jazz used to suss out when Danny had lied to her about eating his vegetables, and Danny used it whenever he had to work with the non ghostly members of the Infinite Realms. There was just this tingling in the back of his mind that told him that everything was not as it seemed.

So when he walked into the dinning room to find it full of Bruce Wayne's kids who all looked at him with concern then pretended everything was fine, that sense started going off. As they all began clearly speaking in different coded phrases while subtly (though not subtly enough) checking in on him, the sense grew even stronger.

Finally Danny set his fork down after eating some of the delicious breakfast that Alfred had prepared for him and looked around the room. All of Bruce's kids tensed and looked like they were trying to pretend that they weren't readying for a fight. He let himself smile at all of them.

"So it's clear this alternate gets up to some kind of weirdness." Danny said, his smile widening as the others tried to parse his words. "Now I don't need to know everything, its not my business, but I would like you all to know, that I am an alternate version of your father from a different dimension and I've dealt with some weirdness myself. I'm certain my partners are already working on getting everybody back in their proper bodies."

It was clear the others hadn't expected him to just come out and admit that he was body swapped, but just as clear that they had all figured out he wasn't their father. He wondered what gave him away, but let it go as he picked his fork back up and continued eating for a few more bites. When the silent conversations that were happening across the table started to grow panicked he spoke up again.

"Is there some where you would like me to wait where there aren't any secrets until my partners get this situation sorted? You are of course more than welcome to continue to observe me for any suspicious behavior, though I would like to get to know my alternate's children if you would allow me."

Danny smiled as the heated (yet silent) debate once more sprung into existence. He stood and allowed Alfred to lead him to a sitting room with a large TV. He relaxed into one of the stupidly comfortable couches rich people could afford. He had wanted to take a vacation for a while, might as well make the most of the time he had.

Super short dp x dc idea

Danny is an Alternative Universe version of bruce Wayne. They get switched through some hijinks and Danny is trying to be Bruce-like and just trying to act like a Good Dad to these children his alternate self has amassed (holy shit). Like, He's doing his best to attend school plays and parent-teachers conferences (because Alfred still reminds Bruce of all of them even if he says he can't make it) and is doing no batman stuff (because Danny is unaware there is even such thing as batman stuff).

Meanwhile, the children are 100% sure Bruce is a) possessed b) concussed c) hypnotized d) any and all of the above.

[daydreamerwonderkid]

Bruce used Awkward Flirtation. It's a Critical Hit!

Reference under cut

[bruciemilf]

Need a teen! Bruce au where he’s exactly like Justice League! Batman and Battinson in one. That mf put the fear of every god in Ra’s Al Ghul.

Everytime he’s in a room with someone over 30 “Teenagers” by My Chemical Romance plays in the background.

Despite that, in his own way, he’s as gentle as can be with his league. Give me a young Diana who’s getting spat on and ripped apart by the media in a way not one of her male teammates get.

And she’s Wonder Woman. She shouldn’t be affected by it. And she is, anyway. Bruce relates to that in an uncomfortable degree.

“When I first became Batman, weak men tried standing in my way, too. “

“And what did you do?”

“I stepped over them.”

He has a tiny Robin he occasionally has to keep on a leash.

Give me somewhat teen mom Bruce who struggles to wrangle his unruly six year old who likes flipping from rooftop to rooftop and thinks fighting Bane is a piece of cake.

“If Tati can do it, so can I!”

“Dick,” he paused, before handing him a handfull of candy. “Wonderful emotional manipulation. Good job.”

“:D”

[raynewolferune]

DC x DP Prompt: Bruce is bad at emoting but at least ghosts are empathic (too bad bat kids are not)

Was reading Twincognito on AO3 when I stumbled across this gem again:

~

" “Danny, Tim. I was just…checking in. Is everything alright?” Curse his inability to make meaningful conversation when it wasn’t a life or death situation.

They glanced at each other and shrugged.

Then Danny hauled himself out of the bed and walked over to Bruce.

Bruce tried not to let too much excitement show on his face. "

~

Now I really want to read a story where Bruce adopts Danny post Meta trafficking and is being his usual emotionally constipated self. His kids keep getting mad at him because he's treating their new meta brother who was trafficked poorly (generally being stilted in conversation with him, walking away hurriedly mid-conversation, avoiding Danny when he's feeling really awkward, etc). They think Bruce is discriminating against Danny for being a civilian, meta, dealer's pick, but really it's just Bruce being horribly socially awkward. Danny knows this because of ghost empathy and find the whole thing hilarious. The whole thing comes to a head with the Bat Kids staging an intervention in the Bat Cave.

[dandelioncolour]

So I made a little dead on main Tangled!AU where Danny is Rapunzel and Jason is Flynn. Danny have magical white heir and when he sings it's glows and his eyes glow green. When Jason cuts his heir short in the end it turns black. It really fits perfectly. I also draw Danny really short, you can't tell me all this heir doesn't slow his growth. And also he's just short king.

Vlad is Mother Gothel because come on, it fits too good. I also changed Stabbington brothers on dc characters of trigger twins (I know about them from wiki and nothing else).

I also didn't forgot Pascal. Cujo is instead of Pascal but he's still a dog so he can't climb on Danny.

[demonic0angel]

DP x DC Prompt: Selina Kyle has to awkwardly explain to Bruce about the weird meta girl (Dani) who just sort of comes and goes from Selina's home like a feral cat no matter where she happens to live.

"... so she's who?"

"My new kitten," Selina replied smoothly.

Bruce looked at the young girl who was drinking Selina's soda with one hand on her phone and the other on a cat in her lap as she sat at the kitchen table.

"Selina, that is a person."

Selina said, "No, Bruce, that is my new kitten."

Bruce sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Selina— this is very irresponsible! Where are her parents?"

"She doesn't have any. I just feed her and she leaves. If she wants to, she can take a shower here too."

Selina walked over to the girl and patted her head. The girl paused and then sulked, but didn't say anything as she continued to look at her cracked phone. When Selina did it again, she gave a small hiss, pouting at her before turning back to her device.

Selina brandished her arms towards her, eyebrows raised expectantly, as if to say, "Isn't she cute??"

Bruce sighed and looked up at the ceiling.

How on earth did he fall in love with a woman who had an adoption addiction just as bad as his again?

[frownyalfred]

Red hood: *cutting off heads and shooting people*

Dragon!Bruce: Minemimeminemineminemine (finding nemo seagull style)

The idea of Bruce being opposed to Red Hood but his dragon being unironically proud of his son’s bloodthirstiness and confidence is SO funny to me. The poor man is walking around like “Jason….dont…” meanwhile the dragon inside of his head is like “YES!!!”

[stars-obsession-pit]

Hello! Can do a chapter fic off this fic prompt Danny phantom x dc: https://www.tumblr.com/corkinavoid/767516270934556672/dpxdc-legal-power?source=share

This isn’t a one-to-one recreation of that dialogue but it’s based on that as a framework/premise

Batman dropped down into the room behind a pair of figures—a teenage boy and a slumped adult—letting his landing create an audible thump to alert them of his presence.

If the teen noticed, he didn’t react. Even as Bruce approached, he continued to stare impassively at the wheezing figure on the ground, an old wooden bat with flaking green paint on its side loosely held in his right hand. Bruce had already suspected who the figure would be since he arrived, but seeing the Joker so broken was still bizarre. No laughing, no schemes. He didn’t even seem to be attempting to escape his binds, just… lying there, almost as if pinned in place.

Bruce paused a step behind the teen. “I don’t know what the Joker did to you, but this isn’t the right way to go about this.”

The teen scoffed, and Bruce felt a painful lurch in his chest as he was reminded oh so strongly of his son Jason. “And what, let him go kill more people?”

“I know he deserves to face justice, but not like this. Everyone deserves a right to fair trial. No one person should be judge, jury, and executioner.”

The teen turned to look at him with glowing green eyes, and Batman felt himself freeze. He had faced gods before, yet even using that as a comparison felt like an understatement. The boy’s eyes belonged to someone far older than his teenage form implied, and they radiated power. Inevitability.

When the teen—no, the entity—spoke again, his words carried an unearthly echo. “Perhaps, but I’m not acting for just myself.” He paused, glanced down at the Joker, then asked almost conversationally, “Do you know how many people he’s killed?”

Another pause, but before Bruce could even try to answer, the entity continued, “Eight hundred and fifty-six. He’s ended the lives of eight hundred and fifty-six human souls. I can tell you about every single one, if you want. About who they were, what their dreams were before he killed them. About the pain they felt at his hands.”

He punctuated the word ‘pain’ by raising up the wooden bat in his hands and ramming its end down onto the Joker’s arm. He let out a wheeze, muffled by the gag in his mouth.

“I have a duty to my people. I am the King of the In-Between and of all the souls that pass through it—even ones whose stays were as brief as his. I am the rightful arbiter of his fate. And with that power, I sentence him to death.”

He raised the bat again, adjusting his grip so he’d hit with the side rather than the end this time, then paused and let out a chuckle. “Of course, just because it’s based on some justice doesn’t mean I can’t have a bit of fun with it too.” He swung the bat down, slamming it into the Joker’s side, then hooked it under the clown’s torso and flicked him up through the air to slam into the wall. “We all really hate this guy.”

With the entity’s attention fully turned away from him as he sauntered towards the Joker’s slumped figure, Bruce could finally unfreeze himself.

Even if the Ghost King did have the right to pass judgement on Joker, Bruce still couldn’t let torture go on like this. He wouldn’t win a direct fight, but he could hopefully at least grab the Joker and bring him over to the police. Carefully, he reached for some of the smoke bombs and batarangs on his belt and readied his grapple. He’d have to do this very, very fast.

But before he could move, another figure entered the scene. Red Hood, emerging from the shadows on the far side of the room, an unexpected bit of a pep to his step.

“Nice to see someone else who gets that that bastard needs to die. But if I may make a suggestion, how ‘bout you use a crowbar instead of that old bat? It’d be a bit more… fitting.”

[psalmsofpsychosis]

Me: yeah no i can cook gutwrenching Batman headcanons

Gotham TV: baby Bruce curls besides Alfred's hospital bed after Alfred gets stabbed in the heart, never leaves his side for one moment to the point that Gordon has to bring him food, he's red faced and hicking up all the time, whispers to Gordon "i can't lose him; he's all i have," and after Alfred comes back to life he brings books from Wayne Manor and softly reads horror bedtime stories to Alfred during the day until Alfred eases down and falls asleep

Me: god nevermind

[casscainmainly]

I feel like part of the reason Bruce is so concerned with Cass being “perfect” is because he projects onto her and sees her supposed perfection as a justification or validation for his choices as Batman. Kinda like, “See? My whole obsessive crusade and pursuit of becoming the best version of Batman, even at the expense of my humanity and relationships, is worth it because here is an example that is inherently perfect”. Except of course she’s not perfect, she’s human, and acknowledging Cass’s humanity ruins his little power fantasy of himself. Meanwhile Cass is like, I can’t be perfect if I can’t connect and communicate with other people.

This is an interesting take! I agree that Bruce projects onto her, though I'm not as sure it's because he sees her as a justification for his choices as Batman. I also wouldn't personally call it a power fantasy - though Bruce for sure maps himself onto Cass, I see it as more of a genuine desire to connect with/see himself in someone, rather than an egotistical desire to see her as an extension of himself. (The latter is more representative of David Cain).

If we look at issue 4, where the 'perfect' quote comes from, there's a moment right before that is equally important to understanding Bruce's conception of Cass:

"It wouldn't have looked this way to anyone else." That anyone else is vital - it shows that Bruce not only thinks he understands Cass, but that he is the only one who understands Cass. His disbelief at Cass killing someone is not only a disbelief that someone with his code can have killed, but the bitter surprise that he does not understand Cass as well as he thought.

Bruce genuinely believes he can help Cass, and this belief is predicated on the idea that he knows Cass. That they are similar - that he's found a kindred spirit. Does this boost his ego? Absolutely, and the 'perfect' throughline shows that. But fundamentally it's his love for Cass, and his desire to help her, that makes him unable to see her as her own person. Because it is so much easier to help someone you think you know everything about than someone you realise you don't know at all.

There's also the wider context of Jason Todd, and how 'perfection' means Bruce being able to trust Cass with keeping herself alive. And that, given their conversation in #9, Bruce knows that Cass herself wants to be like Bruce. His desire for her to be like him is multifaceted: it is 100% what you said about him projecting onto her, but it's also his wish to keep her safe, his belief that it's what she wants, and his earnest desire that their shared understanding will help her. So you're totally right, but his view of Cass really defies simple categorisation (which is why we can have so many different takes that are all valid and interesting!).

[jonjaydami]

So I don't know if it has been done before in a comic or a fanfiction but I think I need to see some more of passive aggressive superbat. Like not frenemies to lovers I mean I need to literally see the relationship they had in the Lego-batman movie. All of the Lego DC movies tbh. Cause like I love how awkward batman is and just superman being literally so passive aggressive towards him and him being like ok I can dig that.

Cause don't get me wrong I know the lego-batman movie was centered with batman and the joker but honestly I was more interested in whatever happened with superman. He even uses him as an example as being his "number 1 enemy" to the joker and when he found out he didn't get invited to superman's party and the hurt expression he made before masking it with nonchalance was absolutely hilarious.

Then superman just trying to blow him off as "you wouldn't have really wanted to come anyway" and honestly amazing. I love awkward relationships like that. I mean I guess you could say that how all of then are but most of them batman is either hostile or doing it for an ulterior motive. Like I just need it to be awkward for once and just them fighting cause batman is horrible with communication and superman is just passive aggressive because he is Midwestern and sure he won't say what's on his mind but he sure as hell will make it known with some attitude. As a fellow Midwestern person myself.

[internetgiraffekid1673]

Batgirl, Robin, and Spoiler. What a trio. Just wanted to draw the girlies :).

(Real ones will know that Batarang is one of Steph's combo special effect batarangs from Batgirl v3. Her favorite in fact: an electrogooparang).

[jasontoddsguns]

@starry-bi-sky

I just read late at night, when the nightingale sings and my brain chemistry has permanently changed. I need to inject this AU into my bloodstream.

[frownyalfred]

imagine early-friendship Bruce and Clark having a spicy lunch together and Clark goes “oh wow, you must have a great spice tolerance!” and Bruce just deadpan replies “spice tolerance is achieved through repeated long term deadening of pain receptors in the mouth,” and Clark is like “uh huh…cool.”

two seconds later Bruce cracks a smile and drops the deadpan expression.

“I’m just fucking with you.”

and that’s when Clark realizes he can never trust a single word that comes out of his soon-to-be best friend’s mouth.

[batboopp]

oh ok

[voiider]

I think mayhaps that Batman should exclusively be a member of the Justice League Dark. He doesn't really like working with people but also sometimes John Constantine is like "You know Batsy, If you help me save the world by proxy it saves Gotham" So he does begrudgingly. But only sometimes when they need help with some things because he's like a very good detective and sometimes you need that! But also mostly I just want the rest of the Justice League to not believe that The Batman is real??

There's an issue that they need dealt with and they think it's a demon so they call Constantine and he's like "nah mate, this is just weird ritualistic sacrifices, I got a call to B-man on this one"

And Superman is like "haha The Batman isn't real... Right?" And then they meet him and he is very much real.

And Diana is all like "Oh Clark you silly, obviously The Batman is real" But internally she's like "holy shit The Batman is real???"

Green Arrow still doesn't believe it because he keeps missing any mission that The Batman happens to go on and he's like "If The Batman was real my best friend Brucie Wayne would have told me so. Brucey said that the Batman is just a scare tactic created by the Gotham Police department" So he's pretty sure that the rest of the Justice League is just playing a long practical joke against him specifically