that de-aged dick au repost made me think ... him and bruce are going through a rough patch. dick is angry at him and yelling but they're working together on a case so they can't cool off or take a breather. mumble mumble somehow they stumble upon a magic user mumble mumble. dick gets de-aged to when he was first robin. it will wear off in about two weeks but nothing they can do in the meantime. and his siblings are cackling... the dick they know? with his hot temper and lack of control around bruce? and bruce? good with young kids? this is going to be hell for both of them. good luck haha. they get popcorn just to watch the fireworks. instead... dick and bruce have the best time. dick just wants to be around him 24/7. they're watching movies, sharing silly jokes, snuggling. the other kids start to feel jealous in fact. sometimes dick remembers his parents and gets sad and bruce comforts him. dick says that bruce seems really sad and bruce can't tell him why. he just hugs him closer. but the thing is, bruce remembers this happy little kid, who was his hope, who dragged him out of the despair he had fallen into, eating chicken nuggets in the middle of the night and promising they wouldn't tell alfred. he remembers how much they were in sync when dick was a kid. and god he loves dick now, how he loves him, but it's so hard. anyways mumble mumble mumble dick gets turned back into an adult mumble mumble. maybe he has memories of that time or bruce just kinda avoids him for a while once he changes back. and then he confronts bruce with red-rimmed eyes, genuinely hurt. "you liked me better as a kid! i bet you wish i had stayed robin!" and bruce is not sure he has an answer for that. because he misses the way things were. when he had his son.

anyways, am i doing this angst prompt thing right?

You're doing this fabulously bb dw <3

But imagine bruce trying to find an excuse but stayed quiet. Because how do you tell your son that you do still love him, it's just that he's tired of the constant fights and explosive anger and too sharp words that make his heart break even if he believed it knew he didn't meant them? That the little version of him was so easy to love because he's not actively searching something to blame bruce for?

Dick misunderstands this and curses at bruce "fuck you—! You never respect me as an adult and always so overbearing, acting like you care! You should just admit it if you don't like who I became b! How did I even see you as a decent father figure in the past is beyond me—" He mumbles.

Bruce is barely holding back his tears because yes, how could he ever be a decent father if he couldn't even love his son as easily as when he were a kid? How could he be so selfish and stupid? Lies. His love never decreased. It grew and grew and grew until all the love for his children and friends and family in his body would be too much.

-----

Oop (-ω-；)

That's all I could think of :'3

Dick and Bruce. My two codependent idiots. They cannot exist without one another. They always find their way back to each other and are literally intertwined in every universe and Bruce would kill himself if Dick died and Dick would go OFF. THE. RAILS. if Bruce died and they hurt each other so much but can't stay away from each other for long and Dick hates Bruce but he'd also die for him and Bruce is such a mother-hen and he wants to be independent but he also loves his dad so much and they bring out the best and worst in each other and are soulmates written in the stars and their love and devotion for one another is so unexplainable and so out of bounds that they are simultaneously father and son, brothers with a huge age gap etc and if Bruce wasn't at the circus that night Dick wouldn't be who is he today and might not even be alive and Bruce would've self destructed and they're so toxic and codependent that their atoms are probably interlinked and Bruce and Dick and Bruce and Dick and Bruce and Dick and Bruce and Dick and-

Bruce and Dick Bruce and Dick Bruce and Dick Bruce and Dick bruce and dick bruce and dick

omfg i could go on abt these fucking idiots

Dick Grayson isn't just Bruce Wayne's ward.

He's not the charity case that was so graciously taken in, despite what people may believe.

He is Bruce's son. His greatest success, his true heir, his one true partner. There is nothing Dick wouldn't do for him, and very few lines Bruce wouldn't cross for Dick as well- that he just won't for the other batkids- no matter how much he loves them.

Dick isn't a pawn, Dick isn't just his son, thats his partner, his best friend, the boy who brought back the light in his life, made him believe things were worth hoping for.

Dick is his anchor and Bruce is Dicks whole world.

Its a very unhealthy codependent relationship but they've managed to work around it, create two separate worlds apart, build a name for themselves without the other, but they're like a rubber band, once it stretches too far, it snaps right back.

Dick will not go against Batman's orders- I like to think of him and Bruce in terms of Washington and Hamilton- he might hate him behind closed doors, scream until his voice is hoarse and lecture until his dying day, pointing out every flaw and fucked up thing Bruce has done- but in public? Not a single bad word will leave Dick's mouth you better believe that.

He might complain with his siblings, might throw Bruce under the bus to his friends- but he will never openly criticize or call out Batman's plans. Never.

Especially not in front of the League.

He won't go against him, and he will not cross those boundaries that have been so deeply ingrained in him since he was eight for anybody. He might be Nightwing now, but he was The Boy Wonder, Robin, the Golden Boy, Batman's right hand man. And he will not break any of that ever. He will always chose Bruce

-this is copied from another post i made abt them because im insane abt them in many ways but

Bruce and Dick are the type to hug so tightly it leaves bruises for days.

Dick wraps his arms around Bruce's neck and he has a small ringlet around that everyone worries came from a villain but no- it was his own son.

Bruce digs his fingers through Dick's hair after a nightmare and its so rough it hurts sometimes and Bruce pulls his hand away and it comes up with strands of hair but Dick doesn't care their love is violent and perfect and bloody and angry and they can't love each other without it hurting- just a little- and why shouldnt it be their love was forged out of the darkness- out of the brewing hatred of a little boy who fought against the world and the festered anger of a man who has fought everyone since he was a child and it has taken long, bloody years to get to who they are today and they wouldnt change it for the world.

Bruce and Dick Bruce and Dick Bruce and Dick they are so insanely codependently Normal™ about each other I actually cant

You are one of my favourite Batman authors ever, and a large part of my headcannons about Bruce/the Batfamily come from you because of just the mess that is comic characterisation.

So i don`t know how you feel about Joker and the fucking mess that is the batfamilies relationship with him,and you probably already know this discussion, but I wanted to ask: If Bruce found Joker bleeding out somewhere in an alley, in a way that he will be dead in a few minutes without help, would he save him? I find this to be very complicated with 1. Bruce doesn´t want anyone ever to die if he can prevent it and help, right, but 2. Joker hurt so many people, his family, so much.

I dont know if he would, do you think your version of Bruce would?

I know this whole discussion is very well know and i hope this isn´t just anoying you.

That's a really interesting question, and some folks have very rigid opinions on it. I saw someone on reddit refer to it as an out of control trolley problem, i.e., it used to be a "Joker is going to kill this person right now if you don't kill him" problem, which is a hell of a lot simpler than "Joker could and probably will keep killing people, and has killed people close to you, but killing him right now wouldn't necessarily be in self defense and would come very close to killing in cold blood or revenge, what are you going to do?"

But if we back out as readers, obviously the reason Bruce hasn't killed the Joker is because it allows for more comics. And maybe you can argue Bruce the character would never kill outright, but as we've seen in canon (I should link my post on this) that's not always 100% true. But he makes an exception for Joker, largely at the expense of Jason.

I know it's cheesy but I'm actually a big fan of Bruce's Batman Begins characterization, with his "I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you either" which references the trolly problem I described above. So in that instance, Bruce doesn't view inaction as active killing. Which even more interestingly, goes against guidance from pikuach nefesh, but that's not relevant here. I'll go back and link that post again too.

So, to finally answer your question: I know a lot of folks wouldn't agree with me, but I'd have Bruce take a knee in that alley and watch Joker bleed out and choke. Inaction, but not direct killing. Enough consideration of human life that he's willing to witness Joker's death, allowing him the presence of another human being as he passes. Losing himself as he kneels there, flashing through all the opportunities he had to do this himself, and chose not to. More inaction, but this is obviously different than standing by.