#the third option is Alfred and the fae raising the two like a bitterly divorced couple

[favoritebatfam]

Okay, I can’t be the only one who has a picture in my head of child Bruce being adopted by a fae, and almost stolen.

In my head, Bruce is like 9 or so at the time. I read somewhere that the fae tend to take kids sometimes to raise them or to have them as pets. So I’m imagining this super powerful fae who got attached to a child of like a witch or something, and is raising this kid in this weird in between place between the fae realm and human world.

So the kid probably explores and ends up finding Bruce and befriending him.(Maybe there’s an entrance to that dimension in the cave that becomes the Batcave, and Bruce is exploring.)

So Bruce is unceremoniously adopted by this sort of fae child and it takes a little while for either of their respective adults to notice. The fae notices and is debating whether or not they should take Bruce, but then Alfred notices.

Alfred is British, and the British have so many myths and stories about the fae, so there’s no way Alfred doesn’t become convinced they are about to doom his kid to a life as a slave.(Bonus points if this leads to Alfred having a tiny crisis about being Bruce’s father figure and not wanting to replace his parents)

I’m not 100% sure about the rest of the au, but I can clearly picture in my head the fae kid sitting with Bruce at a table, eating cookies, while Alfred and the Fae being have a ‘conversation’(I’m imagining that thing where character a is oblivious to character b and character c having a full out brawl.) Bruce and the Fae kid eat cookies while their respective guardians duke it out.

Years later, Bruce is asked by the kids about the iron brass knuckles in the cave, covered with something.