Maylambb - ★Ash★

Batfam Headcanon #2

So. Damian Wayne’s school recital.

First off, Damian does not want to be there. He even performs this whole dramatic speech about how performing the viola in front of a bunch of “intellectually inferior Gotham Prep students” was a waste of his talents.

Bruce, however, is thrilled. He had missed out on these sorts of milestones with Dick, Jason, and Tim for various reasons—crimefighting, estrangement, or simply bad timing. But this? This was his chance to savour the quintessential "proud dad at a school event" experience, and he was not going to squander it. He buys eight tickets—front row for the whole family, obviously. He even tells Tim to “clear your schedule” and makes Jason promise on pain of death to show up.

He doesn’t stop there though. He rents an absurdly expensive high-end video camera (the kind National Geographic use to capture footage of lions on the savannah) to record the performance in its entirety, despite Barbara pointing out that smartphones have perfectly good cameras these days, and was pacing in front of the theatre doors 30 minutes before they even opened, muttering about getting the perfect angle. As the recital begins, the Batfam does their best to blend in with the other parents, though it’s a losing battle. Especially with Jason muttering snarky comments under his breath about the less-than-stellar early performances. “If this is what passes for talent at Gotham Prep, I’m never letting Damian forget he’s related to these people.”

Damian, to his credit, looks completely calm at all this chaos. Professional, even. He’s so composed, standing there with his viola, tuning it like this was just another mission. And then he starts playing. Y’all. He was perfect. Like, annoyingly, infuriatingly perfect. Every note was precise, every movement elegant.

You could see Karen from the PTA side-eyeing Bruce like, “What kind of prodigy factory are you running?”

But here’s the thing: the minute Damian finishes, and the polite applause starts?

The Batfam absolutely loses it.

I’m talking:

Dick and Duke standing up, leading a standing ovation.

Jason yelling “THAT’S MY BABY BROTHER, YOU PEASANTS!”

Cass throwing fake confetti that she’d somehow smuggled in.

Steph shaking her homemade “GO DAMI” sign so hard the glitter was falling off

Tim also standing up to applaud, completely forgetting about the phone on his lap live-streaming the whole thing to Alfred back home, ruining the video completely

Barbara’s reaction being the perfect mix of affection, amusement and calm.

Bruce clapping so loudly it echoed through the whole auditorium.

Damian’s ears? Fire engine red. He storms off stage like, “You’re all the worst. I’m disowning every single one of you.” BUT. Later that night, Tim catches him sneaking the recital signup sheet for next year off the fridge. He totally signed up again. Because deep down, he knows that no matter how irritating they are, the Batfam were always going to be the loudest cheer squad in Gotham

And perhaps, just perhaps, he didn’t mind that as much as he claimed.

real

nothing can break the bond between a girl and the anime she watched when she was 12

Damian: Father is going to curse you out, so I’ll ask. Can we have the scroll?

Ra’s Al Ghul: No.

Damian (raising his voice in a high-pitched, innocent tone): Please!

Ra’s (usual strict voice until he sees his grandson's face): No—why are you looking at me like that?

Damian faked a sniffle, pouring on the sad puppy dog eyes and lip quiver. The usually fearless and intimidating Ra's struggled to maintain his composure, covering his mouth to hide his amusement.

Ra’s: Stop it! Don’t pull that crap on me!

Damian (laying on the sweet kid tone): But grandfather... I love you.

Ra’s (trembling): Fine! You can have the scroll! Just quit the act!

Damian immediately returned to his usual self, sporting a smug smile.

Damian: Thank you! We’ll wait here while you retrieve it.

Ra’s groaned and walked off to fetch the magic scroll in question as Batman approached his son.

Batman: What did you say?

Damian: I used manipulation and reminded him I’m his only grandchild... along with puppy dog eyes.

Batman chuckled, shaking his head with pride at his son’s cleverness.

catboy Damian i will miss you 🥺

i do love the idea of the Justice League finding out Batman’s identity and the fact that he’s actually just a tired vigilante dad and immediately discrediting his spooky-scary-intimidating reputation, and Bruce just being devastated about it. he worked so hard on that reputation, on that respect, and it’s all down the drain just like that. nobody flinches away from his glare anymore, because they’ve seen him glare at Red Hood and get a spoonful of mashed potato flung into his face for the effort. nobody cares about his threats anymore, because he tried to threaten Red Robin to go home and rest one time and Tim just giggled at him deliriously before mocking his tone and stealing his coffee. they’ve seen him pick a splinter out of a whining Nightwing’s finger mid-meeting. Damian once called him a condomless harlot to his face when he told him not to bring his swords onto the watchtower. he’s lost control.

he decides he wants the fear factor back and in all his brilliant genius, he decides the best way to go about that is to invite the league round for a fancy dinner party, specifically so he can use all his ‘brucie wayne’ acting skills to channel the essence of every creepy-rich-guy-in-haunted-manor movie he has ever seen in his life. it is the only time his kids have been fully onboard and willing to contribute to one of his plans without any complaints. they almost seemed more eager to pull it off than he was.

they spend the entire day making the manor look old and slightly abandoned, much to Alfred’s displeasure, and ensure that the only lighting is a fuck ton of candles, just enough to light the halls while leaving the corners and edges shadowy and ominous. Damian is allowed to have some of his more ‘skittery’ pets roam the manor freely for the night, causing occasional scritches and scratches to come from the ceilings. all of the kids dress in their best funeral attire, apart from Jason who gleefully pulls on an old white shirt stained with blood from when Tim crashed through his window with a stab wound, requesting a medkit.

when the league arrive they’re greeted by all the kids lined up on the staircase, staring at them blankly and ominously, while Bruce gives them all a large grin and ushers them into the creepy looking dining room. the league are somewhat nervous.

during the dinner the kids act completely different than the league have seen them in-mask. polite, cordial, and refusing to show an ounce of emotion. they pick at their food and only speak in vague sentences that refer to various horrific events of their past. Bruce has never been prouder.

the first close call they have to breaking character is when Bruce presents a bottle of red wine without any kind of label. as he pours a slightly disturbed Diana a glass, she asks where he got it from. Bruce happily gestures to Jason as says ‘my second eldest procured it especially for you, earlier today.’

Diana looks across the table at where Jason is grinning eerily at her by candlelight, still visibly stained with blood, eyes glowing slightly green. she pales, and Tim knows he can’t watch her shakily lift the glass to her lips without bursting out laughing. he refuses to be the one who fucks up first, so he dramatically stands up and declares he must ‘go feed the experiments’ before storming out the room. ‘the experiments’ are in reference to the pen of rabbits outside that glow in the dark because Damian rescued them from a testing facility, but given the environmental context it sounds much more sinister.

Jason joins him by the pen to also start wheeze-crying in private about 20 minutes later, because apparently after Oliver Queen had finished with his bbq rib, Damian had leaned over and without blinking stared into his eyes to blankly state ‘i would love to feed your bones to my animal friends, if you don’t need them anymore.’ and from the other end of the table Jason had snorted wine up his nose from how hard he was trying not to break.

amazingly, they never break character, although it came pretty close when after hearing another skitter from somewhere above, Stephanie climbed up from the table into the crystal chandelier and deftly returned to present the table with a large tarantula cradled in her hands, to which Damian stood up and declared, ‘ah, dessert! i will help pennyworth prepare it.’ before taking the animal and leaving to put his beloved spider back in it’s enclosure. the league genuinely seemed to be under the impression they were about to be served a tarantula-based desert, and upon seeing their faces at this realisation Dick had to pretend he’d dropped a fork on the ground so he could duck by Bruce’s chair and stuff a napkin in his mouth while he got his laughter under control. Bruce pats his shaking son’s back below the table cloth, determinedly staring at their guests with that same creepy-grin he’d kept up the entire night.

every member of the league makes their excuses to leave early, much to Bruce’s exaggerated disappointment. the second the last of them is out the door Alfred turns to face the family and says ‘mission accomplished. now get this manor back to it’s proper state.’ and they have the spend the rest of the night cleaning.

totally worth it, in Bruce’s mind. none of the JL will look him in the eye for weeks afterwards, and it was honestly the most successful attempt at family bonding they’d ever had. he wonders if they should make it a monthly thing. It’s also how they find out Damian’s a fucking theatre kid with a gift for the arts which is another revelation in of itself

Keeping up with the Waynes

(Mission Report)

Bruce: So, let me get this straight. Lex Luthor was in Gotham.

Damian: Yes.

Bruce: And you found him.

Damian: Yes.

Bruce: And confronted him.

Damian: Yes.

Bruce: And you found out that he was doing experiments with Kryptonite serum on puppies?

Damian: Yes.

Bruce: So you got mad. And then?

Damian: And then I shot him in the ass five times as he ran from my sword like a coward.

Bruce: Where did you get a gun?

Jason: To be fair, that was a completely valid response to a report of tortured puppies.

Bruce: Oh.

Peter: Mr. stark can I borrow 2500 dollars?

Tony: Yeah sure but what's it for?

Peter: ...an escape room

Tony: what kind of escape room costs 2500 dollars??

Peter: ...prison

Batkids calling Bruce when they need him.

Dick gets arrested for underage drinking call my dad now he's not in the slightest scared but he wants his dad. Bruce who already got bail done and is wrapping Dick in a blanket.

Jason crashes a car already on the phone with Bruce who is speeding to him.

Tim is falling asleep at the office and wants to go home dad please pick me up. Waking up tucked in Bruce's bed.

Damian gets in a fight at school you call my father right now. He suspended but Bruce hugs him on the way out.

Kids who aren't afraid to call Dad. He wont be mad he wants them to call. To know he will drop everything to get to his boys. Scared birds shouting for the big bad bat and he comes running.

looking respectfully

Tim, 36 hours of sleep driving like a madman on Gotham roads: FUCKING MOVE. SLOW MOTHER FUCKER WHAT ARE YOU- OH YEAH? JUST WONDER TO THE RIGHT WITHOUT SIGNALLING WHY DONT YA? MAYBE NEXT TIME JUST DO US ALL A FAVOUR AND CRASH INTO THAT GODDAMN TRUCK THATS BACKING OUT THAT YOU DIDNT EVEN BOTHER TO GODDAMN SEE-

Damian, just wanting to get to school since Alfred couldn’t drive him: I assure you these imbeciles are not worth your anger Dra-

Tim: I SWEAR IF ANYONE CUTS ME OFF ONE MORE TIME.

*Gets cut off*

Tim: ALRIGHT BITCHES. I WARNED YOU.

Damian, screaming: DRAKE. STOP THIS INSTANT. DRAKE. YOU ARE ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD-