I Love Dick Grayson! But Man I Wish They’d Kept Pre-crisis Dick & Jason’s Relationship And Let The

~ Detective Comics (1937)

Once again, we get Bruce's parenting technique of letting his kids get their anger out on him. He is even encouraging Tim to let it out, even if he is being yelled at. He is not even fighting Tim or arguing with him, he explains why he acted like he did and he is accepting Tim's anger and emotions.

And sad batblob is back at the end. Sad that one of his babies is in pain, and he cannot just take it away

I have thoughts about Bruce & Parenting:

One of the reasons Jason runs away from home to find his birth mother (and eventually dies) is because Bruce benched him. Removing Robin from Jason made Jason think his time at the Manor was coming to a close, triggering his desire to return to his neighborhood which leads to him find our Catherine isn’t his birth mother. And all that heartache -- and the pain to follow -- stemmed from a misunderstanding that Jason thought he was “adopted” to be Robin while Bruce was just looking for a son.

This misunderstanding is never resolved. I would argue it is one of the keystones of the modern Jason-Bruce arguments. And it is never resolved because Bruce doesn’t know Jason didn't want to be Robin. After all, Jason genuinely enjoyed being Robin and Bruce thought he was being a "good dad" because he was making Jason happy while protecting him physically. After all, Jason asked to be Robin just as Dick did.

But why did Bruce allow Robin to be created in the first place?

My hypothesis… my interpretation is as such:

One of the failings of Bruce’s parenting with Jason and Dick is Bruce allows the child to set the expectations in the parent-child relationship.

You can see this A LOT in Bruce’s biggest blunders with Dick. When Dick was young (NINE!), Bruce let Dick decide to be Robin, throwing himself into danger, and running lead on cases without a lot of oversight or boundaries from Bruce. This pattern of behavior carries over into their civilian life. This has lead to interpretations of their father-son relationship being more like brother-brother in the early years. All of which, Bruce allows because Dick is physically small enough that Bruce can protect him from danger. Weirdly it’s the same logic small dog owners use to avoid teaching their dogs: why bother training them to stop jumping when you can just pick them up and move them. Of course kids don’t stay small forever.

As Dick got older and Bruce attempted — most likely subconsciously — to course correct by setting expectations like Dick needs to take his safety more seriously and slow down on hero-ing to allow for a civilian life, Dick is shocked and insulted, seeing it as Bruce not trusting him. When in reality, expecting your child to pursue some kind of job/college post high school is a not an unrealistic expectation nor is questioning if that child really wants to continue heroing, a very dangerous profession, into adulthood where Bruce can no longer protect him.

The problem is these expectations are being set way too late. Dick and Bruce have been operation for so long under Dick’s desires that it is such a shock to the system/routine that when it all comes to a head after Dick is shot by the Joker (triggering Bruce’s PTSD) it leads to a massive falling out. Of course, Bruce goes way too far in attempting to control the situation when he takes Robin away in a misguide attempt to bench Dick.

Of course we know how that works out.

Years later, once Jason is older, starting to push back against Bruce’s teachings, and is getting too big to hide under the cape, we see the same issue popping up. Bruce sees Jason acting out/getting angrier and is afraid Jason has killed a man (The Diplomat’s Son) and benches Jason. While Jason is used to following Bruce’s lead in the field, Jason definitely sets the expectations in their father-son relationship. So when Bruce attempts to take the reins by benching Robin — the one area in their lives that Bruce’s kids listen to Bruce — it, again, feels like a betrayal. This all culminates in Jason running away because he doesn’t feel stable at home (the same way Dick did).

(Side note: You could argue this is because Bruce’s biggest parenting influence is Alfred. Bruce views Alfred as a father figure but Alfred is never able to fully step outside his role as butler, no matter how much he wants to. This meant that Alfred the Butler enables Bruce a lot. That coupled with Alfred’s own violent past meaning Alfred doesn’t have a good frame of reference of what a child can handle in the first place, we end up with Batman.)

I don’t think Bruce really fixes his parenting until he gets Damian.

With Tim, Bruce provides stability — to the point Jack Drake feels threatened by Bruce’s presence in Tim’s life — but that is because Bruce is strictly the “mentor” in Tim’s life for the first few years, which helps establish a pattern in the relationship where Tim listens to Bruce’s expectations in and out of the mask. It also helps that Tim is less confrontational than Bruce’s other children and is less likely to argue directly with Bruce and more likely to go around Bruce while feeling guilty while he’s doing it lol.

Damian, from day one, is looking for a parent. And at this point — between Tim and Cass and fixing his relationship with Dick — Bruce has started to figure out how to manage his kids. This all culminates in a father-son relationship with Damian where Bruce, as the father, sets the expectations in and out of the mask. Bruce makes a lot of effort to bond with Damian in the Batman & Robin comics after he comes back from the dead. Bruce makes Damian go to school and expects him to socialize. He sets the moral framework for how Robin operates (which Dick started). After Damian comes back from the dead, Bruce knows Damian’s friends and is involved in his romantic life. He engages in Damian’s hobbies and encourages them. He also scolds Damian when he breaks the rules or tries to lie without ripping away Robin (shockingly low bar I know!).

Of course, I wouldn’t say Bruce is earning any parenting awards and I’m still reading about Damian and Bruce’s relationship so I’m sure there is information I’m missing. But Bruce seems like a much more involved parent now than he did with Dick.

But this is my interpretation of Bruce’s parenting so far!

Why did no one tell me Tim didn’t grow up in the Manor next door to the Waynes and instead moved into it after his father woke up from his coma/paralysis!!!

Did they change this after the reboot or something?

Just devoured The Boy Wonder Comics. So good. I love Damian. I love him so much.

I have modified my Reverse Robin AU because of this fic. The art is gorgeous. How can you read that comic and not adore Damian?!

The art! Gosh the art. And Talia! So wonderful and complex! Even Ra’s is so pitiful in the end. I loved all of it and how it’s all told through a series of stories. Such a fun framing device!

The conversation Damian has with Bruce about how you can’t save people from their choices. It’s such an interesting critique of Bruce’s unfailing optimism that his Rogues can be saved without it really being about that. From the mouths of babies and all that.

No critique! Just gushing. It’s one of the few comic series I’ve walked away from with nothing to be mad about.

On another note the character designs were all immaculate. I loved Tim’s bird costume. And Jason’s white eyes. I love how Dick looks so much like Bruce even though they don’t share a drop of blood. Of course this is all warped via Damian’s perspective via Merle’s perspective. So who knows how they really look? But also who cares! It’s just such a fun way to tell a story!

I want Damian and Tim to be friends so bad. I want chaotic younger sibling energy team up to make everyone else’s life hell! They both have big gremlin energy and 0 chill and poor understanding of other peoples limits.

Stop being cowards @DC, let Tim and Damian wreak havoc!

If you have fics, pls rec and my life is yours!

A Batman Fanfic Idea:

Tim is a Creature, an answer to a prophecy that spells the doom of the coming universe. On his 18th birthday, the dark blood inside him will rear up to rip away his human facade and all of earth and the many plants known and unknown will be crushed under his heel.

It is a prophecy that has been guarded by the magical community for eons. They know the signs. They know what this doomsday child looks like. The day Timothy Jackson Drake is born, the magical community turns its attention to stopping the prophecy, of sealing the creature away in human flesh and bone.

The problem is that nothing works. Every ritual and spells falls away to fate. It is written. Tim will bring upon the doom of the universe. So what if… they just don’t let him turn 18.

It works for a few years. Messing with time has side effects. People don’t remember but they do? Villains get smarter and tougher. Magic feels less potent as more and more is siphoned of to hold back the flow of time. Mutations occur, ripples in the time stream that twist ally to foe and foe to ally.

(They try to kill him. Three “years” into the whole mess, Tim falls asleep while Bruce and Kon hold his hands. And then he wakes up the next day, a whole day older, in his coffin during his funeral. No one ever mentions it (not enough remember and those that do can’t). The prophecy will not let him die before his time.)

It’s not possible to keep the whole world stuck. Some events can’t be undone. Natural disasters persist even as time doesn’t. Some people age. Some don’t. Damien grows. Dick and Jason and Steph and Cass and Duke and Bruce don’t. For “years” no one notices.

And then Damian is only a year younger than Tim and the inconsistencies become too much to handle. The magic breaks. The spell shatters leaving a gash in the world.

For the first time since his 17th birthday, Tim ages a day. And then a week. A month passes and he can feel his hair growing longer for the first time in six years and has a panic attack.

People start to remember. Bruce goes form 35 to 41 in a week. Dick complain about back problems and aching joints of a 30 year old.

But there is nothing they can do. It was always unsustainable. There’s discussions of trying new ways to kill him, to freeze him. But even a frozen bodies feels time.

His birthday is a countdown.

Damian refuses to give up even as everyone else does.

The whole hero community holds its breath as the last month approaches. They prepare for war.

Tim prepares for death. He makes his peace. He says his goodbyes. He writes letters. It’s like a terminal illness. There’s enough time to say goodbye. There’s not enough time to heal it.

Tim and Kon get married. Kon is 25 now and beautiful. Tim, as always, forever 17. But they won’t have enough time for anything else. The wedding is gorgeous, expensive, a little gaudy. Bruce pours all his energy into planning it. He can’t fix this. There’s nothing he can do to save his son but he can give him two perfect days. It’s beautiful and they record every minute of it.

(Jason is Tim’s best man. It’s funny. Laugh!)

Damian never gives up. He runs to the League, searching the depths of his grandfather’s library. Oh the hero’s asked Ra’s. They scoured the globe for solutions. No knowledge forbidden in an attempt to stop the apocalypse. But there are secrets only family can access, records so lost to time that Ra’s barely remembers them.

He takes Jon (17 and Damian only 16, once again similar in age) with him on the quest, runs himself ragged against mortal and supernatural foes alike. He nearly misses the wedding, surfacing just long enough for a day of family photos and tearful congratulations that do nothing but add to his feverish resolve.

(His family has lost so much, has suffered in ways no family should. He loves them. He aches for them. His brothers and sisters. His aging father. He can’t lose this family when they never got to have enough time.)

He finds a portal to the fea world. The space between dimensions full of holes after six “years” of holding back time. He spends six months within its borders and dances a deadly game of wit with Kings and Queens older than time and returns to the mortal plan to find only 3 days have passed.

He returns to the manor with an untried solution, one he had to pry from the lips of an undying seer trapped within the depths of a catacomb (hard won after outsmarting a face stealer, wondering through an impossible fog, and facing far too many dragons) two days before Tim’s birthday.

The blood ritual is done with all the family present. There is a gash along Damian’s neck that will never stop being angry red, magic always pulsing beneath the skin. But it is worth it to see the hope flare in his family’s eyes.

The solution is deceptively easy and terribly dangerous. You can’t stop fate but you can make it wrong. Tim’s creature blood will rise to the surface on his 18th birthday. But what if it comes a day early. There is a risk that it will all go wrong, that the creature will always ache for blood and death even without fate pulling it along. But, Tim argues, at least then he can die (no one finds this as reassuring as he’d hoped).

Bruce and Kon hold his hands — a parody of that moment three years ago when he fell asleep — and Tim braces for pain. But there is none, just a new taste of magic and the ease of his body morphing. Ears twisting into points, his hair turns feathery and fluffy, pupils spinning into triangles. There is more. Seams along his cheekbones and neck he knows can open into extra mouths and eyes. A tail curling along his spine. His tongue splits at the tip. But his limbs do not twist into anything inhuman (though maybe he could if he tried). And his mind — oh his soul — stays his.

As the clock strikes midnight on Tim’s 18th birthday, nothing happens.

Anyone got some toxic timkon fanfic recs? Any variation and TimKon are together in the end. Obsessive/possessive behavior is appreciated.

A feast for kings

I genuinely love all flavors of superbats and will enjoy all of them in the same fic even though irl I would never date my brother in law/stepbrother because that level of familial integration can only lead to madness.

But at the same time…

Like at what point do the supers just go “well this new one just showed up and is about the same age as X bat so let’s just start saving for the wedding in advance.” While Bruce plays dumb and refuses to acknowledge the pattern in fear of simply imploding from the surrealism that is his life.