Work Text:
How to pay a parking ticket in three easy steps:
First step is to earn a Parking ticket, that shouldn’t be that hard. Just pull up to the scene of a crime, leave your vehicle running and half on the sidewalk half in the road. Then make sure that you go make out with your girlfriend on top of the roof where you get caught with your pants down by your son who is a cop. Thus one parking ticket was easily earned.
The next step is to actually find out from the courts or the county office how much you owe for said parking ticket. Now for most people it is very easy. You just head to the county office to show your driver's license and they give you an amount of money to be paid. But that does tend to only work on people in the system. You see Batman does not have a driver's license. He doesn’t pay county taxes or have any form of valid legal identification.
Batman stalked into the county clerk's office, he was dressed head to toe in dark kevlar perfect for blending into the dismal nights in Gotham. Not so good at hiding under the flickering fluorescents in a municipal office building built in the late 50’s. The clerk looked over the edge of her reading glasses at the tall imposing figure standing before her.
“Can I help you?” She said.
“I’m here to pay a parking ticket.” The Dark Knight growled.
“Don’t growl at me sonny, I’m not the one who can’t park apparently. Take a number from the machine over there and wait your turn.” the old lady pointed at the ticket dispenser. “Your number will show up on the screen there if you can’t hear the announcement. Now shoo.”
Batman blinked in shock. He was shooed away from the counter. He walked over to the dispenser as the speaker overhead announced in a staticy whine.
“Now serving Dc39 at counter number 1.”
The Blonde-Soccer-Mom in the corner slowly stood up and walked to the counter just vacated by Gotham’s Bat. “I’m here to pay my property taxes.”
“ID, bill and credit card.”
The five year old sitting in the waiting room across the aisle stared at Batman with wide eyed terror. Batman fidgeted under the kid’s terrified gaze. Batman had created this persona to frighten criminals and villains not children. He did the only thing he could think of to diffuse the situation.
“Would you like a sucker?” Batman pulled out something round from his BatBelt.
The kid started to wail in fear as the demon spoke to her. The child's mother looked up at the vigilante, grabbed her purse and swung at his face.
“What did you do to my little girl? Just because her name is Robin you can’t have her. Sicko you're not going to put her in tights and parading her around rooftops at night.”
Batman was hit in the face with a fake Gucci that weighed at least ten pounds. Angry bouffant with a child named Robin picked her kid up and hustled across the room. Batman rubbed his jaw, not even Bane had hit him with that kind of force. Hopefully the bruising wouldn’t start until after patrol so that he could claim it was some criminal that socked him, not a vengeful housewife.
Batman pulled his arms tighter around himself, shrinking himself down as much as a 6’’ 4’ 225lb man in kevlar armor can. There was a reason he didn’t go out in the daytime. Batman did not like this at all, maybe he was allergic to government buildings. It would explain why his chest was suddenly getting tight and his breath a little wheezy.
“Now serving Dc 45 at counter number 1.”
The speaker crackled overhead once more. This time it was a cheap business suit with thinning hair that approached the counter. “I’m here to get a new title for my car.”
“ID, bill and credit card.”
crackle screech. “Now serving Dc 48 at counter number 1.” crackle screech.
Angry bouffant and Robin went up to pay another useless county fine. The child hid in her mothers arms and the lady did not stop glaring at him anytime she wasn’t look at the clerk.
“Now serving Dc 52 at counter number 1.” crackle screech.
“Now serving Dc 52 at counter number 1.” crackle screech the speaker repeated.
Oh that was his number. He swooped up to the counter and tried again.
“I’m here to pay my parking ticket.”
“ID, bill and credit card.” The lady asked in a toneless voice.
“I don't have an Id, or a credit card, I have the parking ticket right here.” Batman said apologetically, handing her the ticket that was left on the hood of the Batmobile.
“ID, bill and credit card.” The lady repeated looking at him over the edges of her glasses in scorn.
“I don't have any of that. I just want to pay the parking ticket.”
“And I want to marry Bruce Wayne and inherit all his money. We don’t get what we want sonny.” She started pulling forms from her files. “If you don’t have any of that you're going to first get an ID, then we can find your bill once we have your id but you're still going to need a credit card because we don't take cash.”
She passed him a ratty clipboard with a pen on a string duct taped to some truly awful plastic flowers. The stack of forms were about an inch and a half thick. She shooed him back to the plastic chairs of doom. Part of Bruce died inside when he saw the forms.
This was never going to work. Batman was a symbol not a person. Still he soldered on, he would fill out these forms if it killed him.
#1: Check all boxes that apply: New registration Check…
#2: Are you a US citizen?
Was Batman a citizen? Bruce Wayne was a citizen, and you could say that Batman was born on the streets of Crime Alley so: Yes. Bruce scribbled a mark in the box.
#3: Are you at least 17 years old?
( if not do not fill out this form instead fill out form 1398b)
How old was Batman surely it had been longer than 17 years right. Bruce started calculating on his fingers if I adopted Dick two years into playing Batman, well no I adopted him just a year ago but I took him in 13.5 years ago… so that meant Batman is only 15 and a half. Should he go ask for a 1398b? Or just keep filling this one out and hope that nobody asks
#4: Name:
Oh thank god this should be easy. BATMAN, wait it wants a last name too… should I put BAT MAN and have man be the last name. Why is this so hard.
#5: Date of Birth:
What day should he put: the date that his parents were shot? The first day he decided to get training? The first day he went out? The day he started the Justice League? He skipped that one.
#6: Gender:
Now not many people know but Bruce Wayne was agender, he never bothered to correct the media because that was not a thing he needed plastered all over the tabloids and made into a circus just because he didn’t feel like gender should be something anyone should be considered about. He could just put male because it was Batman but something felt wrong about that. He skipped that question too.
#7: Are you a Resident of Gotham County?
No, the Batcave was in Bristol County, yes it had only split last year because the governor decided to run with the promise to get rid of that cesspool of crazy called Gotham, but he was no longer considered a resident of Gotham County.
An hour later Bruce finally finished the last form. With a cramp in his hand and tears in his soul he stood back up and tried to hand the clipboard to the lady at the desk.
“Nope sonny, you got to pull a new number now.”
Bruce looked at the completely empty room and then the eyes of the Soulless Vampire County Clerk and trudged back to the ticket dispenser.
crackle screech “Now serving Dc 85 at counter number 1.”
He trudged back to the desk and passed the forms to the Clerk.
“I’d like to pay my parking ticket please.” He said in a defeated flat voice.
“ID, bill and credit card.” She responded in an equally dull voice.
She took the forms and shuffled through the papers tuting under her breath. Stupid people can’t fill out a form properly. She glared up at the exhausted man. He flinched. Batman has never flinched in the face of villainy or evil in his life and he flinched at the sight of a tiny old lady glaring at him about misfilled forms.
Once all the forms are filled out the third step is to pay the ticket. Again it should be easy once you know how much you owe you simply pay the county clerk and you can go out and park badly all over again.
“Please just let me pay the ticket,” he begged.
“I’ll pay a thousand dollars in cash just to get a receipt that says I paid the ticket please.” Batman literally begged his captor the clerk.
“Are you trying to bribe a county official?” She peered over the glasses of doom piercing his very soul with her stern gaze.
“No ma’am,” he said with the manners that Alfred had drilled into him from his earliest childhood.
“Here is the map you need to go to the Bristol Office. You need to get an Id, then you can come back for the bill and you should remember to bring a credit card. ID, bill and credit card understand.”
Bruce trudged out of the county office in defeat. When he got outside, he saw another slip of paper on the window of the Batmobile. Parking violation: Been there too long pops. L♥️ve OFFICER GRAYSON written on the back. He looked at the sign on the curb, Gotham County parking 2 hours or less. His son was a sarcastic little shit. Now he had two parking tickets to pay.
Later…
“I’m glad you guys came over, I don’t know if he’s been exposed to pollen or fear or what he hasn’t stopped mumbling and shaking since he got home a couple of hours ago.” Tim said, pointing at Batman’s trembling form in the corner. “Every tox screen I've run has come back negative but I have no idea what could be causing this reaction.”
Jason and Dick look over at their dad.
“Dang you look terrible, Old man. What happened to you?” Jason said. “Do we need to go shoot someone for you?”
No matter how often they fought Jason was still highly protective of his family, only he was allowed to mess with the Bats.
“I told you he would be fine Master Tim, he just spent today trying to pay his parking ticket that Master Dick gave him the other day.”
“Doesn’t he have people to do that for him?” Jason asked.
“The one you gave him for the Batmobile, as I understood it you told him if he didn’t pay then ‘dire fates would await him’ I think he just realized how much of a pain modern bureaucracy is when you can’t pay them off or get special treatment because you're rich.”
“Wait, are you saying he’s having a nervous breakdown because he went to the DMV all day?” Jason cackled in glee.
“I believe it was the County Clerk's office, but yes and he’ll have to go to the DMV as well to get his license before he can pay the parking tickets.”