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Justice League All-Teams Briefing.
Everyone was there — Justice League, Titans, Young Justice, Batfam. Bruce sat near the head of the table. Tim was half-tuned in, quietly typing on his tablet. Jason was already bored and mildly pissed, so basically normal.
Until someone (okay, it was Jason) muttered under his breath:
“Still can’t believe Bruce didn’t even try to avenge me.”
The air shifted. Tim didn’t even look up. He just went, completely flat:
“He skinned a man alive with a batarang for saying your name wrong.”
Silence.
Jason blinked. “He what now.”
Tim looked up, like barely glanced up, and said, “Tied him to a chair in a meat locker. Peeled him like a banana. Took off in the Batmobile, came back with gauze and antibiotics. Patched him up. Then beat him again.”
No one moved.
Clark looked like he was buffering.
Bruce made a small noise, somewhere between a cough and a protest, but Tim kept going.
“Remember that time he tried to break into the U.N.? Because Joker got diplomatic immunity from a fake micro-nation? Superman had to pin him to the wall while I stole Bruce’s backup batarangs — which, by the way, he was hiding in his boot heels. The titanium ones.”
Superman made an “ah yes” nod. “That was a Thursday.”
Wally made a faint, unholy noise.
Tim leaned back in his chair.
“He was snarling in Latin. I didn’t even know Bruce spoke Latin.”
“He doesn’t,” Diana said. “That was infernal dialect. I checked.”
Tim added thoughtfully: “He burned the Bat-Signal into a private jet with a railgun. Didn’t even know we had one of those.”
“He built it that morning,” Superman said.
Jason was frozen. “I’m sorry. He did what.”
“Oh, also — he sewed your old Robin cape into the lining of his cowl,” Tim said.
Now Dick finally spoke up, slow and horrified: “Bruce put Jason’s cape… inside his mask?”
Tim: “He said it helped him see through lies.”
Damian put a hand over his mouth.
Nightwing turned to Bruce like he was seeing his own father for the first time. “You did all that and told me to stop kicking people too hard in the ribs.”
“Why didn’t I know about any of this,” Jason asked slowly.
Tim frowned. “I assumed you did. I had to physically stop him from wiring Joker’s jaw shut and shipping him to an uncharted island guarded by sharks.”
Kaldur murmured, “This explains so much about Gotham.”
“Oh, and the taxidermy thing,” Tim added.
“The what.” said literally everyone.
“He mounted Joker’s coat,” Tim said. “Tried to make it a warning display in the Batcave. Alfred took it down and told him to go to bed.”
Alfred, from the Watchtower feed, sipped his tea but did not deny it.
Tim turned back to his tablet.
“Anyway,” he said, like he hadn’t just recounted a series of felony war crimes, “I’m gonna go back to reviewing WE’s international arms contracts, but just so we’re clear…”
Jason opened and closed his mouth like a fish.
Bruce said nothing. Bruce didn’t even blink.
Diana exhaled. “God, those were the days.”
“Good times,” Clark agreed.
Everyone else in the room looked like they were being held hostage.
Bart whispered to Conner, “How is this the guy who adopted orphans?”
---------------
They should’ve left it alone.
Really, they should’ve just nodded slowly, said “wow, that’s wild,” and moved on.
But no. The moment the Justice League meeting ended, the Batfam, Titans, and Young Justice pulled a joint ops mission: investigate the "Bruce Wayne unhinged war crimes mourning arc."
It started in the Watchtower archive room.
“Look for footage,” Dick said. “Anything from the Joker immunity incident.”
“Why are there folders labeled 'Operation: Vatican Vengeance’ and ‘Clown Funeral 3.0’?” whispered Tim’s assistant Rachel, who had just been pulled into this by association.
Cass silently held up a flash drive labeled "WET WORK (Redacted) – Play When He's Dead."
“Did Bruce title this?” Stephanie asked.
“It’s in his handwriting,” said Barbara. “He even put little bat stickers on it.”
They started watching.
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File 001: "The Railgun Incident"
Footage showed Bruce building a railgun out of parts from a disassembled Batmobile and something labeled "alien tech (do not touch)." He loaded it, tracked a private jet, and burned the Bat-symbol into the wings with terrifying precision.
“Why did no one stop him?” said Kon, horrified.
“We were on no contact,” said Dick.
“I was dead,” said Jason.
“I was thirteen,” said Tim, not looking up from his coffee. “Also holding his spare grappling hooks hostage so he didn’t use them to scale the U.N.”
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File 005: "Peeling a Man Like a Banana"
Jason nearly dropped the laptop.
The footage was grainy. A Gotham thug tied to a chair. Bruce taking out a single batarang and methodically—
“I can’t watch this,” said Wally, turning away.
“He sterilized the batarang first,” Tim pointed out.
“That’s worse!” screamed Duke.
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File 009: “Joker Funeral #2”
This one was a slideshow.
• Bruce standing in front of a coffin labeled “Closure,” setting it on fire.
• A projector displaying Joker’s mugshot with the words “NEVER AGAIN” in red paint.
• A cake that said “Rest in Pieces (Again).”
Diana had taken the photos. Clark had written the speech. Tim was holding a broom like a rifle.
“I THOUGHT THAT WAS A NIGHTMARE,” shouted Jon Kent. “MY DAD SAID IT WAS A NIGHTMARE.”
Clark whispered, “I lied. I’m so sorry.”
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File 014: "The Banana Monologue"
A voice memo. Tim had labeled it “Emotional Damage.mp3.”
Bruce’s voice: low, gravelly, unstable.
“He said Jason deserved it. So I made sure he wouldn’t speak for a week. You ever skin a banana, Alfred? It’s the thumb motion. Very efficient.”
Jason stared at the speaker like it personally betrayed him. “He used the banana metaphor?”
“He used the technique,” Tim corrected.
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File 018: “The Basement Drawer”
There was a drawer in the Batcave marked “Don’t.”
Naturally, everyone opened it.
Inside was:
• Joker’s bloody glove in a vacuum-sealed bag. (this a trophy, Bruce?)
• A lock of green hair.
• A sticky note from Alfred: "Bruce. Therapy. Please.”
• One Batarang, glowing faintly green, labeled “DO NOT THROW – CURSED.”
Bart touched it and immediately passed out.
--------
They all sat in silence for a full ten minutes.
“…So when Tim said Bruce went feral, he wasn’t exaggerating,” muttered Steph.
Tim, sipping his coffee: “I watered down most of it.”
Everyone turned to look at him in horror.
Jason: “Watered. It. Down?”
Tim, cheerfully: “Oh, yeah. I left out the time he tried to bribe Deathstroke into joining a vengeance crusade with a tank full of gold and three of Joker’s ribs in a box. He mailed it. Postage and everything.”
Dick made a noise like static.
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None of them looked at Bruce the same way again.
Whenever he walked in a room, people just kind of… scooted slightly away. Kon stopped making clown jokes entirely. Damian locked up his swords without being asked.
Jason, after two days of silence, muttered: “Maybe he did love me.”
Tim: “You think?”
Steph: “You okay?”
Tim: “I watched him sew a Joker doll and scream into its face for two hours. I’m great.”