The Pleasures of Civic Duty, by Glossing (Adult)

[caiusmajor.livejournal.com]

Fandom: DC COMICS (subfandom: Golden Age Batman)
Pairing: Bruce Wayne (Batman)/Dick Grayson (Robin)
Author on LJ: glossing
Author Website: glossings
Author's warning: "Intergenerational content some most readers may find disturbing and (thankfully) *obsolete* social values that everyone should find disturbing. I'm not kidding about the Golden Age setting, okay?"
Why this must be read: This is a Golden Age fic--that is to say, it's set in the forties and early fifties, in the earlier years of Batman's publication. (glossing helpfully provides some scans of these old comics that inspired her.)

This fic about who Batman and Robin might have been if they had existed and maintained a sexual relationship in the days of McCarthy--while simultaneously upholding anti-homosexual standards of the day.

A difficult fic to write, and one which glossing, new to this particular fandom, manages splendidly, providing fascinating glimpses of the life in the gay bar Dick is (quite innocently) sent to infiltrate, and of Bruce's complicated strategies of denial that allow him to exclude his relationship with his ward from the condemned catagory.

The style and the setting are Golden Age; Glossing's sensibility is modern, but seeks to understand and get within that of the times.

The Pleasures of Civic Duty, part 1 and part 2.