#i love you fumbling control freak sugar daddy bruce wayne

[dickgraysonsptsd]

Speaking of Bruce tricking Dick into using his money I’m re reading nightwing 1996 and I got to the part where he’s struggling to set up utilities because he’s just been using Bruce’s credit his entire teen/adult life. Like of course Bruce wouldn’t give His Boy his own cards there’s rlly no reason for him to need a good credit history when Bruce can just give him everything he asks for.

YESSSS YES YES THIS IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE SCENES ANON!!! <333 it's SUCH a fucked detail!! it's so interesting to me that he mentions there that even when he's living with kory, kory was the one managing their household finances¹—like, dick was so used to someone else handling bills and money (i.e. to having no financial independence) that it seems to have just made sense to him for kory to do it too.

i was born in '93 so did not experience this myself, but i grew up hearing a lot from adult women in my life about how normal it was for their husbands and ex-husbands to have controlled the household finances completely in the 70s-80s and into the 90s, and how weird it was for them to get divorced and start dealing with it themselves. legit dick's "i don't exist on paper financially because i have no credit and have never had anything in my name" realization in nw (96) #3 reminds me of that. he's Bruce's Boy <3 and Bruce's Wifey <3

i feel like there's also a line to draw there spiritually to robin & batman (2021) #1 where dick says "that was mine! that was all i had that was just mine!" about his journal:

bruce has given dick a home, an education, belongings, etc. here, but dick's journal and his thoughts/feelings are the only things that are "just mine." because everything else comes from bruce. and dick is so soooo angry at him here because bruce read his journal and used it to make a robin suit for him. which bruce intended as a gift:

but dick takes it as a violation, almost as a theft. because bruce using his journal to give him what he wants is taking away dick's ownership of his thoughts/feelings. it's another example of bruce encroaching on dick's boundaries in an effort to take care of dick. because he doesn't know how to just SAY HE LOVES HIM!!! AND STOP PUTTING HIS PAWS ALL OVER DICK'S LIFE HOWEVER HE CAN <- impossible <- dick will forgive him anyway so it's fine <3

¹ also means that although he can be weirdly traditional about relationships (ex. not wanting anyone to know kory is living with him at the start of titans 99 because they're not dating so it's Not Appropriate) he has no issues around money and gender roles, which is kind of wild in 1999!