Battinson! Bruce Only Speaks In A Series Of Blinks, Squints, And Eye Brow Wiggles. He Has To Learn How

Battinson! Bruce only speaks in a series of blinks, squints, and eye brow wiggles. He has to learn how to talk eventually because of Dick's friends (his boy is much too social but FINE he'll learn to speak for him, 'Just never say I do nothing for you, Dick')

(He's secretly very relieved to have Cass and be able to talk through his preferred method of communication again)

The rest of the Justice League: I am fighting this fairly serious villain. He wants money and power. I must stop him and his conventionally armed goons.

Batman, stone faced: I am fighting Jellyfish-Gal and Wobbly Gang. They want to turn all of Gotham into jelly-based aquatic life and force the mayor to fund their biweekly tap dancing lessons. I must stop the Wobbly Gang from using their squid launchers to incapacitate people and take them for experimentation.

I saw a post (maybe from @broosepayne ????) about how Clark, as a Kryptonian with a different evolution than humans, would be scared of different animals than humans (like, maybe he's terrified of goldfish and sheep or something)

But like, what if the inverse is true? Like, he finds some animals as naturally cute as we would find kittens. One of those animals is the bat.

Everytime Clark sees Batman, he has to resist the urge to squeeze him to death (you know, like cuteness aggression) As someone with super strength, this is a big issue.

(Bruce eventually has conceded to allowing his bf hug him 24/7 just to mitigate the cuteness aggression and prevent Clark from accidently squeezing him to death (how embarrassing would it be to die because he was too cute? Bruce cannot allow this))

This absolute monstrosity is Billy the Seal Boy. This creature, despised by God, belongs to a 'Freak Show.' The other people in this act have normal disabilities that they have been unfairly ostracized for. There's a set of conjoined twins, a man with a hunched back, and one (1) guy who's just kinda,,,, big????? These are normal people who should be able to exist in regular society. However, Billy, the true freak, absolutely deserves to be ostracized. Look at THIS

and tell me there is a benevolent God.

This seal mf just chills in the background during the episode and Batman doesn't even question it?????

Inspired by this post here!

TW: Threats of violence (literally like one kicky boi happens)

Little Dick Grayson, his new ward, was staring at Bruce as he exited the clock in his study. The little boy sat in his large, black swivel chair and stared at him as he awkwardly shuffled out of the secret entrance. Bruce was pretty sure that 3 am was much too late??? early??? for little boys to be awake. (But how would he know, it's not like he slept much at Dick's age).

Bruce froze, wide-eyed and blinking at his ward. Dick continued to stare at him. After a moment of tense silence, Dick spoke, accusingly, "I know your secret."

The way Dick said it, so accusingly, made Bruce panic. Oh God, he knew it was a bad idea to take in a human ward. He didn't know jackshit about humans!

The only human he regularly saw on a day to day basis was Alfred, who was hired specifically for his discretion on other worldly matters. Alfred had known Bruce for the last forty-five years and was used to his nature but Dick? Dick was a normal ten-year-old human boy. All he knew about vampires probably came from media. Dick was probably afraid of Bruce!

Bruce should have been more careful. He knew that his ward was aware that he didn't sleep most nights but he also thought Dick had assumed he was sleeping during the day! In hindsight, not knowing what human children ate was probably obvious (how was Bruce supposed to know that ten-year-old humans were beyond infant food?) But still! Bruce even ate in front of Dick once to keep up the ruse (Sure, Alfred informed him that eating a whole, raw potato in three bites was strange but the thought count!)

Bruce winced at the tiny human's accusation. Maybe if he said it before Dick could say it, Dick would be less mad?

"I'm a vampire!""You're Batman!"

Bruce and Dick blinked owlishly at each other. Mentally, Bruce was relieved. His ward, who was so very smart, had obviously known about his demonic nature (it was very obvious in hindsight) but had been inquiring of his alternate identity. Bruce could have laughed of relief. His boy wasn't vampphobic, he simply was peeved that Bruce left the house at odd times of night to fight crime without telling him.

Bruce smiled brightly at his little boy (who looked mildly perturbed about the smile), "You're a smart one, chum! I'm Batman!"

Bruce was happy. His ward, who he was beginning to care for very deeply, now knew every side of him. Everything was going perfectly.

-

Everything was not going perfectly.

In the twelve years following his acquisition of Dick, Bruce had acquired seven more children (five legally, one biologically (with some overlap), and two only emotionally).

Bruce was proud of each and every one of his children. He was thrilled to get to watch them grow into caring, respectful people with their own individual goals and ambitions. He was proud of how they handled themselves but, in the moment, Bruce was not proud of how they were acting.

"C'mon, Demon Spawn, get it back!" taunted Jason as he held Damian's prized katana over his head.

Damian and Tim had gotten into another one of their brawls, with Tim making a snide remark or two and Damian rising to the bait as always. Damian had ended up pulling his sword on Tim, hellbent on making his brother see his point. The two ended up trading blows, Tim with his staff and Damian with his sword, until Jason had come over and plucked Damian's katana out of his grasp with his thick gloves.

Now, Jason and Steph, who was Tim's self-declared best friend and therefore also on his side, were playing a dangerous game of keep away with Damian. They continued to taunt and tease an increasingly frustrated Damian while Tim stood laughing in the background.

Bruce knew his youngest son and could tell that he was seconds away crying, if the reddening of his cheeks and wobbling of his jaw wasn't enough, Damian was also wiping at his eyes when he thought his siblings couldn't see.

Bruce felt frustrated with his kids. Yes, he knew that Damian could be abrasive sometimes but he was just a baby. Everybody knew that vampires didn't reach adulthood until about forty and, as a ten-year-old, Damian was especially immature. While he may look like a human child of that age, he still was much worse at self-regulating and needed much more affection than his human counterpart. He knew that his human children sometimes forgot that fact and other facts about vampires (like the fact that vampire children play fight like puppies and that they really shouldn't be making Damian's games so heated and personal with slurs).

Bruce normally tried to let his children stop fighting by themselves but another sing-songy shout of "I got your swooord, Demon Brat!" pushed Bruce to his limit. He stood up and slammed down his case file, ready to yell at his kids when Dick and Barbara burst in.

"We figured out what that new gang is doing!" shouted Dick, in full Nightwing regalia, as he pushed Barbara into the cave at frightening speeds.

The sudden entrance of the two with information on a case prompted the fight to end (which, while Bruce appreciated, he knew he still needed to talk to his kid's again about not using language like that).

Jason, who had ended with the katana, dropped the weapon on the couch before sauntering over to join Dick and Barbara. "What'chu got?" he asked the two of them.

The rest of the Bats moved closer, trying to listen to the intel. Barbara pushed her glasses up, like she did when she had a particularly interesting fact to tell someone about blood spatter. "These guys are kind of crazy but apparently they're legit, I double checked what they do with John Constantine."

Bruce was intrigued. A gang involved in magic that John said was legit could be dangerous for Gotham. "What are they doing?" he asked, prompting Barbara to continue.

Barbara smiled and cleared her throat and continued to read the report, "They all wear high-neck guards and silver crosses on their person," Bruce didn't love that sound of that. It sounded almost like- "And they carry around the cloves and flowers of garlic and holy water!" Bruce felt something inside himself go cold. Damian, who standing beside him, scooched himself under his father's clock and Bruce squeezed him tight. "Most notably, they all carry around wooden stakes and enough lighter fluid and lighters for a Fourth of July party!" Bruce's horrible suspicion was confirmed. Vampire hunters.

The practice was archaic but there were still people who thought that vampires were dangers to society and decided to hunt them down like animals. Bruce knew that Gotham had, at one point, been the home to the largest coven of vampires in the world. Vampire hunters where the reason that that coven no longer existed. They were the reason that Bruce's parents had died when he was still a child. Bruce hated vampire hunters and now they were actively trying to gain footing in his city.

Bruce's mouth felt drier than it had felt during the two years he had spent without drinking. In his arms, Damian was shaking; terrified. Bruce squeezed his son closer and nuzzled his hair before looking up and clarifying, "John said they were legit?" His voice sounded gravely even to his ear and he prayed that maybe he had somehow misunderstood what Barbara had said. He hoped that they weren't actually vampire hunters.

Barbara looked puzzled, "Yeah, that's what I said. Bruce, what's wrong?" 'What's wrong?' she asked, as if Bruce's city wasn't being invaded by the only force he couldn't stop. The only force he couldn't protect his family from.

Jason snorted, "Ain't this a good thing? These guys can take care of vamps for us so they ain't our problem." Bruce's other human children made noises of agreement and Bruce, who had foolishly thought he was scared a few seconds before, was terrified.

Bruce clutched Damian to his chest and stumbled a few steps back, folding himself over Damian and turn his back to the threat, away from the children he loved who would see him destroyed. He saw, from his inhumanely large peripheral, Dick, who he had stupidly assumed would never begrudge him for his nature, take a step forward and hesitantly reached out his hand. Bruce narrowed his eyes and turned his face toward him to hiss and extend his fangs out in a clear threat.

"Bruce," Dick said, stepping closer, "We didn't realize vampires had gotten to you. We can fix this, we didn't mean you. Just give us Damian and we can help you." Bruce, who had started to calm himself at his son's soothing tone, panicked again when he heard the rest of his son's offer. They wanted Damian.

Bruce had known that Damian and his other children didn't always get along. He had seen the angry looks and heard the biting words (he had, after all, lectured them time and time again about not using vampire slurs against their brother). But most of the remarks had been calling him 'Demon Spawn' or 'Hell Child', so Bruce thought they were mostly focusing some of their vampire fear on him. He had thought the angry looks were jealousy at the attention that Damian received; he thought they were jealous the way kids with new baby siblings were always jealous, mad they got less attention but also understanding it was needed by the baby.

Bruce hadn't realized how deep this vitriol and hate ran. He didn't expect them to take the first vampire hunters to come around as an opportunity to get rid of their baby brother. Bruce loved his human children and could never hurt them but Damian was a baby. Bruce would not let them hurt him due to misguided anger.

Bruce stood up and shoved Damian behind him. He spread his cape wide to hide Damian from their sight and make himself appear bigger. Bruce bared his fangs at his children and screeched like the bat he was named for.

His human children (his little babies) pulled out their weapons. They were his children and they were always prepared (if they were his children, why hadn't he noticed their bigotry?). Dick's escrima sticks crackled ominously, Jason cocked one of his guns, Tim and Steph readied their bo staffs, back-to-back, and Barbara whipped out a Glock.

Bruce wasn't immortal. No being could be. Sure, he had a longer life span and sure, without wooden stakes, it was harder to kill him than the average person. But Bruce was very much not immortal. Normally, when Bruce fought against an ally there was some button to destroy or some foe to subdue for the fight to stop. His children right now where clear-headed. This is what they thought was best. He had been unknowingly allowing this anti-vampire sentiment to fester in his home and now he was paying the price.

He looked back at his little boy, his Damian. When his son met his gaze, his green eyes where filled with tears and his face was red and blotchy. His son looked scared. Bruce knew, in that moment, that allowing his other children to kill him so that Damian could escape was the right choice. He understood what his parents had done that day decades ago.

He smiled at Damian and his brave little boy gave him a wobbly smile back. 'Go' he mouthed at Damian and Damian's face fell. Damian lunged forward, into Bruce's back, and gave him a crushing hug. Then Damian rocked back, his face determined and nodded. Bruce smiled at his son one last time before launching himself forward at his waiting and deadly children.

Bruce was immediately met with force. He tried to keep himself and the cape big to cover Damian's escape. Right away, he was dodging the crackling electricity of Dick's escrima sticks but, as he dodged a hit to his right shoulder, he was immediately met with a bo staff inches from his face. He grabbed the staff and forced it down, throwing Stephanie over his left shoulder and into the couch.

The time it took to launch Stephanie at the furniture, allowed Dick to get a good and painful jab onto his leg. His leg seized and, as he arched away from the pain, he saw Jason, who he had assumed was staying out of the fight due to the dangers of a gun in such small quarters, chasing after Damian.

Bruce felt his eyes widen and, in his distraction, Dick and Tim wrestled both of his arms behind his back. Bruce lunged forward and screamed, falling to his knees in his desperation. "Leave him alone!" he all but shrieked, "Don't hurt him! Please, Jason! Jason, I know you don't like our kind just-" Bruce's voice broke. This was so fucked up. He was begging his one son for the life of his other, "Please." he begged.

The hands restraining him let him go and Bruce slumped forward and watched as Jason dragged Damian, kicking and screaming forward. When Damian saw Bruce, his eyes lit up and, though he still looked scared, he tugged even more forcefully toward Bruce. Jason let him go and Damian hurled himself into Bruce's waiting arms.

Bruce squeezed his boy tight, enveloping them in his cloak and crying into Damian's hair. He had failed. He had failed and now they would both die. At least Damian was going to be awarded this one last comfort.

"Hey, Bruce?" said Jason in a soft and kind (?) voice a few steps away. Bruce looked up, pressing Damian's face into his chest. "I feel like we're missing something," continued Jason.

Dick and Tim had, at some point, moved from behind Bruce to next to their brother, a few feet in front of Bruce. Dick nodded empathetically, "We thought, when you grabbed Damian, that you were trying to hurt him or hold him hostage or something? Because you got turned into a vampire? But then you tried to act as a diversion for his escape and Damian looked terrified just now when Jason had him so... What's going on?"

Bruce, who's brain still felt foggy from the whole my-children-want-to-kill-me-and-their-brother thing and even more so now that they had done a complete one eighty, just blinked up at Dick and the rest of his present children, who had all crowded around him as he talked. Dick blinked at him. Bruce blinked again before shaking his head, "I'm a vampire?" he said, phrasing it like a question.

Jason, who had looked guilty the entire time, let out a barked, slightly hysterical laugh, "We gathered that. But you seemed so normal, since when?"

Bruce was feeling that floating, dissociat-y feeling again and blinked rapidly before answering, "Uh, since I was-" his tongue felt too big for his mouth "born, so like the last fifty-seven years."

The cave was silent for a brief moment. The bats were screeching and Bruce could here the muffled, hiccuping cries of Damian into his chest. All of his kids were staring at him and then it became pandemonium. "The whole-""-didn't tell me!""-never would have-""-in retrospect-""-mean, holy secrets, Batman!"

Damian, who has picked up on the fact that he was no longer going to be actively murdered, also poked his head out of the cape to whisper in a cupped hand next to Bruce's ear, "They are rather slow, aren't they Father?"

That did it for Bruce. The combination of stress from the vampire hunters, betrayel from what he thought his kids wanted, and whiplash from the fact that his kids didn't know made Bruce cackle. He started laughing, somewhat hysterically, at the fact that somehow, for the last twelve or so years, none of his kids, some of best detectives in the world, had realized he was a vampire.

His kids, who had still been throwing questions at him and each other, quieted. Bruce laughed and forced himself to calm down to address his concerned looking kids and the little one poking his cheek in worry. "Sorry, sorry" he gasped for air "But how?" he asked.

Tim, who still looked concerned for his father's sanity, ventured forward to ask, "What do you mean?"

Bruce gasped again before asking, "How did none of you figure out I was a vampire, my whole bat thing? My entire aesthetic? How did none of that tip you off?" Bruce rose to his feet, his chest still hitching, and he slung Damian to his hip as he asked.

His kids ventured to look at each other before Barbara answered, "I met you like elevenish years ago, back then you were super mopey. I thought-" she interrupted herself, clearly embarrassed to continue before whispering, "you were emo??"

Dick nodded along, "Yeah, on the same vein of what Babs is saying. I mean, back then I just figured you were weird. I mean you ate a whole, raw potato once. So I just figured the whole dark aesthetic and light-aversion thing you had going on was just another quirk or maybe you didn't know what sun screen was," Bruce herded his children to the couch as Dick talked. "I got used to it eventually so I figured stuff like that was just Bruce™ things."

All of the kids collapsed on the couch and Bruce followed, with a clingy Damian still on his chest. They were all emotionally exhausted from what had just happened but they needed to have that talk. Dick mentioning the potato thing reminded Bruce, "Did none of you notice the fact that I don't eat food?" he asked, quirking a brow.

All of his children seemed to think, trying to remember a time when Bruce had eaten and apparently coming up blank. Jason shrugged, "I guess I assumed it was a workhokic rich boy thing, Timmy here don't eat either."

He leaned over to give Tim a half-hearted noogie and Tim shoved him off before adding, "No, I have seen you drink before. I-" Tim looked like he really didn't want to ask.

Bruce, good father that he is, spared his son from asking, "Those were blood packs," he says.

That gets a bit of reaction from his kids, several noises of disgust and Steph loudly complaining "I thought the Capri-Suns had gone bad! Noooo, it was blood!" However, they see Damian tense on Bruce's lap and quickly go quiet again.

Babs breaks the silence. "You were trying to protect Damian from us. Is he..?" She tried to ask it delicately but her curiosity for the unknown showed through.

Bruce nods, "Damian is a full blooded vampire, the League of Assassins is one of the most infamous vampire covens on the globe." Babs nods thoughtfully, absorbing the new information. Bruce knows that tomorrow, when the news is less fresh and Bruce is less tense, Babs will be asking all about vampire development and Bruce will be happy to indulge her, just not now.

Damian had started scanning his siblings' faces when he had become the subject of the conversation. For the first time since his siblings had started playing keep-away, Damian started to relax. He doesn't seem totally satisfied with the conversation wrapping up and he puffs out his cheeks a bit before asking, "Were you not calling me 'Demon Brat' and other slurs due to my vampire nature?" He looks geniuenly perplexed, like he couldn't picture any other reason for such mean spirited names. Now that Bruce can see that the nicknames were affectionate sibling ribbing, Bruce is heartbroken for his youngest son.

Based on the looks on everyone else's face, they feel the same. He can see that Dick is itching to go over to Damian and pepper his face with kisses to make his frown go away but this isn't Dick's apology.

Surprisingly, it's Tim who gets off the couch and kneels in front of Damian, who's perched on Bruce's knee. Damian had always antagonized Tim because, as the brother closest to his age, he was his most viable playmate for roughhousing. Often, the two went too far and Bruce knew that, while Tim loved Damian, he didn't always like him. Tim looked Damian right in the eye and said, "I am sorry. If anyone ever calls you something like that again, including me, you have every right to hit them with your katana." Maybe that wasn't the best message to tell a ten-year-old raised by assassins but it was what Damian needed to hear.

Jason, who loves to use insults as endearments and had therefore been one of the greatest offenders, slid of the couch and said, "I'm sorry for ever sayin' that shit" Damian gasped in delight, at the bad word more than the apology, "and if anyone talks shit again to you, tell 'em Red Hood'll get 'em." Bruce could see the remorse written clearly in the faces of Tim, Jason, and Steph as they hugged Damian and Bruce was proud. Maybe he hadn't failed as badly as he thought.

After talking for a bit longer, Bruce carried a sleeping Damian out of the cave and decided he would join his son and take a short hibernation in his nest in his room (seriously, he had a nest, how had his kids not suspected anything) Tomorrow, Bruce would be calling Cassandra to make sure she knew that she was a vampire and talking to Duke to make sure he knew that only vampires started to turn to ash in sunlight. Tomorrow, Bruce would be making a one hundred-twelve slide power point on the finer parts of vampire culture to show his children and ensure they were well educated. Tonight, Bruce was going to cuddle his son and calm himself down in his comfy nest

(Tonight, the bats and birds would fly and take care of the threat to their family and, tomorrow, if there were a few more bags of blood for Bruce, who could say?)

Bruce looks at the superhero Captain Marvel and asks "Is anyone going to adopt this?" and doesn't wait for an answer