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Just Bruce with too thick thighs and a fat ass; hasn't lost the baby weight.

Bruce instantly loses any interest in swimming and wants to go home, but Clark convinces him to stay.

He assures Bruce he looks sexy as hell, and that his body is absolutely beautiful. The way it looks only shows what a good mama he is.

Besides if he goes home now, Dickie will be sad and miss his mama, and their little birdie is having so much fun in the water right now.

So Bruce stays, fully aware of every appreciative and lustful look Clark gives him.

To his thighs covered in stretch marks.

To his saggy belly.

To his ass that's barely covered by the fabric of his bikini bottoms.

Well. I would like to imagine Jason to be the last one to raise his hand at him. Sure. Maybe Batman and Red Hood fought, violently, in the past. But Jason hitting Bruce? The son who came from an abusive household and found heaven in the arms of his father? No. Never.

Jason would have stopped it sooner if he had known. He would have. He would!! But he was never at the manor, and when he was, he would normally leave even before hell broke loose. So he thought the fights among them where normal. Hurtful, sure. He knows first hand how brutal Dick, Tim and Bruce can be with their words. He can imagine Damian and Steph being the same. Even Cass might be able to say something painful.

But a punch? C'mon. They're supposed to be the good guys. They would never... Right?

So imagine how it went when he came to join them on the debrief after an extenuating mission, where everyone was tired and on edge. The last thing he expected was Tim to swing his arm around. He didn't expect the sound of the gauntlet against Bruce's cheekbone. The way the skin broke. He froze. He expected Richard to say something.

Imagine his reaction when his older brother sighed and went to grab Tim's arm to check his hand. How Tim was still yelling at his dad. Who was cleaning his face wound. How the others kept going about their stuff. How everything kept moving while his dad was fucking bleeding from a wound caused by his FUCKING FAMILY-

He blacked out.

He only came back when his dad's voice reached him under his weight. He looked down from where he was covering Bruce, using his own body as a blanket. The noise around him slowly came back. Scream and curses. He looked behind him, at Tim covering his bloody nose behind Dick, who stood in a fighting position in front of the young man.

He slowly rose from his position when he felt Bruce hand softly push him away. "Did I- did I-" He could hear Tim's voice curse at him. The soft touch of Bruce's fingers on his forehead.

Bruce had to guide him out of the panic attack.

"What the fuck is your problem, dude?" He knew the voice belonged to Steph. But he couldn't look away from his brother's blood running to the floor.

"I hit him..." It was barely a whisper. A shaky confession.

Tim's scream muffled between his fingers "NO SHIT YOU ASSH-!!"

"I did the same shit they did to you..." He covered his face between his hands, he felt his father slowly rose to hug his shoulders. "I'm no better than them..."

Everyone kept quiet, digesting his words as he softly started to sob.

Bruce's voice was firm, determined.

Carefully, he placed both hands on Jason's shoulders, "Jason, you're not a monster. None of you are."

Jason wants to believe him. He wants to with all his heart.

But he sees Bruce's blood, a bruise forming on his cheek, and he knows.

He knows who did it. He makes a guttural sound, "You and your martyr complex. You'll accept anything for a little bit of love. You're the damn Batman, you know that? You know you could tear us all to pieces if you wanted to?"

"Jason..." Dick tried to say something, but Jason cut him off immediately, "Don't even try, Goldie. How could you let it come to this? Do you hate him that much?"

He couldn't see the expression on the other's face, but Dick replied, his voice strangled, "I don't hate him...but sometimes..."

"What, sometimes a little violence makes you feel better? Does making him bleed solve some weird complex of yours?"

No one replied. Jason backed away from Bruce, but Bruce wouldn't let him go. "Jason, your hands..."

"Are you really caring about him now?" Tim barked, and Jason glared at him.

"Cry me a river, Tim. Don't be such a princess. I don't know if you realize this, but you're not the only one bleeding here."

Tim looked like someone had forced him to eat a lemon, and Jason felt like he was going to throw up. They were all fucking assholes. They were all so fucked up in that damn family, and he wanted to blame Bruce, but no, it was all their fault.

"How many times?" he found himself asking. Dick was confused.

Jason repeated, "How many times did you think that was how you solved your problems with the old man?"

No one answered. Bruce tried to interject, "It doesn't matter now, Jason."

"Oh, sorry, but I do care if I'm in front of a case from a a textbook case of domestic violence!"

"It's not domestic violence..."

"Tim, I don't know if you were asleep during that class, but any act of violence against a family member who doesn't defend themselves is domestic violence. And I don't know if you noticed, but he didn't even try to defend himself," he growled, enjoying the way the others finally seemed to realize how pissed he was, but it was a short-lived feeling.

"Now, answer me. How long..."

"A while " Damian was the first to speak, surprising everyone. "It seemed like a regular occurrence when I arrived."

That meant years. This had been going on for years and Jason had no idea. How could they defend Gotham if they acted like beasts behind closed doors? What the hell...

"Jason, it's not important..."

"No, it's important, Catherine, you can't let these fuckers treat you like you're nothing..."

No one was speaking. Jason barked, "Don't you have anything to say, do you?"

"You called Bruce Catherine," Stephanie pointed out. "You...you called him like..."

"I did, huh? Well, if you didn't act like Willis fucking Todd, maybe I wouldn't...I wouldn't..."

God, why was it so hard to talk? God, he hated them all. Most of all, he hated himself for not doing something sooner. A thought crossed his mind. If this had been going on for years...how could Bruce still love them? How desperate was he for a shred of love to accept being treated like a punching bag?

It didn’t make it any easier.

It was a young girl this time, barely an adult.

The wound in her neck and side was fatal, the poison in her system putting the final nail in the coffin.

She would die.

She also seemed to know that.

As she laid in Batman’s lap, her face cradled in his gloved hand, she dimly smiled as he hummed quietly to her.

The chaos from the aftermath forgotten entirely.

He didn’t care that the other civilians would see him like this. He didn’t care that his teammates would see him like this. He didn’t care his family would see him like this.

Her pained expression lessened ever so slightly as the heavy duty tranquilizer filtered through her system. A final mercy. To not die in pain.

Batman brushed the tears away from her face with a gentleness no one would image from a man known to have so much blood on his hands.

Somehow, his humming requiem reverberated through the entire room. A promise to her. She would be remembered.

No one judged the man for his tears shed, no one moved to remove her from him either. No one dared to approach the man, mourning a stranger, someone he had known for no more than a few minutes, but grieved like it his own flesh and blood.

Batman had always been a myth, a legend and a mystery.

But in times like this, the city was reminded that he too was a man.

A man who had taken it upon himself to lift the heavy burden that was the safety of Gotham’s children.

Batman in Batfamily comics: I hate everyone and everyone hates me. I walk through my child's room and destroy his belongings because he smacked his lips at the dinner table. Now I'm going to set Bat-Cow on fire.

Batman in his own comics:

Socially speaking, a pup would naturally be expected to leave their parents and start forming their own pack bonds. More casually at first, and then having their mating bond.

Bruce is pressured more then on finding a proper Alpha than anything else.

He remembers Alfred wistfully reminiscing on the olden days, saying that "Master Bruce was... a troublesome child, I must admit," and so he prepares for the worst.

But. Bruce is just a kid. Prone to shenanigans, with a strong sense of justice, ready to throw hands with people three times his size, but still. A kid. He cartwheels around out for the fun of it and climbs trees and pretends this cool stick is a sword. All normal kid activities.

Dick finds him pretty easy to look after, even. Bruce is failry independant, doesn't need constant entertainment, and actually prefers to have some time to himself. He isn't picky with food as Dick expected him to be. He happily helps with chores if Dick asks. He has some temper issues, but that's to be expected from a grieving child, and he is usually pretty apologetic afterward. He also does get a craving for attention at least once a day and will do ridiculous things to get it, but once Dick figured it out he just gave Bruce his attention without the kid needing to break yet another vase and it was fine. All in all, Dick has a blast spending time with kid Bruce. He was having so much fun with him that he simply refused to give Bruce back to Alfred. Sorry, but you had so many years with the kid!

Zatanna told them that the magical spell would withstand for two months. When the time comes, and the spell is about to run out any day now, Dick gets so horribly sad that he takes a few days off just to spend the entire time with Bruce. The kid is lovely and fun and volatile and extreme and full of energy, such a surprising look into Bruce that Dick never had before. He wishes he could spend more time with him like this.

The day before he turns back, they lie together on the carpet in Dick's living room, panting after an intense session of playfighting.

Bruce smirks, and throws a look at Dick. "Bet you are happy to finally get the trouble kid out of your hair, huh?"

Dick's wide grin slips just a little, turns serious and thoughtful when he looks back at the smug little rascal. "... No, actually. I thought you were quite fun."

Bruce turns over onto his stomach and props up himself with his elbows to look at Dick properly, raising a daring eyebrow at the young man. "What, did I not worry you enough with all the climbing? Did I not annoy you enough with torn clothes and broken furniture? I still have a few hours to annoy you out of your mind." His smirk grew as he gave his clearly empty threat.

"I know you didn't do all of that on purpose. Besides, I don't know if you have noticed, but you are kinda rich. And I am, too, by extension. Whatever you broke, you already paid for." Dick couldn't help himself and stetched out his arm to boop the little button nose. Bruce wrinkled it in distaste and made a move to jokingly snap his teeth at the offending finger. Dick chuckled and snapped his hand away.

Bruce smiled at him, but then turned his eyes down, to the carpet and started worrying at one of it's strand, seemingly fully focaude on it.

"Well, I must have annoyed you at least a little bit." Bruce said with the same smug tone as before, as if he was taking pride in it, but the way he refused to look up at Dick and gnawed at his cheek betrayed the anxiety he actually felt. This young Bruce was so easy to read, gosh.

"No, not really. In fact, you were pretty chill for the most part. Though you did give me a scare when you tried to fight those random kidnappers by yourself, but that was pretty impressive too, I must admit. I actually think you might be one of the nicest kids to look after. At least in my experience."

Bruce's face scrunches up in the all too familiar scowl that looks much less scary on the young face. He presses his lips together, clealry mulling something over, still not looking at Dick. His next words are much quieter, much more serious and sincere.

"But then why did Alfred and Leslie keep saying that?"

Dick's face loses the smile, too.

"I don't know, lil' B. But I don't think they are right about you."

The sign over the building entrance was enough to make Dick feel like he was swallowing needles. "Medical", even when the last thing the people that last walked these halls went through was healing.

The sanitorium was a maze even when you had the public floorplan, in reality there were a lot more under the surface. Secret rooms, tunnels, labs, cells, everything a psychopathic mass murderer like the clown would need.

The main gate lead into the medical foyer, hallways that were now covered in moss, police tape and spatters of blood. No doubt some of it was Bruce's. No doubt some of it was Jason's...

After the explosion in Ethiopia, Bruce never found his body. He was convinced that he was dead after the explosion, his tracker showing his location the second before, it showed it was connected to a live person. When the smoke cleared, there was nothing. No body, no longer any tracker, nothing. Just smoke, ash, rubbles and specks of blood, which eventually came back as Jason's.

What they'd eventually know, after burying an empty casket, was that the clown had taken Jason with him in the last second, planting his tracker on a rapid dog that was living in the warehouse. He took him back to Gotham and kept him in the then non-operational Asylum, before eventually the Arkham Asylum incident happen.

Dick's mind wandered as he walked the halls, keeping an eye on the updated map Bruce had made while he was navigating it the first time. These halls had been the source of so many nightmares, they’ve been the opening to so many arguments and slammed doors.

At this point, it couldn’t even be compared to the worst haunted houses. The walls had begun to be covered in vines, the nature trying to recover its stolen ground, no doubt with some help by a short walk from Ivy.

The gigant double door was shut tight in front of him, looming.

With a final sigh, he pushed open the doors.

There, on the main floor of the sanatorium main floor, were news papers and magazines pages scattered. Weapons imbedded in large posters, if they weren't painted over in unknown substances. Blacked-out eyes on a particularly large poster laying in the center, a wicked smile extending the one already on the person pictured. What would have been the background was instead cut roughly with knives on one side and burned on the other, framing the celebrity perfectly.

"There's no way." The voice put all fight instincts in Nightwing on full alert. He turned and flung the wingding the second his eyes made contact with the moving object.

Instinctively Spoiler dodged, hoping down from the rafter like a curious cat, confident in its steps and movements. Her step faltered though, the closer she got, the more clearly she saw the picture. Dick's own eyes landed back on the face on the floor, a face he so desprately missed right now.

A face he knew very well.

Bruce Wayne.

The air was sucked out from his lunges.

Sharply drawn bat ears were sticking out from the top of his head, looking as much like demon horns as it was the iconic part of the Batman. Settled on the perfectly curated look of Bruce Wayne though? it looked wrong.

"He.." knows.

"Fuck!"

"It's Wayne Tower!" Nightwing's voice broke through the otherwise tense silence, Jason and Cass both fell into step and landed quickly on the next roof.

"Come again?" How was the Wayne company involved in this now.

"the view is always best from the sky, Wayne Tower is the tallest building in Gotham-"

"The Joker knows who Bruce is." Steph interrupted.

A shudder went through Jason's entire body. "What do you mean?" Tim said what they were all wondering. "How- How would he know?"

The sound momentarily glitches as the microphone switched from the body comms to the Batwing comms system.

"At the Sanatorium, it's like he's made this... this shrine." From the now absence of the wind, it seemed they were onboard the BatWing again. "It was all Bruce themed, but with the bat ears. Pictures, posters, magazines, news clippings, all of him." Dick was gulping air as he was speaking, like the words hurt to even utter. "An- and they were all cut up, burnt or with weapons imbedded. He knows."

He was hunting after Bruce Wayne, after Batman.

And he was using little Bruce as bait.

TBC

~~~~

what day did Jason die?

How much time was left?

Quite a short one this time, but don't worry, the next time will be a lot more sad :>

Tw. Self harm >>

https://archiveofourown.org/works/71122691

^the fic in question

Like no hate to the author, it's just that a lot of it feels like setup for angst more than heartwarming stuff. Like, had it happened to me I'd probably be curled up in bed that night (or maybe the next) just feeling hurt, excluded, and cry, or something.

First of all, thank you so much for the ask!

Yeah now that I‘ve read it I absolutely agree! No hate to the author I did enjoy their fic but I‘ve also felt so sorry for Bruce throughout it.

I mean I love the plot point in of it self. Bruce believing to Hanahaki when he actually just inhaled würd plant pollen things is amazing for a crack fic but I‘d rather see actual Hanahaki.

Just imagine the happenings of the fic but with actual Hanahaki, it would be so deliciously angsty

F.e Bruce get‘s injured while on a mission with the JL. They were fighting some sort of magic user and Batman was thrown into a building by them. And being flung through the air into a building usually leaves one at least with bruised ribs. But he also got hit bet them with some sort of curse. They haven’t figured out what kind of curse yet.

But Bruce has to drag himself home and get patched up.

—…—…—…—…—…—…—…—…—…—

It starts when Bruce is scolded by Alfred for getting blood on the kitchen floor. He was trying to get to the bandages since all of the ones in medbay were full of glitter for some reason. But that didn’t matter to Alfred.

That’s when suddenly he felt his lungs …shrink? Or get full? But not with air, with something else.

Duke: We’re kind of missing something, guys.

Damian: Cohesion?

Cass: Teamwork?

Steph: A general sense of what we’re doing?

Jason: And Tim is not here.

Picture one day in the cave, some or the other problem has been happening. The blame gets thrown around until it lands on Bruce, as it always does. One of the older kids is yelling, as is the norm in the fallout of these things and they go up to Bruce and push him in their anger. Bruce stays rooted on the spot but doesn’t raise his arms to fight back, quietly watching, eyes hidden behind his cowl lenses.

This only makes the kid angrier and eventually they throw a punch, expecting him to deflect or dodge. He doesn’t. His nose is dripping blood onto his suit but he doesn’t acknowledge it, doesn’t react beyond a minuscule flinch and a slightly forceful exhale at the pain. They keep yelling for him to fight back, pushing further and further to get him to react, something, but he just stands there and takes it. The cave is eerily quiet when the kid starts calming down, realising they had just beaten on a man who hadn’t defended himself even once. Bruce doesn’t say a word, just walks over to the medbay and starts treating his wounds, efficiently as ever.

This keeps repeating, it doesn’t matter which state of mind they’re in, he refuses to fight back. It reaches a tipping point when he almost dies due to refusing to defend himself when a brainwashed kid was sent to kill him.

And, you know when there's certain smells that remind you of people? Like, smells that are actually strongly linked to that person?... A certain perfume they always used, or laundry detergent?

Well, he's mid fight and he smells it. Bruce's. But it's not like a faint memory or a soft breeze, more like a punch on the face, a strong waft...

That's his smell. And he has to physically turn around and search for him. Because... THAT'S. HIS. SMELL. Not Batman's, no. Bruce's. The smell he had after a shower, or when cuddling together. His dad's smell. Warmth and love. And there's no way in hell that Bruce fucking Wayne is here right now. Maybe the bat might be here, but Bruce? Prada fall 2012 Brucie? No way, José.

He's so focused on panicking that the goons actually run away before he gets the chance to interrogate them. And he doesn't even have the intention to follow them.

He's turning around like those scenes in the movies when the camera goes from the character's face to show an open view of the surroundings. He's panicking, fingers itching to dial his dad's phone number. Throat aching, burning in the need to say the word, to call, to scream.

By the time he can breathe again, the smell is gone, and he's in the middle of a bloody alleyway with his heart thumping in his ears.

He leaves, angry, cursing at Bruce Wayne and his stupidly fancy and nice lovable remarkable smell.

Bruce sitting on his walking-closet floor, cradling the 6,4 Jason Todd-Wayne like a toddler, sitting on his lap. And Jason, who's at the same time bent over an almost empty bottle of perfume while SOBBING.

Duke standing at the doorframe like ??? He just came back from school and needed Bruce's signature. He's messaging the group chat.

I GOT YOUUUUUUUUUU

WARNING: Some of these have VERY intense tags, so PLS PLS PLS PLS PLS LOOK AT THEM BEFORE YOU READ THE FIC. I BEG OF YOU. I BEG

Mark, the manager: Okay. So. We do pride ourselves on being the establishment of choice for the vigilantes of Gotham.

That means you will be serving the Bats. And there are a couple ground rules.

Now. Unfortunately this has happened enough times that it is a rule. Do not flirt with Nightwing. I know he starts it, he's joking, don't finish it. That's just an HR demand waiting to happen. And I will fire you.

Second. If Red Hood comes, don't ask him if he wants his fries jokerized. Just do it. He does want them jokerized but don't mention it.

Uhh, fair warning, the middle one will stalk you. Just for a bit. It's normal I think, he's just doing a background check. That's my bad, apparently I hired a 'Shadow' once, whatever the fuck that means.

The yellow one and the purple one, are cool. Yellow comes mostly during the day, so you don't have to worry. And if Purple drops any glitter just sweep after she leaves.

The one that looks like Batman but gender-bend is cool too, but you're not allowed to say 'yes' if she offers teaching you self defense. That's an order from Corporate.

Do not. –Listen to me– Do. Not. Serve the little one meat. I don't care if you're tired. I don't care if there aren't any veggie options left. You don't serve him meat. He's a vegetarian, last guy to get it mixed up is the reason why we have a job opening, got it?

And lastly. If ANY of them is actively bleeding or looks worse for wear, you press this button and don't say anything. It sends Batman a message and he pays us extra if we let him know his kids are hurt.

Mark, the manager: Any questions?

He trills and purrs and chirps and whatever I want, even though I don't think he would purr from just happiness, too normie, too unconvinient, it shouldn't be easy to get them. He only let's them free around friends and family and especially family.