#batmuppet

Batmuppet Chapter One: The Rainbow Connection

“It’s time to play the music, it’s time to light the lights, It’s time to meet the Muppets on the Muppet Show tonight!” The manor ought to have been silent as the grave when Bruce returned, so it caught him by surprise when he heard a familiar jingle drifting through the empty halls. He paused at the foot of the grand staircase, head tilted to the side as he listened to the Muppet Show theme song jangling away happily. It sounded like it was coming from the first floor, which meant the most likely origin was Dick's bedroom. Which would be fine, if it also wasn't almost three am... [Keep reading on Ao3]

What do you do when you come home late and find the orphan you've taken guardianship of is crying alone in his room watching the Muppets?

You sit your brooding ass down and join him.

And if you later end up on a talk show with said Muppets and end up embroiled in a running gag about your playboy persona being in a throuple with Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog, well, it's not like anyone's ever going to believe you're Batman now...

Based on the Tumblr shitpost.

***

Listen, I had no intention of posting this until I finished the whole thing, which is now about 70k worth of words in my drafts. But I'm going to be so real right now, I need to feel a shred of happiness right now, or I'm going to break, so you get to read BatMuppet in installments, and I get dopamine from completing tasks. Sound fair?

You know the kind of shows I mean.

The late-night talk show situations where they're making benign small talk with their smiling guest, and there's a segment where animals get brought out, usually to talk about some sort of ecological relief effort.

So you're watching your trash TV talk show late at night, and you get to watch billionaire pretty boy Bruce Wayne be begrudgingly talked into holding a (relatively) harmless creature which inevitably gets a lot of delighted shrieks from the audience as it starts being a lot more active than the handler promised. And to his credit, Bruce doesn't flinch, he doesn't freak out. But his eyes are a little wide, and his voice a little tight as the smile on his face takes on a slight rictus quality before he's inevitably rescued by an apologetic handler who is also laughing because they all know there was no real danger, it was just funny to put Bruce, who is an undeniable good sport and already laughing along, out of his comfort zone for the sake of charity.

Meanwhile, up in the Justice League headquarters, several founding members of the League are wondering how fast they can get a fake Oscar award shipped to the space station because fuck off. Absolutely fuck off, Bruce. Where the fuck did he study? Juilliard? (Probably.)

(Clark ends up going to a novelty store during the commercial break. It's faster than trying to get anything shipped, even with the infrastructure Bats built for them. He finds it several days later taped to his console in a conspicuously empty briefing room. It's gaudy and awful, the words "Best Actor" engraved on the plaque. No one's around to see him smile. No one comments when it vanishes. Everyone thinks it's been yeeted out an airlock. Dick absolutely comments when it shows up in the manor, stashed in one of the trophy cases that sprung up for all the bat kids' school awards. Bruce has no idea how it got there. Must have been Alfred. (It was not.))

And then there's 90s-Grunge-Dad-Bruce, right down to the well worn combat boots and the faded band t-shirt.

Batmuppet:

Chapter Three: The Gotham Tonight Show, starring Bruce Wayne and The Muppets.

"Bruce Wayne, everybody! What a fantastic guy. All right, don't go anywhere, folks, we'll be right back after the commercial break when we'll be joined by the legendary Kermit the Frog and the effervescent Miss Piggy as they promote their latest movie, 'The Muppets Take Metropolis!'" The applause rose to a deafening swell again as the band behind the podium struck up a lively tune, ushering them into a commercial break. Bruce looked up from his slouch as he felt someone move into his personal space again. "Really, thank you, Bruce," Murray said over the noise, angling his mouth away from the microphone as he leaned over his desk. "You couldn't have got me to hold that fucking thing for all the money in the world." Bruce chuckled, affixing a benign smile to his face as he righted his posture again and tugged his suit back into order. "Oh, you know me, Murray. I'm game for anything if it's for a good cause." "I couldn't agree more," said a shrill, familiar voice behind them. Bruce twisted in his seat to find a team of stagehands working in rapid time to erect a staging area behind the couch, and two humans holding two very distinct puppets aloft: Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy.

[Keep reading on Ao3...]

I'm going to lay all my cards on the table right now: Things are not going well here with my family, and I'm struggling. I'm posting this chapter mostly to feel something. But also, if anyone feels inclined to draw Bruce sitting on that couch with Miss Piggy shooting her shot, I would not object. It would, in fact, make me smile quite a bit. Regardless, I hope you're all still having as much fun reading as I am writing this. It's such a stupid fic, lol. I love it.