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pneumaticshift · 2 days ago

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Hiiii I wonder if you take batman justice league requests? If so:

Yk those "Batman gets de aged in front of the JLA" fics? Well let me raise you one:

A meeting with the JLAs primary benefactor, Bruce Wayne, goes wrong when a magician (of some sort) attacks, and so they find themselves with a Bruce Wayne who is 20 years (or so) younger than he should be.

Anf they're all like "who is this angry emo teen and what happened to the flirty bimbo that was just here."

It would be even funnier if Bruce hears about a Batman and just goes "yes that's obviously me only i could pull that off" because he's been daydreaming about bat-themed escapades since his teen years

bonus points if he immediately recognises Green Arrow ("i told you to cut off that fugly beard ages ago, Ollie,") and starts fangirling over Hal ;)

I love your Best Laid Plans series btw! You're such a great writer. This is genuinely the only series I've been actively obsessed with in a good WHILE.

Love,

Anon who probably will return to annoy you.

First of all, thank you!! 💚 Compliments like this really mean a lot to me, I’m so glad you’re enjoying the series.

And yes! I do take Justice League requests! I tried to get all your ideas crammed in there. It’s not as shippy as I was gonna make it (I wrote too much lol), but I sprinkled a smidge of a hint in there. Just a whisper. A gentle nudge. A wink from across the room. Hope you like it!

———

It turned out that young Bruce Wayne was feral

Not in the way rich kids thought they were when they slummed it for a summer. That faux-rebellion that came with backpacking through Europe with their parent’s black card, or spending a weekend at some overpriced retreat to find themselves.

This was actual feral. The kind of feral where he had dirt under his fingernails and wide eyes that looked for exits before they looked at people. The kind of feral where he knew exactly where to jam a shiv between Ollie’s ribs to make it count.

Which, as it turned out, was currently very relevant information.

“This is fine,” Ollie choked out.

Ollie was a liar.

His face was turning an alarming shade of purple, which clashed spectacularly with the green of his costume. There was an arn locked too-tightly around his neck and there was, of all things, a homemade shiv pressed against the vulnerable stretch of his throat.

It all started in Gotham, because that’s where most bad things happened. Some charity auction that had featured a plethora of ancient artefacts from exceedingly questionable sources. And because Gothamites had the distinct inability to leave cursed objects where they belonged, it was only a matter of time before one of the objects went wild.

No one could quite agree on what triggered it. Hal was pretty sure it was the plump statue of an old eldritch matron, Diana swore it was the ancient scroll of indistinguishable language, and Ollie was confident the auctioneer had muttered something that sounded just enough like an incantation. Whatever it was — and they had already contacted some magic users to find out — the end result had been the same.

Brucie Wayne. Handsome, vapid, as sharp as a marshmallow, had finished in a puff of old magic. And in his place…

Well, something that very much wasn’t like the Brucie the world knew and loved. Barefoot. Wild-eyed. Unkempt hair falling into his eyes and a patchy beard that was trying itself best, but wasn’t quite past puberty enough to be full. He took three very menacing steps forward before he dropped unconscious. Hard. Because he had been standing on stage at the time and had straight up fallen off when his senses failed him.

Clark Kent and Oliver Queen, two guests in attendance, had been the only two that had not been herded out by the League when they answered the call for aid. They helped keep the peace, assuring the good people of Gotham that yes, everything was fine, no need to panic, they’re all in good hands.

And in return, those same good people of Gotham had just sneered, ordered the League to take care of their beloved Brucie, and then spat on them for not being Batman. Because this city was the worst.

Now, instead of waking up all confused and docile and flirtatiously grateful for the assistance — you know, like the Brucie Wayne they had all met before — they had come to realise that there had been a lot of misinformation about what Bruce Wayne got up to in his youth.

Twenty years younger than the man they read about in the tabloids, he had immediately reverted to something neolithic. He produced a goddamn shiv from his waistband and launched himself with the kind of fight-or-flight response that suggested he had a lot of experience choosing fight.

Ollie had been the closest. Which was unfortunate for Ollie.

He was taken by surprise, and that was fair enough. Absolutely nobody in the room could have expected this level of violence from a man who, as far as the world was concerned, spent his formative years travelling the hotspots of the world to partake in the traditional aforementioned rich kid mission to find himself.

Hal was the first to step up. “You wanna drop Robin Hood before I drop you, kid?” he said, clearly considering that maybe this was the moment to introduce Gotham’s favorite trust fund baby to the concept of a green energy muzzle.

“Easy, easy,” Clark tried, deliberately stepping in front of Hal. “No one's gonna hurt you. We just want to help."

Young Bruce did not look convinced. And maybe that was fair. From his perspective, he’d just woken up in an unfamiliar place, surrounded by people he didn’t know. He was being threatened by a man in a glowing green onesie, and coddled by one with his underpants over the top of his outerpants.

“Who the hell are you people?” he snapped.

“We are the Justice League,” Diana said, smiling gently. “We mean you no harm, my young friend. You’ve been in an accident and we’re here to help you.” She raised a placating hand. Calm, but not condescending. They probably should have let her deal with it from the beginning. “You may keep your weapon, if you’d like. But I’d ask you to release our friend. On my honour, we are not your enemy.”

Bruce narrowed his eyes and he scanned Diana in the same way a soldier would, and she let him look. She stayed still, perfectly patient, while Bruce flickered over her stance, her posture, her weapons, the slight in weight that meant she was ready. Not aggressive, just prepared.

Then his eyes moved to Clark, to Hal, to Barry, and back again. Something about them, or about Diana at least, must have registered as safe, because after a tense moment, Bruce’s grip on Ollie loosened. Which of course Oliver immediately took advantage of.

He took a deep, careful breath and stepped away with all the forced casualness of a man who definitely did not just get overwhelmed by an eighteen-year-old, barefooted, trust fund baby. His neck absolutely wasn’t throbbing, and he definitely wasn’t resisting the urge to rub at it petulantly. Nope, everything was fine.

So fine, in fact, that he joined the League’s line, crossed his arms and straightened his shoulders like he hadn’t just been manhandled by someone whose primary tabloid reputation was for shirtless boat parties.

“Mr. Wayne,” Clark started, stepping forward. Bruce didn’t look at him. His gaze was firmly locked onto Oliver with a stare so scrutinising that it could’ve burnt. He was really looking now, like he’d only just registered Ollie as a person rather than an obstacle. “You’ve been hit by… Well, we’re not sure what exactly. We’ve contacted a few people who can help, but from what we know already, we think you’ve—”

“I’ve been sent to the future,” Bruce said flatly. There was a crack in his voice that could have been nervousness covered up by the entirely blank way he stared at them.

There was a long pause as the League collectively processed that particular statement. Hal looked at Barry. Barry looked at Clark. Clark looked at Diana. And Diana beamed brightly like she always suspected that Bruce Wayne had more than two brain cells to rub together and had finally been handed the means to prove it.

“Okay, hold on now,” Hal said. “How the hell is that your first conclusion? You wake up in an unfamiliar room, surrounded by people you don’t know, and instead of assuming kidnapping or drug-induced hallucination or even just being really, really drunk, your first thought is time travel?”

Bruce’s eyes drifted over to Hal’s face, then lower to the logo on his suit and the ring on his finger. “Yeah.” He cocked his head. “Are you a Green Lantern?”

Hal blinked. “Uh, yeah?

The kid kept his eyes on Hal for a moment as he processed that while everyone else tried to make sense of his insane deductive skills. “We’re not saying you’re wrong,” Barry said, “but how did you even know? I mean, time travel isn’t exactly the default assumption.”

Bruce looked away from Hal and instead swept his gaze over the room. His eyes landed on a sleek, modern console with a WayneTech insignia embossed on the side. He jerked his chin towards it like someone who had just found undeniable proof that the world was, in fact, very stupid and he was the only one paying attention.

“That model doesn’t exist yet,” he said. “The closest working prototype was three years away from launch when I left Gotham. All the WayneTech in this room uses materials that aren’t aren’t widely available yet. It’s all too streamlined. Things like this only exist in concept journals.”

“But that could mean anything,” Clark said, but he was eyeing the WayneTech like he was trying to remember what it looked like twenty years ago.

“And you,” Bruce continued, snapping back to Oliver.

Ollie straightened up instinctively. “Me? What about me?”

“You have a goatee.”

“Uh. Yeah?”

The kid’s expression darkened with such absolute disappointment that it was almost tangible. Like he was cataloguing every single one of Ollie’s life choices and finding them completely lacking. Bruce shook his head slowly. “You had so much potential.”

Ollie made a noise of offense. "Listen, you little punk, I—” He exhaled sharply, dragging a hand through his perfectly respectable facial hair. “You don’t know me.”

“Of course I do, I’m not blind,” Bruce muttered. He seemed to be accepting of the situation enough to have dropped his defensive hand without letting go of the shiv. “Judging by your age, I’d say I’ve gone forward between twenty and twenty-five years. Judging by your facial hair, you’ve clearly not experience any mental development beyond—”

“You wanna go, kid?”

Bruce, with the unkempt wildman hair of someone who had been travelling rough for over a year, flicked his bangs out of his face like a little teenage bitch. “As if you could kick my ass, Queen.”

Oliver didn’t choke on air, but it was a very near thing. He kept his composure, sucked in a sharp inhale, and said, "What did you just call me?"

“Your name?”

"That is not public information!"

Bruce blinked. "Okay?"

"Okay!?" Ollie’s voice went slightly high-pitched. "How do you know that!? Does the adult version of you know?”

“Probably.”

"You’d have to ask him when he’s back to normal,” Clark said, but he was looking at Bruce with the very specific grimace of a man who didn't want to say too much just in case the kid would somehow be able to divine his identity too. Clark dealt with Bruce Wayne a lot as a reporter, he couldn’t risk it.

"Oh my God." Ollie scrubbed a hand down his face. "He’s known all this time, hasn’t he?”

Apparently, young Bruce had decided that Ollie was no longer worth his time. His assessment had been made, his conclusion reached (disappointment) and so had moved on. He barely even looked at Clark. His inner Gotham survival instincts had automatically detected Metropolis all over him and deemed him irrelevant. Diana and Barry got a slightly longer look. A tilt of his head as he clocked Diana’s armour and the lasso, and a thoughtful hum at Barry’s full-body suit clearly designed for speed.

But it was Hal, somehow, that got his full attention. Bruce stared at him, at the glowing logo on his chest, and made no moves to make it subtle.

“Hey, kiddo,” Hal bit out. “You keep looking at me like that, I’m gonna start thinking you got a crush."

Because young Bruce Wayne had the mental fortitude of a brick wall, apparently (which was insane, because this man was supposed to be peak himbo), he didn’t rise to the bait. He just stayed quiet, almost like he had something to say but was uncertain on how to bring it up.

Hal had the ego the size of one of his jets and he’d seen this kind of look before. Usually on the kids who looked up to heroes and didn’t see any of the bad things that came with being someone who wielded extraordinary power. Usually on the fans. The kind of fans who had posters and encyclopaedic knowledge and way too much enthusiasm for whatever it was they were into.

But the difference was, little Bruce wasn’t some starstruck kid who wanted an autograph. This was the intense, calculating scrutiny of someone who had just been confronted with a living, breathing legend they weren’t prepared to meet. For the first time since he’d de-aged, Bruce actually looked like a teenager.

“The suit is different,” Bruce noted, almost awkwardly.

Hal grinned. He might have been the greatest Green Lantern, but he wasn’t the first. It had been a while since someone actually knew about Alan Scott. “Yeah,” he said, glancing down at the glowing emblem on his chest. “Different Lantern, different look. You a fan?”

Bruce hesitated, which was honestly adorable, because for all his I’ve been in a fight and I know exactly where to stab a man energy, he was still just a teenager. And, apparently, the idea of being caught liking something was so deeply offensive to him that he had to physically restrain himself from reacting. He recovered fast. Way too fast for a kid his age. The brief flicker of something genuine was gone in an instant, replaced with careful neutrality that was vaguely familiar.

“I respect it,” he said stiffly, like he was dictating a press release rather than responding like a normal human being. “Green Lantern was the first hero I ever read about.”

“So, you are a fan.”

Bruce blushed. Not completely, he didn’t flush completely red and start steaming at the ears, but his ears peppered a pale pink. He briefly looked away before snapping his gaze right back to stave off weakness.

“I’m—” He stopped, exhaled through his nose, then squared his shoulders like he was preparing for war. “He protected Gotham when no one else would. When no one could.” His fingers flexed slightly, like he was gripping at something that wasn’t there. “That matters.”

Hal, still gleefully processing the fact that this angry version of Bruce Wayne had absolutely been a Green Lantern fanboy at some point in his life, let himself enjoy it for a second longer before Clark cleared his throat.

“Speaking of Gotham,” he said carefully, glancing at the others, “we should probably contact Batman. He’ll want to know what’s going on here, since Bruce is technically his problem.”

Having controlled his expression enough to stop blushing, Bruce had deliberately turned himself away from everyone and was now examining Hal’s ring. (Like a fanboy.) “What can Spooky do?” Hal asked. “He’s just gonna be pissed that we took the kid out of the city. Let's just get it fixed and let him know later.”

“He’ll need to know if there are cursed artefacts being circulated,” Diana said. “And I imagine that time displacement is not the only thing he will need to worry about.”

Ollie nodded. “Yeah, this has gotta be more than just temporal problems,” he said, frowning in Bruce’s general direction. “He’s nothing like Bruce Wayne. I’m thinking there’s been a universe switcheroo.”

“Multiversal doppelganger,” Barry agreed.

Bruce didn’t respond to those allegations, but he did say, “This Batman person operates Gotham?”

“Yeah,” Hal replied. “After your Green Lantern left, someone had to pick up the slack. Spooky gets real pissy if anyone else steps in on his turf. You’ve probably met him. Well, you will. In about twenty years or so.”

“Mm. No. He won’t be available right now,” Bruce said decidedly. He looked up. “I have a friend who can do magic. She’ll be able to help, assuming my future self is still in contact with her.”

Diana cocked her head at Bruce. “Why would you assume he would be unavailable?” she asked.

“I’d think that would be obvious,” he replied. He looked at the blank expressions around him and rolled his eyes. “Think about it. If this person is as territorial as you say, then he would have already been aware of whatever was happening in Gotham. And if not, then news would have already spread and he would have contacted you all to confirm it. This is assuming you’re all a part of the same team, of course. With the amount of WayneTech around, Gotham definitely has a lot of input in your work, so I imagine you’ve got to be working with her vigilante.”

“That’s very astute.”

“If Batman is not here, then he’s either ignoring the issue, or he’s indisposed. I’m inclined to believe the latter.” Bruce looked at Oliver. “Did you ever wonder why I dropped out of school to go travelling?”

“I figured you were still grieving and needed time to yourself.”

Bruce bristled a little, almost like he didn’t expect to be called out on that. “I left because Gotham needed me to,” he said.

He didn’t elaborate. He didn’t need to. The pieces were all there. Scattered, sure, but if they were smart enough to put on their capes the right way around, then they were smart enough to figure it out. Hell, he had managed to figure it out, and he’d only been in this future for about twenty minutes.

Diana watched him with knowing eyes like she had figured it out the moment he turned up as this angry ball of vengeance instead of the delicate heir with a silver spoon up his butt. The others took a little longer to catch up, but they’d get there eventually. Clark’s expression was already beginning to change to one of wild disbelief, while Ollie had gone completely blank like he was struggling to compute.

Before anyone could say anything, before the trampling elephant in the room could be addressed with the appropriate amount of what the actual hell, before someone (most likely Hal) said something incredibly obnoxious, the air rippled and the deus ex machina descended.

Magic, thick and tangible, swept through the room like the universe itself let out a sigh of relief, and Zatanna Zatara stepped into existence with the kind of exasperation of someone who had been called far too often to deal with the League’s magical problems. She scanned the room without saying anything before her gaze landed on Bruce. Barefoot, feral, still holding a shiv like it was an extension of his hand. She sighed.

“Of course it would be you,” she said, but she was smiling as she said it.

“Can you fix this?” Clark asked without taking his eyes off Bruce.

“Yeah,” Zatanna nodded.

“And it’s actually gonna be the Bruce from this universe, right?” Ollie put in, unnerved. “We’re not gonna get a whole different Wayne? Because he’s implied something really big and I don’t think I can mentally take it if it’s true.”

“Oh, he’ll be the same Bruce Wayne, alright.” She turned back to the kid, lowering her voice slightly. “Maybe you’ll just know him a little better now.

Bruce didn’t react, but the air shifted around him, like he knew exactly what she meant and didn’t particularly appreciate it. Then, with a flick of her fingers and a gentle incantation, the world twisted with a shimmer of glowing energy, reality bending in on itself— And just like that, they were gone.

An incredibly weighted, knowing silence settled over the Watchtower. For a long moment, no one spoke. Then Hal clapped his hands together and turned to the others with the slow, self-satisfied grin of someone who just found out something hilarious.

“So.” He raised an eyebrow. “That was Batman, right?”

#hal proceed to get batman green lantern merch for christmas #he's now a proud owner of an 'i love lantern' t-shirt #he says he got rid of it but he didn't #the end #answered #sam writes #request #batlantern #sort of??#justice league #bruce wayne #hal jordan #oliver queen

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