Anonymous asked: I'm curious to know what would Bruce's reaction/feelings would be to Damian and Steph's relationship in your stories or in any 'verse.
No matter the universe, Bruce would find the whole thing very worrisome. I feel like if he was genuinely attracted to Steph, Damian would go out of his way not to let it show. If Tim and Bruce were hovering in his life, Damian would find it tactically unwise to pursue Steph. Tim would translate it as him trying to take yet ANOTHER important thing away from him—-because lol he “had” her first, and a person is synonymous with a mantle, right—-and Damian knows that if it were to become a family fight, the majority would agree that he is doing this just to get a rise out of Tim. Damian would be cagey—-he’d all but ignore Steph when they were in mixed company in uniform, complain loudly whenever he had to patrol with her alone, and slip away to have ~undercover meetings~ with her. Steph would just chalk it all up to Damian being a paranoid, nutty teenager, and hey—-Lil’ Matches takes her to nice restaurants. She would have no idea that he’s attempting to court her, because Waynes are incapable of talking about their feelings in a rational manner. Damian would try to hide it, but only because he wouldn’t want his feelings to be reduced to petty attempts to irritate his brothers.
But since Bruce is Bruce, he’d pick up on Damian’s irregular behavior. He wouldn’t realize that it’s directed at Steph—-not at first, at least. Out of all of the kids he has mentored, Steph is the one that he understands the least. I don’t think that he would expect her to reciprocate Damian’s feelings, so he would worry about the whole mess. Damian is very, very capable of hurting her—-physically, obviously, but emotionally as well; saying that Damian is emotionally damaged is an understatement. He doesn’t have any idea what a normal healthy relationship looks like. Steph has been through the wringer several times over, so Bruce would honestly worry for her. He would worrry for both of them, but he’s not good at expressing that. So he’d probably tell Damian that it’s unacceptable.
Which wouldn’t work. Steph would have A Talk with Bruce, pointing out (with illustrations) that there has been a precedent in younger Robin/older Batgirl relationships (s’up DickBabs), that she is an adult woman that is more than capable of making her own decisions, and that Damian is better off with one of their clan than dating outside of the Bat pool. Bruce would run a few mental scenarios of Damian + Pretty Socialites, realize that there is no way for that to end well, and begrudgingly give them his blessing.
And then Dick would descend upon Robins four and five and make it his solemn duty to emarrass the hell out of them both because LOOK AT YOU TWO BEING SO CUTE DAMIAN HOLD HER HAND GIRLS LIKE IT WHEN YOU HOLD THEIR HAND TRUST ME OKAY I KNOW WHAT GIRLS LIKE I AM DICK GRAYSON. From then on out, most of their dates would be crashed by one or all of the other brothers.
As far as NDND goes, their relationship happened because no one else was around. Well, except for Jason, and Jason encouraged them to make kissyfaces because he is a great big troll. I still have a half-finished and completely self-indulgent fic of Jason and bb!Laila having a time travel adventure sitting in my WIP folder.
“So. How many times have you run the tests so far? Three times? Ten?”
Bruce didn’t look up. Oh, he was in a state.
“Puzzling, isn’t it, Detective? The DNA samples of both the parents only exist in one database in the world, and it’s yours. So how am I pulling this caper off, you’re asking yourself. And what do I have to gain from it? Because oh goodness, surely your faithful lover, the scientific method, isn’t feeding you lies. Perish the thought!” Jason was enjoying this. How could he not? It was so rare to see Bruce squirm with frustration. And he hadn’t even had to do anything to mess with him this time. Little baby Laila was enough of an enigma that Jason got to watch Bruce agonize without ever having to raise a finger himself. “However did the twelve year old manage to knock up Batgirl without you noticing? Quite the mystery.”
Yeah, Jason just takes it as a trolling opportunity, basically.
