Somewhere out there in the DC multiverse, thereās a world where Battinsonās parents didnāt die, and he became the Lance Stroll of Formula One racing. Wayne Enterprises has an F1 team, Thomas brought Bruce to races when he was young, they indulged his love of cars until he was winning kart races at 8. He BEGGED to help design the race cars, ended up making a great car, and now Wayne has turned from a midfield team to nearly top three.
Youād think everyone hates Bruce because heās a nepo baby, but heās just so nice and smiley (like Lance lol) that everyone loves him anyway. His dad is the teamās chairman and pretty hands-on just like Lawrence Stroll. Fans call Bruce the F1 Princess as a joke since heās already the Prince of Gotham, but then it sticks, and now everyone makes edits of him with tiaras on every time he makes it to the podium. He doesnāt get it, but heās not going to complain either. His fans are just silly. (He blushes so much when anyone calls him princess to his face, though. Fight me.)
Bruce still insists on everything being black because itās his favorite color. It was already mostly black before he joined, but now itās even blacker. His suit is all black. The car is all black. The helmet is all black. He loves it. He looks just like the dark, regal old money rich boy youād imagine until heās smiling and talking about racing. (Imagine a meme with two cars next to each other, one being WEās. It says: āBruceās Car v. Bruceās Personality.ā The other one is covered in glitter obv.) One time, a little girl gives him a tiara that she painted black herself and asks him to wear it if he wins. (He does win. He puts it on at the podium. Heās embarrassed the entire time. The champagne rubs some of the black away. Itās a treasured memory and sits right on top in his trophy case.)
His fellow drivers call him Brucie to tease him. Heās a bit awkward during interviews, but that just makes him endearing. Heās also tall for an F1 driver (nepo baby core) so thereās always jokes about him towering over everyone. One time, he came second to Lewis Hamilton, but you could still see he was visibly standing taller on the podium, and people would not stop making jokes about it. (It was mostly his hair, but you know how Twitter is.) Speaking of hair, it will NOT stay flat. He looks insane every time he takes his helmet off. He could be sweating for hours in there but when he takes the thing off, he looks like heās through in a tornado. (Again, memes.) He knows so much about car mechanics, even for a driver, and will regularly start talking to other drivers or the press about the tiniest of parts in the engine or break system, unaware that everyone is completely lost. (Also memes about that.)
When heās 23, he suffers a pretty bad crash. It knocks him out for about twenty seconds, and his mom and dad are ready to pull him completely from the sport, but he refuses to stop, and despite missing a few races to recoverāhis dadās still a doctorāhe ends up winning the next race and gets to stay.
During his F1 career, itās pretty much guaranteed that heāll get fastest laps, but he only gets podium like 40ā50% of the time. Thereās always drama that apparently Wayne Enterprises is trying to become top three, but they insist that theyāre not as competitive. They will always have respect for every team, and it shows. They never join in on protests. They always wish the other teams luck, and they genuinely congratulate the winners. Bruce is always the first to hug the winner :)
Before Bruce joined, the Wayne team was always a midfield team, and they were perfectly comfortable with it. WE had good-looking cars, they designed good-looking cars, and they sold good-looking cars, and F1 was just a way of promoting that. Thomas loved watching the races, and he was happy to see them get podium a few times per season, and that was it.
Until Bruce became their lead driver, and he wanted to really earn his seat, and he wanted to get podium, and he wanted to design a faster car, and he wanted to win, and Thomas Wayne couldnāt say no to his son, and suddenly Wayne Enterprises was inching closer and closer to the front of the grid. Now, theyāre still not The Best, but theyāre a team that future drivers look up to.
During a season of DTS, Bruce is 27. Netflix films the Wayne episode when thereās a fatal crash in F2, and Bruce was nearby when it happened. He ends up crying on camera for ten minutes. They had to cut almost all of it, but we get the most gut-wrenching confessional about how after he heard the news, in that moment, he didnāt want to be an F1 driver. He admits that if he hadnāt become a driver, he was going to become a doctor like his father, and he wonders if he could have saved the driverās life if he did that instead. āWhat am I really doing if I canāt help others? I could have been anythingā¦Maybe being a driver was selfish. Maybe I donāt belong on the track anymore.ā
Heās visibly distraught during the moment of silence on the day of the race, but Bruce decided to continue because he wants to make the fans and spectators happy. (Thatās his job, anyway. Thatās what he does.) Despite getting pole position the previous day, he doesnāt get fastest lap or make it to the podium, but he still gets fourth. He has a long talk with his father away from cameras and calls his mom. The futureās uncertain for a few days until Bruce comes back to training. To finish the episode, he says heās going to continue driving, even if he might need a bit of time to get his confidence back, and he pledges to one day make the safest F1 car ever seen. Even if itās part of the risk of being a driver, he doesnāt want to see any more drivers losing their lives to the sport they love.
When heās around 35 or 40, he retires from Formula One so he can inherit Wayne Enterprises, and he takes his fatherās place as chairman of the team. Since he has the time now, he holds up on his promise to make an even safer carāthe designs inspiring safer car designs for other teams as wellāand they pick out two incredible drivers who end up finally (FINALLY) moving Wayne Enterprises into one of the top three teams. They win the world championship twice in a row before falling back a bit and only winning it every couple of years, but theyāre nonetheless fierce competitors. Bruce still has a ton of kids, some of which like F1 just like he does, but he is the only Wayne to become a Formula One driver.
I just think Battinson would love driving for F1 :)
