unpretty:

unpretty:

idea: villain with illusion powers tries to pull the whole “actually bruce wayne’s parents never died and that other life was all a dream ps as long as you’re here write down all your passwords and write a huge check to this guy your parents say is your friend” thing but is unsuccessful because it is basically impossible to impersonate bruce’s parents

“when did you figure it out?? >:[”

“i’ve known this was fake from the start, this woman looks nothing like my mother. red lipstick with nude polish?? that dress doesn’t suit her coloring. i said i was deliberately leading vicki on and she didn’t try to ground me, just because i’m a grown man. that’s not how my mother pronounces the word yeti. and this guy! he’s not tall enough to be my father. he hasn’t tried to pick me up even once. and neither of these people has had an uncomfortably flirtatious conversation with the butler in the last six hours. you fool. you imbecile. how could you possibly have thought that this would work.”

this is only tangentially related to my original point but I imagined some kind of shapeshifter or something trying to kidnap little bruce and i just

“I am so sorry, Mrs. Wayne, I can’t imagine what’s come over him, Bruce has never done anything like this before.”

Bruce watched this exchange silently from inside the art supply closet in his fourth-grade classroom. Ms. Harris remained oblivious to the inherent wrongness of the not-Mom wearing his mother’s face.

“He just has an overactive imagination,” the not-Mom reassured her. Her voice was syrupy. She bent to look beneath the desks.

Someone cleared their throat by the classroom door. Bruce tilted his head to try and see who it was.

“Mr. Pennyworth,” said Ms. Harris, pleasantly surprised.

“Mr. Pennyworth,” said not-Mom, less-pleasantly surprised. “You must not have gotten my message. I’ve decided to give you the evening off and spend some time with…”

A reassuringly ominous click of heels against tile silenced the not-Mom.

“… Mrs. Wayne…?” Ms. Harris asked, as alarmed as confused.

“Hello, Ms. Harris,” said the real Mrs. Wayne. She gestured gracefully to her would-be lookalike. “I see you’ve met my long-lost schizophrenic twin, Helga.” She did not so much say the name as dislodge it from her throat. It was not an explanation meant to be believed; only accepted.

“Ms. Harris,” Alfred said, “would you like to come with me for a moment?”

Real-Mom clicked her tongue chidingly. “Oh, Mr. Pennyfarthing, you know very well she would. I believe the music room is empty if you’d like to pop in for a quick canoodle.”

“I — excuse me?” Ms. Harris was a little overwhelmed, and a lot pink. Alfred took her gently by the elbow to guide her toward the door.

“Oh, heavens, if you insist.” Real-Mom waved the two of them away. “Pennywhistle, you may give Ms. Harris as brief or as extensive a canoodling as you feel she requires.”

“Of course, Ma’am.” Alfred was singularly unruffled.

“I don’t know who you think you’re fooling,” the not-Mom said once they were alone, “but I won’t let you take my son.”

“Is that what you think I sound like?” Martha asked. “How offensive. And in the same outfit I was wearing this morning. What do you think I am, a farmer?” She sniffed disdainfully. “You can’t have fooled my Brucie for a moment. The real giveaway would have been the purse.”

“Is that so?” asked not-Mom. Bruce clutched anxiously at the shelf as the not-Mom approached real-Mom.

“Oh, yes.” Martha smiled, a glint in her eye. Bruce found it a comforting glint. “That is the sort of purse I’d bring if I were popping out to a fitting or some such thing. Just the essentials: a checkbook, a pen, some luminol, an aspirin. If I were stopping by Bruce’s school, I’d bring a purse like this one.” She gestured with her red leather tote.

“And what do you keep in a purse like that?” the not-Mom asked.

“A bronze miniature of Rodin’s The Thinker,” Martha said, still smiling. At which point she swung her purse at the not-Mom’s head. It struck with an echoing clang.

“Mom!” Bruce pushed the closet door open, jumping down from the shelf on which he’d stashed himself.

“Stop right there,” Martha warned, and Bruce skidded to a halt. “Turn around.” Bruce spun around slowly, holding his arms straight out. “Were you planning to run away to Seattle?” she accused in faint horror.

Bruce huffed, heavy with indignant petulance as he let his arms fall. He was wearing a flannel shirt from the school lost-and-found. His not-Mom hadn’t said a word. “I got paint on my clothes during art,” he explained.

Martha narrowed her eyes. “Hands,” she ordered. Bruce held his hands out in front of him for her to see, fingers splayed. His fingertips were stained purple. “The little redhead again?”

“Jamie,” Bruce supplied.

“Nail polish and paint are not interchangeable,” Martha scolded, “no matter how pretty the person holding the brush.”

“Yes, Mom.”

“And plaid is for kilts and lumberjacks,” she added.

“Yes, Mom.” Bruce looked, for the first time, at the fallen body of the not-Mom. Wiring and metal protruded from the neck. “How did you know it was a Terminator?” he asked.

“A what?”

Bruce frowned. “You couldn’t hit a person like that,” he said. “They’d die. How did you know it was an evil robot?”

Martha pursed her lips. She looked at the thing with her face on the floor. She looked at her son. “I’m very clever,” she explained.

Bruce nodded seriously.

She sighed, putting her hands on her hips as she considered the imposter. “We really ought to do something about this before some poor child gets traumatized.” She gave the word three more syllables than was strictly necessary.

“Can’t Alfred do it?” Bruce asked.

Martha consulted her watch, and sighed again. “For Ms. Harris’ sake,” she said, “let’s assume he’ll be wanting at least another ten minutes. Realistically, let’s expect to see him in three.”