Dc Fandom - Blog Posts

At a certain point SuperBrentMan where Bruce is Superman and Clark is Batman starts to become more common, and more accurate...

Bruce starts to noticing it, and with some investigation finds that is usually the same 3-4 accounts that make the more accurate, on a personal level, fics

In the mean time that bruce starts to go crazy because he can't find the identity behind those account: Lois, Jason, Barbara and sometime Tim with Kon formed a "SuperBrentMan fic club" and they are the ones behind those 4 accounts that make the accurate fics, and they love it

At some point Clark finds the fic Lois was working on because she forgot to close the file when she asked Clark to proofread an article she was working on, and luckly for Bruce, Clark made them reveal the truth and that their secret identity was safe

It is widely known in fandom spaces that Gotham is heavily split between the SuperBat shippers and the BruceMan shipper

It's an all out ship-war, the two sides vehemently hate and bash each other online

One day someone proposes the obvious: a poly ship

SuperBruceMan becomes one of the biggest ships in the Gotham real-people shipping community

And then Bruce Wayne ruins everything, by publicly dating nobody-reporter Clark Kent

This spawns a third faction (the Brent shippers), and the magic of poly ships are forgotten

Until someone (yet again) proposes polyamory, and SuperBrentMan is born

Identity shenanigans quickly becomes a SuperBrentMan staple, as the ship is made up of two civilians and two unknown vigilantes/superheroes

And thus, the first SuperBrentMan miraculous square fic is born

The utterly charming but ditzy Bruce Wayne must find a way to tell the life of his life, Clark Kent, of his secret identity as an alien superhero, while Clark Kent tries to come clean about being Gotham's dark knight

The real Clark and Bruce are just thankful that the shippers got the identities switched

They never really talk about the way that Tim essentially parented Bruce for a while, but it's an open secret that Tim is the only other person besides Alfred who has a chance to make Bruce see reason when he's particularly stubborn. It doesn't really cross anyone's minds. They don't think too deeply in the matter. It doesn't come up much, anyways.

But then one day, Bruce messed up. Not as Batman, but Bruce Wayne, a father. Now everyone's in the batcave, watching Tim chew Bruce out.

Dick's screaming matches with Bruce is stuff of legend, and also normal, so most have figured out how to tune them out. But this isn't a screaming match. It isn't even a shouting match.

This is Tim tearing into Bruce with pinpoint accuracy: not saying anything untrue, which makes the words dig all the deeper.

Everyone thinks Bruce is going to snap back, but he sits there, cowed. And then, to everyone's (except Alfred's) shock and disbelief, Tim stares him down and says in an absolutely icy tone, "I'm disappointed in you, Bruce." And Bruce just wilts in his chair.

And then he actually apologizes.

Tim - a single dad who works two jobs.

More specifically: Tim, who helped his girlfriend (Steph) through her pregnancy at 15 and looked deeply into pregnancy and child rearing incase Steph wanted to keep the baby, before she decided to put them up for adoption.

Tim, who parented his child (Bruce) as a single parent at 13+

Tim, who is staring at the cloning chamber of his dead best friend(s), suddenly realising this may result in a baby- but jts OK. Because he's prepared.

Robin's are prepared for anything.

And Tim? Tim is fully prepped for a baby. It's ok.

Doesn't matter, in the end. The cloning fails, Kon and Bart return, he finds Bruce. But the idea sits, in the back of his mind... he could be a dad, if he wanted to.

I think I'm already tired of the 'all of one character groups into a collective of multiverse heroes' trope. Or whatever you want to call it.

I just tried to watch 'My adventures with Superman' and I was mentally checked out the entire seventh episode as soon as we found out about the 'league of Lois'.

Honestly, that trope is so dumb. I'm not the only one who thinks that, right?

If I made a Batman movie, I'd cast Robert Carlyle as Scarecrow/Jonathan Crane.

Look at the roles he's played and tell me that man wouldn't do a fantastic job. Whether you want him more serious, or more 'hroo hraa'-esq, he'd play the part well.

I feel it in my bones. He's the ultimate choice.

“What do you want?” Barbara asks, voice crackling with static.

It’s a silly question. Tim wants crime rates to go down. Tim wants Gotham to be a safer city. Tim wants to be a part of making that happen.

“A code name that isn’t stupid.” he says instead.

Barbara sighs. It doesn’t sound like a sigh though. It just sounds like the static’s getting louder.

~

“Bernard Dowd, scholar of the ages.” Tim laughs, arm slung round Bernard's shoulder. “I thought you were meant to be the fun one?”

“I am.” Bernard groans, “as soon as these exams are done I’ll be back to the usual student life. Getting drunk, going on dates, Gotham won’t know what’s hit it.”

“Going on dates?” Tim asks jokingly, even as a well hidden part of him turns slightly panicked. “Any successes an old friend should be hearing about?”

“Not really.” Bernard shrugs, jostling Tim’s arm. “Just a couple of girls I was better off friends with.” He pauses, thinking, before continuing with his voice involuntarily going a little higher. “Couple of guys too.”

“Huh.” Tim suddenly becomes very aware of all the places where his arm is touching Bernard. He doesn’t move it. “Better luck next time.”

Huh.

~

Tim’s been avoiding Dick. He’s been awkward around him lately, Tim thinks that Barbara must have said something. He’s not stupid enough to have done something to send Dick spiralling without noticing it.

“What do you want?” Dick asks, curious, without warning.

Tim wants to ask if Barbara put him up to this but he knows it’s a genuine question. Dick isn’t manipulative like that, not with family.

What does Tim want? Isn’t it a little late for Dick go be asking that question? All the things that happened after Bruce’s death put a canyon of distance between them. It’s slowly been growing smaller but it hasn’t disappeared. Neither of them have had time enough to spend together for that to happen.

An awful, bitter part of Tim that hasn’t stopped screaming since Robin wasn’t his any more wonders if Dick would even be asking if Damian wasn’t out of town right now.

“For us to go train surfing.” Tim says. Petty. Just so Dick will say no and his anger can feel righteous instead of ill-deserved.

“Okay.” Dick says instead. Easy and confident. Himself.

“Oh.” Tim’s anger fizzles into non-existence. “Okay.”

The canyon grows a little smaller.

~

“We should go to a skatepark.” Bernard says, a little giggly from the beer in his hand.

There’s a matching beer in Tim’s hand although it’s still practically full. If there’s an emergency he’ll be of no use drunk. “What? Why?”

“Why not? You were so good in high school! And you had fun doing it.” Bernard’s tone turns a little less giggly. “You should do more things you find fun.”

Tim is surprised enough that the “Okay.” slips out of his lips unbidden.

So maybe the beer bottle is a little less full than he’d like to admit.

They borrow a board from one of Bernard's flatmates and catch a bus to a skate park Tim remembers using when he was younger. As they go Tim tries to remember why he stopped. He tries to remember when he stopped. He can’t recall the answer to either question and annoyance rises in his chest over it.

Then Bernard is saying something and it has Tim snorting with laughter and he forgets his irritation.

Once they arrive Bernard settles himself at the top of one of the ramps like it’s a throne. “Entertain me!” he calls, “Impress me with your wheel-board magic.

Tim manages a kick-flip on his first attempt and Bernard makes a loud noise of approval.

A lot of stuff comes back to Tim fairly quickly. Most of skateboarding had been muscle memory for him and that’s something that being a vigilante hadn’t exactly hindered. As things return to him he regains some faint memories of why he’d stopped. Nothing specific, just that feeling of not having enough time. Of thinking that going to the skatepark wasn’t a particularly useful way to spend his hours while there was still real work to be done.

Tim’s always been a vigilante first, but he thinks there must have been a point when that wasn’t the only thing he was. Well, when it wasn’t the only thing he was that mattered.

“Come on!” Bernard shouts, teeth flashing white against Gotham’s grey-black sky. “I was promised entertainment!”

Tim laughs. He seems to do that a lot around Bernard these days.

He starts moving on the skateboard, deciding to leave the existentialism for another day.

~

First Dick and now Bruce. Tim’s family has really been making a habit of being weird around him lately.

He would normally think that the Bruce was worried about him, that Dick had passed along some bullshit about his mental health and Bruce was practicing some silent vigil. The problem with that theory is that Tim’s been getting better recently, so there wouldn’t be much point. At least he thinks he’s been getting better. It’s difficult to tell sometimes.

Bruce has definitely been acting weird around him though, so maybe he isn’t getting better. Maybe Bruce spotted something Tim didn’t and he’s on the road to insanity.

“What do you want?” Bruce asks one day as they’re both working in the cave. Not Batman. Bruce.

It’s a far stupider question than it was when Barbara or Dick asked it. Bruce is the person who made Tim’s desires what they are. He’s the one who took Tim’s obsession and carved it into a goal.

“What?” Tim asks, loud and confused and maybe a little angry. “What do you mean ‘what do I want’? I want the mission! What else am I supposed to want?”

Bruce stays silent for a moment and Tim imagines him turning the words over in his head. “Nothing else?” Bruce asks. He sounds sad and it makes the anger drain from Tim’s body. “Just the mission?”

“I don’t need anything else.” Tim says hollowly.

Bruce just nods, thinking. It makes Tim want to scream even as satisfaction rises in his chest.

It’s always been a point of pride that he can to lie to Batman. He’s hardly going to change his mind about that now.

~

“People keep asking me what I want.” Tim says, sat on Bernard's bed. “I don’t like it.”

Bernard's turns away from the laptop on his desk so he can look at Tim. “You ever tell them the truth?”

Tim shrugs. He isn’t sure what else to do. “Ish?”

Bernard smiles. “Anyone ever tell you you’re impossible, Tim Drake?”

“Only everyone I’ve ever met.”

Bernard barks out a laugh before sobering up and looking at Tim with ill-disguised curiosity. “Do you want to tell me the truth about it? Or did you just want to say the thing out loud?”

“I’m not sure.” Tim admits, and he has to stop himself from acting taken aback by the fact he actually said that. Tim never says when he’s uncertain. There isn’t room for it. Bernard must know that too because he looks at Tim in surprise, then scoots his chair closer to the bed so that he and Tim are almost touching.

Bernard looks very cautious. “You know that’s okay, right?”

“I-“ Tim starts, because is it? Is uncertainty the kind of luxury he can afford? “I want to want things. But it feels like I’ve forgotten how.”

“You’ve had a rough couple of years.”

“How do you-“

Bernard smiles knowingly. “You’re not as hard to read as you think, Tim. Well you are. But it’s not difficult to tell that some bad things must have happened since I last saw you.”

“Yeah.” Tim says hoarsely, thinking back to the burn of his muscles as he dug up Kon’s grave, the stinging of desert sand in his eyes, the moment of confusion when he woke up in a league of assassins base unsure if he’d had to die to get there. “Yeah. Bad things happened.” He shakes himself a little, because those aren’t the thoughts he wants lingering. He focuses back on Bernard who’s closer than Tim had realised, worry creased between his eyes. “What about you?” Tim asks, trying to exert some measure of control over the conversation. “What do you want?”

“Thought we were talking about you?” Tim might have let it go with that if not for the note of nervousness in Bernard's voice and the red creeping up the back of his neck.

“We can talk about both of us.”

“It’s not important right now.”

Tim reaches out then. He takes Bernard's hand in his because Bernard makes him laugh and he looks so nervous and Tim wants to. Bernard looks down at their hands in surprise and Tim doesn’t actually feel worried. Just expectant that Bernard is going to squeeze their fingers together more securely. He does. “You sure?” Tim asks.

Bernard just looks at him. Mouth parted with shock. He seems to come back to himself though and his expression of surprise turns into something more confident. More familiar. “What if I wanted you?” he asks, hesitancy and confidence rolled into one voice.

“Give me some time to remember how to want things, and I think I’ll want that too.” Tim replies, just as unsure and utterly certain.

Bernard tangles their fingers together a little more firmly in response and Tim feels more hopeful than he has in a long time.