How To Celebrate Pride From WithIN The Closet

Dick: You use to be so cute and tiny..

Jason: And you use to be cool. We both changed.

Dick: Wha-?! I'm still cool!!

Jason: Okay, 'officer Grayson'. Cops aren't cool.

Dick: THAT WAS A LONG TIME AGO

Jason: STILL FRESH IN MY MIND, PIG!

Dick: LET IT GO!

Jason: NO. YOU WERE THE ONE WHO SAID FUCK THE POLICE! THOSE WERE WORDS I LIVED BY!

Dick: OH MY GOD. YOURE THE ONLY ONE THAT STILL REMEMBERS THAT!

Tim, walking into the living room: I remember it.

Duke, from another room: I heard about it! You've lost 1000 aura man!

Cassandra, poking her head in: I've also heard about it.

Dick: EVERYONE SHUT UP.

Jason: Just like a cop to order people around like that, shameless.

Dick, groans: Fuuuuck-!

Dick: All of you are going to make me age like milk!

Damian, popping up behind him: Is it wrong to say it's too late for that?

Dick, practically shaking: Damian..I swear to God.

Superman is left in the batcave on Robin-sitting duty for the day.

The batkids, (Let's say they're all fairly young and close to age for the sake of this) start to get restless pretty quickly so Clark proposes playing a game.

Hide and seek seem harmless enough. Not too physical, they can't get out of the batcave unauthorized and Clark can just locate them with his super powers if needed.

The first problem is that Cass and Damian don't know how to play. Clark tries to answer their questions 'Is it like a tressure hunt?' 'What are we hiding?' but the other kids start trying to explain and soon everyone is just shouting. Clark raises his voice and goes "Listen! The only rule is you hide and don't let me find you, okay?"

The kids all turn to look at Superman with huge glinting eyes. He ask if there's any questions and they all shake their heads no, and so Clark finally turns around and starts counting down from 100...

The first thing the kids do is grab some Kryptonite along with lead reinforced clothes. Hacking the doors and getting out of the cave is child's play. By the time Clark gets to "Cero! Ready or not here I come!" half of them already left the manor.

Tim and Cass decide to stay close to the enemy, hiding in the air conducts and old passages of the manor. They get to watch the exact moment Clark realizes, 30 minutes in, that he can't find them.

Jason and Stephanie go the disguises route. They stay in Gotham where they're already familiar with life in the streets, blending in and disappearing.

Duke and Damian take Goliath and fly to Dinosaur Island. Mostly because Duke has never been and is exited about the dinosaurs, and Damian likes animals. Also the dinosaurs will distract Superman if he comes too close.

Dick goes... Well he doesn't know where to go. Honestly, after the first 3 hours of walking around he gets pretty bored. Clark has been flying from one side of the country to the other for ages and hasn't even come close to finding him once.

So Dick goes looking for Bruce instead. He's not doing anything, he might as well help Batman kick some.

That's how Batman turns around mid-fight expecting to find another goon only to see his 9 year old son who was supposed to be at the other side of the planet with his siblings. As an explanation Dick says "Superman is Superbad at hide and seek".

Clark never babysits again.

”Wait.” The faintest sound darting out from beneath the door. So so quiet, even though there is nothing else to make noise. Even though there is nothing else to hear it.

“Wait, please.” You turn, key already half in your hands pocket, caught stiff from the impossibility of it. It’s barely louder than a murmur. If your hearing hadn’t twitched just the slightest, if you hadn’t stopped just to double check, you’d be gone. The universe would be shut, dust sheets covering the planets and all the windows and stars locked. Lights off.

“Please?” It’s so unsure. So fragile. The silence threatens to break the noise instead of the other way round. Are they unwilling or unable to raise their volume, to risk being heard, to take up space, to actually stand up and decide they want to exist? What horrors do they think being known will bring?

“Please. I don’t want to be left behind.”

You open the door, and the universe flickers on.

You are Death. The last living thing has died. You've put the chairs on the tables, turned out the lights, and locked the universe behind you. Something whispers from behind the door.

The real reason why none of the bat-boys are allowed in the kitchen

Bruce Wayne as a dad, but he doesn't try to reprimand his kids, he just acts like everything is his 13th reason:

"Jason, if you throw that guy off the cliff, i am also jumping off after him."

"Dick, if you don't get down from there, I will stand under the chandelier when it falls down."

"Damian, if you cut that head off, i will walk into your sword."

actually no, we're not "dating". we're bound together for infinity. like the stars. so, fuck you, actually.

autistic eddie who has only dated steve.

theyve been dating for a few weeks before eddies mind starts to wander and think of what dating someone else would be like. but purely in a logical-scientific-i-must-test-this-hypothesis sense.

so he talks to steve and steve is so supportive. he says eddie should find someone safe to take on a date to test his theory.

the day comes where eddie takes daniel—danny—on a date. steve has a shift with robin at family video.

robin has been anxiously flitting about the store since their shifts began. shes been rambling non-stop about anything and everything—utter nonsense. robin just wants to keep steves mind off eddie being on a date with someone else.

she knows steve. she knows how quickly he falls in love and how close to the cusp of it he is with eddie.

if hes not already there yet.

eventually though, eventually, robins rambling works against her. she cant remember how she got here—talking about her hopeless love life and how shes destined to be alone forever.

but it pops out.

“—just want something like you and eddie.”

silence.

robin stops breathing.

she did that. she totally did that. she cant believe she did that.

steve doesnt say anything. robins back is to him so she cant see his face. she cant see how massively she fucked up.

robin is determined to live her life standing in this family video with her back to steve so she can never see his reaction and never know how she just broke his heart—oh my god shes a terrible best friend—

a noise interrupts her panic. a noise from steve. a noise that robin is familiar with.

robin whips around, nearly spinning in a complete circle with her speed.

—hes—hes—hes—guffawing?

robin doesnt know how else to describe it. steve is behind the family video counter, one hand splayed across the counter. the other hand is holding his stomach as he snort-laugh-coughs?-wheezes so hard robin swears she can feel the vibrations in the soles of her feet.

robin is over here—planning the end of her life because she thought she broke her soulmates heart.

and steve is—steve is—

steve has spent the last 8 months spending time with eddie. he sat by his hospital bed, keeping eddie company with his horrid jokes and stumbling through his first reading of the hobbit because

“stevie its my favorite”

steve drove eddie to his physical therapy appointments and cheered eddie on when the metalhead had good days. steve also embraced the silence and made sure to stop for a treat on the way home when eddie had a bad day.

when eddie was finished with physical therapy, steve learned all of the stretches and exercises that would help eddie maintain his strength and mobility. every day, without fail, steve would remind eddie to do the stretches and exercises the two of them learned. and on days when eddie adamantly refused—steve would use his harrington charm to either guilt or beg eddie into completing them.

even when steve wasnt spending time with eddie at the hospital or for doctors appointments—the two were always together. whether they were showing each other their favorite movies or eddie was forcing steve to expand his music knowledge or the two were sitting out at the quarry, smoking a joint from eddies personal stash—“its the good stuff steve. if we’re gonna be besties you gotta smoke the good stuff”—and gazing at the stars. they were always together.

the point is—the point is—steve has spent a lot of time with eddie. a lot of time where steve has come to see eddie for his likes and dislikes—and read how to see that on eddies face.

steve knows he doesnt have much going for him. hes not book smart, he doesnt have much of a career, hes not overly ambitious (and of course none of that makes him less—thanks eddie) but steve has always been people smart.

hes always had a knack for reading people. he can tell when someone is genuinely enjoying something versus when theyre faking it—even if theyre a really good actor.

and steve has spent a lot of time with eddie—as previously stated—which means steve can read eddie like he hand-wrote that book.

so steve can see that eddie has never been drawn to someone like hes been drawn to steve. even in the beginning, when they were just strangers who had saved the world together, steve saw how eddie reacted to him differently than anyone else. looking back on those moments now, steve recognizes the attraction—the fire—the love—that was lit in his chocolate eyes. steve has never seen eddie look at anyone else that way.

steve also saw how eddie nearly physically recoiled when danny picked him up.

—not that he meant to be there. he totally didnt mean to be there. happy accident. pure coincidence—

max had been asking steve to take her out to the diner—absolutely not begging, no matter what anyone said. it was just coincidence that he happened to do it on the same day and around the same time as eddies date with danny.

—okay so steve and max totally planned it and they were definitely peeking out the curtains of maxs trailer for a full hour before danny finally showed up—

but thats beside the point.

steve had seen danny get out of his car and knock on the trailer door. the door opened and eddie appeared and steve could not contain his snort.

steve didnt know what it was about danny.

his clothes

his smile

his smell

his face

but something about danny repelled eddie. steve saw eddies brow and eye twitch. a sure sign he was holding back from flinching away.

eddie was definitely not interested in danny.

for a second, steve thought about walking over and claiming eddie had outstanding plans with him and max. an easy escape for eddie.

but then steve thought for another second, and couldnt wait to hear about how bad of a time eddie had.

—of course, steve would absolutely step in if eddie was feelng uncomfortable or unsafe. but steve knew that eddie was able to handle himself, and might get frustrated if steve tried to step in. steve also knew that eddie desperately wanted to test his date theory, even at the expanse of himself.

so steve let eddie go on his date, and then steve went to the diner with max and came to work his shift with robin.

which is where he was now, struggling to breathe as he laughs at robins unnecessary panic and counting down the minutes until his shift ends and he can show up at the trailer, hear about eddies date theory, and snuggle up with his boyfriend.

headcanon that the smaller batkids steal the bigger ones' hoodies and jackets. and by "bigger ones" I mean literally anyone bigger than them.

jason gets the short end of the stick because dick and all his little siblings take his. tim's the only one bold enough to go for the leather jackets (well, and cass, but they're way too wide in the shoulders for her) but it's not uncommon to find dick or stephanie in a dark red or gray hoodie that smells of motor oil and gunpowder.

damian usually takes dick's hoodies, but they're very oversized on him. on the bright side, there are thumbholes in the sleeves of all dick's hoodies, so he can still use his hands. the thumbholes make them a hot commodity in the winter.

there is a tim-steph-cass jacket pipeline. steph steals tim's hoodies and cass takes them from steph. hence tim stealing jason's leather jackets -- steph won't take them, so he gets to hold on to them until jason realizes and takes them back. sometimes cass will also steal duke's hoodies, but she always returns them clean and neatly folded (unlike how it goes with the rest of the family, in which they are returned only under threat of blackmail or with long rounds of negotiation).

this is an extremely long-standing ring of jacket theft. you cannot leave a hoodie unattended in wayne manor. damian doesn't actually own any hoodies, and cass only owns one, because there's so many other people in the house to "borrow" one from. nowhere is safe. steph once broke into dick's apartment to steal his warm hoodie, the one with the fuzz on the inside.

but it goes the other way sometimes. jason leaves things in the pockets of his leather jackets for tim -- film for his camera, hand sanitizer, half-filled punch cards for local coffee shops with "drink water too, fucker" written on the back. cass will tuck little slips of paper in the cuffed sleeves when she leaves hoodies out. the notes don't say anything, but they have little smiley faces and hearts on them, and steph has taken to doing something similar with corny jokes. dick just straight-up leaves candy in the hoods of his jackets.

it's a game, it's a love language. it's simultaneously annoyance and affection. there's nothing like wearing a hoodie that's too big for you, that smells like your family, to make you feel safe.

Bruce, at a neighborhood gathering, talking to Jack Drake: Where's Janet?

Jack: Oh, she's sitting down. Carrying a baby all day really tires you out. Speaking of which, you haven't met Timothy yet!

Jack, stealing Tim from Janet to show him to Bruce: Look at this piece of heaven that came down just for us!

Baby Tim: bah •_-

Bruce: ...

Bruce, mentally: Yeah, I need to take him home. I need to raise that thing. He's perfect.

- years later-

Bruce, at Jack’s funeral with Tim at his side: I was playing the long game, idiot.

Tim, through tears: What..?

Bruce, putting an arm around him: Nothing, sweetheart.

a nosy socialite at an event, leaning down: “Oh Richard, it must be so hard for you in that house, what with Bruce’s…proclivities for nighttime guests.”

Dick Grayson, fully aware at age 13 that Bruce Wayne is a Loser™ whose only “nighttime guest” is Clark Kent, who comes over to “review cases” with Bruce before/after patrol while both of them awkwardly ignore any and all tension between them: “Something like that.”