#the role of filling the cracks/glue of the family is firmly in dick's hands but dick has been through all the events which is another rant.

[discocandles]

One thing about Duke that I feel needs a canon deep dive in terms of all of the batfamily is how Duke wasn't there for the traumas that the family has experienced and how he changes the entire dynamic of the batfamily as a result.

I can explain by getting a little personal. My family went through a lot of pain bc my brother was born about 15 weeks early, and barely survived. But I was born a few years after and saw all of that stuff as normal. Me not knowing/experiencing that traumatic event changed the family dynamic. my mother has called it filling in the cracks(basically calling me the glue of the family).

Now how does this relate to Duke? Well, the closest he knew of what the joker did to Barbara and Jason was likely news articles his parents talked quietly about after he went to bed. He had maybe interacted with Batman twice before his family was targeted, and never saw most of Damian's arc to redeem himself. He was in the foster system when Bruce died, and didn't form we are Robin until down the line. Duke joined long after these events occurred or after they were mostly resolved. His view of the batfamily is normal normal to him. It's not like dick's, who likely longs for a time when Bruce wasn't so closed off, or before Jason was killed. Duke's normal isn't like Tim or Steph's, who joined when Bruce was grieving Jason, and along with Cass and Damian, their normal was shattered by Bruce's "death".

Duke knows these people are messed up, don't get me wrong, but the ways they are messed up is just who they are to him from his introduction to them. And the difference between being there in someone's past vs. only knowing about it after the fact is something that I find relatable with Duke.

It's the reason that I think Duke and Jason get along fairly well outside of just their similar stories. Duke may have heard stories of how jason was before, but it's never in the context of Jason not being alive or an in memoriam. He compares those stories about jason to the way he is now instead of vice versa.

The same can be said for Damian and Cass. He's heard stories about how they were raised to kill with no mercy and made an incredible journey to not do that anymore. But to him it's context rather than who they are. He may be one of the only people who truly sees Damian as someone trying to get through middle school while being Robin. And the dynamic he has with Cass has so much love and support when either of them is going through something.

Duke, whether he knows it or not changes several of the dynamics of the batfamily. I realized that I've never made this post and I feel like I have to.