The best cover for Bruce Wayne would be dumb carefree playboy who is also Instagram Optimistic, everyday he’s posting a selfie of his smiling at his breakfast with a caption like “it’s a waffle day! #goodvibesingotham #grateful” or a picture of a sunrise with a caption that’s just “wow #blessed”
Bruce Wayne ending up as Gotham’s favoured son because he may be an idiot, but he’s a cheerful idiot, and he donates tons to charity and genuinely loves Gotham and actually, truthfully does put a lot back into the city. And his instagram is a bright ray of sunshine, and honestly there are a lot of people in the city who get surprisingly defensive of their Dumb Carefree Playboy because, okay, sure, every month or so Bruce Wayne falls off a yacht or sleeps with a reporter or whatever. The man clearly never met a healthy coping skill even once in his life.
But as far as news regarding Gotham’s prominent citizens go, Bruce’s ‘scandals’ are so normal that it’s downright refreshing. When a headline has ‘Bruce Wayne’ in the title, you know you’re either going to read some Celebrity Gossip level non-drama, or else something to do with a charity. Maybe he’s been kidnapped again, but that’s only happened a few times. Bruce Wayne news is like the Gotham equivalent to special reports about dogs who rescue their owners from drowning, or raccoons who’ve figured out how to get past the new self-locking garbage can lids.
And there’s something weirdly reassuring about following his twitter. Like, if Bruce Wayne is tweeting about a really neat old tree he just saw, things must at least be sort of alright.
(Meanwhile, Bruce’s social media persona is 100% him flanderizing Clark.)
what if Happy Bruce is kind of a little bit real.
like, it started out as a distraction to keep the media away from batman. but being so dour all the time is exhausting, and he has serious Issues and isn’t really working on them. having this one little outlet where he can just step away from the weight of the world and be happy for a second is a kind of therapy. he needs it.
then there comes a time when he can’t access the internet for a while. he’s trapped in some other dimension or something. but he keeps queueing up these posts, even the ones he knows he’ll have to delete because they’d give something away, because he just. doesn’t feel right if he doesn’t do it.
“roasted iguana for supper again. i think i’m getting good at this! #cooking #barbecue #alfredwouldbeproud”
you can’t say “i know batman” and get away with it in gotham. “i saw batman last night”? plausible. he uses roofs and balconies more than actual solid ground so yeah, you probably did see him. “he was only five feet away from me at the central plaza when the bomb got defused”? so was half of the city because the joker decided christmas eve was the best time for an explosion. but, “i know batman”? are you sure? are you sure you know batman? does anyone really know batman? maybe batman doesn’t know batman, the layers of secrecy on that guy are thicker than that time the gotham river got filled with dense tart sauce but the authorities thought it was blood
meanwhile in metropolis, “i ate a burrito with superman” is probably met with “you didn’t bring him to your grandma’s for that sunday roast i know she rocks? what is wrong with you? i baked him cookies while he was telling me about his mom’s cooking. how could you treat him like that, jennifer, the guy saves us from brainiac every two weeks”
It probably really irritates Wonder Woman when the Justice League is getting shot at and she has to do the Robot to block bullets with her bracelets–meanwhile Clark is just standing there, bullets bouncing off his chest. He’s not even wearing armor. His mom just sewed some of his old baby blankets together and he’s making it work.
And she has to lug a shield around just so, like, fucking muskets can’t kill her. Like if someone shoots an arrow at her, she needs to block that, or she’ll die, apparently.
So just off-screen there, picture Superman just casually strolling by. “Hey, you, uh, you need some help there? Wanna stand behind me? I have this cape, it blocks bullets too.”
what if it seems like batman has safehouses all over the country because he’s a paranoid maniac always ready to go into hiding in iowa, but actually he just goes on a lot of business trips for his day job and when he sees a cute house he buys it and stays there. he grew up in a big mansion with a butler, a house with only three rooms is like camping for him. he thinks it’s fun. he gets to play house and eat cereal for dinner. the flash accidentally committed some light treason and needs to lay low for a while so batman sets him up at this little place in maine. flash is like “wow he really does plan for everything” but no, he just saw an old queen anne with green shingle siding and white accents and he couldn’t help himself. it had a wraparound porch and a spire. a spire. technically it wasn’t in his carefully alloted ‘whims’ budget but he sold an extra yacht to make room. “geeze bats i get that it’s a safehouse but couldn’t you have stocked the pantry with something besides kix and peanut butter?” flash asks. “they’re shelf stable,” batman says, as if that is why he bought those things, as if this is not just What He Does when alfred leaves him unsupervised.
Idea: the bats give the villains a way to contact them after they realize that since many of the villains compete for resources, it would be in their best interests to report their competitors.
This is a very important idea because it comes with the image of Two-Face and Penguin yelling at each other in a back alley, deciding to report each other at the same time, and diving for their phones. Cobblepot frantically scrolls through his contacts while Harvey screams HEY SIRI CALL BATMAN into his speaker. If only they had put Batman on speed dial
#the phone rings behind them #bruce is standing on the nearest rooftop judging them silently #he already has so many children #he just wants to rest #but NO #OH!! #also jim pulling a villain off the street #after he’s been standing by the batsignal for two hours like #YEAH harley can i borrow your phone I gotta phone a friend #hello its jim ANSWER YOUR LIGHT
what i do is not up to you 