#bataffleck

The first version is Battinson (Robert Pattinson)—the version where everyone is still young, Bruce is a first-time father, and everything is complicated and happening for the first time. It’s that version that comes to mind in fics where Dick is meeting a younger Batman, or when Jason comes back into Bruce’s life (because, really, Robert Pattinson is only 38), so I imagine that Bruce. His family is still young, they still have so much left to do together. Everything feels like a first-time experience—they're all just too young. Especially in those fics where they say Bruce adopted his kids much earlier. That’s the Bruce I picture.

The second version I imagine is Batfleck… and that’s usually the one I see in the sadder fics. When everyone’s older, Jason has come back but things are still complicated and way too sad. Those fics where Dick has to take on the mantle of Batman, where everyone is separated, and Jason is still estranged from the family. Because… please, every time I saw that man in Zack Snyder’s version, I thought: that man is alone. His family is falling apart little by little. He gives off the whole vibe of a tired dad who’s slowly losing to nostalgia. He’s exhausted and all he really wants is for everyone to be together again. Also… I could write a whole essay on why he’s perfect for certain vibes in the fics I read. And when I read those fics where he’s a soft, spoiling grandfather? That’s the Bruce I picture.

Lastly, a bit controversial… Alan Ritchson. But that’s for the fics where Bruce has no one. Where he’s a lonely man. Where Batman exists in a world without anyone beside him, where he’s just trying to save his city on his own. Those darker versions where he’s a bit more savage, where he’s lost his humanity and is, more than anything, just Batman. A lone outlaw.

Of course, I have other versions for Batman Beyond and alternate universes, but those are the ones I picture most often—sometimes it’s just a specific comic version that pops into my head. But I always like imagining Batfleck, because he always has that vibe—that feeling of someone who truly needs his family back.