LITERALLY CRYING RIGHT NOW - Tumblr Posts

Wellington, over the phone: So remember how I told you this morning how Blücher and I were going to have a calm night out?

Metternich: You did say that, yes.

Wellington: Well… he and I may have ended up in jail-

Metternich: *hangs up*

HEADCANON #1

I wholeheartedly believe that while Bruce wasn't a bad father to Dick, he also wasn't the greatest. Purely because he'd never had to care for a kid before, he didn't know the first thing about how. Alfred still had to make sure he didn't accidentally wind up dead because he forgot to eat in between being Batman and Gotham's resident pretty boy billionaire socialite. How did he expect himself to be able to take care of an actual child when he couldn't even take care of himself?

So it's hard, now, for Dick to see Bruce being a genuinely good father to the others. Bruce going to "bring your parents to work day" because Tim's own father couldn't make it, Bruce showing up to Damian's school science fair and asking questions about his experiment even though he helped Damian build it, Bruce going to see Steph in her school's play (even though she's only Talking Lady #3 and doesn't have any real lines as she so adamantly tells him), and so on forth and so on forth.

And it's not that he's upset for these other kids to be getting a good father-figure in their lives, it's just that he's jealous.

He's jealous because he didn't get to have that.

Bruce was still figuring shit out, Bruce was still trying to keep him at a distance and not get too close because he didn't want Dick to be another person he lost after letting him in even though what Dick needed more than anything was somebody to let him in.

So yea, Dick is jealous. He's jealous because not only was he replaced by Jason, but he was also replaced by Tim, and by Steph, and by Damian and not only as Robin— the name his mom used to call him, mind you, a name that was special and that he chose for himself because of that special meaning— but also as Bruce's kid.

He doesn't blame Bruce for not knowing, because he knows ultimately it isn't Bruce's fault. He's just mourning the fact that he never got the childhood he's witnessing all these other kids finally have and he feels robbed of it— robbed of having a good father, robbed of having someone to be there for his "bring your parent to work day", robbed of having someone help him build an experiment for his science fair and ask questions about it, robbed of having someone he could pick out in the crowd when he got picked to be Tree #1 in his school play.

He's happy for the others, because they deserve this happiness, but he's also jealous and feels guilty for said jealousy because he watched someone get better for somebody else and is left to wonder if maybe it was just him.

Maybe it's not that Bruce wasn't good at taking care of Dick, maybe it's just that Bruce didn't want Dick.

Anyways, let Dick Grayson be an angsty motherfucker because even though I like him being the sunshine, happy, rainbows-and-unicorns older brother to all the Bat-kids, I also think he deserves to have his trauma acknowledged, because watching someone put so much effort into loving somebody who isn't you when all you wanted was the bare minimum hurts.