There Was A Point In Gotham Where The Nightlife Dynamics Got Really Weird Because One Of The Batkid’s

Bruce has to spend a day working an important mission with the league at the watchtower but the kids are bored so he tells them as long as they don’t disrupt the JL’s work they can hang around the watchtower and then get takeout on the way home. they succeed in keeping themselves to themselves but don’t quite manage not being disrupting. this is because Tim convinced them to do a tiktok trend.

*the league, pouring over case files in serene silence*

*heard faintly from three rooms away*

Tim, Damian, and Jason: we listen and we don’t judge,

Jason: my original plan for terrorising B after coming back to Gotham was to start leaving him a bunch of creepy voicemails Taken-style, and the only reason i scrapped it was because i just genuinely couldn’t remember Bruce’s phone number.

*Bruce lifts his head, squinting slightly*

The kids: we listen and we don’t judge,

Tim: when i was nine my camera broke because a rogue that Batman was fighting threw the car i left it in off a bridge and i was so mad at Batman that i sold photos i’d taken of Bruce Wayne wearing a thong on his private beach to the Gotham Gazette to buy a new one

*the rest of the league also lift their heads, staring at Bruce uncomfortably. Bruce shifts in his seat*

Jason: THAT WAS YOU?

Tim: YOU’RE JUDGING WE SAID NO JUDGING-

Damian: i feel like we should be able to judge OCCASIONALLY.

*the league, eyeing each other*

Clark: they wont… post that video online, right?

Bruce, sighing: to the family groupchat, probably.

*heard again from across the watchtower*

The kids: we listen and we don’t judge,

Jason: back in the league Damian’s hamster died and we told him it was natural causes but it’s actually because i set it loose during a meeting and Ra’s freaked out and stepped on it.

Jason: OK DRAWING A SWORD MEANS JUDGEMENT DAMIAN PUT IT BACK-

Diana: should you be… checking on them?

Bruce, dead inside: what am i supposed to do about it?

Ollie: aren’t you in charge of them?

Bruce, completely seriously: i’m not in charge of anything anymore.

The kids: we listen and we don’t judge,

Damian: when I was a child I was forced to kill 183 people and I dream of their faces every night

Tim: Damian I don’t think you understand the game.

Bruce, getting up: I’m going to go-

The rest of the league, simultaneously:

Clark: see if the kids are-

Diana: we can handle this-

Barry: you got this buddy-

Ollie: yeah go- go take a break-

Todoroki « fake boyfriend » Shoto, protector of the lesbians

Friends to lovers --> boo, basic, everyone's seen it before

Lovers to best friends with an even stronger bond because they both realized they were aromantic -> new, way cooler, yay, i would pay all i have (2 pennies and a button) to see it

Dick, at the police station: Hi, I'm here for Jason. Officer: last name? Dick: You must be new here.

Tim who is scarily good at the Hitman games.

Everyone is good with it mostly, excluding Cass who won’t play it, with everyone having completed the first few missions at least during a training exercise made by Jason who was hiding an injury and came up with the idea on the spot.

This is how they find out that not only does Tim already have all the games, he’s finished them all, got all the achievements and has over 2,000+ hours.

Turns out it’s what he plays when he feels his mind is running too rampant and needs reigning in. He knows all the secrets and has a spreadsheet made up of all the ways you can complete a mission per chapter. He has a strategy for each type of assassination from getting someone else to do it, killing everyone, making it look like an accident, ect. He’s even managed to kill every soldier in some chapters without getting caught and somehow managed to save Diana from being shot by 47?

It’s kind of scary watching him seamlessly navigate around any new map that comes out and complete all missions under a self imposed time limit.

(His record is 1 minute and 27 seconds)

Bruce is naturally worried and it isn’t helped when the response to these concerns is, “would you rather I do it in real life?”

Tim can do it in real life, came closest with Captain Boomerang, and he has at least thirty ideas of how to kill everyone in his life subconsciously. He doesn’t want to, nor will he ever act on it, but it’s sort of… fun.

It’s like puzzle solving but with higher stakes and Hitman is a good way to test his theories without actually killing anyone.

If playing Hitman made him test how sneakily he could drug people by putting sugar in peoples drinks at Galas when he was nine, that’s just childish curiosity. Plus, it made him put out a campaign when he was older to prevent drugging because he himself knows how easy it is, so win win.

At least he didn’t shave his head like he thought about, though that was only because a certain acrobat did it and made Tim realise how unstylish it was if it wasn’t natural.

At the end of the day playing Hitman made him a better Robin and helped him sneak around the League of Assassin’s base that was filled with people even 47 would struggle against.

And he won the training exercise.

a comic about different types of storytellers

Another reason why I’m a firm believer in letting Bruce get old is because the idea of him looking and his dark haired children without his glasses on and genuinely not being able to tell them apart is unparalleled

Steve, raised since childhood on a strict diet of tax forms, utility bills, and neatly labeled folders, handles Love with capital L the only way he knows how—logistically.

So the moment he realizes things with Eddie are serious-serious, he doesn’t make a big speech or even breathe a word.

He just quietly opens a joint savings account.

Then a trust fund.

Lists himself as Eddie’s emergency contact.

Buys a gold ring (simple, tasteful, suspiciously the right size). He knows Eddie likes silver, but that's not what it's for. Gold is in any case an investment in the future, if something happens.

And—because, well, they’ve survived four apocalypses—he updates his will.

Steve wrote it after Apocalypse #2.

The BMW had been bought with his money and, should anything happen, was legally designated to go to Dustin.

Everything else—his personal savings, the shared funds, and whatever compensation the government might cough up for the next end-of-the-world scenario—was to go to Eddie.

Nobody knows this but Steve. It’s filed in a folder marked “just in case”.

Eddie, on the other hand, doesn’t do paperwork.

When he realizes things are serious, he gives Steve his favorite band t-short. Then changes the tires on Steve’s BMW from summer to winter without being asked. Fixes the bookshelf Steve’s been threatening to burn for a month. And starts making him sandwiches in the morning — the kind his mom used to make for him, with just the right amount of mustard and that one slice of tomato Steve always forgets he likes. Uses his entire vocabulary of cute nicknames on Steve and comes up with a couple of new ones.

Miraculously, it works.

Because Eddie gets this strange, unfamiliar feeling of being safe. And Steve? Steve finally feels understood. And cared for, in a way he didn’t know he needed.

Daycare

It’s not just Batman. All of Gotham hates magicians. Because they pull shit like this.

Some out-of-towner decides the best way to keep the Bats distracted while they kick up trouble would be to turn the family into children, thereby making them harmless without the associated alarms if they were to disappear.

Unfortunately, they’re not very good at this.

Alfred is greeted at the Batcave by the normal Batfamily, plus their pint-sized doubles. Every single person is struggling to handle their younger version.

Dick is frantically trying to keep an eye on the most adventurous nine year old. Jason is freaking out trying to responsible parent his eight year old self who’s screaming his head off about stranger danger. Tim and his eight year old double have not broken eye contact, and Tim is refusing to touch ‘it’ except with a bow staff. Steph is bribing hers with ice cream to keep her quiet and to stop her from attacking the other children again. Cass is attached to hers by child reins. Duke’s mini has already tried to escape explore three times and is over Duke’s shoulder to prevent any further attempts. Damian (in his mid teens) is trying to get his toddler self to stop grabbing everything, and failing.

Bruce had called Zatanna, but she’s on a JL mission at the moment. It’s going to be a long week.

Whenever I talk about whatever media I’m into at the moment imagine I am presenting the characters to you like this