#bruce&jason

[bruciepennyworth]

ok see now i’m imagining 20yo bruce going through the

“i have a kid” —> “my kid DIED” —> “i LET {that boys guilt complex is large enough to house a small civilization of COURSE he immediately personally assumes the guilt for something a version of him 20 years older *might* do} my kid die” —> “my kid wanted me to avenge his death and i DIDN’T” —> “something stops me from killing people who deserve it” —> “something makes me so unwilling to kill that i don’t even avenge my own KID” —> “oh shit oh fuck i probably either accidentally killed a kid or accidentally killed a parent in front of their kid” —> “oh shit oh double fuck i let myself get sucked far enough in by ra’s that i, mr. mini ‘man with a contingency plan’ ninja wayne, ended up in a situation where i was killing someone with a kid and willing to do it in a way where i hadn’t been 100% sure that their kid would absolutely not be there to see it”

Emotional Pipeline from SuperhellTM

now the question is, how much of this is even mr. iron control poker face so rattled by that he’s letting jason see it?

Deaged 20yo Bruce meeting 19yo Jason would be the most unhinged pairing I cannot begin to imagine how emotionally and psychologically messed up they could get

Jason: “—and then Joker killed me.”

20 year old Bruce, fresh off LoA training: “So then you killed him, right?”

Jason: “What? No. You told me I couldn’t.”

Bruce: “Huh.”

Jason: “You don’t kill people. It’s kind of your rule.”

Bruce, letting out a bitter laugh: “Really?”

Jason: “Why are you laughing?”

Bruce: “I’ve killed people, Jason. A lot of people.”

Jason:

[bruciepennyworth]

new hc: bruce + the batkids + distracting chatter

so this is inspired by the latest chap of @frownyalfred's lovely fic 'hold me loosely' (chapter 4, jason POV) — but i feel like i've also seen other people use this scenario? like, i feel like it's an oddly common recurring bit of bruce characterization in fanfics. anyways, what i'm actually referring to is bruce, when someone around him gets injured on the job, defaulting to listing random facts at them as a way of keeping their mind occupied/off their injury. [fairly often, but not always, it's specifically facts about said injury (ex. "on average XX takes X number of days to heal in a healthy person" "Y% of people will experience XX in their lifetime" etc. etc.)]

...so i was thinking about the thought process bruce would go through in order to arrive on that being his go-to strategy for this kind of scenario, and if you think about it, it actually makes perfect sense? bc i can totally imagine him being like "hmmm so a Normal Person incapacitated in the manner of scenario 259(c)(iii) would likely appreciate/require a distraction from their condition" —> "the most appropriate/comforting distraction that does not hinder my ability to actively continue assisting them is to fill the silence —> "slight problem: i am bad at making conversation" {the genuine kind, not the brucie frivolous-lifestyle-bullshit kind} —> "i can speak about a subject that the injured listener has an interest in" —> "i can speak about a subject that will already be on my mind and will be directly relevant to the listener, as well as assure them that i have the requisite knowledge and am therefore capable of taking care of their injury properly"

...of course, the part that bruce forgets to anticipate is what Injured Party makes of him suddenly turning into an audiobook encyclopedia, and how they might actually respond to that beyond just shutting up and listening to him monologue lmao. thankfully, he gets plenty of practice individualizing his Distraction ManeuverTM accordingly on all of his batkids!

dick: EFFECTIVE. the one this strategy was invented for in the first place — does not deal well with tense silence, also just really loves listening to the sound of his loved one's voices, finds it super relaxing/comforting. used to fall asleep easiest in his family's tent at the circus when he could listen to his mom and dad chat about anything late into the night. he had the perspective to recognize that batman monologuing at you all about the mechanics of the injury you've just received yourself is more than a bit morbid, but hey, he was a bit of a dark-humored morbid kid himself, he doesn't mind 🤷🏽‍♀️

jason: EFFECTIVE. isn't averse to silence in the way dick is, maybe even prefers it mostly — but, when he started out as robin bruce monologued at him when he got injured the first couple times out of habit, and jason definitely noticed and picked up on the pattern. then bruce stopping would have made it weird, so after that he comes to find it comforting in the sense that it's like an endearing habit of bruce's/a familiar routine. so like, he ignores it mostly, but if bruce ever didn't start monologuing at him while he's trying to hold it together he'd definitely notice and be all "hey what the fuck happened" lmao

tim: NOT EFFECTIVE. does not like just listening to bruce growling out mildly-alarming injury statistics, thank you very much. if he can talk, he'll do the talking himself; if he can't, he'll take silence. (also a hand to hold— which bruce eventually learns to provide.)

steph: NOT EFFECTIVE. bruce learns the hard way that steph will interpret him going on about her injury as condescension (which tbf, by definition it kind of is?). his second try is to talk about her performance in the field re: whatever she was doing right before she got injured, which is unsurprisingly received equally poorly. if she can talk, she's definitely talking, and bruce reluctantly learns to tolerate the fact that said chatter is 99% of the time completely unrelated to their current situation. the first time post-war games that he ends up stuck with a steph injured badly enough that she can't fill the silence on her own, in a fit of panicked inspiration he starts telling her about the historical value/sourcing of purple dye, which she teases him endlessly about once she's able to later, but he's just glad that it seems to be implicitly approved of.

cass: SITUATIONALLY EFFECTIVE. cass comes in after tim (and i guess kind of during steph's initial integration into the fam?) so bruce has already been made aware of the possibility that she won't appreciate it. but it turns out that whether cass prefers or dislikes silence varies by the day, honestly, so bruce tends to go for it, and then about 60% of the time he'll get a soft "batman, stop talking, please." (or the equivalent in sign) after a couple minutes lol. (also, even though cass is generally not particularly impolite about it, bruce somehow always feels very effectively chastised by the specific way she tells him to stop: it's like her version of the 'alfred voice'.)

damian: EFFECTIVE. with the unfortunate caveat that if he's capable, he'll certainly be snarking back at bruce the whole time about how he "knows, Father, i memorized the relevant information on these topics when i was five" — but he likes it. he'd never say anything about it, of course, but bruce realizes after some time that being left in silence when bruce is there kind of makes him feel like he's waiting for punishment for being sloppy enough to get injured in the first place.

duke: EFFECTIVE. he doesn't particularly mind silence, but he loves having random general knowledge in factoid form, so he definitely appreciates the monologues. he tends to mostly be content with listening, but he'll also pipe up with corrections occasionally bc he'll tend to have read more recent data.

[envysparkler]

“And if you could trade this one for the dead one, son for son, would you do it?”

For an instant, the image flashed into his head, seductive and alluring—Jason back, Jason home, Jason alive—before it vanished, leaving behind a young boy broken in pieces and Jason’s horrified expression.

“No,” Bruce said hoarsely, and it tore at him, but he could never trade one life for another.

“No?” Hood repeated, voice harsh.

“Because then I’d have no sons,” Bruce said quietly.

“Gave up on the dead brat already, huh.”

Bruce wished he could punch Hood and wipe the stupid sneer off his face.

“If I exchanged an innocent life to bring Jason back,” Bruce said, struggling to keep his voice level, “Then he would never speak to me again.”

[bobbinalong]

updated the sillies! now with duke and, just so people would stop asking about him, jason.

[green-eyedfirework]

Jason knew that wandering Crime Alley when he was on the verge of a heat was a bad idea, but he had a tire iron in one hand to defend himself, and he managed to snag a whole week’s worth of the fancy special scent blockers Wayne Enterprises developed to block heat scent, so he was only in as much danger as a twelve-year-old normally was on Gotham’s streets.

Of course, there were common stories of omegas’ judgement being extremely impaired when they were in heat, but those were just stupid biased tales, Jason was thinking just fine, and he needed to grab some more food before he holed up in the little nest he made in the corner of an abandoned building.

He was proud of how he managed to keep himself safe.  He hadn’t been caught once, not by the traffickers or the random alphas that liked to skulk around alleys for easy prey.  He didn’t need a pack.  He could keep himself safe.

(Jason steals the Batmobile tires for his nest. He ends up quite insistently arguing with Batman for them.)

(Hood ends up doing the same, which is how Batman figures out his identity weeks before his dramatic reveal.)

[kamikazeonwings]

characters have to be a little bit awful in ways that you cant defend. its good for the ecosystem. your honor he did do that. He did in fact do that

[messi-mooni]

So mad at how long this took

[thecrowthatyellsow]

Skibidi die.

[se-qo]

alfred gave them the sheets

[how-surprising]

Hehehe 😊😘

[batsandbirdsandothers]

Inspired by this post - Jason and Duke having glowy eyes and freaking Bruce out

Bruce: Have kids, they said. It’ll be fun, they said. I thought I was gonna shit my pants.

Dick: But they’re so adorable, aren’t they?

Bruce: Unfortunately yes.

[bruciemilf]

Bruce truly hates magic with every pump and beat of his heart.

What kinda curse is Slang, anyway?

“This is the best day of my life.”

“Bro really thought he ate with that.” Bruce physically feels a full body shiver, charged with nausea and cringe. “This is level 10 cringe. Can’t have shit in Gotham.”

Dick is his earth bound angel, but he laughs like a demon at him, holding onto Jason for support, pledging his eternal loyalty to Zatana and her pettiness.

—

“Hey, old bat, hook me up with an adrenaline shot.”

What he wants to say is Jay, do not try and fight with 6 bullets in your stomach.

What comes out instead, through Bruce’s grit teeth and intense, fierce glaring, “Not you trying to go back to your corpse era. See how I only took 2 shots? Very demure. Very mindful.”

Jason passes out from blood loss, but mostly laughter.

—

“Chat, is this real?”

Stephanie barely bites back a full belly cackle. “I think he just asked us if we copied.”

“I wish I was Jason, 15.”

—

“This is not a slay environment. Killing is flop behavior.” He keeps his eyes shut and buries his face in his hands. Trying to convince Damian not to stab someone doesn’t seem to work.

Damian gives him a pat like he’s a pitiful cat. “I’ll only stab the non lethal areas.”

“God, I wish that were me.”

[frownyalfred]

Jason: “I’m NOTHING like Bruce, okay? We’re not even that similar. That’s all in your head.”

Dick, perched on Jason’s couch watching him gear up, sipping a Batburger shake: “so you’re NOT about to go deal with your emotions by going out on patrol and beating people up?”

Jason: *sets down the brass knuckles he was just holding* *stares off into the distance*

Jason: “These are just…for my — look, I don’t like your fucking tone, Richard.”

[green-eyedfirework]

Omega Batman hit with pollen and immediately adopting this little tire thief he comes across.

Years later, omega Batman does the very same thing--only this criminal is a lot bigger and a lot more defiant. (Still doesn't save him, though.)

[noooodle-snek]

Bruce showing Jason around after he first brings him home

Bruce: ...and don't worry all the chandeliers are reinforced so they won't break while you swing on them

Jason: Why would I do that?

Bruce: ...you don't want to swing on the chandeliers and parkour around the furniture?

Jason: No???

Bruce, tearing up: thank you

[ultimate-marysue]

It's raining nonstop where I am so I'm just picturing the Batfam during a flood.

Red Robin uploads a TikTok from the safety of a roof saying "watch him go!" As Red Hood keeps trying to drive his bike against the current. A big wave comes by and he's slowly dragged downhill. The caption reads "don't drive during floods".

Batman and Robin are on the ground helping civilians out of cars when the intensity doubles and in minutes Damian goes from wading knee deep in the water to swimming. The emergency batfloaties get triggered and he floats away as Bruce fails to grab him by half an inch. "Robin serenely drifting in the current" becomes a meme.

Someone takes a picture of a very flustered spoiler trying to squeeze the water out of her cape. The second she lets go the weight of the water makes her fall ass over backwards. Black Bat ends up giving her her waterproof cape.

Signal makes mirages of sharks in the water to scare the shit out of any criminals. Oracle uploads the recordings with Benny hill as background music. Bludhaven escapes the worst of the storm and Nightwing sends pictures to the group chat patting the barely wet concrete just to rub it in. He still slips on a puddle and eats shit, Barbara sends that to the group chat.