Another AU I swore I wrote out ages ago but have been unable to find on tumblr so!

AU where Bruce’s parents die and he swears vengeance, trains himself to become a detective and warrior and a myth only to come back to Gotham and find its not what his city needs. So he puts the unworn Batsuit back in the closet and devotes himself to Gotham publicly. This Bruce Wayne is no playboy, he is dry and intimidating, whipsmart and demanding as he’s determined to drag Gotham out of hell with his bare hands if need be. He argues in courts and petitions for donations and makes allies and enemies like no other as he channels all the fury of Batman in Bruce Wayne. When an orphaned acrobat ends up in his path, he takes the child home and is so thankful he never put on the cape and cowl.

Several years later, when the Justice League forms, none of the metas are expecting human philanthropist to knock on the front door of the Hall of Justice, announce he’s funding their whole operation for the sole purpose of keeping an eye on them. He says all this while a star struck Dick Grayson is sitting atop his shoulders like a little spider monkey. The JLA kind of has no idea what to think only that they can probably handle one human guy.

This is quickly proven otherwise as they’re exposed to the full force of Bruce.

In private, he tells them he’s deduced their identities, which will be protected so long as they continue to act in the name of good. He rolls up his sleeves and does upgrades and repairs to the Hall of Justice, later Mount Justice and the Watchtower himself. Leaguers learn to leave out unsolved case files when Wayne is around only to come back from an extended coffee break to find suggestions or even the answer left on sticky notes. To the world, Bruce Wayne is just another financier to the League, to the heroes, he is absolutely one of them. 

Clark has run out of breath asking Bruce to come more into the fold, to be more than outside support but a true Leaguer. B, sipping his coffee while adding more security to the Watchtower, says he has other responsibilities. By this time, there’s a sarcastic Jason Todd reading a book in the other chair with his feet propped in Bruce’s lap. Bruce continues to crusade relentlessly for Gotham, pulling it’s crime stats down bit by agonizing bit as he drowns the city in welfare aids and second chance programs. But he always comes back to the League, saying he’s there to address problems larger than just Gotham. Maybe he sometimes thinks of that dust covered Batsuit in his closet and wonders what it would like to really stand beside them.

Bruce Wayne is a force of nature who changes the League itself, its heroes finding inspiration in his one man war to help their own cities. Heroes start helping with the mundane but still devastating problems of human life. But it’s not merely Bruce’s activism that inspires them. When Clark ends up with a teenaged clone on his doorstep, he thinks of Dick, fighting corruption as a Gotham City Police Officer or Jason who’s finishing school but already working to take over the Wayne Foundation or the neighbor kid Tim who Bruce discovered was home alone and was quickly assimilated into the household. He thinks of those boys and the contented light in Bruce’s eyes when he sees them. Clark names the boy Conner Kent and takes him home. He and and Tim quickly become inseparable, as close as their pseudo fathers though neither man will admit to it.

It’s Tim who discovers the Batsuit while on a deductive binge of his new guardian. And what Tim knows, Conner knows who immediately spills to Clark. Which is how Superman ended up in the half built, decrepit could have been ruins of the Batcave and asks “why?” 

“It wasn’t what Gotham needed, what I needed,” Bruce will say, not looking at the gadgets he’d built in a time of rage and grief. “Maybe in another life the Batman lived but here, I have my own mission with my own villains in suits instead of spandex. I have the kids who keep me busy enough and a life that is fulfilling, exhausting and enough.” 

“Still strange to think you could have been one of us,” Superman, Clark really since Bruce always made him feel so human. 

“Your organization would have burned itself to the ground years ago if I wasn’t,” Bruce smirks. “Now lets get out of this dank cave, Alfred as a roast in the oven and there’s plenty to go around.”