i'm thinking about jason vs white streak and a helmet that doesn't cover his entire face, and the absolute missed comedy of the entirety of crime alley thinking that they are getting beaten up by a very old man.
Average crime alley guy: yeah and then he stopped wearing the full face cover and his hair is like white underneath it's so weird--
other guy: wait. like. white? Like. LIke old person white?
Average crime alley guy: oh my god. oh my goooood. he uses a voice modulator to hide that he's approximately 98 years old. mr hood sir do you need help crossing the street?
Jason, 19: ?????????????
jason then realizes the convenience of being able to take off the mask and no one realize it's him because they're looking for someone older than alfred and just goes along with it and tells increasingly made up stories about being young in the 40s while shooting peoples kneecaps out.
i do love the idea of the Justice League finding out Batman’s identity and the fact that he’s actually just a tired vigilante dad and immediately discrediting his spooky-scary-intimidating reputation, and Bruce just being devastated about it. he worked so hard on that reputation, on that respect, and it’s all down the drain just like that. nobody flinches away from his glare anymore, because they’ve seen him glare at Red Hood and get a spoonful of mashed potato flung into his face for the effort. nobody cares about his threats anymore, because he tried to threaten Red Robin to go home and rest one time and Tim just giggled at him deliriously before mocking his tone and stealing his coffee. they’ve seen him pick a splinter out of a whining Nightwing’s finger mid-meeting. Damian once called him a condomless harlot to his face when he told him not to bring his swords onto the watchtower. he’s lost control.
he decides he wants the fear factor back and in all his brilliant genius, he decides the best way to go about that is to invite the league round for a fancy dinner party, specifically so he can use all his ‘brucie wayne’ acting skills to channel the essence of every creepy-rich-guy-in-haunted-manor movie he has ever seen in his life. it is the only time his kids have been fully onboard and willing to contribute to one of his plans without any complaints. they almost seemed more eager to pull it off than he was.
they spend the entire day making the manor look old and slightly abandoned, much to Alfred’s displeasure, and ensure that the only lighting is a fuck ton of candles, just enough to light the halls while leaving the corners and edges shadowy and ominous. Damian is allowed to have some of his more ‘skittery’ pets roam the manor freely for the night, causing occasional scritches and scratches to come from the ceilings. all of the kids dress in their best funeral attire, apart from Jason who gleefully pulls on an old white shirt stained with blood from when Tim crashed through his window with a stab wound, requesting a medkit.
when the league arrive they’re greeted by all the kids lined up on the staircase, staring at them blankly and ominously, while Bruce gives them all a large grin and ushers them into the creepy looking dining room. the league are somewhat nervous.
during the dinner the kids act completely different than the league have seen them in-mask. polite, cordial, and refusing to show an ounce of emotion. they pick at their food and only speak in vague sentences that refer to various horrific events of their past. Bruce has never been prouder.
the first close call they have to breaking character is when Bruce presents a bottle of red wine without any kind of label. as he pours a slightly disturbed Diana a glass, she asks where he got it from. Bruce happily gestures to Jason as says ‘my second eldest procured it especially for you, earlier today.’
Diana looks across the table at where Jason is grinning eerily at her by candlelight, still visibly stained with blood, eyes glowing slightly green. she pales, and Tim knows he can’t watch her shakily lift the glass to her lips without bursting out laughing. he refuses to be the one who fucks up first, so he dramatically stands up and declares he must ‘go feed the experiments’ before storming out the room. ‘the experiments’ are in reference to the pen of rabbits outside that glow in the dark because Damian rescued them from a testing facility, but given the environmental context it sounds much more sinister.
Jason joins him by the pen to also start wheeze-crying in private about 20 minutes later, because apparently after Oliver Queen had finished with his bbq rib, Damian had leaned over and without blinking stared into his eyes to blankly state ‘i would love to feed your bones to my animal friends, if you don’t need them anymore.’ and from the other end of the table Jason had snorted wine up his nose from how hard he was trying not to break.
amazingly, they never break character, although it came pretty close when after hearing another skitter from somewhere above, Stephanie climbed up from the table into the crystal chandelier and deftly returned to present the table with a large tarantula cradled in her hands, to which Damian stood up and declared, ‘ah, dessert! i will help pennyworth prepare it.’ before taking the animal and leaving to put his beloved spider back in it’s enclosure. the league genuinely seemed to be under the impression they were about to be served a tarantula-based desert, and upon seeing their faces at this realisation Dick had to pretend he’d dropped a fork on the ground so he could duck by Bruce’s chair and stuff a napkin in his mouth while he got his laughter under control. Bruce pats his shaking son’s back below the table cloth, determinedly staring at their guests with that same creepy-grin he’d kept up the entire night.
every member of the league makes their excuses to leave early, much to Bruce’s exaggerated disappointment. the second the last of them is out the door Alfred turns to face the family and says ‘mission accomplished. now get this manor back to it’s proper state.’ and they have the spend the rest of the night cleaning.
totally worth it, in Bruce’s mind. none of the JL will look him in the eye for weeks afterwards, and it was honestly the most successful attempt at family bonding they’d ever had. he wonders if they should make it a monthly thing. It’s also how they find out Damian’s a fucking theatre kid with a gift for the arts which is another revelation in of itself
Tim: Can you imagine the food they eat in jail? Bleh!
Dick: Don't need to imagine, it's disgusting.
Jason: When did you try prison food?!
Dick: When I was 8.
Tim, scoffing: If you commited a crime I'm pretty sure there'd be hundreds of articles about it, I didn't see any when I was researching you.
Dick: Oh! I didn't commit a crime.
Jason: Why the fuck would you be in Juvie if you didn't commit a crime?
Dick: Orphanages were full.
Everyone:
Jason: The hell?
Tim: I'm calling a lawyer, that has to be illegal.
Damian, in the vent: I can't believe this city's incompetence.
Dick: I can. Now get down here.
Damian: Fine.
Okay, but, realistically speaking, Bruce Wayne has got to have a low alcohol tolerance. He’s a lightweight.
Like, think about it—this man rarely drinks. Most of his “drunken” shenanigans are done stone cold sober on account of the Mission, and all. If you get more than two glasses of wine in him he is fucking gone.
Which is part of what makes family dinners at the Manor so entertaining. Assuming that such events are one of the rare times Bruce truly relaxes, it’s not a stretch to think he might indulge in a glass of wine or a bourbon; and this is fine and all… until the Batkids persuade him to have another round with them or, God forbid, do a celebratory shot.
After that? Bruce is wiped.
His kids think it’s hilarious. Drunk Bruce is a trip. He’ll drop insane Dad Lore about his time in the League or a wild JL space mission or something, but then proceed to list in meticulous, clinical detail all the things that annoy him about Hal Jordan, and then all the sudden get super excited and start detailing his latest Superman Contingency Plan using the salt shakers in the dining room table. He switches moods and topics so quickly that his kids would get whiplash if they weren’t laughing their asses off.
And you know the +1, singular, solitary, time that Bruce got drunk in front of Clark will go down in history as the best day of Clark’s life. Bruce spent the entire time baring his soul, praising his children, and describing his world travels… but he also kept getting distracted by Clark’s abs and called him “sexy” no less then fourteen times. (Clark left that bar wheezing with laughter and had to disentangle himself from Bruce and force him into a taxi because Bruce kept trying to make out with him. It was fantastic.)
i probably wont ever write jaysteph because i dont think they ever date i do think they hook up just once though because he's perfectly stephs type (enormous ego) (closeted as something). i think it's great sex even but i dont think they do it again. My issue as a writer is that i dont actually want to write the sex i just want to write pillow talk. and not sappy pillow talk either. one time i sucked my boyfriend silly and then we had 1.5hrs of Gender Discussion and Slur Discourse. who cares how much they love each other or how good who is at munching whoevers carpet I want to hear about how one time you thought your ex was cheating on you and you went up to him and his date in a huff and it was his mom