#***waiting

bruce has never met arthur , in my arc they are in two entirely different places currently. while bruce wants to meet arthur , and would want nothing more than an older brother - he is in no place to have that kind of relationship / wouldn't know how to. he is very aware of how the media has portrayed his brother , and in that portrayal he knows that nothing in gotham is as it seems. bruce does carry around a deep fondness for arthur , he will never go after joker as the batman nor wage a war with him.

gotham wants exactly that , she wants to turn brother against brother as does the court of owls. currently , they are also ensuring that the two brothers never meet - the court preferring to keep them separate and to take them each down.

nothing would be more powerful than the batman and joker working together ...

while bruce isn't at a point to reach out to arthur they do occasionally run into one another ; respectfully as the batman and joker. they never utter their real names when meeting up since they are both aware that the court is listening and conducting surveillance on them.

the fact of the matter is that bruce needs an older brother desperately ; - yet ? he cannot bring himself to admit to that idea , to him he's directly related to the people who brought so much hurt and ill-will into arthur's life. thomas' refusal of recognizing his elder son while having a 'legitimate' son is something bruce struggles with. the idea of thinking that your father is one way while coming to grips with the fact that he's not.

the anger isn't as destructive as it once was but , the grief is enough to swallow bruce whole. while it isn't guilt about his older brother's painful past , it's the idea of knowing someone you loved went through pain and you could do nothing to stop it. even through bruce wasn't born at the time nor could never do anything about it , it still lingers. their meeting outside wayne manor in joker (2019) is still something that's still ingrained into his brain and - also the idea that THAT was the only time he met his brother.

bruce is aware that parents are not wholly divine. that his mother struggled with mental illness and later his father's infidelity - this was at times taken out on bruce.

alfred is also gone from bruce's life after the reknewal scandal and also for keeping arthur out of bruce's life for all these years. while that decision alfred fully believes was necessary was not his call to make. alfred ripped from bruce a line to his father that he could have known.

alfred fully believes he did the best thing for bruce ; keeping him from a brother that had scarred him years earlier - it still was NEVER his decision to make.