incredible how much housework you can get done if you take a chance and believe in yourself and also have fifteen other much more pressing responsibilities

Something critical is that probably the real dick grayson would absolutely never ever casually call BW Dad to his face, and truthfully even post-adoption in GK#17 the father-son thing is only like 49% of the Bruce & Dick rs although dick absolutely does lasso bruce into conversations as in “oh my dad does the same thing!” when hes having conversations w total strangers faraway from anywhere on the eastern seaboard where word could never get back and associations could not be made BUT WITH ALL OF IT SAID THAT DICK WOULD NEVER CALL BRUCE DAD TO HIS FACE, in Bruce’s like deepest, most potent fantasies, like daydreams and nightdreams and also canonically that issue where bruce is in that feartoxin dreamscape world in Batman/superman #65 where his parents are alive and bruce is romantically stable and dick is his son, Dick absolutely, and invariably, calls him Dad. But that element absolutely isnt on the table in the real world at all. It isnt even that Bruce Wants That—he doesn’t want a change to the very precarious working current order, not even a very small one bc its very precious & risk aversion reasons—but it’s also like a satisfying recognition of some real under-the-surface order in the world that bruce perceives but which just isnt in play in the real world. But it is something explicit and certain in Bruce’s head and something that Bruce is aware of. And sometimes he like closes his eyes and thinks of it or something.

#YEAH YES PERFECT #one of the things that i loved about the post-crisis batfamily #is that it was constantly TEASING family without ever quite getting there #everyone was very hesitant about words like 'father' or 'son' or 'brother' #and they all tended to get defensively couched in 'the closest thing i have to a brother' 'he was like a father to me' #'maybe that's what it's like... between fathers and sons' #or all the times dick & tim call each other brother but put it in air quotes. or the workarounds: my friend. my closest ally. #or when dick & bruce are performing themselves for strangers so then dick can say anything because it's half pretense #it's this dynamic where you alllllmost say you think of the other person as your family but you don't QUITE say it #and i loved this because i love the dynamic of 'we both care more about this than we're willing to admit' #and there's so much productive tension in that restraint & that unwillingness to say the words #and i feel like it loses so much of what i loved when you just retcon it and dick's just casually calling bruce dad. no!! no!!! #dick would not say that!!! he might think about it. or imply it. he might hint at it. he might put it in air quotes #but he would not say it straight out sincerely to bruce for all kinds of complicated reasons#and bruce would never expect it. not even want it precisely. because the person he loves is dick-grayson-as-he-is #and not really dick-grayson-if-he'd-never-had-other-parents-and-uncomplicatedly-grew-up-calling-bruce-dad #and yet sometimes. in the secret daydream of his own mind. (tags via @silverwhittlingknife)

#YES \o/#the tension of it all is the best part#how big and bedrock the emotions are vs. the unstable shatterpoint fragility they feel re: talking about them#like speaking a thing aloud could be enough to break it#vulnerability!! rejection!! giving up emotional leverage to someone who may (probably definitely) use it against you!!#the universe will conspire to steal from you those you love the moment you give away how important they are to you!!#these traumatized people#the bittersweet double-edged sword for Bruce of both wanting and not wanting to hear it (h/t @umbrellacam)

I might've organised this Devil's Sacrament, but you rocked up to it in full ceremonial garb