Minimum Height Requirement
is a Batman fanfiction created by DragOnstOrm.
Bruce is determined to ensure that none of his adopted kids ever take up a cape...
This fanfic provides examples of:
- Abuse Mistake: An argument that Bruce uses to convince Dick to not become a Kid Sidekick is that his inevitable injuries would be mistaken as Bruce physically abusing him.
- Adaptational Heroism: Jason Todd does not develop his Anti-Villain and Knight Templar traits in this version, though he's still extremely violent by the standards of the Batfamily.
- Animal Theme Naming: Jason takes the title of Flamebird, keeping the bird theme, and which has its origins in the same Kryptonian myth from which Dick took the mantle of Nightwing.
- Big Brother Instinct: Both Dick and Jason. Here it is Jason's death that causes Dick to leave Gotham and become Nightwing.
- Blatant Lies: The thin-veiled excuses that Bruce and Dick use to explain away their injuries to Jason.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: What Bruce and the Justice League think Jason has become as he goes on a rampage as Red Robin. In actuality, he realized that he could not escape Ra's unless he pretended to hate Bruce and want revenge and played the part.
- Child Prodigy: Tim who, like in canon, was able to deduce Batman's identity.
- Cuddle Bug: Dick. Jason calls him a huggy octopus.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: When Dick lists every single Kid Sidekick who ended up broken by the job, it's strongly reminiscent of kid celebrities falling to drugs, mourning their lost glory or having a run-in with the law.
- Entertainingly Wrong:
- Damian reasons his father's sidekicks don't see fighting before their late teens because they need to be sufficiently trained, but Damian himself has been subjected to Training from Hell since early childhood so he gets to be Robin right now, doesn't he? Bruce doesn't waste time popping this dream.
- Played for Laughs when the kid later concludes Bruce is trying to get Cassandra to enter their little coterie because Jason needs a girlfriend — Dick and Tim did start dating Barbara and Stephanie when both girls gave a try to the vigilante gig, after all. When Dick points this is not the normal way for relationships to develop, Damian's answer is basically "bitch please, normality is only a word for this family".
- Exact Eavesdropping: Tim has been able to get close enough to Batman to hear him speak to Oracle.
- Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Bruce, which is the whole point.
- For Want Of A Nail: Because he's not a Child Soldier and has a much happier stay at Wayne Manor, Jason develops a far better relationship with all members of the Batfamily, including Tim after he comes back from the dead.
- I Just Want to Be Loved: Damian is desperate for Bruce's attention. He tried to invoke Klingon Promotion on Jason because the older teen spent so much time with their father and is internally devastated when Bruce tells him he's not interested in Damian's fighting prowess, which the boy interprets as himself having no value.
- I Know You Know I Know: In the epilogue, Bruce has this relationship regarding Tim spiking his coffee to deal with his growing pain.
- In Spite of a Nail:
- In spite of the fact that Barbara always was Mission Control in the fic she still gets paralyzed by the Joker
- Jason still dies, albeit differently which also results in Dick becoming Nightwing.
- Irony: Due to his unpleasant stay with the League of Shadows, Jason comes to detest Talia, with whom he has a fairly good quid pro quo relationship in the comics, to the point where he recoils in disgust upon realizing that Damian is her child.
- Damian develops an antagonistic relationship with Jason instead of Tim.
- Heroic Willpower: Jason is able to resist the Lazarus madness and bloodlust.
- Hypocrite: All Al Gouls suffer from it. Ra's crusade is to satisfy his own blood lust, Talia constantly declares her undying love for Bruce but she basically tortures his son for nearly two years, Damian pontificates about "honourable combat" after having sneaked up on Jason and having stabbed him with a poisoned blade, ect.
- Lighter and Softer: The relationship between the various kids is more amicable than in canon. Dick for instance does not become Nightwing until after Jason dies, meaning that he doesn't see Jason as a replacement and has thus avoids his Big Brother Bully in canon, and while Jason still becomes Red Hood, his relationship with the Batfamily is not shattered because of it.
- Mission Control: Dick and Barbara take this role as they're not allowed to become vigilantes.
- Mythology Gag: Barbara's return to crimefighting leads her to adopt the moniker "Batwoman" — who's infamously a readhead.
- Papa Wolf: Bruce does everything he can to prevent his kids from hitting the streets in costume. The kidnappers that kill Jason end up in body casts, and most of them do not survive jail once some of the smarter crooks there figure out that Batman was rather upset by Jason Wayne's murder and might come back to visit.
- The Plague: A disease spreads through Gotham in chapter 4, as part of an evil plot.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Bruce won't allow any of the kids to become vigilantes until they're eighteen.
- Secret Test of Character: Jason thinks that the reason why Bruce adopted him was to see if he could become the new Robin. He then finds out that Wayne Manor has a strict no underage vigilante rule.
- Spotting the Thread: Jason slowly pieces together that Bruce and Dick are vigilantes as they're fine when he goes to sleep but randomly hurt in the morning.
- Training from Hell: Jason gets one, courtesy of the League of Assassins.
- Kid Sidekick: Deconstructed. Bruce doesn't want any of his adopted kids to become vigilantes, even though other superheroes have sidekicks, because many of these kids get heavily injured.
- Wacky Marriage Proposal: Dick planned something romantic and dignified but a villain with a collector hobby ended up finding the ring he got for Babs while going through his gear. Just in time for Babs to rescue him.
- Would Hurt a Child: The various criminals in Gotham City have little problem with maiming kids.
