every now and then i remember how funny the lego batman Dick Grayson adoption story was. like, Dick was just a fanboy in an orphanage who decided it would be cool if Bruce Wayne was his dad, so when he met Bruce he straight up just asked if Bruce would adopt him, and Bruce wasn't listening to a word this kid was saying because he was distracted, so he just assumed Dick wanted an autograph and signed the adoption documents in Dick's hands, and then he just got in his car and drove off. Alfred had to be the one to go back and get him, just sighing as he opened the car door like 'well, i guess it's legal now, you better get in'. like that's gotta be top ten funniest fucking ways for Bruce to adopt a kid. i think that method should be used more, and i personally think it should be used by Tim.
like- fanboy/stalker child Timothy Drake; knows his parents suck and he decides he wants a new dad. and who would be fucking better than the man he knows for a fact to be Batman?! i want Tim to straight-faced no fear just march up to Bruce during some kind of event with guardianship papers he's already forged his parents signature on, deciding to face-to-face randomly ask this man to be his new dad.
Bruce is not paying attention to anything this kid says, by the way. Bruce is trying to leave the event because Jason's with him and he wants the kid to get an early night before school the next morning. there's press and people asking for pictures swarming the street between him and his car. it's too loud, he's got Jason clinging to his hand and trying to keep up from behind, and there's so many people clamouring for his attention that when this little kid somehow manages to slip up to his side, paper and pen in hand, that he vaguely remembers as one of the kids in his neighbourhood, Bruce just quickly scrawls his signature where the kid points and then tries to shove the paparazzi back again.
Jason's the only one who notices, having tuned out all the other visual and audio mess because he trusted Bruce to handle it. when he sees the glee on Tim's face his hand slips from Bruce, and while the man steps away to demand everybody clear a pathway to his car for him and his kid, he leans over and actually reads what Bruce just signed.
he looks at the paper. he looks at Tim. he looks at the paper.
it's genuinely the funniest fuck up he's ever seen the man do. he visibly has to hold back laughter as he claps Tim on the shoulder and solemnly declares, "welcome to the family, weirdo." before Bruce reaches back to grab him by the sleeve and tug him away again.
Tim goes home to pack his bags and then smugly shows up at Wayne Manor the next day, where Jason lets him in and shows him to one of the empty bedrooms. Alfred spots them and stops for a minute, wondering if this is something he should be involved in. then the kettle goes off and he figures it's not his problem. Bruce does not clock that there is another person unpacking and starting to live in his house until Tim sits next to him at the dinner table and no-shame starts referring to him as dad while Jason gives him the most shit-eating grin imaginable.
This feels like a good conceptual foundation for wholesome crack of the Good Yet Overwhelmed Single Parent Bruce Wayne Means Well variety.
For instance: It takes Bruce longer than the average person would expect to notice Tim, because he's a little face-blind and already tied to the idea of adopting orphans who look like him after discovering the way Dick's convenient resemblance ensured that even Bruce would recognize him anywhere. It also ensured that Bruce would guess more correctly than not which child to pick up from school, because even he's aware that "sorry, I thought that one was mine" isn't the best defense against kidnapping charges.
The point is, the resemblance proved so helpful with Dick that Bruce had no qualms at all in adopting Jason.
So it's understandable that, at first, he assumes Tim and Jason are the same person. They both look like him. Only very small. After years of living and working with Dick, and then Jason, Bruce has good reason to assume that any small black-haired blue-eyed child in the Batcave is currently Jason, especially when the child always answers to "Jason."
That should be reasonable proof that the child is Jason.
So even when he starts to suspect there are two children living in his home who look suspiciously like him, both of whom answer to "Jason," he's going to bury that suspicion so deep. Because it's taken him this long to get used to Robin's new name once already, and there was only one of him then. Now that Batman and Brucie Wayne are living full lives, Bruce barely has time and energy for breakfast, much less mentally reframing Robin as two entirely separate children.
Three, if you count Nightwing, which Bruce tries not to, because it gives him a headache.
Eventually, he sees Tim and Jason in the same place at the same time, shattering the fragile illusion and undeniably confirming that he has, at some point, inadvertently acquired an extra child without noticing. But by now, he's so used to calling his son “Jason,” and assuming there's only one of him, that he continues calling them Jason.
In his defense, neither of them seems inclined to object.
He eventually learns that Tim's name is Tim years later, minutes before the doors open for Wayne Enterprises' presentation at a green energy conference, because Tim is wearing a sticker that says "Hi! My name is TIM"
"Is it really?" Bruce asks, staring at the sticker on Jason Tim's lapel.
"Yes?" Honestly, it's become so normal for Bruce to call Tim "Jason" that even Tim hasn't thought about it much in years.
"Has it always been Tim?"
"Yes."
"Really?"
"Yes."
Bruce sighs. It’s taken so long to learn to call Robin "Damian" once Jason went and renamed himself Red, and now he has to start all over with learning to call a Jason "Tim." He will, of course, because this is his son, and he supports his son in all things, including learning to call him by an entirely new name.
From that moment, having never compensated in his life when overcompensating will do, Bruce vows to make up for years of calling his own son by the wrong name. He's so dedicated and sincere in making the effort to remember to call his middle son "Tim" that Jason just shrugs and resigns himself to also being Tim for the foreseeable future.
