ok, fake cryptid batfam is feeding me so well right now
like “the rumor around gotham is that a Bat watched the night” type
Bruce meets the JL and they all think hes some sort of meta when in actuality they could probably kill him with no sweat if he was unarmed
Bruce taking every precaution to make sure they keep thinking that way
Robin gets introduced as Bruce’s son/fellow cryptid and they all collectively freak out bc “HOLY SHIT THERES ANOTHER ONE???”
Bruce having to make up some bullshit excuse for why Robin is a child and going around fighting crime (some excuse like: ACTUALLY he’s technically a thousand years old, so this is fine)
the rest of the batfam shows up with just elaborate fucking backstories all based in the original story that bruce made up
dick’s robin retires?
no worries, jason says, he’s currently waiting on his metamorphosis bc their species has to go through that before becoming an adult
jason dies but the backstory was that they were immortal?
no problem, tim explains that sometimes their species goes dormat because they’ve lost too much energy
they acquire steph, but only for a few days?
no worries, bruce explains, sometimes their species goes under shifting to find the right body
one of the ones that I read had Bruce using and recorder and faking having 2 hearts, which Clark could hear, and when the recorder broke, to bring in Robin and explain that Dick was his 2nd heart splitting off of him (The Hearts of Gotham by schrijverr on ao3)
another one was literally batfam pretending to be slightly human versions of the animals they were named after and kon, being desperately in love with tim as he does, decides to uses ttk to create and shape wildly expensive gems and diamonds for tim because he thinks that “birds like shiny things, right?” (tim is rightly very worried that kon, in his dumbassery, decided to make large enough diamonds to completely dismantle the industry) and clark is later shown these diamonds, also very worried about the sheer enormity of these gems (‘a fake cryptid and a real romantic’ series by suzukiblu on ao3)
another one had batfam using engineered wings for fight and flight and their wings were a perfect complement to their costumes
clark meets tim without wings and is freaking out because holy shit he has no wings did he rip them off where are they??
batfam bonds through wing painting and fixing and the jl is in awe of them and their wings
best part is most of batfam does not realize that jl thinks their wings are very real and not mechanics and only realize when one of the younger ones ask abt them (Loading and Aspect Ratio by JUBE514 on ao3)
plz plz plz give me more recs bc i love this trope so muchhh