He/it | Aussie 🇦🇺 | Number #1 Duke Thomas Fan | Proshippers/Batcest shipper DNI
36 posts
Insired by @overcookedfool 's headcannon about Cass and Duke being banned from hide and seek, Bruce uses their hiding skills to train the other batfamily members.
The training involves Duke and Cass hiding around Gotham and the others having to find them before sun up (for Cass) or sun down (for Duke). So that everyone can still get their work done, this only happens once a week.
If someone finds them in time, they can get a trophy from the batcave, if Duke or Cass remain unfound, they get the same deal.
Dick gets them to use carnival rules so winning a lot of little trophies can get you a big one. After a few months of the training exercise Duke and Cass put their trophies together to offically own the dinosaur.
Stole this idea from @lordbasilsnek because I had no idea what to post on here at first, so go check them out cuz their headcanons are pretty cool too.
He is banned from the Batkids yearly hide and seek game due to his powers. He and Cass (Who was banned simply because she was too good) decide to be commentators. Duke does most of the talking.
After his parents were jokerfied, Duke learned how to braid his own hair. Once he moved in with Bruce he got the chance to grow out his hair. It throws half the batkids off when the morning after their patrol instead of the afro he's had for the past 7 months he has cornrows with beads in colors he and Cass picked out the day before.
Almost monthly Duke and Jason argue which side of gotham has the best pizza. Jason's is some shitty crime alley pizza place that gave him a free slice every now and again. Duke's is near his parents apartment. It's black owned. Its the greasiest shit you will ever put near your mouth. His mom hated how unhealthy it was. He and his old friends would eat there every Saturday afternoon anyways. These arguments are one hair away from getting physical because both of them are too fucking stubborn to admit they can both be right.
I think Duke would gets given a lot of gifts while on partol. It comes with working the day shift, really.
The first few weeks people were hesitant about a Bat being out during the day, some openly hostile, but now many see it as just a part of Gotham's charm.
One day, a girl runs up to him, holding a paper tightly to her chest. It was a drawing she made in class of Batman. The girl asks all shyly if Duke could give it to him and what was he meant to say? No?
So Gothamites started giving him things, first with kids crayon drawing, the some teens who made badges and pins, adults with letters of gratitude. Soon Duke was passing on drawings, t-shirts, crocheted dolls, poems, etc to all the batfamily.
Gothamites wanted to share their love to their heros. Bruce, Dick, Barbara, Cass, Damian, Stephanie, Tim, Kate, even Luke now had piles of trinkets after only three weeks.
One day, while on patrol as usual, a kid waved him down. He held poorly wrapped box in his hands. Duke swung down and took the box from the boy. When serching for the same he was shocked to find "Signal" written messy across the top.
Inside was a drawing of Duke a week ago, saving the boys dad who got trapped under his car. He hung to photo up on an empty wall in The Hatch.
Soon, that wall became more full than the rest of the family's piles.
When he gets in his own head, doubts clouding his brain, he stares at the wall. Art, photos, poems, letters, badges, stickers, patches, pins, shirts, dolls, shoes, all the items from Gotham, showing how he is loved by them. How he is their hero.
Duke still is asked to pass on gifts for the rest of the Batfamily, but more often he gets given gift for himself.
I think Duke and Bao (Clownhunter) would be childhood friends.
Bao and Duke both grew up in the Narrows. I imagine Duke meet him at Bao's parents pho restaurant and dragged him off to play together.
The two would run through the steets, play tag with the other Narrows kids, do their homework, which at that age was mostly just colouring in, in a cornor seat at the restaurant.
When Zero City happened, Bao's family would move in to the apparentment block with Duke's family and others. It was that point when their relationship chnaged from friends to brothers.
They were attched to each other. Duke took it upon himself to be the older brother (dispite only being a year older). He would tell Bao to do riddle while he went out to get fish, no matter how much the other protested (or how much he was scolded when he got home). Bao use to pretend to be more scared than he really was so he could stay with Duke, hoping to protect him a bit.
So their bond grows, as they start middle school they don't hang out as much being in different grade but are always together at lunch. They get into petty fights, play video games together, were general hooligan(/aff) on the streets.
Then Bao's parents we killed by Joker. He started living with his aunt and uncle, Duke and his parents would bring food around, mostly as an excuse for Duke to just sit with him. In the grief, Bao closed himself off, stopped responding to Duke's messges, stopped going to school, stopped leaving the house.
Duke tried to keep contacting him, he would show up at his house, force Bao to sit with him and do his online school homwork while Duke did his, like when they were kids in the restaurant. That stopped by Joker got Duke's parents too.
Duke got washed away in the foster system, in being Robin, in becoming Lark and later Signal, in joining the Outsiders.
The Joker War started, Bao became Clownhunter, was washed away in his bew found duty to finally stop the Koker how Batman never could.
They almost naturally just stopped talking.
Until, while waiting for Jay to be able to take custody of him, Bruce sent him to Gotham Academy.
There was Bao again. The first thing they did was fight. They were both mad at each other for abandoneding the other. A few hours later they made up. Dispite not talking for so long, they were best friends, more than that, brothers.
They caught each other up if their lives, keeping the vigilante business out. They started messaging each other regularly. Duke would fight the people who builied Bao, the two spending a few afternoons in detention because of it. They would just sit with each other, happy to be in each others space.
Bao joined Batman incorporated which caused Clownhunter and The Signal to finally meet.
After taking down Professor Pyg's operation, some of the Batkids, lncluding Signal, arrived for clean up. Clowerhunter knew about the Signal, he was Gotham's hero. Signal knew about Clownhunter, he'd read the file Batman had on him. When they saw each other they immediately understood who was under the mask.
There wasn't a chance to talk that night, they didn't want to reveal each others identifies to the other vigilante's and Ghostmaker had an argument with Nightwing, quickly ending Batman Incorporated's time in Gotham.
They meet the next night, in costume, on the roof of their old apprentment building. Once they shared during Zero Year. Not much was said, Duke didn't mention the people Bao had killed, Bao didn't mention him joining the Batfamily. However, they understood each other mor now. Not much needed to be said. Duke gave him a Signal beacon, a promise to help if Bao ever needed. Bao gave the same sentiment. The two parted ways again.
They knew at that point they were closer than ever, dispite being so far apart. They had their own paths to follow but they felt more secure now knowing they had family in the hero community who will help them in any way.
Duke is my all-time favourite character, and he doesn't get enough love, so I'm going to share some random head cannons I have for our boy.
I love the idea of sensory seeking autistic Duke.
He is canonically a fan of a metal band and I can imagine after a log day of patrol and school him just listening to them full volume. Even with headphones his cousin, Jay, still have to bang on his door sometimes to turn the volume down.
His meta ability would let him visually stimming by causing the light in a room to flash repeatedly. This would also work with him manipulating shadows to make the area dark and light again.
Or he would use his Ghost Vision and pace around a room so the versions of him all burn into one. Duke would also do this during bat family dinners. With so many bats around running all over the manor to help with food or run from each other in importune game of tag. I image the overlapping visual would be immaculate.
Did I give his these head cannons as a form of projecting?
Mostly, yes, but it's my post so I can do what I want./lh