bug blog

i think bruce has a few terms of endearment he reaches for in moments where he realizes he's supposed to be HAVING a moment . and it's kiddo . or buddy or pal. it's painfully awkward . so awkward that there's a competition going on to see who can get the most "kiddo/buddy/pall"s out of bruce. dick's playing on hard mode because when he was actually 12 being called kiddo was patronizing, like hello, he's batman's partner but now he's trained bruce out of calling him "bud". damian had it easy because bruce was trying to forge a father-son bond so all damian had to do was look sad but then everyone else started getting competitive so he had to up his game. cass is pissed because she can get kiddo but can't get buddy due to gender reasons, and she WANTS that elusive buddy SO bad (she's winning btw). dick is like "sorry do you KNOW HOW HARD IT IS to get a man to call you buddy when you're THIRTY?" and cass is like "why even play if you're that old" and they get into an honest to god brawl and don't talk to each other for three weeks

this is so beautiful to me. meanwhile Tim has discovered the elite strat of making sad noises about Bernard, which causes Bruce to enter a sort of nightmare processing loop where he's both trying to commiserate over his own trail of semi-disastrous civilian entanglements and also to be a supportive and upbeat Good Ally. and that's how Tim unlocks the "kiddo... buddy... kiddo" triple combo

HE GETS TRIPLE POINTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it ignites the fire of competition SO BAD that dick spends six months being the saddest most pathetic wet cat around bruce to win that year. emotionally though he loses because bruce keeps trying to set up interventions for him via alfred . bruce leaves every interaction like "oh god dick is having the worst year of his life, WORSE than the worst year of his life if he's coming to ME for help, oh god he's going to try and kill himself again" . dick is texting the groupchat like "lol got 'em again" while tim is standing there updating the tally like OH MY GOD DOES SUPPORTING THE GAYS MEAN NOTHING TO YOU BRUCE . he's going to get another kiddo buddy kiddo combo if it KILLS HIM bernard you need to lock the fuck in