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Had this strange really lucid dream about yet another AU of my AU (that I am never getting around to write) in which Bruce “died” like in Final Crisis # 6.
Now, for obvious reasons, Dixie can't really stand in for him, because the kind of work it would take to make her look like her dad would be enormous, but Jason (who has a really good, really strong, relationship with Dixie) can.
And it's very traumatic for him, but both him and Dixie know that it is what ‘must be done’, so he does.
But the end result? Hilarious.
Because Nightwing follows Batman around like a concerned mother hen and Robin (Damian) just REFUSES to listen to Batman (he can occasionally be reigned in by ‘Wing).
It's obvious and yet no-one ever figures them out, up until Joker escapes from Arkham and has a face-off with Batman and the Dark Knight has a full-blown panic attack.
And yes, Jason is trained, he is capable, he craved a confrontation with his murderer ever since he came back, but…but doing it wearing his dad's suit, his dad's skin, feels wrong. Hence the panic.
And Joker is convinced to have finally bent the Batman, until Nightwing just pummels herself from the darkness and bashes his head out with her escrimas, all the while laughing like she did as a kid: bright, joyful, just shy of manic.
Crooks are terrified.
Utterly paralyzed in horror.
And that horror only amplifies when Nightwing, once again more like Nightwing and not the horror dressed in a traffic-lights suit she once was, hugs Batman and manages to calm him down, all the while she is completely drenched with Joker's blood and brain matter.
Some witnesses say Robin critiqued her technique but gave her praises for her brutal efficiency, but those witnesses also checked themselves in Arkham spontaneously, so who knows.
Tim still went on his world travels trying to prove his theory, so I guess that's why he didn’t appear.