The Definitive Sherlock Holmes Alignment

i want what david cronenberg has

Once Batman has revealed his identity to the JL, after some strong encouragement from Superman and Wonder Woman, Bruce decides to try to start being a bit more "personable" with the rest of league. They've been colleagues for a decade and he trusts them all, and according to Clark and Diana this means there's no need for his whole mysterious "shadow of the night" bit, so he invites the league to dinner at the manor.

It is raining heavily, and even though it's not that late, it's nearly pitch dark but for the frequent lightning strikes. The league arrives together at Wayne Manor and the wrought iron gates stretch upward before them, ending in spikes at the top with ivy overgrown across them. They stand there, uncomfortable, wet, a bit weirded out, wondering how they're supposed to get passed the gates.

"This is creepy, right?" Hal says. "It's not just me?"

A voice. "Hello." As the league turns to the sound, thunder claps loud enough to startle everyone as lightning strikes, illuminating a small child standing on the other side of the gates that was definitely not there a second ago. He stands motionless under an umbrella, seemingly unbothered by the rain, expression vaguely irritated, and his eyes seem to flash green in the light. "I have been instructed to escort you inside."

The child doesn't move in any way but the gates slowly swing open, the creaking sounds sound straight out of a horror movie. Once they are fully opened, the boy turns and starts walking down the path without a word.

The league, some members quite freaked out at this point, follow him after exchanging some looks. They round a bend in the path and the manor comes into view. It is a massive dark structure, rising from the ground. Another lightning strike illuminates pointed spires, jagged edges, and it's gloomy, gothic nature. The sound of bats shrieking can be heard in the distance over the rain.

The league finally arrives at the front door, cold, wet, and thoroughly discomfited. An old man, a butler, looking out of time, opens the door, the child disappears inside. The butler welcomes everyone inside graciously but with a distant politeness. Despite the appearance of the exterior, the inside is well lit with warm light and seems inviting, though ostentatious. The league is relieved.

Until another massive lightning strike and thunder clap cuts the power off and the room is pitch black.

"Oh, you're here," a deep voice says from somewhere up above. No sooner are the words out than another lightning strike illuminates a dark, hulking figure on the staircase that was also definitely not there a second ago. At least two people scream.

Bruce is wildly confused as to why his guests are screaming, he didn't think any of them were afraid of the dark? The back up generator kicks on and the lights come back on and everybody seems to calm down. The rest of the dinner seems to go well (as well as a dinner can with the justice league and all of Bruce's kids) but strangely, to Bruce's confusion, it somehow only made his "spooky" reputation worse. He's not really sure why the whole league seems to think he lives in a haunted house.

Plot armor but it’s Bruce Wayne’s wealth.

Bruce is one of the richest men in the world. Bruce does not want to be one of the richest men in world.

He starts by implementing high starting salaries and full health care coverages for all levels at Wayne Enterprises. This in vastly improves retention and worker productivity, and WE profits soar. He increases PTO, grants generous parental and family leave, funds diversity initiatives, boosts salaries again. WE is ranked “#1 worker-friendly corporation”, and productively and profits soar again.

Ok, so clearly investing his workers isn’t the profit-destroying doomed strategy his peers claim it is. Bruce is going to keep doing it obviously (his next initiative is to ensure all part-time and contractors get the same benefits and pay as full time employees), but he is going to have to find a different way to dump his money.

But you know what else is supposed to be prohibitively expensive? Green and ethical initiatives. Yes, Bruce can do that. He creates and fund a 10 year plan to covert all Wayne facilities to renewable energy. He overhauls all factories to employ the best environmentally friendly practices and technologies. He cuts contracts with all suppliers that engage in unethical employment practices and pays for other to upgrade their equipment and facilities to meet WE’s new environmental and safety requirements. He spares no expense.

Yeah, Wayne Enterprises is so successful that they spin off an entire new business arm focused on helping other companies convert to environmentally friendly and safe practices like they did in an efficient, cost effective, successful way.

Admittedly, investing in his own company was probably never going to be the best way to get rid of his wealth. He slashes his own salary to a pittance (god knows he has more money than he could possibly know what to do with already) and keeps investing the profits back into the workers, and WE keeps responding with nearly terrifying success.

So WE is a no-go, and Bruce now has numerous angry billionaires on his back because they’ve been claiming all these measures he’s implementing are too expensive to justify for decades and they’re finding it a little hard to keep the wool over everyone’s eyes when Idiot Softheart Bruice Wayne has money spilling out his ears. BUT Bruce can invest in Gotham. That’ll go well, right?

Gotham’s infrastructure is the OSHA anti-Christ and even what little is up to code is constantly getting destroyed by Rogue attacks. Surely THAT will be a money sink.

Except the only non-corrupt employer in Gotham city is….Wayne Enterprises. Or contractors or companies or businesses that somehow, in some way or other, feed back to WE. Paying wholesale for improvement to Gotham’s infrastructure somehow increases WE’s profits.

Bruce funds a full system overhaul of Gotham hospital (it’s not his fault the best administrative system software is WE—he looked), he sets up foundations and trusts for shelters, free clinics, schools, meal plans, day care, literally anything he can think of.

Gotham continues to be a shithole. Bruce Wayne continues to be richer than god against his Batman-ingrained will.

Oh, and Bruice Wayne is no longer viewed as solely a spoiled idiot nepo baby. The public responds by investing in WE and anything else he owns, and stop doing this, please.

Bruce sets up a foundation to pay the college tuition of every Gotham citizen who applies. It’s so successful that within 10 years, donations from previous recipients more than cover incoming need, and Bruce can’t even donate to his own charity.

But by this time, Bruce has children. If he can’t get rid of his wealth, he can at least distribute it, right?

Except Dick Grayson absolutely refuses to receive any of his money, won’t touch his trust fund, and in fact has never been so successful and creative with his hacking skills as he is in dumping the money BACK on Bruce. Jason died and won’t legally resurrect to take his trust fund. Tim has his own inherited wealth, refuses to inherit more, and in fact happily joins forces with Dick to hack accounts and return whatever money he tries to give them. Cass has no concept of monetary wealth and gives him panicked, overwhelmed eyes whenever he so much as implies offering more than $100 at once. Damian is showing worrying signs of following in his precious Richard’s footsteps, and Babs barely allows him to fund tech for the Clocktower. At least Steph lets him pay for her tuition and uses his credit card to buy unholy amounts of Batburger. But that is hardly a drop in the ocean of Bruce’s wealth. And she won’t even accept a trust fund of only one million.

Jason wins for best-worst child though because he currently runs a very lucrative crime empire. And although he pours the vast, vast majority of his profits back into Crime Alley, whenever he gets a little too rich for his tastes, he dumps the money on Bruce. At this point, Bruce almost wishes he was being used for money laundering because then he’s at least not have the money.

So children—generous, kindhearted, stubborn till the day they die the little shits, children—are also out.

Bruce was funding the Justice League. But then finances were leaked, and the public had an outcry over one man holding so much sway over the world’s superheroes (nevermind Bruce is one of those superheroes—but the public can’t know that). So Bruce had to do some fancy PR trickery, concede to a policy of not receiving a majority of funds from one individual, and significantly decrease his contributions because no one could match his donations.

At his wits end, Bruce hires a team of accounts to search through every crinkle and crevice of tax law to find what loopholes or shortcuts can be avoided in order to pay his damn taxes to the MAX.

The results are horrifying. According to the strictest definition of the law, the government owes him money.

Bruce burns the report, buries any evidence as deeply as he can, and organizes a foundation to lobby for FAR higher taxation of the upper class.

All this, and Wayne Enterprises is happily chugging along, churning profit, expanding into new markets, growing in the stock market, and trying to force the credit and proportionate compensation on their increasingly horrified CEO.

Bruce Wayne is one of the richest men in the world. Bruce Wayne will never not be one of the richest men in the world.

But by GOD is he trying.

Jason in the manor for movie night: How'd you convince B to let me in anyways? I thought I wouldn't get an invite till I dropped the real bullets.

Dick busy trying to wrangle Damian away from Tim and Titus away from the snacks: B is really bad at facing the words he throws around ya know? So I told him since it's my fault you died I should be responsible for bringing you home- Tim don't!!!

Jason: B said what!?!?

the most underrated dungeon meshi panel imo. he wants to beat his ass so bad

Au where Dick puts a tracking chip in his brothers necks because he grew up with Batman and thinks it’s normal. His siblings, freaks just like him, are a little disturbed but mostly trying to hold back tears because omg he cares so much!!!!!

*releases pack of dads into home depot* go……be free

I think it would be really funny if every time Dick and Jason joined missions they kind of failed upwards, even if they goofed off, or dredged up extremely personal shit, it helped with their secret identities or got them to think outside the box. There's always a disagreement on methods, someone gets kicked through a door but it's the right door and they stumble on all the evidence and the bad guys. Something that got set on fire was actually a secret message that only appeared upon heating, or they found evidence of the crime while trying to delete embarrassing CCTV footage.

[Movie night at Titan Tower]

Cassie: I wanna watch Ocean’s Eight

Kon: I haven’t seen that one yet, is it any good?

Cassie: It’s brilliant.

Tim: No.

Cassie: [already cracking her knuckles and warming up for a fight] excuse you?

Tim: [arranging snacks on the coffee table] No, I mean we can’t watch it. I don’t know if it’s any good, I haven’t seen it.

Cassie: So then why can’t we watch it?

Bart: [nabbing a fistful of popcorn] Yeah, C'mon Tim. I wanna see Galadriel steal stuff.

Tim: No heist movies. I’m not allowed.

Everyone:

Gar: I- What?

Tim: B has strictly forbidden any of us from watching heist movies. Anyone who does gets benched. For six months.

Cassie: You didn’t even get benched for that long when you started that alien war.

Kon: Why the hell- [grimaces] I mean, why the heck-

Gar: You’ve seen Mission Impossible though? I know you have; you keep making references to it.

Tim: It’s a fairly recent rule. It came about when we all started getting along -relatively speaking -and having sibling movie nights. Of course, when watching heists you always start talking about whether they can be done or not, and it gets heated and then you have something to prove, you know?

Everyone:

Gar: Are you saying you’re not allowed to watch heist movies because you reenact the heists?

Tim: Yeah pretty much.

Kon: Oh my god Tim what the hell is wrong with your family?

Kon: [cringes] I mean heck. Dammit!

Tim: Clark ban cursing again?

Kon: Yes, but also SO not the point.

Cassie: [interested] How did Batman find out about this exactly?

Tim: It took a while for B to connect the dots but then Jason did a truly terrible imitation of Nicholas Cage after we… [pauses in thought] liberated a certain document that I’m not allowed to discuss, and he put it together.

Everyone:

Tim: So anyway, no heist movies. Wanna watch the Matrix?

Everyone:

Tim: [going through DVDs] Mean Girls? Pacific Rim?

Bart: [Finally cracks] Tim did you steal the declaration of independence?

Tim: The Godfather? We could have a marathon.

Bart: TIM??!!

Do you guys know how those yandere batfam giving neglected!Reader a sudden affection? Just imagine. since y/n is soo badly neglected they wouldn't recognize the affection the yan!Batfam is trying to give them like:

Dick who just pulled reader to him and hugged them tight as he could because he couldn't resist the cuteness overload he is getting from reader

And reader is resisting so much like– they're writhing, biting, kicking to escape because they think dick is chocking them

First they neglect reader? Then they kidnap reader, AND NOW THEY'RE CHOCKING ME???

And to make things worse than before, they got some balls trying to tell reader that– No, I'm not trying to manipulate you im just giving you some love.

Meh, meh, meh. U not giving me love, U just trying to suffocate me till I die.

And they're paranoid that they're going to die or get killed by the family because they can't recognize affection as they've never received such thing since they were on the manor

And of course reader had heard about it, they're not that dumb, they are just so neglected that they didn't get to figure out the meaning of it nor find out the feeling.

So they'll be like this;

dick: I love you so much because you're my baby bird, my light, my life and DON'T YOU EVER think that I will leave you someday because–

Reader who's panicking: GRAYSON IF WE'RE GOING TO DIE JUST SAY IT!! THERE'S NO TIME FOR THAT FUCKING NONSENSE YOU'RE SAYING

And;

Damian: would you like to hang out, Sister?

Reader: is it my last day on earth?

Damian: No–

And;

Tim coddling reader while sleeping peacefully:

Reader who haven't blink an eye because they think Tim will stab them on their sleep:

And:

Bruce who gives reader a gift:

Reader who just stares at the box: this is it. Im going to die. There's a bomb inside this, I just fucking knew it.

Ect..