Archive of Our Own ^beta

Everyone has a mark. 

It is an identifier, like a fingerprint in the shape of an animal, symbol, or object that best represents an individual’s personality, their life, their dreams, their struggles. Each mark is unique in design and color. Your soulmate, be they platonic or romantic, has your identifier on their body, and you have their identifier on yours.

Until you meet your soulmate, the soul mark that represents them will be ink black. Only when you see your soulmate’s identifier will it change from black to color.

Bruce can remember conversations with his parents and Alfred from when he was younger, asking about exactly how soul marks worked, and whether or not there were delays or abnormalities.

He is fascinated with them.

Maybe because he has none.

No soul marks.

Not even an identifier.

Bruce doesn’t understand why - he loves his parents, he loves Alfred, and they have soul marks. Why doesn’t he? Does he not love them enough?

Do they not love him enough?

Bruce grows up as a quiet child. Quiet, yet curious, wanting to know everything there is to know about soul marks in the hopes of discovering some miracle. Some reason as to why he was born a ghost - without even an identifier to represent his personhood. 

There are rumors at school - rumors that Bruce Wayne has no soul. The mean kids say that Bruce was never meant to be born, and that is why he is without a soul mark. The nice ones say that it is invisible, a reflection of Bruce's silent demeanor.

All of Bruce’s life, he yearns for a soul mark. For a soulmate.

Then, his parents are shot dead in an alley, and he watches as their soul marks - two gemstones on the sides of their necks - fade away in tandem.

Looking back at that moment, as he often does, he supposes there is something poetic to it. Their lives ended together; their hearts stopped beating at the same time; their souls were never apart.

The memory makes Bruce sick.

All he can remember is how the colorful marks faded with the light in their eyes, dying right in front of him.

Bruce always wanted a soulmate. He always wanted someone to care for him, to love him unconditionally and be his other half. He wanted the reassurance of their existence printed on his skin, right where he could see it. He wanted to love the idea of them, then fall in love with them all over again in person.

Not anymore.

He can’t have a soul mark. Knowing him, he’d just spend every moment of every day checking it, making sure that the mark was still sharp, still present, the colors still vivid - if he has the fortune to meet his soulmate, that is.

And, knowing his luck, he probably won’t.

Even if he had one.

Which he doesn’t.

No, it’s better that he doesn’t have a soulmate. He has wanted a soul mark for so long… Getting one would send him into an obsessive frenzy. He’d want eyes on it at all times, because what if he lost them before he could meet them.

It’s better this way.

He’s proud of his decision. It’s not an easy one to make, and it hurts every time he thinks about it, but it’s for his own good.

The night of his parents' deaths, after Alfred has helped him clean the blood off his hands, Bruce feels numb. He doesn’t feel like moving a single muscle. Even breathing takes an immense amount of effort. He wouldn’t have found the energy to change into pajamas on his own - but Alfred guesses as much and helps him out of his bloody formal wear. Alfred has always been good at reading him.

He works carefully but promptly, and Bruce can’t help but think of happier times - of going up to their cabin in Vermont, getting Alfred to help him in and out of his heavy snow gear every time he wanted to go outside.

He barely registers the sharp gasp from Alfred. “Sir, you’ve... Your shoulder...”

Bruce cranes his neck back, trying to see what Alfred is talking about. He can’t make out the details, but there’s a black mark there that definitely hadn’t been there before.

Alfred holds up a mirror for him so that he can see it - the mark of a black bat. Something inside tells him: that’s his identifier. He was supposed to be born with it.

He supposes that it’s poetic, in a way. Something in his soul died with his parents. Something else has been born.

A Black Bat.

That charcoal black is the color of loneliness; of misfortune; of grief. It’s a color that shows you’re incomplete, that you haven’t met your soulmate, yet. That you’re still searching. It’s not supposed to be your identifier.

But it’s there. Inky black on his shoulder.

He doesn’t really register it, when he first sees it. It’s just another in a series of life-altering events, for tonight. He’s already had more than he can deal with for at least a week. There will be time to fear his new identifier later. For now, he needs to mourn.

The next week passes in a fog. From his bedroom window, he can see the front gates of Wayne Manor, where dozens of reporters and photographers wait for their first glimpse of the newly orphaned Bruce Wayne.

The eight-year-old heir to Gotham’s biggest corporation.

The son of two philanthropists, beloved by Gotham and gunned down in its streets.

Bruce doesn’t go outside. He doesn’t want to go out of his room, most days. Alfred doesn’t comment. He doesn’t really say anything. Nothing of substance, anyway.

“Come now, Master Bruce. Up you get. I must clean the sheets, today.”

“Finish your supper and I’ll bring you your desert, if you feel up to it.”

“How are we feeling today, Master Bruce?”

Only once does Bruce speak in those days. He looks up at the butler - his new guardian, his mentor, his protector, the replacement for his parents - and says, “I’m all alone now, Alfred.”

Alfred freezes where he stands, in the middle of making the bed. After a second, he turns to Bruce. He says nothing, mouth partially open like he wants to talk, wants to reply...

Bruce gives up on waiting for a response and goes back to staring out the window.

Alfred goes back to making the bed.

The week passes.

Eventually, Bruce’s grieving time is over. He must go back to school, pretend like he is still the same Bruce Wayne that once was dropped off at the same building by his mother on Thursdays. The thought makes him want to change his name. He no longer feels like Bruce Wayne, anyways.

But he can’t. His parents gave him that name. It’s his. He can’t abandon it.

The school does a decent enough job of keeping the reporters back, but they still swarm by the gates, clamoring for a photo, a comment, a tear, maybe.

Bruce soldiers on, shutting down his social abilities in favor of just surviving the immense pressure of it all.

At least they don’t find out about his identifier. He’s glad that Alfred is so protective of him - he doesn’t have the energy, doesn’t have the will to protect himself. His parents used to tell him horror stories, people getting tattoos to fake being someone’s soulmate, just to get something from them. Of course, Bruce has also heard the love stories: about people finding love despite not being soulmates, choosing to have their spouse’s soul mark tattooed in defiance of the very notion that love is tied intrinsically with fate.

A few months pass, and Bruce finds a new normal in his life. He hates it - there’s a dark cloud hanging over him, a constant storm in each room where his parents used to be - but it’s stable. It’s a new foundation. He can build from here.

He starts wearing turtlenecks all the time, covering up his skin to stay away from the prying eyes of a hungry gossip columnist. He was already a popular subject of conversation because of the tragedy in his life. He wasn’t about to be put back in the spotlight for his odd identifier.

Alfred wasn’t much of a presence in the house, before his parents’ passing. He would drive Bruce to and from school, but his mom would often come with, so it wasn’t like they were having long conversations. He usually helped his dad, and the two of them were very busy.

For those first few weeks, things are tense. But after awhile, Bruce starts processing his life - his new life, with a new identifier to mark its beginning - and he begins to open up again. Desperate for a connection, he latches onto the closest thing to family he has left: Alfred.

Bruce learns about Alfred’s past, about how he came to work for the Waynes. He learns about growing up in England, about meeting Thomas Wayne, about working with him as a general assistant. He hears about the time Thomas saved Alfred’s life, and how Alfred swore loyalty to the man in that instant. He hears about the time Martha asked Alfred to be Bruce’s guardian, should anything happen to her and Thomas.

But there’s one thing he has never asked Alfred about: his own soul marks.

Alfred has a sunflower on the back of his wrist - a charm without the bracelet. His mark is a golden color, glittering and catching the light even on a cloudy day, but the only time Bruce really sees it is when Alfred takes off his gloves to test the temperature of a drawn bath. Otherwise, it remains hidden.

After about two years of saying nothing, Bruce finally works up the courage to ask him. “Alfred?”

“Yes, Master Bruce?”

“The sunflower on your wrist, is it…?”

Alfred smiles kindly at him. “My identifier, sir. My soulmate’s mark faded years before I ever met you. I did not have the privilege of meeting them, so I did not have it tattooed.”

“Oh,” Bruce says. He looks down at his hands. “I apologize - I did not mean-”

“That’s alright,” Alfred says. “You’re still young. Curiosity is your right.” 

Bruce pinches his knuckles. “Alfred?”

“Hm?”

“I…” Bruce takes a breath. “Why don’t I have anyone’s mark? Does that mean that I’m not…? That no one will ever…?” He can’t finish the sentence. He can barely finish the thought.

Luckily, Alfred picks up on what he is trying to say without him having to say it. “I will stop you there. Just because you were born without soul marks does not mean that you are unable to build those relationships with others and choose your own soulmates, Master Bruce. It just makes it a bit more difficult to find them.”

Bruce rubs the spot on his wrist. “Would… I know this is a personal matter, but… Could I tattoo your mark on my wrist? When I’m old enough to have a tattoo?”

Alfred freezes, and for a moment, Bruce feels a cold fear grip his heart, because what if he overstepped, what if Alfred doesn’t feel the same way-

But then, Alfred is smiling. “One moment, Master Bruce,” he says, and he strides from the room with purpose.

Bruce clasps his hands together and waits.

The grandfather clock in the hall ticks away, keeping a steady rhythm. 

Finally, Alfred comes back, turning on a nearby lamp light and kneeling down in front of his young ward. 

“May I see your hand?” Alfred asks, and Bruce complies, holding out the hand he was fussing with moments before. Alfred offers a reassuring smile and uncaps a gold pen. “Until you can have a tattoo, perhaps you’ll settle with this. Try it out, see if you like how it looks.” Carefully, Alfred redraws the sunflower on Bruce’s wrist, right in the same spot as his own tattoo. The petals aren’t exactly the same, but Bruce hardly notices because it doesn’t matter. 

Alfred gave him his mark.  

Alfred claimed him as his soulmate.

Alfred loves him.

Alfred clicks the cap back onto the gold pen. “There you are, Master Bruce. What do you think-?”

Bruce doesn’t even wait for Alfred to finish before he is out of his seat, hugging the man as tightly as he can. Alfred catches him easily.

“Thank you, Alfred,” Bruce says, his voice dangerously close to breaking.

Alfred rubs his hand up and down Bruce’s back, and Bruce melts into the feeling of love and safety. “Of course.”

A few years pass. 

The grief fades into an ache.

The ache stays.

The lack of a real soulmate becomes a part of him. A part of his identity.

He’s detached. The animal he feared most as a child clings to his back as his identifier, forever chasing him, forever perched on his shoulder, an eternal reminder of his tragedy.

He has no soulmates.

But it is one less thing to worry about. His peers talk about finding soulmates - friends, siblings, lovers - or embarking on a series of study abroad trips in the hopes of meeting as many people as possible, hoping to find The One.

But Bruce Wayne doesn’t need to worry about that.

He doesn’t even need to think about it.

Because there’s no one like that for him.

He can focus on his studies, on Wayne Enterprises, on Gotham. His focus can be inward. After all, he has Alfred. He doesn’t need anybody else.

And - just to prove it to those stupid gossip columnists, the ones that write headlines like “Bruce Wayne: Alone Forever?” - he starts dating, starts sleeping with people he can’t remember the names of, just to prove that he could find love, if he really wanted it.

He doesn’t find it.

He doesn’t know if he wants it.

At least the gossip columns change their stories. No longer is he the recluse, the outcast. It doesn't matter that he is still a teenager - they paint him as the rogue, now. The forbidden fruit.

“Don’t get too close, ladies! He doesn’t have a soul mark. He can’t love you back!”

Alfred doesn’t comment on Bruce’s lifestyle (not directly, anyway), but Bruce overhears a very terse conversation between him and the reporter that wrote those lines.

Bruce doesn’t care. He lets himself go. What’s the point, anyways? When you live in Gotham, life could end in a moment. He’d seen it happen, himself.

Not having a soulmate is great. He has no one to live for. No expectations that he’s failing to meet.

So, when he looks back in the mirror one day and sees that a second, smaller, black bat has appeared on his shoulder, following behind his own mark like a duckling, his heart just about stops.

He is just nineteen at the time, still sleeping around Gotham as its most eligible bachelor, but he knows what the sudden appearance of a mark means - his soulmate has just been born.

His soulmate is a baby.

Naturally, his first conclusion is “Oh fuck, did I do that?”

But after a few months pass, and none of his past affairs come forward claiming to have the son or daughter of Bruce Wayne, he comes to his second conclusion: his soulmate is a child that isn’t his own.

And so, Bruce does the only thing he can think of.

He applies to schools abroad and gets out of the country as fast as possible.

Naturally, Alfred is a little surprised by the sudden change of course. Bruce Wayne is a planner. Bruce Wayne is detail-oriented.

“It’s not like you to be so…spontaneous, sir,” Alfred says as he moves around Bruce’s room, packing away anything and everything he might need on his trip (and then some).

Bruce puts a few books in his bag - some that he has already read, some that he has yet to get around to - and zips it up. “What can I say? Somebody mentioned something about travel the other day and I just…couldn’t get it out of my head.”

Alfred raises an eyebrow. He has always been able to see right through Bruce. Right through anybody, really. “I see. And you decided the best way to travel the world was to enroll at Cambridge?”

“Just making the most of my time,” Bruce says, shrugging. “And it’s not just Cambridge. I’m training with masters the world over. I’ll be back in a few years - before you know it.”

Alfred finishes packing the bag and buckles it shut. “I would expect no less,” he says. Then, he moves over to Bruce’s side, fixes his suit lapels and sweater collar to be just so. “I trust you will not embarrass the family name while overseas, sir?”

“If I did, I know you’d be on the next plane to yell at me,” Bruce jokes, but he breaks the levity of the moment right after and hugs Alfred tightly. “I’ll be back. I promise.”

Alfred returns the hug easily, even though it has been years since Bruce has initiated contact like this. It’s an old memory, one they both simply slip into. “I love you, Bruce.”

Bruce’s heart swells - too much.

It’s too much.

He can feel it thump against its cage, rattling his ribs in uneven beats.

This is what he’s running from.

Because what if this is the last time he’ll ever see Alfred? His father in all ways but blood? What if he becomes attached and the loss stings more than it should, haunts him like the ghosts of his parents? What if that bright sunflower on Alfred’s wrist joins the gemstones on his parents’ necks in his memory?

Bruce steps back, unable to speak past the lump in his throat. He can’t say it back.

Alfred - God bless Alfred - understands. He doesn’t look hurt. He smiles sadly down at Bruce, but it’s a good sad. The kind of sad you get from finishing a great book. The kind of sad you get at the end of Christmas Day. You don’t regret the moment - not one bit - but the sadness is still there. The sadness of an ending.

Alfred brushes Bruce’s cheek with a gloved hand. “Let’s get you to the airport, shall we?” Bruce nods, and they get to work, grabbing bags and moving out the door.

Bruce barely says anything else, after that. Except for one thing: he asks Alfred to stay behind, at the Manor. Let him go to the airport alone.

Alfred’s eyes can’t hide his disappointment, but he allows it. He stays on the steps of the Manor as the car drives off, with Bruce sitting in the backseat. Bruce doesn’t look back.

He spends the next week kicking himself for making Alfred feel that way.

Three years pass. He gets most of his classes done at Cambridge, but doesn’t stay to finish his degree. He knows enough. He has learned what he needs.

It becomes clear to him very quickly that his life needs a purpose. He needs a reason to keep going, beyond the baby bat on his shoulder. He needs a life goal. He can’t let relationships be the defining reason for living - not again. It is destructive, and it only causes people pain.

He needs a purpose.

Another bat appears on his shoulder. Just when he has started to come to terms with having a single soulmate. He has two kids out there, somewhere.

He hides those thoughts away, buries them because there’s no use in thinking about it now. It’s not like he can do anything about it, and he has no intention of cutting his studies short.

He moves on from Cambridge, selling most of his possessions and beginning to travel the world.

He studies under anyone and everyone. Private detectives. Blacksmiths. Assassins. Gymnasts. Martial arts masters. Bioweapon engineers. Criminologists. Historians. Computer programmers. Mechanics. Forensic scientists.

His goal is to be deadly. His mission is to never take a life.

His purpose is to be the shadow of Gotham itself; to watch its citizens from the shadows; to protect them, if they be innocent; to bring them to justice, if they be guilty.

His only company is on his skin: a golden sunflower on his wrist, and three black bats on his shoulder.

Four. Make that four black bats, as another appears on his shoulder four years after he leaves Cambridge.

Why the hell does he have three child soulmates, but no children of his own?

For parents to share a soul mark with their child is exceptionally rare. Usually, soulmates are close in age: lovers, brothers, friends, that sort of thing. Occasionally adoptive parents and children share soul marks, but those stories are the types that are rare enough to be the subjects of movies.

Bruce Wayne’s life isn’t a movie. It’s much too chaotic, much too scattered and broken and unresolved.

How does he have soulmates?

There are three children out there - his kids, bound to him not by blood relation but by cosmic choice. They’re depending on him.

His training is nearing completion, anyway. He supposes that, after seven years away from Gotham, it might be time to return home, to put his training to good use.

Finally, he resurfaces. He returns home in a simple first class seat, knowing that he’d only be inviting questions by flying coach (but he can avoid the private jet - and the call to Alfred - with the simple excuse of wanting to save the environment).

Of course, the media catches wind of who exactly bought the ticket. They’re ready and waiting for him before the plane even takes off for Gotham Airport.

He remembers what Alfred told him. He’s dressed in a suit and tie as soon as he lands, hair swept to the side and smile ready for the cameras. At twenty-six, he has reached his full height, and the physical training he’s been through has him in peak shape. As the journalists tell him, he looks like his father, but has the charm of his mother. He wears the Wayne name well, like a costume.

After seven years of anonymity, the sudden attention in the airport is stifling. Once people realize who he is, they stare and gawk. They whisper and take videos.

He tries to ignore them. He fancies himself a man on a mission. In his mind, Bruce Wayne is all but dead. He died with his parents on Park Row. He died over time in a large Manor, with only Alfred to keep him company. After all of his training, he isn’t Bruce Wayne - he’s something else. Something without a name, yet.

But when he returns to Wayne Manor, when he sees Alfred standing on the steps even though it’s cold and snowing outside, Bruce Wayne appears for a moment.

It’s a relief when the private driver he hired drops him off at Wayne Manor, and the first thing Bruce sees is the front door, where Alfred stands, waiting. He’s older now, his hairline receding and the smile lines around his mouth becoming permanent. There might even be a little bit of grey at the roots of his hair.

But he still stands tall and proud, wearing his same uniform with pristine white gloves. There’s a smile in his eyes when Bruce steps out of the car. “Welcome home, Master Bruce.”

A weight lifts from Bruce’s shoulders, and he allows a small smile to show on his face - the first genuine smile he’s had in a long time. It feels good. “Good to see you again, Alfred.”

Alfred knows something’s changed in Bruce’s core. Bruce can see it in the way Alfred looks over him, searching for a physical sign of something different.

Of course he noticed. The man doesn’t miss a thing. Not a book out of place, not a speck of dust in the entire manor... Of course he would pick up on an entire change of perspective and demeanor from the boy he helped to raise.

Bruce decides to simply come out and tell him his plan, before Alfred figures it out on his own and Bruce loses the only family he has.

Alfred makes a pot of tea and takes a tray of scones out of the oven. “Blueberry lemon scones, sir?”

“My favorite,” Bruce responds. He’s not lying - Alfred’s baking has always been to die for - but he also knows better than to refuse the man’s offers of food. Cooking for others has always been the man’s love language. Judging from the timing of it all, Alfred must have put them in the oven as soon as he heard his ward was back in Gotham.

A few minutes later, they’re sitting in the study, safe from the snowfall outside as a fire crackles in the fireplace. Bruce stirs his tea as he collects his thoughts, staring at the flames. Alfred sips from his own cup patiently in the opposite arm chair.

“I owe you an explanation,” Bruce starts.

Alfred hums, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

Bruce traces the tips of his fingernails with the pad of his thumb, still collecting his thoughts. Finally, he decides on: “I’ve changed.”

“I can see that, sir,” Alfred says.

Bruce pulls back his shirt sleeve, showing off a gold sunflower on his wrist. “Got this tattooed, as well.”

Alfred nods, but there’s a look of pride and affection in his eyes that nearly makes Bruce choke.

He continues. “I told you I was studying, when I left, but never what my goal was. I have decided to fight criminality and corruption here, in Gotham.”

Alfred takes another drink from his teacup. “Sir, there is a police academy for that sort of work, you know. And it is only a six month training period. You didn’t need to go to Cambridge and travel the world for seven years.”

Bruce puts his own teacup aside. He has full control over his emotions, now, but there’s still an anxiety in his chest, a nervousness that comes with confessing his plan to Alfred, that makes him doubt whether he can keep his hands from shaking the whole time. “I was not intending on joining the police department. There’s too much corruption, there. You can’t be rid of it from the inside.”

Alfred frowns. A slight expression, but it’s there. “So, a private investigator?”

Bruce pinches his fingers. “Do you remember the Grey Ghost?”

“A vigilante, then,” Alfred says.

Bruce nods.

And now he waits.

Alfred stirs his tea absentmindedly. “I assume you have a plan?”

“I intend on asking Lucius Fox for his assistance.”

Alfred hums.

The gentle scrape of the spoon against the porcelain of the teacup is the only sound, aside from the soft winter wind and the crackling fire.

Finally, the butler puts his teacup aside and looks Bruce in the eye. “If this is what you wish, I will provide my assistance,” Alfred says. “Only if you promise that you are not finding an excuse to throw your life away.”

Bruce blinks in surprise, taken aback. “Alfred, what-?”

“The last I saw you, you were squandering your youth, disconnecting from the wold around you,” Alfred says, his voice taking on a stern quality. “I believed that it had everything to do with your lack of soul marks, and that you had some misguided belief that your life meant nothing to everyone. Which is why I supported your decision to travel abroad. I was hoping you would find yourself, discover a new purpose. But Bruce Thomas Wayne, if you still hold this belief, then so help me-”

“Alfred, Alfred,” Bruce interrupts, standing up to meet the man, “I’m not...”

And that’s when it hits him.

Alfred doesn’t know about the black bats on his shoulder.

Bruce hangs his head. “I have not been entirely forthcoming with you. I apologize. I was...distracted with other things.” He shrugs off his suit jacket and tosses it back onto the armchair. Alfred twitches at the act, but says nothing. “You are correct, that I first set out because of soul marks, but I...” He loosens his tie, takes it off, throws it on top of the jacket. He fumbles with the top button of his shirt and Alfred intervenes, undoing the buttons with expert precision. Bruce shrugs off the shirt, as well. Takes off the undershirt.

Alfred takes a half step back, eyes wide. “Master Bruce... Where did you get those?” He gestures to the scars around Bruce’s torso.

Bruce grimaces. Another thing he should have told Alfred about. “Training.”

Suddenly, there’s a fire in Alfred’s eyes, and he snaps, “Why did you let it go so far?”

“So that it won’t go that far again,” Bruce says. He turns around, putting the bats on full display, and hears the sharp intake of breath from Alfred.

“Are... When...?” Alfred manages.

Bruce turns back around. “The first one appeared before I left. The other two are a few years apart.”

A bit of skepticism returns to Alfred’s face. “Are they yours?”

“No, not that I know of,” Bruce says, “but you asked me if I was just trying to throw my life away - no. I’m not. I want to make Gotham a safer place, so that, if I find them here, they can have lives of their own. They can live in a city with hope. I want to be that symbol for them. Even if we never meet, they’ll have that. They and the other good people of Gotham deserve that.”

That look of pride returns to Alfred’s eyes. “You have changed, sir.”

The Dark Knight rises.

In honor of the Bat that appeared on his shoulder, the eve of his parents’ deaths, he wears a bat symbol on his chest. The mark is a little different in design (it has a gold lining, for one, and the angle of the wings differs slightly) but it’s close enough for Bruce to remember the connection, distant enough so that - should his identifier be exposed to the public - the journalists won’t make the connection.

Perhaps they might see the black color and assume that means Batman is his soulmate, instead. Bruce hopes not. Alfred might get a laugh out of it, though.

Just one year after his return to Gotham and the rise of the Batman, Bruce goes to the circus.

Snap goes the rope.

Two bodies fall to the ground, dead on impact.

And a little boy with black hair and blue eyes, almost falling himself in his haste to reach the unmoving forms of his parents.

Bruce doesn’t know why he’s drawn to this child - the child who lost everything in one night, as Bruce did, and doesn’t have an Alfred to keep his life together.

One thing he does know: this child needs a home.

He disappears before Bruce has a chance to do anything.

It takes a few months to track him down, and when he finally finds the child - the nine-year-old Richard Grayson - he’s in a juvenile detention facility.

On that day, Bruce Wayne is the terror of Gotham. Not Batman.

He is scheduled to pick up Richard within the hour, thanks to his own personal tactics of intimidation and the work of his lawyers.

When he arrives at the facility, Richard is waiting for him. He has almost nothing with him - a small backpack that wouldn’t hold very much at all, and an elephant stuffed animal. Even his clothes aren’t his - that much is obvious from how they hang off of him. The delicate skin of his face is broken with cuts and bruises, but from the resilience in his eyes, Bruce would be willing to bet that the boy’s hands were equally rough. He didn’t seem like the type to go down without a fight.

Bruce sits next to him. “Hello.”

“Hi,” Richard says. “You’re Mr. Wayne?”

Bruce nods. “Yes. How much have they told you?”

“That you’re getting me out of here. That’s all I need to know.” Richard extends a hand (a hand with bruised knuckles, just as Bruce suspected). “You can call me Dick.”

Bruce takes Dick’s hand and shakes it, mindful of the boy’s injuries. “You can call me Bruce.”

Dick nods, but doesn’t say anything.

Bruce shoves his hands back into his pockets. “I’ve... There’s a room ready and waiting for you, at the Manor. It’s not particularly lived in yet, but you can...” Uh...shoot. What do kids do with their rooms? “If you want to put up posters, or anything, or decorate, you can do whatever you want. And I had Haly send your things, and your parents’ things, so when you want to go through them, they’re there.”

Dick offers him a smile. It’s a small, sweet sight, but it’s gone in an instant. “Thank you.”

The drive back to the manor is quiet.

Dick stares out the window.

Alfred keeps glancing back at him via the rear view mirror, no doubt taking stock of the boy’s unhealthy weight and various injuries.

Sure enough, as soon as they get back to the manor, Alfred steers Dick to the kitchen and gets to work, getting out a first aid kit and managing to both start dinner and tend to Dick’s injuries at once.

But night is falling.

Bruce has somewhere to be.

He slips out of the kitchen, trusting Alfred to take care of Dick while he sneaks into the Batcave - the newest addition to Wayne Manor, hidden behind a grandfather clock in his study.

Dick will be fine on his own for a few hours.

Right now, Gotham needs Batman.

Bruce returns to an empty Batcave.

It’s a bit unusual - most nights, Alfred prefers to be awake to check Bruce for injuries upon his return - though not entirely unexpected. He’s probably upstairs, making sure that Dick doesn’t wake from a nightmare to an empty house.

And so, Bruce goes about his routine alone. He stretches, showers, changes into comfortable clothes and house slippers so that he can try and get some sleep before he has to become Bruce Wayne again.

He gets upstairs, and grabs a book off of one of the shelves in the study. A medical journal from a few years ago. He doesn’t feel tired, anyway.

Once he’s in the privacy of his room, he takes out the melatonin supplement from his nightstand and takes one of the pills out of the container.

Alfred takes the container out of his hand, suddenly next to him without having given a sign that he was present. Bruce blinks, feeling very out of it. Maybe Grundy hit him harder than he thought…

“How was patrol, sir?” Alfred asks, beginning to fuss and check for injuries.

Bruce grunts. “Fairly standard. Discovered a new clue as to whatever Joker’s planning.”

“Well,” Alfred says, “I made a rather interesting discovery myself.”

Bruce raises an eyebrow. “What is it?”

“I believe you may have found one of your soulmates,” Alfred says, obviously trying (and failing) to keep the smile off his face.

Bruce blinks at him for a second, not following. Because he doesn’t have soulmates.

And then it clicks.

Wait, yes he does. He has more soul marks now. Baby bats on his shoulder that he must find and protect because that is the duty that the universe has given to him.

He drops everything and scrambles out of the room, thankful that his house slippers and the soft rug in the hallway muffle his footsteps, because he is in too much of a hurry to bother with moving quietly.

He’s outside of Dick’s bedroom in seconds, barely breathing as he pushes open the door. The light from the hallway gently spills into Dick’s room, falling on the sleeping form of his new charge in a warm glow. The boy is facing away from the door, his side gently rising and falling with each inhale and exhale. He wears a sleeveless shirt, likely due to the heat of the summer night.

And there it is.

On his right shoulder, four bats - one large, three small - stand out against his pale skin. Only, the second bat is a rich, royal blue. His identifier.

Bruce can feel a tingling in his shoulder. He knows what that means. He wished for the feeling as a boy - everyone does.

Damn it, why did his mark have to show up somewhere he can’t see it?

Quietly, Bruce shuts the door and turns his back to Alfred, letting his silk button-up shirt slip off of his shoulders. “Is…? Did it…?”

“It changed color, sir,” Alfred says, and when Bruce turns back to him, he can see his butler beaming. “Blue, just like Master Richard's.”

Bruce curses, running a hand back through his hair. This isn’t… No. He isn’t supposed to have a soulmate. He is the Dark Knight, for crying out loud. What if Dick puts the pieces together and uncovers his secret identity?

Even worse, what if Dick thinks that Bruce only took him in because of some arbitrary mark on his shoulder?

“Don’t tell him,” Bruce orders.

Alfred blinks. “Why not? You’ve found one of your soulmates. This is cause for celebration-”

“I don’t want him to feel like the only reason I took him in was because of his soul mark,” Bruce says. “The Wayne family is a family of choice. He shouldn’t feel like he has to stay just because we’re… And besides. He has enough to deal with right now.” 

“Perhaps Richard should be the one to decide that for himself.”

Bruce rounds on him. “I’m not cut out for the whole parent-schtick, okay? He’s going to look at me and expect me to be some…some overly-doting, PTA-parent type and I can’t promise him that. I run Wayne Enterprises during the day and act as a one-man police force at night - what part of that says ‘I have time for plays and recitals and…’?”

Bruce puts his shirt back on, jerking the fabric almost aggressively. “There’s so much…so much about being someone’s soulmate. You’re supposed to be this…this…perfect person, you’re supposed to complete someone else. How the hell am I supposed to do that?”

Alfred steps forward, fixes Bruce’s collar like he always does, even though Bruce is just in pajamas. “Your mother always said that your father was a difficult soulmate to love,” he says, “but they fell into a natural rhythm. Sir, soulmates aren’t random - they are chosen. Chosen for you. When you are true to yourself, and your soulmate is equally candid and open, you will fall into that natural rhythm as well.”

Bruce takes a deep breath. “I can’t do that.”

Alfred frowns, but says nothing.

“He can’t know about Batman,” Bruce explains. “I don’t want to worry him every night. He just lost his parents - if he knew about what I did every night, he wouldn’t… He can’t know.”

“You could also ease his worries by leaving the crime fighting to the police,” Alfred suggests, taking a step back. “Then again, what would you do with all of your residual teenage angst?”

Bruce glowers at Alfred, but Alfred knows him too well to take it to heart.

The butler moves on, unrepentant. “Though, sir, I would suggest telling him sooner rather than later. The longer you wait, the more likely he is to find out on his own, and the greater the consequences will be.”

“I will,” Bruce promises. “I will. Just…not right now. When he’s older.”

He turns away and heads back to his room without waiting for Alfred’s reply. He's too tired to deal with Alfred’s disappointment, too. He's already busy being disappointed in himself.

Bruce knows he’s in over his head.

Back at the circus, all he could think about was the little boy that had nowhere to go, no family left to care for him. Every instinct in him demanded that he take action, that he fix it himself. The next few months had echoed those same feelings, until he had found out that Dick was in juvie and those feelings had erupted in his fury.

But now that he is safe, now that there is a small child in the Manor, Bruce finds himself at a loss.

Maybe he was too quick to claim Dick, that night at the circus. Maybe he should have waited, tried to find a better home for him. Wayne Manor is no place to raise a child - it is empty most of the time, what with Bruce’s job at Wayne Enterprises and his nightly crusade against the criminals of Gotham. Even when he was at home, most of his time was spent in the Batcave, researching, analyzing, training, building, modifying…

Dick is the only reason he stays in the Manor, now. Alfred mentions that Dick is getting suspicious of Bruce’s whereabouts, and that he might one day discover the Batcave, if Bruce leaves him idle for too long. Wanting to avoid that outcome, Bruce starts spending more time in his study. He can do his detective work from there, too.

He isn’t a fool. He notices how Dick is always waiting in the study with his homework, determined to spend time around him - even if Bruce isn’t much of a conversationalist.

But really, that’s all it takes. A few stories about his day, a few quips here and there, and Bruce is smitten, all over again.

He starts making a point of coming home at a decent hour, wanting to maximize his time with his new foster son. They work together until Alfred calls them to dinner, after which Bruce puts Dick to bed and heads down into the Batcave.

Bruce becomes attached to this new schedule, to the blue eyes that light up when he comes home every day.

He doesn’t really consider the fact that Dick is becoming attached to him, as well.

Bruce enters the kitchen after his patrol one night and sees Dick sitting at the island, stirring a mug of something hot in front of him. It's a sight that knocks him off guard for a moment - especially considering the fact that it is almost two thirty in the morning. “Dick?”

At his call, Dick looks over his shoulder, clearly holding back tears. The shiny tear tracks on his cheeks tell him that Dick has been crying for a while.

A second later, Dick is out of his chair and throwing his arms around Bruce’s middle. The contact makes Bruce’s breath catch in his chest.

He stands frozen for a moment, then cups the back of Dick’s head and puts a hand on his back. The boy’s shoulders shake violently, sending tremors through the rest of his small frame. Bruce wants to ask what happened, what could have upset Dick so much. Instead, he distances himself from his emotions as always and asks, “Miss me that much?”

His heartbeat stutters when Dick nods, his face still pressed into Bruce’s abdomen.

“Master Dick went looking for you in your room, sir,” Alfred says. “I took the liberty of introducing him to my hot chocolate recipe.”

Bruce hums, then turns his attention back to the child still clinging to him. “Did you ask him to add the cinnamon?”

Dick nods again. He has yet to relax his hold and make eye contact.

Bruce runs his fingers through Dick’s hair. “Do you think you can go back to bed?” Dick shakes his head violently, and Bruce hurries to correct himself. “That’s alright. Uh…”

Bruce looks up at Alfred, at a loss. Thankfully, Alfred picks up on his confusion and suggests, “I believe Master Dick was uncomfortable with being alone, this evening.”

Huh. Bruce looks back down at Dick, who has now picked his head up. The boy stares up at Bruce with those brilliant blue eyes, face still marked from tears. How the hell is Bruce supposed to say “no” to that face? “Is he right?”

Dick nods. “C-Can I…? Can I sleep in your room?”

“Depends,” Bruce says. “You don’t kick, do you?”

Dick shakes his head, panicked. “No, no I promise-”

“No worries if you do,” Bruce says, hurriedly trying to correct his mistake. “I can take a hit.”

Dick nods, but he still looks uncertain.

Taking a deep breath (because he just pulled a muscle in his back two hours ago and damn it if this isn’t going to hurt), he picks Dick up and sets him on his hip. “Hold on tight,” Bruce says. Dick hugs Bruce’s neck and lays his head on Bruce’s shoulder. Something inside Bruce’s chest melts at the clear display of trust and affection, and before he really knows what he’s doing, he presses a quick kiss on Dick’s forehead.

Dick lifts his head, and Bruce freezes for a moment. Did he cross a line? He’s a second away from an apology when Dick says, “I’m sorry, Alfie. I didn’t drink very much hot chocolate.”

“That’s quite alright,” Alfred says with a smile. “If you had, I believe it would be much harder for you to fall asleep again.”

“Okay.” Dick puts his head back down on Bruce’s shoulder, even moves closer to his neck, then takes a deep breath, settling against Bruce’s embrace. The tremors are slowing now, reduced to a sniffle every now and again. Bruce’s heart aches, he loves this boy so much.

“You can go ahead and fall asleep, if you’re tired,” Bruce says, turning and walking out of the kitchen.

Dick rubs the sleep out of his eyes. “I’m not.”

Bruce hums in response. They move down the halls, then up the stairs in silence before Bruce speaks again. “Did you have a nightmare? Is that why you were awake?”

Dick nods, head still limp against Bruce’s shoulder.

Not really wanting to start a conversation (and, besides, Dick doesn’t seem like he is in the mood for talking), Bruce takes a guess. “Your parents?”

Dick’s grip on Bruce’s clothes tightens. So, yes.

Bruce doesn’t push him any further. They simply go back to Bruce’s room in silence. All the while, Dick doesn’t loosen his grip.

Trusting that Dick will maintain his hold, Bruce manages to free one hand and flip one of the light switches by the door. The twin lamps beside his bed flick on, filling the room with a soft, honey glow.

He sets Dick down on the navy bedspread and gently pries the boy’s hands off of his suit jacket. “You go ahead and get under the covers, okay? I’ll be right back.”

Not waiting for a response, he pokes his head back out into the hallway. “Alfred?” he calls.

Before he can mention another word, Alfred appears around the corner, first aid kit in his hands. “The usual, sir?”

Bruce breathes out a small laugh. “What would I do without you?”

“Die of septic shock, most likely,” Alfred says. And with that, he ducks into Bruce’s bathroom, using the hallway access so as not to disturb Dick. Bruce shuts the door to his own room, then joins Alfred and sits on the edge of the bathtub. The butler already has his equipment spread out across the countertop nearby, his clean nightwear folded neatly to one side.

As usual, Alfred gets to work, stitching up any cuts that are too deep and checking for broken bones. Luckily, it’s mostly just bruises, tonight.

Before long, Alfred is packing up the first aid supplies, handing over the set of clean clothes so that Bruce can start changing. “You’re a natural with him, sir,” Alfred says.

It takes him a moment to switch gears between Batman and Bruce Wayne, but he catches on. There’s a small voice that still chides him in the back of his mind, pointing out everything he could be doing wrong. Usually, Bruce listens to that voice, relies on it to make him better. There’s nobody else there to correct him but himself, after all, and making a mistake in his line of work could cost him his life.

But tonight, Bruce just smiles back at Alfred. “Just doing what you’d do.”

Alfred laughs at that. “No, I never let you sleep in my room.”

“I didn’t ask.”

“I wouldn’t have let you, even if you had.”

Bruce looks back over his shoulder, back at his room. “So I shouldn’t…?”

“You already promised he could stay with you,” Alfred says, shutting down that train of thought before it can really get going. “I would advise against breaking the young sir’s trust, at the moment.”

Alfred packs up the last of the first aid supplies and moves to the door, but he stops. “Have you given any more thought to telling the young sir about his soul marks?”

“I’ve thought about it,” Bruce says.

Alfred waits for him to elaborate.

Bruce says nothing.

Alfred understands. “Goodnight, Master Bruce. I will allow you to sleep in tomorrow morning, but only for Master Richard’s sake.”

“Goodnight, Alfie,” Bruce returns.

Alfred leaves, shutting the door behind him and leaving Bruce alone.

He takes a second.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

The marks on his shoulder feel heavy, now. A phantom sting where he knows Dick’s mark is, royal blue. It’s almost unfair that Bruce gets to know who one of his soulmates is, while Dick is left in the dark.

But telling Dick would mean telling him about Batman.

And telling him about Batman would lead to him getting involved.

And that might lead to his death.

Bruce will not lose a soulmate. 

He shuts the bathroom door behind him, then crosses to the windows in his bedroom and pulls the curtains closed.

“I like your pajamas,” Dick says from where he sits on the giant bed.

“Uh,” Bruce says eloquently, then looks down at his body to remind himself of what he is wearing. Grey silk. “Thank you. I’ve had these for awhile.”

“They look kind of like my old uniform,” he says, settling back against Bruce’s pillows. They dwarf him in comparison. “The shine, anyway. Same fabric.”

“I still have it, if you want to look at it again,” Bruce says, climbing under the covers on the other side of the bed. “We have all of your old things.”

Dick plays with the silk sheet’s hem. “…Not now.”

“No, not right now,” Bruce agrees, and he flips a switch next to the headboard, turning off the lights in the room. “I’m tired. Go to sleep.”

“Night,” Dick whispers. He turns onto his side, away from Bruce. Bruce mirrors the action, wanting to give the boy privacy.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter. He wakes to find Dick practically laying on top of him. He doesn’t move for at least two hours - even when Dick’s breathing changes and he knows that the boy is awake, too.

Bruce can feel his heart beating against his chest.

Protect. Protect. Protect.

It defines his existence, now. Protecting Gotham, protecting his son.

After the hot chocolate incident, Bruce’s nights follow a familiar pattern.

He comes back to the Batcave at a late hour (or early hour, depending on one’s perspective) and treats whatever wounds he may have, then goes up to the Manor to pretend like he was simply working late in the study. He goes up to his room, then changes again, this time into his nightwear, and by the time he turns around, Dick is standing by the doorway, waiting for permission to come in.

Bruce gives the “okay” - a short “Come on” if he’s decently awake, a mere grunt if he’s tired - and Dick hurries into the room, slipping under the covers. They fall asleep, back to back, but by the time Alfred comes in to wake Dick for school, Dick is half-sprawled across Bruce’s torso, with Bruce’s arms around him protectively. It’s a pattern that lasts for almost a year before Dick starts to sleep in his own bed for the whole night.

That being said, he remains openly affectionate and still sneaks into Bruce’s room from time to time, either for an afternoon nap or for what Alfred has begun to call Dick’s “morning time” on the weekends (a time when Dick takes advantage of Bruce’s half-asleep state of mind and cuddles close when his walls are down). Bruce would chide him for it if he doesn’t look forward to those moments, himself.

He gives up so much of his time, so much of himself for what he does. He can claim an hour every other weekend to simply exist with his foster son in his arms.

Bruce loves him. He can feel it in his bones. His heart simultaneously freezes and soars whenever Dick smiles, whenever he hugs him. He is the reason Bruce starts to cut his work days short - because his boy is at home, has been since 3:30, and Bruce isn’t able to stop thinking about that fact until he walks through the door at Wayne Manor and sweeps Dick into his arms.

There’s nothing that boy loves more than feeling loved, and Bruce intends to provide that feeling.

Dick isn’t just sugar and sunshine.

Once he begins to deal with his grief, Bruce realizes that Dick’s smile hides a wicked temper. He gets into fights at school, picks a fight with anybody and everybody. He has so much anger, so much energy, and no way to get rid of it. Bruce knows the feeling.

He needs an outlet.

At the same time, the world is getting crazier. There’s a red-caped alien in Metropolis, a new class of supervillains, alien threats and world-ending-apocalypses…

The Batman goes from fighting the mafia and its corruption to fighting a man in a clown costume with hundreds of bombs stashed around the city.

Tired of seeing a loosely-formed team with no sense of strategy, Bruce makes contact with the Metropolis alien. Superman.

His optimism is naive. His costume looks ridiculous. His willingness to help, to empathize, and to protect is at times smothering and insufferable.

Clark Kent quickly becomes Bruce’s best friend.

Batman and Superman: the World’s Finest.

Dick is twelve when he unlocks the grandfather clock.

Bruce never gets the full story out of him - something about a nervous habit, something about luck - but nevertheless, Dick stands in his Batcave, his two worlds colliding in a way that he distinctly did not want to happen.

“Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh,” Dick says, spinning around, trying to take in everything as fast as he could. “That’s the Batmobile! And that’s the Batsuit! Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh-”

“You’re not supposed to be down here,” Bruce growls, but Dick remains unfazed. Probably because he has lived with Bruce long enough to know his Warning Growl from his Trying To Be Intimidating Growl.

“So wait, are you like…Batman’s sidekick?” Dick asks, turning to Bruce.

Alfred snickers.

Bruce can feel his eyebrow twitch in irritation. “Batman doesn’t have a sidekick.”

“Because that would be so cool!” It’s as if Dick didn’t hear a word that Bruce was saying. “What do you do? Do you like, help him fix up the cars or- Oh! Are you his gadgets guy?”

“Gadgets guy?”

“Yeah, you know, the Batarangs, the grappling hooks, the utility belt-”

“What makes you think that I’m not Batman?” Normally, Bruce wouldn’t be so quick to blow a feasible cover, but this is just getting offensive. And he’s not about to let his son think his father isn’t his favorite superhero.

Dick makes a face. “You can’t be Batman. You work too much.”

Bruce is a second away from telling Dick that he’s been lying to him for the past three years - that every late night has been because of his crime fighting activities - but Alfred comes to his rescue. “Master Richard, do you remember the time Master Bruce had his polo accident?”

Dick’s excitement dies a little as the memories of that month come back to him. “Yeah.”

Bruce’s heart aches in sympathy. That had been his first major injury since he had taken Dick under his wing. The boy had returned to his habit of sleeping in Bruce’s room for the first week, and Bruce had had to wake him from nightmares on several occasions.

It was terrifying, how completely Dick cared about him, how quickly he had decided to love Bruce and Alfred and call Wayne Manor his home.

Alfred continues. “Master Bruce does not play polo.”

Dick is quiet for a minute.

Bruce steels his nerves, his years of training the only thing keeping his hands from fidgeting.

“You’re the Batman?” Dick asks, looking back to Bruce.

Bruce glances over at Alfred, who returns his look with a pointed stare. Tell him.

“Yes,” Bruce says.

A weight releases from his shoulders, freeing him and tossing his life into a new world, full of unpredictability and change. Change that he can’t control.

And then, Dick’s eyes light up. “You’re him! You’re Big Bat!”

Bruce blinks, his heart almost stopping. “Excuse me?”

Dick pulls the collar of his shirt down. It doesn’t expose the full soul mark, but he doesn’t have to. Bruce spends enough time looking at his own matching mark in the mirror to know what it looks like. He could draw it blindfolded, at this point.

Nevertheless, Dick points to the largest bat on his shoulder, a black mark just ahead of Dick’s own blue identifier. “You’re Batman, right? So you have this mark, right? The big one - that’s you, isn’t it?”

He sounds so excited. His blue eyes practically sparkle, bouncing on the balls of his feet in anticipation. The look of a child who has found his soulmate, after a life of heartbreak and darkness.

But that is just one too many changes for today.

“I don’t…” Bruce takes a breath. It’s hard to say. Even now, years after it has become a lie, it still hurts - a phantom pain in his heart and in his shoulder. “I don’t have soulmates.”

He can feel Alfred’s disappointed glare digging into the back of his head, at the base of his skull. He doubts Superman’s heat vision leaves as deep a mark.

Dick blinks at him. “But… Your wrist has a sunflower-”

“Alfred’s identifier,” Bruce says. “It’s a tattoo.”

“You…don’t have any soulmates?”

Bruce can’t verbally say the lie out loud. He shakes his head.

“Oh,” Dick says, and he looks away. There’s a sudden heavy sadness about him - Dick has always been an extremely empathetic soul. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Bruce says. He moves toward Dick - his son, because that was true, with or without a mark - and taps Dick’s chin with a knuckle, and Dick looks back up at him. “I don’t blame you for asking. A lot of people have asked me about my soul marks. I just…don’t have any.”

“Is that why you wear long sleeves all the time?” Dick asks, but it’s almost in a whisper. As if he’s scared to hurt Bruce with his question, so he softens it in volume.

“Yeah,” Bruce says. It’s not a complete lie. It’s just…an old truth.

Dick’s lower lip trembles for just a moment before he bites the inside of his cheek, his eyes shining. “I’m sorry.”

Bruce runs a hand back through Dick’s hair. “It’s okay.”

“You know I still love you, right?” Dick asks. “I don’t need you to be my soulmate to love you more than anything.”

If Bruce manages to make it out of this encounter without going into cardiac arrest, he’ll count himself lucky. Here is this boy - this sweet, sweet boy - who, despite having lost everything, is still just as willing to love and trust and help…

And he just told Bruce that he loves him.

It’s not the first time that Bruce has heard those words. His parents used to say them to him - but that was different. Parents were supposed to say that.

Alfred had said them a few years ago, just before he left Wayne Manor for training.

Those he slept with, before - a few of them said those words, but they didn’t mean anything. Not to him, at least.

But hearing “I love you” from Dick Grayson… It breaks and strengthens him at the same time. It fills him with peace and with a relentless drive to protect, to prove himself worthy even though he knows he could never be worthy of the love of someone like Dick Grayson.

Bruce pulls Dick close for a hug. “I…I love you too, chum.”

He doesn’t know how long Dick has been looking for Zucco. He certainly has never mentioned a search, if he is conducting one. In fact, if Bruce didn’t know any better, he would have said that Dick had forgotten about Zucco. That he had moved on.

Waynes don’t move on from something like that. They either biologically can’t or they simply don’t know how and can’t be taught.

Bruce has been haunted by Joe Chill for the past twenty years. He knows that Dick will be haunted in the same way.

He can’t allow that to happen.

So, the night he goes to confront Zucco, he allows Dick to tag along.

Despite knowing Dick’s family, despite building a private gym for him and paying for a private gymnastics coach to keep up his training over the past few years, he still underestimates how capable his young ward truly is. After just a few practice shots, he’s swinging from Gotham’s skyscrapers like he’s been at this as long as Batman himself.

Alfred disapproves - of course he does - but he says nothing.

He doesn’t need to say anything.

Alfred doesn’t ask Bruce about revealing his soul marks anymore. It’s been almost four years since Dick first came to live at the Manor, and Bruce has stubbornly maintained his opinion.

Because it’s too much change.

Because Dick will think of him differently.

But really, it’s because he is frightened.

Bruce Wayne has always been scared of bats. As a child, he had been afraid every time a dark shadow darted across the twilight sky, visible for a split second, then again a few seconds later… Plus, there was the attack in the cave…

He outgrew that fear, but the bats on his shoulder have become a new fear of their own.

Because losing one of those bats…

He has spent so long, wishing for soulmates, hoping to mean something to someone - someone who didn’t know his name but loved him anyway. Not having soulmates seemed like an inescapable trap.

He would never find that kind of unconditional love. He wasn’t chosen for it. He doesn’t deserve it.

But Dick loves him. Dick loves him without the bond of a soul mark.

Or maybe he loves him because of the soul mark, even if he doesn’t know that his “Big Bat” and his foster father are one and the same.

Bruce selfishly hopes it’s the former. He wants to feel worthy of Dick’s adoration, to know that it isn’t tied to a shared mark on their shoulders.

It’s a selfish hope - he knows that Dick yearns for his soulmates. He makes up stories about them at the dinner table. He draws little bats in his notebooks, on his homework, on his tests…

But there’s that pressure again. Bruce knows how much Dick loves his soulmates. He knows he’s looking forward to meeting them. He knows what Dick expects of them. Of him.

Bruce doesn’t meet expectations. He’s not present. He’s not a great communicator. He tries to be receptive to Dick’s desire for attention, but he’s too much of an introvert to give him what he needs.

But tonight, all Dick needs is justice.

Bruce can give him that.

They corner Zucco in one of his strip clubs. Thank god the place is closed - if Alfred knew that Bruce took Dick to a strip club on his first night out as a vigilante, he would probably ground the both of them. Forever.

Batman descends on Zucco, beginning his interrogation. Yes, the goal of the night is to ultimately deliver Zucco to the police for the deaths of Mary and John Grayson, but there are other lives at stake, as well. Other plots to foil. Other villains to catch.

Zucco falls silent before he can give Batman the information he desires.

Heart attack.

It doesn’t feel like justice - it feels like a tragedy. It feels like he got away.

Dick doesn’t say anything.

Bruce tucks him to his side, shielding him from the sight with his cape.

Robin.

It’s the name that Dick’s mother gave him.

Something about “bobbing about”. It’s a lighter name, reminiscent of happier times. Robin almost doesn’t belong in Gotham - a bright symbol of light and hope and wonder in a dark city.

Nevertheless, Robin becomes Batman’s right hand within a month. They fit together so naturally, Bruce wonders how he managed without a sidekick.

It’s difficult, at first. There’s a terrifying encounter with Two-Face that nearly results in Robin’s premature death. Bruce sits by Dick’s sickbed as the boy fights through fever, his arm casted and in a sling, bandages wrapped around his chest, his head, his arms…

Bruce’s talk with the Joker doesn’t inspire any more confidence.

“Next time you see Two-Face, remind him: I called dibs.”

Bruce fires Robin, thinking it will ease his conscience.

Dick runs away.

Bruce spends the next few months obsessively checking his shoulder, making sure that the blue bat is okay, still second in line.

Dick leaves him a clue - something about a man, “Shrike,” training boys to be criminals.

Dropping everything, Bruce redirects all of his energy into this “Shrike” character, determined to prove to Dick that he trusted his intelligence, that it wasn’t Robin that Batman needed.

It was Dick Grayson.

They fall into a natural rhythm in an instant, taking down Shrike and Two-Face together and making it out of the fight without injury. It's a missing puzzle piece, finally plugged into place.

After that case, things return to a cautious normal. Batman and Robin return to Gotham’s skies, Dick returns to Wayne Manor, and Alfred makes sure they return to functioning at their best.

They fight, more and more often.

Each time, their fragile relationship breaks more and more. You can only glue broken porcelain back together so many times before all you see are the cracks. The damage.

Bruce has adoption papers drawn up.

They live in the top drawer of his desk, unbeknownst to Dick.

He’ll ask him, eventually.

Maybe.

Just when Bruce thinks his life can’t get any more complicated, a fifth bat appears on his shoulder.

Four kids. Dick is a fourteen-year-old handful. By now, the others are eleven, seven, and a few hours old. 

How the hell does he end up with four kids?!

Bruce’s life changes with a gun shot.

Again.

He loses himself. The world becomes a blur. 

Robin Dick His boy looks up at him, blood trickling out between his fingers as he presses a hand to his torso. “B-Bat…Batman?” he croaks.

Bruce’s heart thunders in his chest, panic sinking its cold talons into his lungs.

He runs forward, catching Dick as his knees buckle and sweeping him up into his arms. Go go go go go-

Dick grabs at Bruce’s cape, fingers fumbling to get a hold. “B, the Joker…”

“Can wait,” Bruce says, sliding into the Batmobile with as much care as he can manage. Joker cackles from the warehouse, his laugh echoing against the shipping containers that form something of a maze in Gotham Harbor.

They had been trying to catch him before his next stunt, whatever it may be. Joker himself hadn’t planned it, yet, but he was gathering materials... Bruce had time - he could catch him later.

But Dick was falling fast.

He presses a kiss to Dick’s wavy black hair. “Stay with me, partner. Stay awake.”

“Stay awake,” he says on their way back to the Batcave, pressing down on the gunshot wound as Dick goes in and out of consciousness.

“Stay with me,” he chokes in the MedBay, performing chest compressions on his dying son.

“Stay with me,” he whispers, holding Dick’s hand as the boy breathes, deep and even, down in the MedBay where they can monitor his vitals.

Bruce’s eyes never leave the monitors.

It’s the last straw.

Bruce has made up his mind: Robin is done. He cannot, will not lose more family to Gotham’s underworld. He won’t do it.

Dick’s temper has always been fearsome, but this time, it shatters whatever relationship they had.

He’s fifteen, now. So young - much too young. But old enough to treat Bruce as an equal instead of a mentor. Old enough to see his flaws, to pick them apart and throw them back at Bruce’s face.

He gets onto his motorcycle and speeds out of the Batcave.

And Bruce is alone.

The next time he hears about Robin, he’s on the other side of the country. He has a new family, now. Kid Flash, Speedy, Cyborg, Donna Troy…

They’re good kids. He’ll learn a lot from them.

He looks happier.

Happier without Bruce.

Conclusion?

Not telling him they are soulmates was the right call.

It hurts - because maybe if Bruce had told him, maybe if he picks up his phone right now and confesses everything, maybe Dick will come home. Maybe he’ll feel sorry, maybe he’ll understand…

But no. What a selfish reason to tell someone you’re their soulmate. To try and guilt them into staying with you because you’re so emotionally crippled that you can’t even say “Good job” to your son without making it sound like a momentous occasion-

Bruce goes back to being Gotham’s sole vigilante. He’s got bigger things to worry about, anyway. Gotham, for one, but also Ra’s and Justice League business and aliens and-

Despite it all, he keeps tabs on his Robin.

A year later, Bruce returns to his Batmobile to find a kid in a worn-out sleeveless shirt, kneeling by the tires with a lug wrench in one hand.

A kid with five bats on his right shoulder. The third one is red - the other four are black. Bruce feels that tell-tale tingle in his shoulder as his own mark changes color.

For a moment, he considers disappearing.

The kid hasn’t seen him yet - he is still hard at work, trying to get the tires off as fast as he can. There are two missing, already. If Bruce just grapples up to the rooftop, the kid wouldn’t know he was ever being watched in the first place.

One thing makes him stay.

He’s lonely.

Wayne Manor echoes too much, these days. Dick, with his constant brightness, his constant chatter and need for attention, has left a giant hole in his life - maybe it would be right to try and fill it. That need to protect, to nurture, to guide...

He didn’t have to be dependent on Dick for that to be fulfilled. He shouldn’t be dependent on Dick. In fact, Dick had been exceptionally clear - he didn’t want Bruce depending on him whatsoever. Furthermore, he had four baby bats on his shoulder. He had a cosmic duty to take care of those four bats.

And besides - the kid is clearly starving and homeless. Bruce has never been able to turn away a child in need.

And it's probably not that much of a commitment. What are the odds of him being an orphan?

Turns out, the odds are pretty damn high.

Jason Todd is 13-years-old, and he makes Dick look like an absolute angel.

Sometimes.

Eventually.

…Yeah, that statement needs more qualification.

Jason Todd is young. He knows Batman. He knows Bruce Wayne. He was raised in a city that respects both men. As a result, he almost never directly goes against the rules that Bruce lays out. He really is more well behaved than Dick was, at his age.

For the most part.

The first few weeks of Jason’s stay at Wayne Manor, he tests his boundaries, pushing vases over, leaving his school bag everywhere, tracking mud into the Manor… He tries to misbehave just about every way possible. Anything that Bruce thought would be a common sense rule is tested. It’s controlled misbehavior.

At first, Bruce can’t figure out why Jason would be two opposites at once; why he would be testing his patience so much. Then, he catches on: Jason is trying to prove that Bruce is just like his father.

That is, abusive.

But Bruce has nothing but patience. While Alfred becomes increasingly frustrated, Bruce makes the extra effort to show his new ward that there really is nothing that would make Bruce abandon him. Nothing that would make Bruce hurt him.

It’s easier to have grace for Jason once one considers the fact that, despite Jason’s best efforts, nothing he does is nearly as expensive (or dangerous) as Dick pulling the chandelier in the foyer down.

But it’s not just the cost in damages that makes Jason different from Dick.

The relationship Bruce has with Dick is difficult - always has been - put under pressure because of two factors: Dick doesn’t want Bruce to replace his parents, and Bruce doesn’t want to treat Dick as just a partner. They exist in an undefined space. Not-Father and Not-Son, More-Than-Partners. Sometimes, it works. Sometimes, it means that they have different expectations for each other, different boundaries, and when either of them violate these implicit expectations, they collide, then fly apart. A father can show more affection than a partner, a partner doesn’t have to ask permission from his other half. The positive and negative parts of a cloud clashing to shoot out lightning.

Maybe that was why Dick never asked to be adopted.

Never called him "Dad."

A year passes, and Jason asks to be adopted. He wants somewhere permanent. Maybe he’s testing Bruce, to see if he’s really committed.

Bruce has the papers ready within the week.

The relationship Bruce has with Jason is easier. Father and son. They spend time together - more than even Dick did. Dick was a social butterfly, but Jason stays at home. As a result, Bruce and Jason mesh together so well, they can practically read each others’ thoughts. Sure, Jason is hotheaded, but he’s quick to forgive. He doesn’t hold a grudge if he feels like a wrong has been righted. Bruce doesn’t hold grudges either, but he’s so uncertain when it comes to relationships… Suffice it to say, he is not forthcoming with what he’s feeling. What he’s thinking.

Sometimes, Jason is the opposite. Blunt, calling Bruce out whenever he’s acting…well, like himself.

He doesn’t talk about his mom. Ever. The only reason Bruce knows he even knew her is because of the nightmares. He cries out for her most often.

But he doesn’t look into Jason’s past even though he should have. It doesn’t seem to matter, especially not when Jason starts calling him “Dad” - first as a joke, then as a regular title.

Bruce looks at his soul marks, every day. Black, blue, red, and two that he hasn’t met yet. Maybe he can tell Jason.

But how would that make Dick feel?

The two of them - Jason and Dick - had started out on the wrong foot. Dick’s fury at Bruce had been redirected towards Jason, and Jason in turn, never one to back down from a fight, mirrored Dick’s anger right back at him.

And then they discovered they were soulmates.

They had decided to give each other another chance, and by the end of the week, they were texting back and forth and calling each other like Dick was just the older brother in his first semester of college.

Forgiveness. Just like that.

Bruce knows it won’t be so easily won for him.

Bruce can tell Jason that he is his soulmate, but if Jason tells Dick - which, of course he will, the two are thick as thieves - and Dick decides to cut all ties with Bruce permanently…

Bruce doesn’t know who Jason will side with.

He could lose them both.

In an instant.

“I’m your soulmate.”

Two sons, gone.

No. He won’t do it. He knows his limits, and he’s not strong enough to lose them both.

Of course, Dick chooses a fucking blue bat for his symbol.

He doesn’t seem to understand why this is a problem.

“It’s your identifier,” Bruce says through gritted teeth. “Your soul marks are available on the Internet. You think they won’t make the connections?”

“What’s the point of having a secret identity if I don’t have a secret life to protect?” Dick returns. “You’re Bruce Wayne, fine. You have to fund your ‘Bat-activities’ somehow. But I’m nobody. I sleep during the day and fight crime all night. What does it matter if they connect Dick Grayson to Nightwing?”

Bruce’s eyes narrow. “You burn this bridge now, there’s no building it back later. What if you need to go into hiding? What if you want to go a few hours without being a target to someone?”

Dick scoffs.

Bruce isn’t finished. “And what about the others? You think they won’t connect everyone else to their secret identities, too? As soon as they connect you to Nightwing, they’ll connect me to Bruce Wayne, Jason to Robin, Barbara to Batgirl-”

“I don’t live here anymore. They’re not smart enough to make that old of a connection,” Dick says, but he doesn’t sound convinced.

Bruce takes a brief second to push aside the spark of hurt that comes with Dick cutting ties so easily. “Even if they don’t make the connections,” he says, “they’ll still come after everyone to get to you. I know you’re fully capable of fighting someone off,” Bruce says, cutting off that argument before it can start. “And I can handle myself, suit or no suit, but if they catch me in public, I can’t fight back or else I’ll blow my cover. Same with Jason.”

Dick sulks, arms crossed tightly across his chest. For a few moments, he doesn’t say anything, but finally, “How about a blue bird, instead?”

Jason never tells him why he decides to go after Sheila Haywood.

Maybe he is just searching for family.

Maybe he just wants to find where he belongs.

Bruce tries to ignore the sting that comes with those thoughts, because if Jason is looking for family, for a sense of belonging, then he never found it with Bruce.

He isn't enough.

He isn't fast enough.

Soul marks hurt when they fade.

They send pinpricks up your spine, if you never met them.

They burn, if you loved them.

Bruce finds this out the hard way.

There are two more bats on his shoulder that he has yet to identify. There are Robin costumes and gear that are ready to be put to use.

Bruce decides that enough is enough. He can’t go through something like that again. He can’t lose another Robin, another bat on his shoulder.

One is enough.

So many days, he comes back from patrol, bleeding and broken on a level that he hasn’t let himself reach before.

His body aches. Always.

Alfred patches him up. Always.

As soon as Alfred finishes up, Bruce takes a look at the bloody Robin uniform in its memorial case, the plaque shining but illegible from a distance (it doesn’t matter; he knows what it says by heart). He thinks about calling Dick, about apologizing, confessing to him about the blue bat on his shoulder.

But then he remembers the venom in Dick’s voice, when they had last spoken.

“You don’t have any idea what it feels like. You don’t have soulmates. You don’t know how it feels to lose one.”

And he decides that he should leave Dick alone. That Dick just needs time. That being reminded of all of Bruce’s faults - even through the form of an apology - would do more harm than good.

He gets close to death, a few times, and Alfred tries to convince him to reach out, to tell Dick that he might not make it, to set things right before he loses the chance.

Bruce doesn’t.

He thinks about having Jason’s mark tattooed on his back, just where it was before, but he doesn't go through with it. He doesn't deserve it. He failed to keep one of his charges safe. The universe had gifted him with the only thing he wished for, and he had lost one. He had lost a child.

Lost but not gone. Death didn’t take Jason away from him. Not fully. Jason truly made a mark on Bruce’s soul, an imprint on his heart that he doesn’t know if he can ever recover from.

Bruce presses Dick’s contact button before he can change his mind.

It rings.

It rings.

It rings.

“…Bruce?”

Bruce takes a breath. His ribs sink their claws into his chest and it hurts, but he’s okay. He can manage. “Hello.”

“Why are you calling me?”

“I wanted to apologize,” he says.

Silence.

Bruce continues. “I was self-absorbed, when Jason… I knew you two were soulmates, and yet I didn’t say anything. I didn't tell you that he ran away in the first place, and that was a mistake. I wasn’t thinking. I should have been more considerate, and I’m sorry. I’ve been callous. The last thing I ever wanted to do was push you away, like I did with…”

He takes a breath.

Dick remains silent on the other end of the line.

“You’re always welcome at Wayne Manor,” Bruce continues. “And even if you want to maintain your distance, I will respect your decision.”

Dick doesn’t say anything.

Bruce waits.

Finally, Dick clears his throat. “I’m not moving back to Gotham.”

“Alright,” Bruce agrees.

“And you should have told me about Jason.”

“Yes.”

“…You haven’t scared Alfred off, yet, have you?”

Bruce almost laughs. Almost. Embers almost catching fire, but ultimately failing and dying to their dormant glow. “No. He has an abundance of patience for me, even after all these years.” He pauses, then adds, “He misses you.”

I miss you.

Dick goes quiet again.

Finally, Dick speaks. “I’m busy. Just got a job with the Blüdhaven Police. It’ll help me learn the city better.”

“Good choice,” Bruce says. But more importantly, “Do you enjoy it?”

“Yeah. There’s a lot of work to be done, but I like it.”

“Good,” Bruce says. “I’m proud of you.”

Dick goes quiet.

And hangs up the phone.

After that phone call, life changes and it doesn’t.

Dick stays away from the Manor.

He stops by every now and then - always to say “hi” to Alfred, always when Bruce is out of the house.

Bruce continues to work himself to death, every way he can. He’s not dead yet - he must not be working hard enough.

He makes the news, one night. Batman almost never makes the news, but it’s a high-profile fight. Fights with Poison Ivy often are. She tends to take root in Gotham parks, allowing for journalists to get footage of the elusive Batman from nearby rooftops, fairly safe from harm (though not entirely).

And tonight, they’re not disappointed.

Batman battles with Ivy, dodging attacks from mind-controlled citizens and plants alike as they conquer Gotham Central Park.

Why anyone would choose to live in Gotham, he has no idea.

Regardless, between the vines and the borderline zombies, this is a fight he has fought many times.

But tonight, it is different.

One moment, he is a one-man army, facing Poison Ivy alone. The next, Nightwing is by his side, quipping to Poison Ivy and avoiding her attacks. Flipping left and right and taking down civilians with the nonlethal tasers on the ends of his escrima sticks.

It’s strange.

It’s familiar.

It throws him for a loop.

The two of them fall into their old rhythm, staying nearby and never venturing out of reach of the other. They don’t say anything to each other; they don’t need to.

Batman trusts Nightwing with handling the civilians - this is Nightwing’s area of expertise, taking down without harming. Batman takes on the massive feral forest, instead. He keeps his attention on Ivy, but part of his awareness is distracted. He has a not-son-more-than-partner-who-is-currently-furious-but-also-smiling-and-happy to look out for, to protect.

So when he sees a feral fly trap, its gaping maw lined with jagged fangs and dripping with acidic saliva, poised and ready to snap at Nightwing’s back, Batman’s mind frizzes.

“Nightwing!” he shouts.

Nightwing looks up at him, thinking that Batman simply wants his attention. He doesn’t see the threat.

Batman shoots a grapple at Nightwing, bodily pulling him out of the way and to his side just as the fly trap chomps on empty air, where Nightwing had been standing moments before.

But it course corrects in a heart beat, diving towards Batman and Nightwing with a vengeance.

Batman could dodge, but right now, he’s the only thing standing between Nightwing and the beast. If he moves, it will go after Nightwing again. Nightwing, who’s still untangling himself from Batman’s grapple.

Batman takes a half second to cut the line, allowing Nightwing to free himself faster, before the fly trap’s jaws clamp down on Batman’s torso, fangs sinking into his chest. A split-second later, he’s being hoisted into the air, the teeth in his chest sending sparks of pain even as its poisonous saliva starts to numb the wounds.

“Batman!” Nightwing yells after him, his voice cracking from distress.

Batman grips the mouth of the monstrous plant, trying to pry its jaws open. He makes little progress, and each inch he pushes sends more pain through his nerves as the fangs are jostled and slowly wrenched out of his body.

But his grip slips, and the fangs sink deeper into his torso. His vision whites out for an unknown number of moments, and when he regains his bearings, he’s lying on the ground, with Nightwing crouching over him, hovering.

The world starts to cut out.

The feeling of hands on his chest.

“B, don’t you dare! Don’t you dare, you hear me? Stay awake - stay awake damn it!”

Wide blue eyes are his last sight before the spots in his vision spread to the rest of the world, and he falls unconscious.

He comes to in the Batcave MedBay. It’s not the first time - hell, it’s not even the first time this month - but there is one difference.

He’s not alone.

Dick sits in a chair beside the MedBay cot, head tilted back and mouth open in his sleep. His heels are propped up by Bruce’s knees. Close, but not touching.

Something in Bruce’s chest aches. It wasn’t too long ago that he would wake to find Dick cuddled close to him on the MedBay cot, waiting for him to wake up.

Dick has grown up, now. He’s not that little Robin that he was only a few years ago.

Bruce wakes again to find Dick awake this time.

He has moved his chair closer to the cot, one hand holding Bruce’s fingers in a light grip. His attention is on his phone as he scrolls through something, thumb absentmindedly tracing the length of Bruce’s ring finger.

For an unknown number of moments, Bruce doesn’t do anything. He keeps his breathing even, keeping still and watching Dick as he reads on his phone. If he has enough time, he can commit this sight to memory - the way the light highlights his black wavy locks, the way his brow is set in concentration. He has to remember this, remember how he looks, remember the callouses on his son’s hand. It’s not like he’s going to be seeing Dick again any time soon.

But he stayed after the fight with Ivy.

And he’s still here, now.

It’s this realization that makes Bruce gently squeeze Dick’s hand, letting him know that he’s awake.

Dick stops moving and looks down at their hands, caught in thought, deep in his mind, where Bruce cannot follow him.

Neither of them move.

Dick runs his thumb over Bruce’s bruised knuckles once, his normally cheerful features falling further into distress. When he was a child, Bruce would press a thumb between Dick’s eyebrows to smooth out his features, and Dick would giggle and smile up at him.

He doubts he would have as favorable a reaction, if he were to do so now.

After a long moment, Dick finally looks up at him, his long mussy hair dangling unkempt in front of his eyes. “Alfred says you’ve been doing this a lot.”

Bruce doesn’t say anything.

Dick takes this to mean Bruce is unrepentant, and he lets out a breath, hanging his head. “You can’t do this to yourself. You can’t let… You can’t keep doing this…” He sniffles, and Bruce feels his heart crack further. The grief seeps in deeper, this time with barbs of shame spreading poison through his chest.

It’s suffocating. It nails him in place, weighing his limbs down and keeping him from pulling his oldest into an embrace. He can’t do it.

“I can’t fix you, Bruce,” Dick whispers.

“You can’t,” Bruce agrees.

Dick returns to Bludhaven.

Bruce returns to his crusade against Gotham.

He returns to the MedBay almost every night.

It’s not long before Tim Drake proudly marches up to him and declares himself to be his soulmate.

That’s a new one.

Tim displays his shoulder as proof, and Bruce feels that tell-tale tingle in his own shoulder blade as his marks change color.

Dick glances between the two of them, waiting to see what Bruce’s reaction will be.

When Bruce regains his senses, he chooses not to respond and turns away, instead, walking away from two of his bats and disappearing into his study.

Running away.

Again.

Before he shuts the door, he can hear Tim’s confused and heartbroken voice ask Dick what had just happened, to which Dick says, “Don’t take it to heart, Timmy. Soul marks are a sore spot for him. He doesn’t have any.”

“But the sunflower-”

“Is a tattoo. It’s Alfred’s. Come on, let’s give him some space to cool off. You still want that tour of the Batcave?”

At first, Bruce is stubborn. He has committed his life to this path of self-destruction, signed over his rights in grief.

He will not have a Robin.

He will not be rescued.

He knows what Dick is doing, training Tim behind his back. Dick has said that he won’t stay in Gotham to help Batman when he's injured, that he thinks Tim would make a great partner. Every time, Bruce refuses. At first, it was a lecture, a list of reasons why Robin should never fly again. But Dick is persistent, and Bruce has taken to simply glaring at him instead.

Still, Tim and Dick spend weekends in the Bat Cave, training and spending time together.

Bruce doesn’t kick them out. It’s nice to hear them joking as he works on the computer. It’s reassuring to hear the sound of a mentor and mentee, to hear Dick and Tim talk about what Robin represents. What Tim would represent, should he become Robin.

Bruce thinks about that possibility on several occasions, but a particular costume case looms in the edge of his vision. A warning. A reminder.

But he can allow himself this comfort. He can entertain the idea of having more soulmates, more birds under his wing, happy for a change.

Eventually, Dick and Tim start spending time in the Manor, as well. As Dick gets more and more comfortable around Bruce, and Tim starts opening up about his (to say the least, cold) home life, the two of them start to become more than friends. They become brothers, teasing each other and hanging out for the sake of just spending more time together.

Half a year after Tim came into their lives, Dick moves back into the Manor for the summer. After explaining that his parents are out of the country - for the next seven months - Tim takes a guest room.

Bruce’s knee-jerk reaction is to adopt this boy. His instincts scream at him to protect, care, fix, protect-

Just like you protected Jason?

And with that one thought, those five letters, J-A-S-O-N, Bruce shies away from the prospect. If it were truly bad, Tim would say something. But he has only referenced it, so it must not be near that point…right?

Besides, if there’s anyone that should be intervening in Tim’s life, it’s not Bruce. His track record would put him dead last on a list of possible foster parents for Tim.

Two out of four soulmates, two out of four sons. The first hates him, the second is dead.

The third is dangerously close to him.

The fourth is safe, for now.

Though maybe it doesn’t have to be this way. Dick doesn’t seem to hate him anymore - not as much, anyway. They cross paths a lot, with him living in the Manor (even if it’s only for a few months). They have fights, sure, but the vast majority of their interactions are at least neutral - maybe even positive.

Bruce grows attached to the idea of having breakfast in the mornings with a grinning Dick and an excitable Tim at the table. He likes the idea of repairing his relationships, of redeeming himself enough to try and care for the three remaining bats on his shoulder.

Jason will forgive him for this, right?

He’s not certain.

But Dick is happy, and Tim is happy, and Bruce wants to be happy. He wants to seize this moment, this chance of a content life in Wayne Manor again, before it vanishes before his eyes and he’s left with a disappointed father figure and a costume in a glass case, an invisible ghost in his inner sanctum.

The ghost is still here, following him everywhere he goes, even as Dick laughs and jokes around, even as Tim relaxes and learns to smile, even as Alfred brightens with the opportunity to spoil another young boy with baked goods and warm gourmet food whenever he asks-

One day, it just becomes too much.

He stays in the city for a day, leaving without even telling Alfred where he’s going.

He needs to think.

He needs to breathe.

He needs to move on.

He can’t.

What is he supposed to do? Just…let Jason go?

He can’t. It’s impossible. Bruce has known Jason for his whole life, ever since that black bat appeared on his shoulder. He has felt Jason’s last moments. He can’t let him go. It’s a betrayal.

Just like he can’t let his parents go.

In that moment, God has pity on him. The light catches the golden sunflower tattoo, the petal lines illuminating in a soft glow.

And Bruce makes his decision.

He goes into the seedier part of Gotham in a disguise - his trusty Matches Malone outfit, with some modifications (like the concealer over his other soul marks and a temporary white bat exactly where Jason’s used to be) - finds a decently clean tattoo parlor, and pays one of the artists to “go over his tattoo again, this time in red.”

They don’t ask any questions and do as he asks, and after he pays her, he’s back at the Manor, back home within the hour, feeling like some wound in his soul has been stitched back together again.

It’s not healed yet, but it’s solid. It’s a start.

He goes into the kitchen and sees Dick pouring a bowl of cereal while Tim nurses a mug of something hot, judging from the vapor that curls around his face.

The two boys look up at his entry, and Dick makes a face. “And you say I have awful fashion sense.”

“I was gathering information,” Bruce corrects, but it lacks any passion. He then turns to Tim. “How long have you been coming here?”

Tim’s grip tightens around the mug, and Dick’s look hardens into something suspicious. After glancing between the two of them, Tim replies, “For…for about eight months, sir.”

“And you still want to be Robin?” Bruce asks.

Dick’s look of suspicion deepens.

Tim nods. “Yes sir. More than anything.”

Bruce returns the nod. “We’ll go on patrol tomorrow night. I want to see how you handle yourself in the field.”

By now, their faces are twin looks of shock, both of them staring at him as if he’s lost his mind. Maybe he has. Maybe he’s just got it back.

Regardless, Bruce takes his leave and exits from the kitchen, making his way back to the study.

Behind him, back in the kitchen, Dick whoops. “I told you you could do it, Timmy!”

“Was he being serious?”

“He’s Bruce! He can’t be anything but serious! This calls for celebration! Come on, grab your coat. We’ll go get ice cream.”

Somehow, in spite of everything, Bruce smiles.

While Dick and Tim are out of the house, Bruce tells Alfred about his new tattoo.

Alfred stiffens and blinks back tears. “A wise decision, Master Bruce. Young Jason would be honored, I’m sure. He was always demanding proof of your commitment to him.”

Bruce nods. “He was, wasn’t he?” It’s not easy to talk about him, not when there’s a voice in Bruce’s head that reminds him of the body buried in the Wayne Family Cemetery, just beyond the lone oak tree on the hill.

But it’s getting easier.

Perhaps it is not the only subject of conversation that is getting easier to broach. 

Bruce stares at the sunflower tattoo on his wrist for a long moment before he speaks. “…Should I tell them?”

“It is your decision, sir,” Alfred says, albeit a little bit hesitantly, “though I would recommend that you perhaps choose your moment with care. Such a reveal would undoubtedly cause strife, and your relationship with Dick is precarious enough as it is.”

Bruce nods.

Ultimately, when he retires to bed long after midnight, he decides against the soulmate revelation. Telling Dick now might result in Dick storming off again, this time taking Tim with him, believing that a relationship with Bruce would only be harmful to Tim. 

Besides, Tim has parents. Bruce has no claim to him. All he can do is provide a home, an environment where he feels safe, where he can grow and become his own man. He doesn’t need to know about his soulmates to do that.

He won’t lose them.

He won’t lose another Robin.

Jason was different from Dick, and Tim is different still from Jason.

He’s a quiet child. He keeps to himself, amiable and agreeable in every situation. It’s hard to know what he’s really feeling, he hides it so well. Dick and Jason, different as they were, they both spoke their minds. Tim, on the other hand, refuses to be emotionally vulnerable, even when directly asked about his preference.

Once Bruce finds out about his home life, he has a sinking feeling that Tim’s quiet demeanor was something trained into him. The thought makes him sick to his stomach.

If there’s one good thing to come out of Tim’s home life, it’s that gaining partial custody is exceptionally easy.

Bruce tries not to talk with Tim about his parents. As Batman and Robin take to the skies together again, they talk about everything but his home.

Dick has that covered, anyways. He talks to Tim about his parents, keeps tabs on them, and calls Tim often, even when he’s moved back to Bludhaven. He tries to convince Tim to stay with Bruce more often, for longer periods of time.

Tim, sneaky little kid that he is, promises to spend more time at Wayne Manor so long as Dick, his soulmate, is there as well. Dick must know what Tim is doing, but he falls for the trick anyways and starts spending every weekend in his old room in the Manor. 

“Anything for my soulmate,” Dick says, squishing Tim into a hug on more than one occasion. Jason would have pushed Dick away, or kicked Dick in the shins to get him to let go. By contrast, Tim leans into the contact, burrowing into the hug like a child with a frosty nose.

Bruce makes a mental note of Tim’s apparent touch starvation and actively tries to initiate contact, but he’s out of practice. It’s been so long since Dick was a child, crawling into bed every night he had a nightmare so that he could leach off of Bruce’s body heat. Now, a simple shoulder pat feels too genuine, putting him in a terrifyingly vulnerable position.

Logically, he knows that his muscles are simply contracting and relaxing to make contact with Timothy’s shoulder, and that contact in turn initiates a small boost of serotonin, oxytocin, and dopamine in Tim's brain. It increases trust levels between people, but ultimately, it is a simple motion, and a neurological reaction.

But it feels like something so much more when Tim beams up at him, blue-grey eyes lighting up at the simple act. To mean that much to one person…

Tim must not be seeing him as he is. He must be mistaken. He couldn’t possibly know Bruce, know his faults, his habits, his past, his personality. If he did, he would follow in Dick’s footsteps and move away, only visit on occasion unless there was someone else around Bruce he wanted to see.

Bruce Wayne keeps his soul marks secret.

Somedays, Bruce slips and calls Tim by the wrong name, calls him “Jason.” Tim never acknowledges it, never calls attention to it. He simply continues with whatever he was doing, and the two of them move on.

It only occurs to Bruce months after Tim has become his Robin that Tim might interpret such a slip of the tongue to mean that Bruce is actively comparing his two sons.

Which he is and isn’t.

He compares Dick, Jason, and Tim often, in awe of how three completely different people could mesh with his behavior so well, each bringing out a different side of him. He compares Dick’s cheerfulness to Jason’s foul mouth, Tim’s lack of sleep to Dick’s love of naps, Jason’s addiction to nicotine to Tim’s addiction to caffeine.

He compares, but only because he loves their differences. Not because he wants them to replace each other.

But Tim brings him coffee one night, and Bruce - still in his “detective” mode - says, “Thank you, Jason.” Something in Tim’s eyes dies a little, despite his little smile and nod.

Tim turns away, but Bruce calls for him to stop. “Wait, Tim.”

Tim stops, turns back around. “Yeah?”

Bruce sets down the coffee. “Thank you.”

“You said that already-”

“No,” Bruce says, shaking his head. “Thank you, Tim. It’s not fair for me to call you ‘Jason’.”

Tim softens. “It’s alright. I know you don’t mean it that way.” He looks over to Jason’s costume, and Bruce follows his line of sight. “It’s a lot,” Tim admits. “A lot to live up to. But I’m going to do it. I’m going to make you proud. And make him proud, too. And Dick, of course, but he has really low standards for me.”

Bruce tears his eyes away from Jason’s costume and stands, making his way over to Tim. He taps Tim’s cheek with a gentle knuckle. “You’ve already made me proud, chum. You are a credit to your uniform. Jason would…” Bruce chokes, but he pushes through. “Jason would approve. I know it.”

In an instant, Tim darts in close, throwing his arms around Bruce’s middle as fast as he can manage. He hides his face in Bruce’s chest. “Thank you.”

Bruce returns the hug, his cape falling around the two of them to completely cut them off from the rest of the world.

Loving Dick was easy.

Loving Jason was easy.

And loving Tim is just about the easiest thing in the world.

Years pass.

Slowly, Bruce finds himself again. He finds a new normal again, and a lot of that is thanks to Tim.

Batman and Robin are back in Gotham’s skies.

There is life in Wayne Manor again.

Jason’s costume stays in its case, but it’s getting easier to look at it. No longer does Bruce glance at the mannequin and see cuts, bruises, and burns over its plastic casing.

It’s not Jason. It’s just a mannequin. Jason is safe within his memories, immortalized in a red bat mark on the back of Bruce’s shoulder. Bruce no longer feels like he’s betraying Jason by breathing, by moving on, by opening his heart to others.

This new normal is something he’s not going to give up easily. Not after he’s been through so much to get it.

It’s not every day that the dead come back to life.

The Batman starts the week off by learning about a new figure making waves in Gotham’s underground, uprooting decade-old alliances in mere hours.

The Batman ends the week in his study, staring at an old picture of Jason on his desk.

Jason.

His second eldest.

His lost son.

His…prodigal son?

It can’t be but it is. 

Jason Todd is not dead; Jason Todd has returned to Gotham; Jason Todd is Red Hood.

Jason Todd, his boy, is somewhere in Crime Alley right now, carrying out his own brand of justice on those he deems unworthy, unfit for life. 

Bruce still remembers him as the boy who kept him from going too far. Robin has always been Batman’s compassion, his light. Now the roles are switched. Now a Robin is killing, a dozen victims a week. More, if he’s working on something.

Bruce keeps his distance for the most part. There are innocents to be saved in Gotham, as well. Jason Red Hood is not the only rogue out there, and the lives of upstanding men, women, and children take priority over the rapists and traffickers that Jason Red Hood deals with.

With Jason’s return comes the return of old habits. He doesn’t tell Dick or Tim about Red Hood’s true identity. He doesn’t even update the Cave files, because Tim learned how to hack those long ago. Alfred knows, of course - Bruce has never been able to hide anything from Alfred for long, and it’s easier to shoulder the burden of the truth when someone else is there with him, staring up at the positive DNA match on the screen of the Batcomputer.

Besides, there’s no reason to update Red Hood’s file with his true identity: Bruce will remember that revelation for the rest of his life. There are some things he doesn’t need to write down.

Jason Todd is alive.

Jason Todd is Red Hood.

Bruce Wayne is a failure.

Bruce Wayne deserves no soulmates.

When Tim calls him late one night, shaking and crying through his report of an attack on Titans Tower, Bruce doesn’t care that he hasn’t slept in days. He doesn’t care that it’s two o’clock in the morning. He’s in costume and flying over the continental U.S. in minutes, telling Tim to stay on the line as he murmurs assurance after assurance over the phone, trying to keep Tim calm and aware.

It doesn’t matter. Despite his best efforts, Tim is still shaken. “Bruce, I… Bruce, it was Red Hood. Red Hood attacked… He took out every one. Bruce, Red Hood is Jason.”

Bruce falls silent. Another secret, out in the open.

Do secrets ever die? Is it possible to keep something unknown for eternity? Or will all secrets become common knowledge, given enough time?

When Bruce arrives at Titans Tower, he goes straight down through the building, level by level. He finds the other Titans, all incapacitated, mostly without signs of external injury.

Until he reaches the Hall of Heroes.

Until he reaches Tim.

Tim looks up from where he sits, crumpled on the floor, blood and bruises covering every inch of his skin. He lifts a hand towards Bruce. “Batman…”

Bruce dashes forward, steadfastly ignoring the red letters on the wall, painted with Tim’s blood.

JASON TODD WAS HERE.

Logically, he knows that Tim is okay. That if he were truly in mortal danger, there would be a sharp pain in Bruce's shoulder.

But there is no pain, yet. 

Bruce eases Tim into his arms, pulls him to his chest and lifts him up. Tim tries to choke back a moan, but it warbles out anyway.

“I know,” Bruce says in a soft voice. “I’m taking you back to Gotham.”

“Jason…” Tim croaks.

Bruce shushes him. “I’ll tell you everything once we get home. I promise. No more secrets.”

“My team, I can’t…can’t leave,” Tim insists.

Every instinct in Bruce’s body tells him to wrap Tim in his cloak and bundle him up to keep him protected, to take him back to the safety of the Cave right this instant.

But Bruce’s head has always been louder than his heart. He knows that it’s a four hour flight back to Gotham at best. The Batwing is designed for speed - it doesn’t have the MedBay components that Tim might need.

He can move Tim to the Titans medical wing, and check on the other Titans for Tim’s peace of mind.

He finds and wakes Raven, first. He entrusts Tim’s preliminary medical care to her. He just needs to be stable enough to transport, stable enough to be comfortable for the flight home. She understands.

Then, true to Tim’s wishes, he finds the other Titans and wakes them, briefly giving them a rundown of the situation without giving them all of the details.

“A Gotham rogue I’m currently investigating tried to get to me through Tim,” is all he says. If Tim wants to tell them more, he can.

But Bruce has no right to tell the Teen Titans about Jason before he has told Dick.

Bruce does not learn lessons well - particularly lessons about social behavior and relationship expectations. One thing he remembers: it was a mistake not to tell Dick about Jason’s arrival to the Manor, and it was a mistake to not tell him about Jason’s death.

He pulls out his phone, the encrypted connection he only uses for matters that require a secure line.

It rings.

It rings.

“Batman? What’s up?” Dick sounds relaxed, but there’s a note of caution in his voice. It’s not often that Bruce uses this line, after all.

“Robin was attacked last night,” Bruce says. “Red Hood took out the Teen Titans, then singled out Robin and left a message in his blood.”

Dick chokes on the other end of the line. “Tim- Is he okay? He’s…? Is he…?”

“He’s alive.” Bruce is quick to answer, trying to be as reassuring as Batman can be over the phone. “I’m making sure he’s stable, then we’ll be on our way to Gotham.”

“I can be there- I can call Cyborg, he can get me there within the hour-”

“There’s more,” Bruce interrupts. “I can’t discuss details here. Are you still in Bludhaven?”

“Yeah.”

“At this time of day, it’s about a two hour drive. You should beat us by ten, fifteen minutes. I’ll meet you in the Cave. I’ll tell you everything I know about Red Hood.”

Dick is silent for a second, but then he pushes, “Everything?”

“I’ll tell Alfred to expect you,” Bruce says, then hangs up.

All secrets come out eventually.

As Bruce predicted, Dick is waiting for them when they fly into the Batcave. The Batwing has barely touched down before Dick is running towards them, helping Tim out of the cockpit.

“Dick?” Tim asks, sluggish. He blinks at Dick a few times, trying to clear his head. Good - the painkillers were working.

“Hey, baby bird,” Dick says gently. “I came as soon as I could.”

Tim glances over at Bruce. “So, you know…?”

Bruce shakes his head. “I wanted to tell him here. But after we check your injuries.”

Suspicious, Dick frowns at Bruce, but Bruce gives another shake of his head. Later.

“Come on,” Dick says, helping Tim along to the MedBay. “I’ll find out eventually. I always do.”

Bruce ignores the last little jab from Dick, going over to the Batcomputer instead. Tim’s injuries were already tended to, but he knew that Alfred and Dick would appreciate the chance to mother hen.

Which gave him about twenty minutes to collect his thoughts, pull the footage from Titans Tower (odd, how every other security measure except for the cameras had been shut down), and update his case file on the Red Hood.

Suddenly, Dick yells, “BRUCE!”

And he knows his time is up.

He turns back to see Dick marching towards him, with Tim hurrying after him on crutches. “Wait-! Wait, Dick-”

Alfred, in turn, follows Tim. “Master Timothy, you shouldn’t be up yet-”

“How many times are you going to keep Jason a secret from me?” Dick demands, only coming to a stop when he’s right in front of Bruce, close enough to jab a sharp finger into Bruce’s collar for emphasis. His eyes are bright with fury. “How long have you known?”

“Three months,” Bruce answers.

“Is that the truth?”

“Yes.”

Dick turns, takes a step away-

-Whips back around and punches Bruce across the face.

Tim gasps. Alfred makes a noise of scandal. “Richard John Grayson-!”

Bruce doesn’t move, head still snapped to the side from Dick’s punch. He can’t say it isn’t deserved. In fact, it’s been a long time coming. It really is a testament to how frustrating Bruce’s behavior must be, if he has even worn through the patience of Dick Grayson.

“Three months,” Dick repeats, voice low, vibrating with fury. “Three months, you knew and you never told me.”

Bruce looks back at his eldest, meeting his glare head-on. “No. I did not.”

“And then he attacked Tim,” Dick continues, “and you still wouldn’t tell me.”

“He said he was going to,” Tim pipes in, trying to help.

Dick keeps going. “He knows our secret identities - what, was I supposed to find out when he came after me?”

The mere thought of Jason going after Dick, in the same way that he had just attacked Tim, sends cold fear running through Bruce’s veins.

He’s never been good at dealing with fear.

“I did what I thought was necessary to keep you away from him,” Bruce growls.

“He’s my little brother,” Dick returns, never one to back down from a fight with the Bat. “Of course I’m going to go help him.”

“Your emotions cloud your head. You wouldn’t do what needs to be done-”

“What needs to-? Good grief, Bruce, you’re talking about him like he belongs in Arkham!”

“He is unstable, and I don’t want anyone getting hurt-”

“You’re pushing him away when he needs you the most!”

“He wants nothing to do with me-”

“Do you hear yourself? Jason is back and you won’t do anything-!”

“Jason is dead!” Bruce thunders.

Dick flinches back. Bruce never raises his voice - especially not at family.

The sound echoes around the Batcave.

A short distance away, Tim and Alfred share a worried glance.

Get yourself under control, Batman.

Taking a breath, Bruce continues. “Red Hood is not Jason. His actions are not in line with his prior behavior. Something is…wrong, and I’ve been unable to help him. I have let you in on his general activities, but have spared you from the worst of it. I knew it would make you want to confront him yourself, which in turn would increase the likelihood of you learning the truth. But I promised I would tell you everything.”

Bruce turns back to the computer and pulls up the crime scene photos he has on file. Gruesome scenes of murder and torture fill the screens - bones, exposed muscle, blood, features frozen in slackened agony…

Dick stiffens and takes a step back, physically repulsed by the sight on screen. “How… No. Not that’s not… There must be two of them. Two people going by ‘Red Hood’. Jason…”

“Jason would never,” Bruce agrees. The Jason Todd he knew, the one he raised, the one that he had taken under his wing was a fighter, sure, but for all of his talk about executing criminals, he always preferred to take them down quickly. A quick punch to the chin to knock them out. This behavior is something…wild. It’s not Jason.

Bruce turns back towards Dick. He promised the whole truth, and he is ready to give it. “This is why I kept you away from this. In truth, this is a pattern of behavior that has been going on for the past six months, ever since he first arrived in Gotham. He stays in Crime Alley, for the most part, occasionally venturing into the Bowery, but he has carved out his territory and is enforcing his own moral code on the criminals in the area. The only time he’s spotted outside of his boundaries is when the Joker is active.”

Bruce’s jaw works, but he forces the words out through gritted teeth. “The truth is that Tim was lucky, last night.”

Tim stumbles, and Alfred steadies him. “Alright. That’s enough. All of you,” Alfred decides, sending Bruce a warning look. “Put those images away. I believe we’ve had enough heartbreak for today, and Master Tim needs his rest.”

Bruce hides the file with a single key, and the photos vanish from view.

Out of sight, out of mind. What a naive sentiment.

“I’m okay, Alfred,” Tim says, straightening. “I can make it upstairs.”

“Better safe than sorry, sir,” Alfred returns. “Living room or theater room?”

“Theater room,” Dick says, joining the two of them. His voice switches to a happier tone - one he uses less and less with Bruce, it seems. “I can grab pillows and blankets and meet you up there, and we can watch that movie we missed from a few months back. Sound like a plan?”

Tim smiles and nods at him. “That sounds good.”

“I expect you upstairs in two minutes,” Alfred says, leveling a stern look at Bruce and Dick. "Both of you." Then, he turns and guides Tim to the elevator, staying by him in case he is needed.

As soon as they’re alone, the Cave goes quiet.

Dick crosses his arms, takes a deep breath. “I don’t like being kept out of the loop. Especially when it comes to family.”

Bruce nods gravely. “I know.”

Dick returns the nod, looks down at his shoes.

For a moment, neither of them say anything.

The soft twittering of bats echoes through the Cave - a background noise that Bruce hardly notices, anymore.

After a few seconds, Dick looks back up at Bruce. “I understand why you hid this. If it… If I had found out first, that Jason wasn’t really… I wouldn’t have told you either. I know how much you loved him, too. I understand wanting to protect us from this.”

At this, something in Bruce’s heart settles. He was expecting worse. He was expecting…

“You don’t have any idea what it feels like. You don’t have soulmates. You don’t know how it feels to lose one.”

Bruce puts a hand on Dick’s shoulder. “You two were soulmates,” he says. “I should have told you, anyway.”

Somehow, in the midst of everything, Dick offers Bruce a small smile. “Well, what do you know. You can teach an old bat new tricks.”

Bruce rolls his eyes fondly, but he lets it slide. It’s an olive branch, after all. It’s a moment of understanding. Maybe keeping Dick in the loop wouldn’t be such a bad thing, after all.

He motions for Dick to leave. “Go on. I know you’re looking forward to watching movies with Tim all day.”

“If you’re not upstairs watching with us by noon, I’m coming back down to drag you up there myself,” Dick warns as he turns to go.

Safely alone, Bruce allows a smile onto his face. A smile which fades once his eyes catch onto Jason’s old costume.

Jason is dead.

But maybe he can come back.

He manages to table his Red Hood case for a few hours and joins Dick and Tim for a few movies. Alfred allows them to eat in the theater room - a surprising turn of events, for sure - so they spend the rest of the day together, with Dick poking fun at the plots and Tim making predictions all the while.

Bruce says nothing. He simply enjoys their company.

Eventually, the two of them fall asleep on the couch, and Bruce takes a moment to drape a blanket over the two of them. He turns to leave, to head out for patrol, when Tim snags his shirtsleeve.

“Don’t go,” he says.

Bruce doesn’t have the heart to leave. And so, he sits next to Tim, draping an arm over the back of the couch, behind the shoulders of his oldest and youngest. Tim leans into him and goes back to sleep.

And if he closes his eyes for long enough, he can pretend that there is nothing wrong with the world.

Jason remains distant.

A chance encounter one night changes little, and changes much.

Red Hood is braced for a fight, caught on the roof with a sniper aimed at Black Mask’s office, but he switches targets once Batman shows up. He drops the sniper and aims double pistols at Batman’s chest, drawing them in a heartbeat. He's had a lot of practice.

Bruce raises his hands. “I’m not going to fight you.”

Red Hood barks a laugh. “Batman? Not fighting criminals? Gee, what’s the world coming to?” He doesn’t lower his weapons.

There’s a lecture he could start, now - the meaning of justice, why he doesn’t kill - but Jason’s heard it all before. And so, instead, he asks, “Why didn’t you kill Robin?”

Red Hood doesn’t move. For a minute, he simply stares at him, simply considers him.

His shoves his pistols back into their holsters, and the knot in Bruce’s chest eases.

“Kid gets it,” Red Hood says, shrugging. “He knows what he’s doing. To Robin. To himself. And I don’t kill kids, B. I’m offended that you think I would.”

“I’ve seen the crime scenes you leave behind,” Bruce grimaces. “I never thought you would murder and torture, either.”

Red Hood doesn’t say anything.

Batman takes a step forward, but upon seeing Red Hood startle, he stops moving. “Come home, Jason. I can help you.”

At that, Red Hood scoffs, picking up the sniper and slinging the strap over his shoulder. “Don’t need your help. I’ve been doing fine on my own, in case you haven’t noticed. Crime Alley’s better off with what I’m doing.”

“You’re killing people,” Bruce tries.

Red Hood shrugs. “I didn’t kill Tim, right? Oh, wait. That one doesn’t count for some reason. I forgot about the stubborn way your brain works.” Red Hood stands up and moves to the edge of the roof. “I mean, not that I needed to do anything in the first place. You’ll probably get him killed soon enough, anyway.” With that, he jumps off the building.

Batman doesn’t follow. He simply stands there, watching as Red Hood grapples away.

Dick needed time, after Robin. If Jason needs time, if he needs space, then he can have all that he needs.

But Batman still has to protect life, to enforce law and order.

He knows that he will be seeing Red Hood again.

Tim loses a lot, over the next few years.

His mother.

His father.

His friends.

He becomes intimately familiar with the feeling of loss. The sight of death. It’s something that Bruce would protect him from - if it weren’t for how common it really is. He cannot protect Tim from life, but he can help guide him through it.

Bruce owes him that much.

And when Tim asks for a break from the life of a caped crusader, Bruce approves without hesitation.

However, knowing where Tim’s mind automatically jumps to, Bruce makes sure to say that he welcome back any time, that Bruce only approved his request so quickly because Tim has earned a break. That it makes him no less of a hero for taking a step back, for however long he may need to. Forever, if he so decides.

Tim comes back, of course - he believes in Robin too much to ever leave Batman alone for long - but he’s more quiet, now. Contemplative.

He has lost much.

A few weeks after Tim’s return to crime fighting, Bruce offers to adopt him, and he accepts.

But he doesn’t stop there.

Bruce catches Dick on his next trip to Gotham and sits him down in the library, pulling out adoption papers that he had prepared, just for Dick.

“I didn’t think you wanted to be adopted, as a child,” Bruce starts, “but I made the offer to Jason, and I offered the same to Tim. It’s only fair that you be offered the same. If you wish for it, I will adopt you right now. But if you don’t-”

Dick cuts him off with a laugh and hugs Bruce. It’s a brief hug, but it’s tight, it’s warm, and it smooths over a crack in his soul. “I was wondering if you were ever gonna ask,” he says, grinning as he sits back.

Bruce pulls Dick back in for a second hug. Naturally, his eldest - never one to turn down affection - wraps his arms around Bruce’s middle and sinks into the hold, preparing to be there for awhile.

Bruce presses a kiss to Dick’s temple, warmth and happiness filling his chest. “I’m glad I did.”

The Christmas charity gala is a Wayne tradition, but usually there is only one Wayne. There was one year where there were two. Now, there are three.

It is there that Bruce announces the official adoption of Dick and Tim to the gathered crowd of socialites.

The crowd applauds.

Dick and Tim beam up at him.

Alfred subtly wipes away a tear.

When the festivities officially start, Bruce spends his time by his sons, telling stories of them (sometimes heavily edited to keep out details relating to Batman and Robin) to anyone who would listen. It gets repetitive, but it’s completely worth it when Tim blushes bright red and says, “Dad, you’re embarrassing me.”

Upon realizing what he just said, Tim blushes harder.

Bruce feels like his chest has been overfilled with helium, lightheaded and about to burst from delight. He squeezes Tim’s shoulders as Tim tries to hide his embarrassment by tucking his face into Bruce’s chest. Bruce presses a kiss to Tim’s hair and notices that Tim is blushing so hard, his ears are red.

He chuckles, rubbing Tim’s back a few times. “Alright, Tim, I’ll stop.”

“Damage has already been done,” Tim moans, voice muffled. “I’ll just die now.”

The gathered party goers laugh at Tim’s expense, and something (over)protective kicks into gear.

“Alright,” Bruce says, forcing a smile. “Let’s go find your older brother.” He guides Tim away from the group with a short, “Excuse us.”

Once they are out of ear shot, he pats Tim’s shoulder. “You can go ahead and leave, if you want. I can see that this makes you uncomfortable.”

“It’s stupid,” Tim says, looking down at his hands. “Usually, I can make it through the whole party. But it…”

“It’s different,” Bruce finishes, carding his fingers through Tim’s hair. “It’s alright. Know your limits, and respect them. You don’t need to push yourself here.”

Tim nods, recognizing the words of wisdom from his Robin training. “Okay. Can… Is it okay? If I go now?”

“Of course,” Bruce says. “Be sure to tell Alfred. He’ll save you some trifle.”

“Thank you,” Tim says, but he hesitates. Then, he darts forward and kisses Bruce’s cheek, then ducks away and hurries out of the ballroom.

Bruce…needs a second to deal with his emotions before he does something like cry from joy or something embarrassingly out of character.

Despite the chilly winter air, he steps out onto the balcony. The cold weather has ensured that no one else is out there. He has the place to himself.

The light from the party behind him lights up the yard for only so far, but the bright winter moon casts light over the rolling landscape. The grass was grey and dead, the trees bare of leaves and birdsong. Without the snow to add a glittering veneer over nature, it’s all just…dead.

But after winter, the season of death, there is new life in spring. The warm feeling in Bruce’s chest clings to this thought and keeps him hopeful, even as he stands there, the lone living thing out here.

Well, so he thought.

“Congrats on the replacement.”

Bruce looks over to his right to find Jason Red Hood, leaning against the side of the building from where he sits on a false balcony on the second floor. Since he didn’t hear him approach, Bruce concludes that he must have been sitting there for awhile. The half-burnt cigarette in his mouth would support such a conclusion.

“Neither of them are replacements,” Bruce says with patience. “Dick is not a charity case. You are not Dick’s replacement, and Tim is not yours.”

“He is, though,” Red Hood says, blowing out a trail of smoke.

Bruce shoves his hands into his pockets, tired of having this argument. Especially when Red Hood won’t accept the answer, anyway. “Care to come inside?”

Red Hood laughs at him.

On some level, he’d been expecting that response. It still dampens his mood with a twinge of disappointment.

Bruce tries another tactic. “Alfred would like to see you again. He’s been worried that you haven’t been eating well.”

Red Hood sends him a glare, but he doesn’t say anything.

Shifting to stave off the cold, Bruce tries one last thing. “Your room hasn’t been touched. If you ever need somewhere to stay, it’s still yours. You don’t ever need to ask.”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Red Hood returns. He takes another drag from his cigarette, and it takes a mountain of self-control on Bruce’s part to keep himself from throwing a Batarang at the cancer stick. “Get back inside, old man. Don’t want you catching pneumonia.”

“Yes, my lungs are the ones you should be worried about,” Bruce returns, raising an eyebrow.

Red Hood blows smoke at him in response.

Sighing, Bruce turns back to the balcony doors. “Merry Christmas, Jason.”

“Bah-humbug,” he returns.

Bruce returns to the gala, but instead of immediately rejoining the festivities, he goes over to the buffet table and makes a plate, piles it high with sweet and savory foods. He grabs a styrofoam cup of hot chocolate from the kids’ table, as well.

Then, he slips back out onto the balcony and sets the plate and cup down on the railing.

Red Hood isn’t there, anymore.

Bruce dips back inside.

It isn’t until later, when he goes back out to the balcony to collect the plate and cup, that he finds both items are missing.

Making a mental note to check the security footage once the rest of the guests have cleared out, Bruce goes back inside to finish the party.

There’s a child on his doorstep.

Alfred has a blank expression on his face, but Bruce knows there is a wealth of barbs and jabs in his mind, just waiting for the right comedic timing.

The child looks Bruce right in the eye. “My name is Damian Wayne. I was told to come find you, and that you would complete my training.”

Bruce looks back at Alfred to find that two others have joined the peanut gallery. Dick coughs to hide a laugh, and Tim peers around his older brother in curiosity, trying to get a look at the newcomer.

Bruce turns back to the child. “How old are you?”

Damian draws himself up to his full height. “Six.”

Dick bursts out laughing.

Bruce’s insides run cold. He remembers what happened six years ago. How could he forget? “Your mother is Talia al Ghul?”

“Yes,” Damian says. “I am the heir to the Demon’s Head, son of the Batman.”

Ah. Of course he would know about his secret identity. “And she sent you here?”

“Yes.”

Bruce runs a hand back through his hair. “Alright, come in.”

“You’ll want to run a DNA test, I assume,” Damian says, stepping into the foyer. He has nothing but a small satchel with him - a satchel as small as he is - and a...katana. Okay. “I would expect nothing less of Batman.”

“You can call me ‘Bruce.'"

Damian doesn’t hear him. Instead, he freezes, eyes locked onto Dick and Tim. “Father, Mother said you only had one member on your waitstaff.”

Oh good lord.

Dick can’t stop laughing, but Tim’s curiosity has started to morph into annoyance.

“These are your elder brothers,” Bruce says. “And Alfred is part of the family, too.” Alfred nods.

Extending a hand, Alfred says, “Good to meet you, young sir. My name is Alfred Pennyworth.”

Damian ignores the offered hand and crosses his arms, glaring at Dick and Tim. “Mother said you had no other children.”

“Bruce,” Dick cackles, “he looks so much like you. He’s practically a mini Batman already.”

Damian’s eyebrow twitches in irritation, and Bruce intervenes before Damian can be rude again. “Damian, this is my oldest, Dick. And my third oldest, Tim.”

Understanding dawns in Damian’s eyes. “Richard Grayson and Timothy Drake. Two of your Robins. They are not my brothers.”

Tim crosses his arms. “Timothy Drake-Wayne, actually.”

“Makes no difference, Drake,” Damian sneers. “We share no blood. You are not my brothers.”

Tension in the room skyrockets as Dick stops laughing, starts to take offense to the impudent child. “Hold on a second. We’re all family-”

“But I am the only blood son,” Damian snaps. “The Batman mantle is mine to inherit - as is Wayne Enterprises.”

“It’s not a mantle-”

“Not only am I the blood son,” Damian continues, “but I know none of you share a soul mark with Father, whereas I do.”

Bruce freezes.

He only has one soul mark still unidentified.

One small baby bat, struggling to keep up with the rest of the colony.

Could it be…?

Dick picks up on his discomfort, but misdiagnoses it. “Hey, kiddo. Why don’t we-”

“I do not blame you if you require proof,” Damian says, taking off his satchel. “I expect as much. Grandfather speaks highly of you for good reason, I imagine.”

“Is he six or forty-six?” Tim grumbles.

Dick glances up at Bruce, concerned. Whatever he finds in Bruce’s face makes him double his efforts. “Damian, you’re confused.”

“Nonsense,” Damian says. He pulls his sweater aside, stretching the fabric. “I assume this is you?” It’s only somewhat of a question. He says it like he already knows the answer. Like he’s just confirming a theory he has proven before. He shows Bruce his shoulder and there it is again, for the last time. A tingle in his right shoulder blade as the last bat in the line turns from black to green under Bruce’s shirt.

That’s it then.

All of his soulmates.

Dick.

Jason.

Timothy.

Damian.

He’s found them.

The realization takes his breath away, and he doesn’t respond immediately.

Thankfully, Tim - his partner, his Robin, his other half - takes a half-step forward. “Damian-”

“Be silent, Drake,” Damian snaps. “This is a family matter. It does not concern you.”

Bruce’s eyes narrow, snapping out of his personal epiphany. This has gone far enough. “Damian, you are out of line. Tim is my son as much as you are.”

Damian scoffs. “He said that he doesn’t have you as a soulmate, while I do. Therefore-”

“I have no soulmate,” Bruce growls.

The statement actually stings. A sharp pang in his shoulder, right where his soul marks are.

For the first time since his arrival, Damian stutters, unsure of himself. “I… You do not? But Mother said-”

Bruce’s heart drops. Yes, Talia would know. Of course she would. He would have been too drugged, too disoriented to worry about hiding the marks, protecting his secret.

“She likely saw this-” Bruce shows him the sunflower tattoo on the back of his wrist- “and made assumptions when she saw your bat marks. No, I have no soulmates.” There’s that sting again. “Your other two marks are Dick’s and Tim’s, so I suggest you apologize to them or you will be left without soulmates, yourself.”

The thought seems to spark horror in Damian, whose muscles tense. His eyes flick over to Tim, to Dick.

Dick offers a sad smile. “Tried to warn you, baby bat.” Dick pulls his sleeveless workout shirt to one side, revealing the Black Bat, followed by blue, yellow, and now a green bat. Jason’s mark is missing - he must have decided to not have it tattooed. Tim doesn’t reveal his.

One of Damian’s marks change color in turn, fading to blue. Tim’s mark remains black.

After a moment, Damian hides his marks again, scoffing. “This changes nothing.”

The atmosphere of the Manor for the next few weeks is tense.

For the most part, Tim keeps his distance from Damian, but anytime the two are in the same room, Damian says something derogatory and Tim starts to respond in kind. Unless separated, an all-out brawl begins, and it usually ends in first aid kits and scowling.

It’s actually a marked improvement from the first few fights, in the midst of which Damian drew dagger after dagger from various hidden folds in his clothing. After Bruce confiscates his weaponry - Alfred’s strict “no costumes in the Manor” rule is still in effect, after all - the fights become less deadly, though no less frequent.

Bruce tries to build an emotional connection with Damian, hoping to tame his temper somewhat, but his son seems adamant on treating Bruce as his trainer.

It makes him wonder what kind of relationships he had with Talia and Ra’s.

There are many flaws in Damian - he is unkind, he is irresponsible and spoiled from being waited on his entire life, and he doesn’t express any emotion other than disdain or rage.

So, Bruce decides to try something.

He comes home early from work one day and finds Damian in the Batcave, practicing katas (just as he always does at this time in the afternoon). Dick and Tim are by the computer, going over their latest case on Mr. Freeze.

The puppy in Bruce’s arms yips a greeting, and all three boys whip around to stare.

Damian tilts his head to the side, and the puppy mirrors the action. “Is that…?”

Tim turns his chair around, crossing his arms tightly across his chest. “Bruce, what…?”

“Have you ever cared for an animal?” Bruce asks, moving to Damian. The puppy in his arms squirms in excitement, trying to jump out of his arms and into Damian’s general vicinity. Damian seems equally fascinated with the dog.

“Once,” he answers, eyes locked onto the puppy. “There was a wild kitten… I was disobedient and hid her for a week. When Grandfather discovered my deception, he made me snap her neck.”

Bruce hesitates. Maybe giving him the dog right now isn’t the best idea.

Instead, he sits down on the training mats, keeping the puppy in his lap. “We treat animals with love and care, here,” he says. “There will be no harming the animals. Understand?”

“Understood,” Damian says, folding his legs underneath him and scooting closer to Bruce.

“Would you like to pet him?”

Damian looks up at him, green eyes hopeful. “Does he like that?”

“Sure,” Dick says, joining them on the mats and sitting down. “Be gentle with him. He’s little, just like you.”

Damian scoffs. “Tt. If he is truly like me, then he is stronger than he looks.”

The puppy yips in agreement, and Damian, caught off guard, lets a small smile slip past his defenses.

The sight makes the world stop spinning for a moment.

Damian schools his features, but there’s still a softness about him as he reaches out a hand and scratches the puppy between the ears. The puppy actively makes things difficult by trying to lick every inch of Damian’s hand, and then his face.

Damian giggles.

Everyone freezes, including Damian, who watches Bruce like a squirrel that just spotted a human. His breathing is even - too even, controlled, hiding something - but his outstretched hand trembles, even as the puppy continues to lick at his fingers.

“Would you like to hold him?” Bruce asks.

Damian glances at the puppy with only his eyes, still not daring to move. His eyes flick back to Bruce’s, and he nods once - a test, just like with Jason. Testing boundaries. Testing reactions.

Bruce knows this. This is familiar. All he needs is patience and kindness.

Good communication skills wouldn't hurt either, but he has no idea where he's supposed to get those.

Bruce passes over the puppy, making sure that Damian had a good hold on him before he let him go. With the bundle of fur in his arms, Damian relaxes, his attention wholly on petting the dog and keeping him from running off.

Dick leans over and boops the puppy on his nose. “He’s so cute! What are you going to name him, Dames?”

“You are incorrect, Grayson,” Damian says, his serious facade ruined by the puppy that had moved on from licking his hand to licking his jaw. “He is not cute. He will grow to become a fearsome warrior. He deserves a name that will honor his legacy. I will call him Titus.”

Bruce looks over to invite Tim to see the newest edition to the Wayne Family, but as soon as he makes eye contact with him, Tim turns back to the computer.

Dick nudges Bruce with his knee and jerks his head to the Batcomputer. You go to Tim. I’ll watch Damian.

Bruce nods, stands up and stretches. “Keep him on the mats, okay Damian?”

“Yes, Father,” Damian says, as if he is accepting a mission. Titus barks in solidarity.

With that, Bruce turns away from his eldest and youngest, making his way over to where his partner sits, intently focused on the Batcomputer.

Bruce puts a hand on the back of the chair. “How long have you been down here?”

Tim shrugs, but doesn’t look at him. “A few hours.”

“Since before breakfast!” Dick calls. Tim shoots him a glare.

“You’re not happy with the dog,” Bruce says. It's his primary theory at the moment, though not his only theory.

Tim rolls his eyes. “The dog is fine.”

“You’re not happy with me.”

“I’m a Robin. Am I supposed to be happy with you?”

Bruce doesn’t say anything to that. Tim’s not usually the one that dishes out insults and jabs regarding his past failures, but that does not mean that he can’t do it if he so chooses.

Tim sits back in the chair and looks at his hands. “Sorry. That was uncalled for.”

Bruce grunts, but doesn’t say anything.

“It’s just…” Tim struggles. “I don’t get it. He’s a spoiled brat, and after everything he’s done, everything he’s been saying about the family, you just come home and you give him a puppy?”

“Dogs teach responsibility,” Bruce says. “And you are forgetting your training.”

Tim stands up. “What training? How to rehabilitate feral children?”

Bruce levels a disappointed look at him and says in a low voice, so as to keep Damian from overhearing, “Dealing with abused and traumatized victims.”

Tim’s eyes drop to the ground, sufficiently chastised. “Oh.”

“I’m not saying his behavior is excusable,” Bruce says, putting a hand on the back of Tim’s neck, “but it is understandable. His social skills are severely warped, and so the burden is on us to meet him where he is, to help teach him what it means to be a part of the family. He can’t do that on his own. That being said, if you don’t feel comfortable around him, then-”

“No,” Tim says, determined. “No, it’s alright. I’ll handle it. I mean…it’s not like I can avoid him forever. He’s my soulmate.”

Affection warms Bruce’s heart, and he can’t help but wonder if Tim would say the same thing about him, if he knew that Bruce was his last soulmate.

Knowing his luck, probably not.

Bruce rubs his thumb against the soft skin at the base of Tim’s skull, and the tension drains out of his Robin. Tim leans against him, and Bruce secures him in place with a hug. Over the years, living with Dick and Tim, he has become more open to physical affection.

But not that open.

He pats Tim’s shoulder and pulls back. “I’m sure you two will work things out.”

Titus doesn’t leave Damian’s side.

Ever.

Wherever Damian goes, so does Titus. He is becoming Damian’s shadow, and the fights have become less frequent. Damian spends less time seeking out Tim and more time sitting with Titus, training him.

It’s a little scary how quickly Damian gets Titus to behave.

Bruce worries that perhaps Damian is too dependent on Titus. Perhaps he’s actually alienating himself from the other family members, choosing the company of animals to avoid having to form relationships with Bruce, Dick, Tim, and Alfred.

Bruce voices his worries on patrol one night.

“It’s just a dog,” Dick says, shrugging.

Well, it’s not just a dog. Damian takes Titus’s existence as permission to adopt other animals, and before Bruce regains his senses enough to put his foot down, there’s a cat named Alfred and a cow in the Batcave and a turkey that sometimes walks into the study when Bruce is on a video call with WE board members.

Maybe the dog was a bad idea.

A sharp, familiar pain in his shoulder sends a wave of horror through Bruce.

The last time he had felt this, there had been a crowbar, a clown, and several boxes of explosives involved.

He had been in bed five seconds ago, recovering from a fear-toxin-dipped scythe wound to the calf (thank you, Crane), but as soon as that burning feeling starts, he’s out of bed, throwing back the covers and hobbling down the stairs. He fumbles with his phone and sees that Dick is calling him.

He answers. “Dick?”

“Bruce,” Dick says, breathless. “One of my soul marks - I don’t know who, but Tim or Damian… I’m on patrol right now, and they’re both at Wayne Manor. Someone’s in trouble.”

“I’m on my way down,” Bruce says. “I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.”

“Immediately.”

“I promise.” With that, Bruce hangs up, hurrying down the stairs as fast as he can manage.

“Alfred!” he calls as he moves to the study, hoping that the butler is within earshot. The lack of an answering call suggests that he is not.

A light on Bruce's desk blinks red, indicating that the elevator to the Batcave is out of order. He uses the emergency poles instead, knowing that there’s no way he’s going to make it down there on the stairs with his leg out of commission.

When he reaches the Cave, fear beats against his chest like a war drum, and the sight he sees morphs that fear into rage.

Tim is in his Robin suit, the red of the costume hiding any bleeding wounds that he may have - that he likely had, judging from the amount of blood on the floor where he lies. The memorial to Jason is gone. Instead, broken glass surrounds Tim's form, and the tall stand used to steady the mannequin has impaled him, near his right hip.

He’s not moving.

Damian stands above him, wearing Jason’s old costume, with parts of his League attire - the clothes he had been wearing when he first arrived on Bruce’s doorstep.

He straightens when he sees Bruce. “Father? What are you doing out-”

“What have you done!” Bruce roars, throwing caution to the wind and running towards Tim. The pain in his leg tells him that he’s ripped his stitches, and the sting in his feet tells him he should have put on house slippers. He couldn’t care less.

Damian steps forward, hand outstretched. “Father, your feet-”

Bruce ignores him, kneeling next to Tim and taking stock of his injuries. There are many - but the most pressing thing is the stab wound in his hip. Bruce disconnects the stand and takes it apart so that only a length of pipe about a foot long is left, still lodged in Tim's hip to keep the bleeding at bay. Carefully, Bruce eases Tim up so that he can slip an arm beneath Tim’s shoulders.

Tim groans. “Batman?”

“I’m right here,” Bruce says. “Hang on.”

“S’okay,” Tim says. “I stopped the bleeding.” He gestures to the stand, where one of his gloves is tied to the stand. It's only somewhat helpful, but Bruce will take any advantage in his favor, no matter how small.

“I’m going to lift you up, ready? One, two…” Bruce stands, lifting Tim in his arms. Tim coughs into a fist, but the coughs are dry. No punctured lung, at least. That's good. With the way Tim's breaths are coming, he knows that his ribs are injured. At least it's not worse.

Bruce turns and starts back to the MedBay, taking care to keep Tim steady.

Damian follows at his heels. “What are you doing with him? He’s weak. He should be discarded. Clearly, I am the superior son, and it is my right to replace him-”

“Nobody is replacing anybody,” Bruce growls through gritted teeth. How many times does he have to say those words before his sons believe him? “If you wish to be a part of my household, you will abide by my rules. We take care of each other. We look after each other. If you break these rules, if you harm anyone else in this family, then you are no son of mine. Now, go get Alfred, before you test my patience.”

Damian stiffens and bows deeply, then scurries off to do as he is told.

Bruce has a feeling he has just made an error.

He shakes off the feeling. Tim is the priority. Damian can be dealt with later, once Tim has stopped leaving a trail of crimson dots across the Batcave.

He reaches the MedBay and has just begun to set up a transfusion when Alfred comes in, looking somewhat frazzled but determined. He shoos Bruce to another cot so as not to damage his feet further and starts ordering Damian around.

Bruce, feeling the ache in his shoulder ease as Tim’s condition stabilizes, remembers his promise to Dick and calls him, updating him on the situation. A short distance away, Alfred overhears everything Bruce is saying and he clenches his jaw, furious. Damian cowers in the corner of the MedBay, trying to stay out of everyone's way.

Dick returns a few minutes later and goes to Tim, first, checking to make sure that his brother was alright. Then, he moves over to Bruce, taking in the damage on his still-injured calf and the soles of his feet. “Another two days off of patrol, for you, and a week for Tim,” Dick teases. “Looks like I get to do all the hard work again.”

Bruce lets the humor slide. Dick had two ways of dealing with fear: humor, or his temper. He’d gladly take his humor any day of the week.

Then, Dick turns to Damian, all humor draining out of his expression. “Care to explain yourself, Damian?”

Damian’s back muscles stiffen, locking his perfect posture in place. “I was told that I would need to prove my value to Father, upon my arrival, and that I would need to succeed Drake to become Father’s heir. I acted accordingly.”

“You attacked your brother in our own home,” Dick snapped. “You attacked your soulmate. Do you even realize how painful it is, to lose a soulmate? That pain you felt in your shoulder-”

Damian turns his nose up at this. “Tt. I felt no such thing.”

Dick stutters. “You…” He turns back to Tim. “Did you not…?”

Tim gives a weak scoff. “Of course I didn’t. Why should he get to have my soul mark when he’s done nothing but hurt me since he showed up here?”

Bruce tries really hard not to apply Tim’s words to his own situation. His mind does it anyway.

“That is unfair!” Damian cries. “I showed you my marks. You just… You lie. You’re not my soulmate. You’re a pretender. A pretend Wayne, a pretend heir. I share nothing in common with the likes of you-”

Tim turns on his uninjured side and shows Damian his soul marks, and Damian gasps, clasping his shoulder in a clawed hand.

Dick takes a concerned step forward. “Damian…?”

But the young boy doesn’t wait around another second. He ducks around Dick, darting out of the MedBay as fast as he can manage.

Dick looks over to Bruce, looking for guidance.

Bruce pushes himself up off the MedBay cot. “I’ll go talk to him-”

“You will do no such thing,” Alfred snaps, a strict hand on his shoulder preventing him from going anywhere. “You tore your stitches and have shards of glass in your feet that I now have to deal with instead of starting dinner. No, you are going to lay right here and not move so that I may finish this as quickly as possible and return to the kitchen.”

Bruce is too tired to argue. He lays back down with a huff. “Let Damian be for awhile. I’ll find him later and talk to him.”

It isn’t until Bruce is back in his room, now strictly forbidden from any and all movement out of the bed, that Damian reappears.

The boy knocks on his doorframe. “Father?”

Bruce gestures for Damian to come in, and the boy obeys, coming to attention beside Bruce’s bed. He keeps his eyes averted out of respect. Like a child soldier.

The thought is what pushes Bruce to pat the mattress. “Sit.”

Damian hesitates, but does as he is told, climbing onto the mattress and folding his legs underneath him, eyes still averted.

For a few moments, neither of them speak. Bruce waits for Damian to make eye contact, but he never does. Damian keeps his gaze on the floor, posture submissive and nonthreatening. It’s a far cry from the child assassin ready to pounce at a moment’s notice.

Bruce becomes tired of the silence. “Where’s Titus?”

“I left him to guard Drake,” Damian answers. “I can call him if that is unacceptable.”

Bruce grunts. It’s fine. Titus isn’t big enough to climb the stairs yet - he doubts that the puppy will cause much trouble with Tim.

The silence takes hold again.

Bruce waits for Damian to say something, waiting to see if the boy knew that an apology was in order or if he was expecting something from him. So much of Damian’s childhood is a mystery, half-answers and estimates that Bruce hopes are completely off the mark. He hopes that Damian’s current attitude is a result of too much love and a lack of discipline. He hopes that Damian has been told that he is everything, and not nothing.

For once, Bruce hates the fact that he’s trained his mind to pick up on details. He has a fairly good idea of the kind of treatment Damian has been subjected to. His instincts tell him that his hopes are exactly the opposite of reality.

Finally, Damian speaks. “I attacked and severely wounded a member of your household. I understand if you wish to return me to Nanda Parbat.”

Bruce ducks in front of him, tilting Damian’s chin upwards. The boy hides his face for a second and rubs his sleeve across his cheeks, but it’s too late to hide the tears.

“You are a member of my household as well, Damian,” Bruce coos, softening his voice and brushing a thumb against one of Damian’s cheekbones. “I do not abandon my sons. That goes for Tim, and that goes for you as well. You are equals, in my eyes.”

Damian scoffs. “Tt. Do not patronize me, Father. I know Tim is your favorite.”

If Bruce has to sit through another one of these conversations about “replacements” and “favorites”, he’s just going to unadopt everybody and go back to being a miserable lone wolf. He’d be doing less damage to these children, at least.

“I am not lying to you,” Bruce says.

Damian jolts, as if he’s been burned, and puts his head down, almost touching his forehead to his knees. “I apologize, Father. I meant no disrespect- I was not questioning your integrity.”

Bruce runs a hand back through Damian’s spiked hair. “Look at me, Damian.”

The young boy looks up, unable to school the fear on his features. “Yes, sir?”

“Do you think I am the type of man who would turn away a child in need of a home?”

“No, sir.”

“Then why do my rules apply to everyone but you?”

Damian opens his mouth to answer, but he thinks better of it and looks down again. After a second, he answers, “Because I’m your blood?”

It’s uncertain. It’s the most uncertain he has been since he first arrived. It’s progress. Finally, his preconceptions are starting to soften. His mind is beginning to open.

Bruce pats the mattress next to him again and holds up an arm in an open invitation. At first, Damian hesitates, but he gives in and crawls closer, tucking himself into Bruce’s side.

He’s so small. So small. He fits perfectly, under Bruce’s arm, toes curled and knees drawn up to his chest as he makes himself as unobtrusive as possible.

“Comfortable?” Bruce asks.

Damian nods.

“Good,” Bruce goes on, “because you are going to listen closely. You are mine. You are my son. By blood, yes, but also by choice, and that is what is more important. I love you just as much as I love all members of my family, and I will protect and cherish you in the same way, as well. However, you will not continue to live here unless you apologize to Tim and cease your attacks on him. I will not sacrifice the safety of everyone else for your pride.”

Damian nods, playing with his fingernails nervously. “I won’t attack him again, Father. I give you my word. I only was hostile to him because I feared that he was pretending, and that he did not share my soul mark as he claimed. And I…I wished to prove my worth to you. I see now that all I have done is prove my untrustworthiness and immaturity.”

“No,” Bruce says, rubbing up and down Damian’s arm in an attempt to comfort and hold him ever closer. “You are many things, but immature is not one of them. It takes wisdom to compensate for your own flaws, and to apologize for them takes humility. You are growing, Damian. I have patience for you. Afford yourself the same courtesy.”

An affronted choke draws Bruce’s attention back to the door, where Dick stands, hand dramatically posed on his collar as he pretends to clutch his pearls. “Family cuddles? And I wasn’t invited?”

Bruce rolls his eyes good-naturedly, but holds up his free arm and gestures for Dick to come into the room.

Dick gets a running start and jumps up onto the bed, prompting Damian to start yelling at him for possibly jostling Bruce’s injuries. Dick simply laughs and boops Damian on the nose.

A moment of silence.

And the indignant shouting returns tenfold.

After a short afternoon nap, Bruce wakes with Damian under one arm, Dick under the other. Both are sound asleep, with Dick holding Damian’s hand, their interlocked fingers resting above Bruce’s heart.

A near overwhelming sense of peace overcomes him, and he drifts back asleep.

Bruce technically isn’t supposed to be up and about, but with Dick acting as an impromptu crutch, he makes it down to the Batcave to check up on Tim.

At least, that was the intention, but upon reaching the Cave, he sees Tim talking to Damian, and he stops.

Dick looks up at Bruce in question.

Bruce shakes his head. “Only intervene if things go south.”

Dick nods once. Affirmative.

With that, they fall silent, and the sounds of conversation gradually get louder.

“-ever do to you?”

“Nothing. Which is why I am attempting to apologize.”

“Wow, have you ever done one of those before? Careful, you might hurt yourself.”

Damian doesn’t respond to Tim’s insult, for once. Instead, he keeps going. “I wish to make things right. I was taught that my soulmates were obstacles to my happiness - that I would never be accepted while I was the runt of the litter - but Grayson tells me that soulmates are to be cherished.”

Bruce clenches his fists, making note to find out who told his baby that he was “the runt of the litter” and fix their opinion.

“I do not expect us to be on good terms anytime soon,” Damian continues, “and it is too much to ask for us to begin our relationship again. Instead, I swear on my father’s house that I will not physically attack you ever again, and that I will strive to be worthy of the mark you bestowed upon my shoulder. I only ask that you have grace for me, as I am still learning and growing. Do we have a truce?”

Damian extends a hand to Tim.

Tim doesn’t move.

After a few moments, Damian’s hand drops back to his side. “I see.”

“We’re not…there,” Tim says. “I’m just… I’m not ready to let this go, yet. So just… I’ll give you time, if you give me time. Deal?”

“Deal.”

When Damian leaves the MedBay, he pauses briefly as he catches sight of Bruce and Dick, still eavesdropping. Recovering quickly, he keeps walking, approaching the two of them.

The boy stops in front of Bruce, hands clasped behind his back. “I have done as you asked.”

Bruce puts a hand on Damian’s shoulder. “I’m proud of you.”

Damian’s chest puffs slightly in pride as his emerald eyes twinkle.

If there’s one downside to being in the Justice League (aside from the increased media attention), it’s that he can get lost in time and come back to find his family in a completely different state than when he left.

He comes back to find out that Dick wore the Batsuit, for some time. As soon as Bruce returns, however, it seems like he can’t get rid of the thing fast enough. There is a weight to his shoulders as Batman that vanishes once he’s back in the black-and-blue of the Nightwing suit. “Sorry, B. Bats just aren’t my thing,” he says. He hugs Bruce tightly - he hugs Bruce a lot more frequently, now - and sighs happily. “I’m just glad you’re back.”

He comes back to find out that Jason is no longer off the grid, somewhere in Gotham. Now, he stops by on Sunday afternoon for tea with Alfred. He keeps to himself, still, but he doesn’t run when Bruce approaches him one day, asks to talk with him in the library. Jason looks uncomfortable, but he nods stiffly. “I can do Thursday,” he says, and returns to tea with Alfred.

He comes back to find out that Tim is no longer Robin - a change that stings, but it fills him with pride to see him start to become his own man, even if his name is still somewhat derivative. He’ll find himself in time, but he still needs to heal. He stays in the city, more and more, but whatever rift was between him, Dick, and Damian, it’s closing, now.

He comes back to find out that Damian is no longer trying to kill his siblings. Bruce never thought he’d see the day. Dick has really taken him under his wing, and while Damian’s pride continues to make an appearance, it has become less of a problem with his arrogance and more of a defense mechanism. Something still has him convinced that he doesn’t belong in the family. He clings to Bruce more, upon his return, and frequently fights others for Bruce’s attention. When he isn’t with Bruce, he’s with Dick, or with his small legion of pets.

Bruce feels stretched, pulled in every direction.

The Manor, and his heart, is full. 

Thursday comes around.

Bruce asks for Alfred to lead Jason into the library, when he arrives. Jason is uncomfortable with this situation already - it would help to be greeted by a friendly face, and led to a familiar room.

Jason comes in, wearing a leather jacket as always. “This is gonna be a quick thing, right? ‘Cause I’ve got something later.”

“You are free to leave whenever you wish,” Bruce says, nodding and putting down the copy of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde that he had been trying to distract himself with. “Take a seat?”

Jason nods, moving to his customary armchair. It was his when he was Robin, and it is his now. “You didn’t want me here for a book club meeting, I hope. I didn’t get this week’s assignment.”

Bruce doesn’t acknowledge the joke, recognizing Jason’s chosen method of deflection for what it is and moving on. “I wanted to talk to you. No capes, no tricks.”

Jason’s eyes narrow.

“I just want to talk,” Bruce says, spreading his hands. “Or, rather, I want to listen. I realize that I’ve been doing a lot of talking, a lot of lecturing. I know we don’t see eye-to-eye, but I want to try and fix that. And I thought this would be a good place to start.”

For a moment, neither of them do anything.

Jason stands. “Well, this has been fun-”

“Jason,” Bruce says, standing and taking Jason’s wrist. “Wait. Please.”

Hesitating, Jason stares at Bruce’s grip on his arm. After a second, he pulls away, but doesn’t take another step. Bruce counts it as a win.

“So, what, you want me to just…start talking?” Jason challenges, looking Bruce right in the eye. He’s grown up so much, he’s practically Bruce’s height, now. “And you think that’ll fix everything?”

“No,” Bruce admits, “but I want you to feel welcome here. For that to be the case, I need to know what I’m doing wrong.”

Jason struggles to say, “It’s not…just you. It’s…” He stops, glares at his hands as if they’re the root of his problems. His jaw works and he takes a few breaths, collecting his thoughts.

He continues, still struggling, “My… I still have my soul marks. I don’t know how. Lazarus Pit whatever the fuck, probably. But Dick didn’t… I don’t blame Tim - kid didn’t even know me - or Damian, same thing. But Dick didn’t even tattoo my mark. He just…forgot about me.”

Bruce wants to intervene, to defend Dick’s decisions, but he holds himself back. If he speaks, Jason may shut himself off.

“I know what you’re gonna say,” Jason says anyway. “I should just talk to him. I know. But he’s just going to try and justify it and I…really don’t want to deal with that.”

Bruce nods. He understands - better than most - the need to cling to an injustice. It’s addictive, the feeling of being wronged. The moral high ground that comes with that feeling is a high in and of itself. Forgiveness always has a price.

“Take it from a man who grew up without soulmates,” Bruce says. “Love is not tied to a mark. It is simply commemorated.” He lifts his sleeve and taps the golden sunflower tattoo for emphasis. “If you asked him to, I know that Dick would have your mark tattooed in an instant. Same with Tim and Damian.”

Jason grunts and shoves his hands into his jacket pockets, noncommittal.

Regardless, Bruce continues. “You could come by and spend time with them,” he suggests. “If not with Dick, then with your younger brothers. Tim has been really excited to meet you, ever since he was little. And Damian tells me stories of his ‘akhi’ on patrol. I know they’d appreciate getting to spend time with you.”

Jason hesitates. “He…still calls me that?”

Bruce nods. “They miss you. Dick included.”

Jason shrugs, but there’s an energy about him. He starts to move towards the door to the library. “I might… I mean, like I said, I’ve got a thing, but I can pop by, say hello. Are they home?”

“Tim is working on a case in the Cave, and Damian should be down there practicing his katas at this time,” Bruce says, checking the clock above the fireplace mantel.

Jason snaps his fingers and gives Bruce twin finger guns, then leaves from view, leaving behind a new sense of hope in Bruce’s chest. He hasn’t felt like this in a long time.

It’s addictive.

One day, while Bruce and Tim are working on a new Riddler puzzle together, Bruce asks him why he kept looking for Batman, even when the world believed he was dead.

Tim shrugs, doesn’t make eye contact. “I just… I dunno. I still felt…connected to you, I guess.”

Bruce tries to ignore the way his heart skips a beat.

It could just be Tim getting a hunch.

It could also be their soul bond.

But if that’s the case, why was Tim the only one who believed he was still alive? Wouldn’t it work with all four of them? He has all their marks, after all.

He supposes he will never find out the answer to that question - not unless he is planning on telling them about his soul mark. Which he isn’t.

Then again, all secrets come out eventually.

But this new family, this new peace he has… It’s too fragile, too precious for him to ruin it with a bombshell announcement. “I’m your soulmate, and I’ve known this whole time.” Yes, that will go over well.

He’ll just have to make sure he’s careful, make sure he doesn’t lose this.

He won’t lose this.

Bruce is no stranger to kidnappings.

Every member of his adoptive family has been kidnapped at some point. Most have been kidnapped more than once. Dick was kidnapped twice in one weekend.

But never Alfred.

When Alfred goes missing, taken by Joker to play butler in some sick “family dinner” scheme, Bruce doesn’t tell anyone. Right now, he’s Batman. Joker is going to kill people, and Batman is the only one who can stop him. There is no room for Bruce Wayne.

But Bruce Wayne’s sons find out. They always do.

Dick fumes, ever the family-oriented one of the family.

Jason is used to this act by now. He scoffs and snarls, but says nothing aside from a sharp comment here and there.

Tim defaults to logic, worrying over their secret identities, but Bruce doesn’t miss the way that Tim refuses to look at Bruce the whole time.

Damian doesn’t fail in voicing his disapproval. He’s always been the one most prone to speak his mind, after all.

When he goes to fight the Joker, he fights him alone. Oracle lets him know that his sons have rescued Alfred, that they’re all back in the Cave, being treated for Joker gas. They’re going to be fine.

This is Batman’s fight, and Batman’s fight alone.

Batman fights Joker.

Batman defeats Joker.

Joker goes back in Arkham Asylum.

And the cycle resets, the needle moving back to the beginning of the record so they can do this dance again as soon as it drops - whenever that may be.

He hobbles back to the Batcave, prepared to lick his wounds alone, but when he pulls the Batmobile into its designated spot, he finds the entire family waiting for him by the Batcomputer.

Nobody looks happy.

Taking a split second to pull himself together, to push aside the pain from the broken bones and gashes across his skin, then he steps out of the Batmobile to deal with the fallout of his lies.

Alfred is there, looking frazzled but focused as he grabs onto Bruce’s arm. “All wrapped up, then?”

Bruce nods. “Are you alright?”

“Yes,” Alfred says. “A little on edge, but I am sure it’s simply a lingering effect of the Joker gas.”

“I’ll run some tests to be sure,” Bruce says, pulling back his cowl. The sweat on the back of his neck begins to cool, offering some relief.

“After you allow me to run tests of my own,” Alfred corrects, looking over Bruce’s costume in search of injury.

“I’m fine,” Bruce says, and he stands up straight to prove it, taking a few steps away from the Batmobile. His right knee aches and protests the movement, but he refuses to show it.

Before Alfred can call him out on yet another lie, Dick is marching over to Bruce. “We need to talk.”

Bruce nods, looking over at his other three sons. Jason has his arms crossed as he leans back against the Batcomputer console, posture casual. His expressive face is hidden by his red helmet. Tim sits at the computer, hands clasped together and resting in his lap. He doesn’t fidget - he simply observes, but his features are drawn close in a frown. Damian stands nearby, hands on his hips and his facial features in their usual expression of distaste. It hurts more to see it this time, knowing that it’s completely deserved.

“You lied,” Dick says.

It’s simple, but damning.

“I didn’t,” Bruce says. It’s a weak defense, but it’s all he has. “I told you that Joker hadn’t discovered our identities. He doesn’t care.”

“You didn’t tell us that Alfred was missing! What, did you think it didn’t matter until it was relevant to the case? Is that all we are to you?”

Bruce swallows. “I-”

“Jason died, and you didn’t tell me,” Dick continues, wound up. Nothing will stop him now - not until he has everything off of his chest. “Jason came back, and you didn’t tell us. You get hurt and you don’t tell us. You’re perfectly content to let us wander in the dark until you think we absolutely need to know something - and even then, it’s only because it is related to a case. For fuck’s sake, Bruce! You didn’t tell us about Jason until he attacked Tim!”

Over by the Batcomputer, Jason shifts uncomfortably. Tim playfully kicks Jason’s shin to let him know there are no hard feelings, but Jason remains tense.

“What if Alfred had never turned up?” Dick goes on, fury in every word as he spits out his venom. “What if he had never been connected to the Joker? Were we just supposed to find out about it when we came to the Manor next time? Just to find out that Alfred went missing a long time ago?” Dick’s voice breaks at this, and angry tears start to pour down his cheeks.

Bruce clenches his fists to keep himself from wiping them away. The last thing Dick wants right now is comfort - he wants vindication. He wants justice.

Bruce can’t give it to him.

“That is quite enough,” Alfred says, but it’s as if Dick doesn’t hear him.

“You said that the Wayne family was a family of choice,” Dick continues, wiping the tears from his cheeks with a rough hand. He doesn’t quite get all of them.“You’re just trying to make yourself feel better about not having any soul marks. The reason you don’t have a soulmate isn’t because of some ‘cosmic fluke’ - it’s because you can’t love another person. You’re incapable of it. There’s no room in your life for anything but your mission, and it’s consumed you. It’s consuming everyone you touch, until you have your own little army, ready to respond to your orders.”

Dick takes a step further, jabbing his sharp index finger into Bruce’s collar, right above his heart. “If that’s what you think a family is, then I choose not to be a part of it.”

With that, Dick walks off, taking Damian by the hand to bring him along as he moves back to the entrance to the Manor. Damian pulls his hand away of course, not one to be told what to do, but he follows Dick. Tim stands and falls in line behind the both of them, and Jason follows suit.

“Just where do you think you’re going?” Alfred demands in his clipped tone.

“Out,” Dick returns, unaffected. “You should come with us, Alfie.”

The thought of being abandoned by everyone sends a sharp wave of fear through Bruce’s veins, though he tries not to show it.

Alfred’s eyes turn cold. “I find your lack of family loyalty disgraceful, Richard.”

Jason takes an aggressive step forward, pointing accusatorially at Bruce. “He just put your life in jeopardy, Alfred. He doesn’t give a shit about you. That sunflower on his wrist is a fake - it’s just a fucking tattoo. They’re only skin-deep, y’know.”

Bruce looks away at this, unable to maintain eye contact any longer. He wishes that he hadn’t pulled back his cowl, his only piece of emotional armor.

“You will correct your attitude this instant, or I will escort you off the premises myself,” Alfred snaps, as close to anger as Bruce has ever heard him. The tone takes him back to his younger days, overhearing Alfred yell at journalists who wrote articles about Bruce being cursed, soulless, and unlovable. “Do I make myself clear?”

Tim fidgets. “Alfred, you don’t mean that-”

“Do I make myself clear?” Alfred repeats, a clear warning in his voice.

For a second, nobody moves. Bruce can feel eyes on him, but he doesn’t look up. He’s not strong enough for that, today. So he lets Alfred do the parenting, yet again.

Moments pass.

Jason scoffs and turns on his heel, taking the lead. Rebellion has always come naturally to him.

Sure enough, his brothers follow his lead, out of the Batcave. None of them look back.

“Unbelievable,” Alfred mutters under his breath. He takes Bruce by the arm again, and Bruce takes this as permission to let down his defenses. He sags, allowing Alfred to take some of his weight off of what he is sure is a busted knee at this point.

Together, they make it into the MedBay, and Bruce is reminded of simpler times. Those few years when Bruce was just starting out, when it was just him and Alfred, and the bats on his shoulder were still fragile, still marks of mystery and not reminders of the misery he’s caused them.

“I’m sure they’ll return, sir,” Alfred says, helping Bruce out of the Batsuit to address his injuries. “Despite their skill with insults, they do love you. It’s unfortunate that three out of the four of them are quick to anger. They need time to sort out their emotions; they will return, soon enough.”

Bruce knows them too well by now. He knows himself too well. “They shouldn’t.”

Three weeks.

No word from Dick, Jason, Tim, or Damian.

Bruce keeps tabs on them anyway. He’s giving them space and time, not forsaking them to Gotham, cut off from any sort of support.

They seem to be doing just fine without him.

They did just fine without him when he was lost in time, too.

As the heroes level up, so do the villains.

The rise of the Justice League leads to the rise of the (derivatively named) Injustice League.

Bruce tries not to get involved with Justice League business when it is not the fate of the world at stake - his mission is to Gotham, and his loyalty is to its people - but when Joker makes an appearance on television, introducing the members of the Injustice League and including himself in their ranks, it becomes his fight, too.

The grand scheme is something that doesn’t make sense: they’ve rigged a condemned building with explosives. They claim that they have hostages in the building, but the cowl's thermal vision picks up nothing. Clark reports too much lead in the building for him to get a good look.

It doesn’t matter. They’ll just have to act like there are hostages in the building, even if there are none.

And that means getting the detonator away from Lex Luthor.

The Justice League separates somewhat predictably, with Clark going after Luthor, Diana after Cheetah, Bruce after Joker, and so on and so forth. It’s predictable, but also an odd change of pace - usually, Joker has a plan in place. There are traps and punchlines set up, and victory is not what he’s after. There’s always something else, some other game. He’s not the type to join forces with other villains in the name of trying to overwhelm the Justice League with sheer force.

Bruce keeps him in view, highly suspicious of his out-of-character team-up.

Flash breaks away from the fight and takes a run through the building. A few seconds later, his voice crackles over the comm. “No hostages. Tons of bombs, though. Stay out of the building, and we’ll be fine. And it wouldn’t hurt to keep your distance, either.”

That’s a relief. Sure, there are helicopters hovering in the air, trying to catch the fight on camera for news networks, but otherwise, the civilians should be safe.

Things seem to be going okay.

That is, until Luthor draws a gun, painted purple and gold to match his chosen aesthetic. There’s a soft green glow from the weapon.

Bruce doesn’t have to be a detective to know that it’s loaded with Kryptonite.

Barry snatches it out of Luthor’s hands, but he drops it an instant later, courtesy of Captain Cold’s freezing gun getting a lucky shot on Barry's elbow. Bruce loses track of it, forced to contend with a sudden attack from Cheetah. The Kryptonite gun skitters off… 

Until it reaches the last person who should have it.

Joker picks up the gun and cackles. “You even picked my favorite color! Oh, Lex-y, you shouldn’t have.” Wasting no time, Joker fires the Kryptonite bullet gun, but not at Clark. No, Clark is Superman. He’s too fast. He dodges in time. As does Cheetah, knowing better than to let herself get hit for the sake of keeping Batman pinned.

It hits Bruce instead, lodging itself in his hip.

Clark looks back at him in horror. “Batman-!”

“I’m fine!” Bruce barks, already returning fire with some small explosives. His adrenaline is still running high - he doesn’t feel it yet. He can keep going.

“You sure?” Hal asks. Bruce can’t see him, but he’s talking over the comms. “I mean, you don’t have a healing factor or anything-”

Diana throws Cheetah into Joker, buying herself a few moments. She looks up to the sky and activates her comm. “J’onn, we may need evac-”

“I’m fine,” Bruce repeats. He holds a hand out to stop Clark, who has already taken a step in his direction. “Don’t come any closer.”

Clark still has that innocent concern on his face. “But-”

“It’s Kryptonite. And I’m fine. But even if I weren’t, there’s no sense in taking out two League members with one bullet,” Bruce says. He takes cover behind a dumpster, pulling out a compression bandage. It won’t stop the Kryptonite radiation from affecting Clark, should he get too close, but it’ll stem the bleeding.

He stands back up, ready to continue his fight when his comm crackles to life. “Anybody up for switching dance partners?” Barry asks. “Bats? Think you can-”

“I’ve got Captain Cold,” Bruce interrupts, thankful for the out. Joker requires too much awareness, and he’s rapidly losing blood and concentration.

“Joker,” says Clark.

“Cheetah.” Barry.

“Luthor.” Diana.

“I guess I’ll stick with Poison Ivy,” Hal says with a sigh. The sound of a giant weed-whacker starts up in the distance.

It takes Bruce a few moments to deal with Captain Cold. After Snart freezes the ground, attempting to make the battlefield slippery, it’s a simple matter of melting the ice and sending an electric current through the newly formed puddles of water to knock him unconscious. It’s a fight that can’t end fast enough as the bullet wound in his hip grows more and more insistent, the pain taking up more of his brainpower. He takes out a zip tie-

“Batman!” Diana yells.

Bruce turns just in time to see an armored fist flying right at his face. His reflexes kick in and he ducks, but his vision whites out. His hip sends a shock of pain through his body, and it takes his breath away for a moment.

They only need a moment.

Luthor grabs him by the arm and throws him toward the condemned building. Bruce goes flying, still trying to push aside the pain to focus, to fix this. Before he can, he slams into a column on the ground floor and it breaks, crumbling, already weakened from time and stray blows-

And that’s when he realizes how absolutely screwed he is.

The look on Luthor’s face is nothing short of maniacal as he slams a fist down on the detonator in his hand.

Clark’s yell of “Batman!” is almost completely lost compared to the sound of explosions, the building collapsing around him.

And the world goes dark.

There’s a pain in his shoulder.

Something rigid in his chest.

Broken bones, from fingers to ribs. He’s sure of it.

His legs are pinned. For now, he can’t feel any injuries. Doesn’t mean they aren’t there, but it means they don’t take priority. He can’t do anything about them, anyway.

He catalogues all of his injuries before his other senses come back online, and once they do, he immediately wishes that he had been able to slip away into unconsciousness.

It’s dark, save for the dim light of Bruce’s communicator. It blinks a muted yellow, indicating that someone is trying to contact him. He answers it. “Batman.”

“Status,” Clark demands.

“Alive,” Bruce starts. He takes a look around, then at himself. “I’m…in some kind of pocket, it seems. A…a few broken bones, concussion, hrk-!” He coughs, shifting the thing in his chest and sending a sharp spike of pain through him. What’s worse, it’s a wet cough - something comes up with each jerk and spasm.

“Batman?!” The panic in Clark’s voice is uncharacteristic, for someone of his power level. “There’s too much lead debris- I can’t see clearly. What’s going on?”

Bruce looks down and sees what’s causing the pain in his chest: a metal rod, twisted and bent but somehow still stuck straight through the left side of his chest.

“I’ll need a med evac,” Bruce says. “To the Batcave, whenever someone can get to me.”

“I’m on my- huh!” Clark’s voice is suddenly cut off by an impact.

Before Bruce can ask if he’s alright, Diana chimes in. “Superman is busy. Green Lantern, can you-?”

“Yep, give me two seconds,” Hal says.

“Don’t worry about it, I can get him,” Barry says. “And I can get him to the Batcave faster.”

“We’ll take my invisible jet.” Diana.

“Uh, yeah, okay. That’s probably better.” Barry.

“I’ll give you a hand.” Diana.

“Superman, I’ll be your backup in just like…two seconds.” Hal.

“How many ‘two seconds’ do you have, GL?” Barry.

“Hey, I’m working on it, okay? I’ll- gah! Son of a bitch!” Hal.

Bruce leans his head back against whatever he’s resting against. Likely concrete. The pressure eases somewhat. He can breathe without feeling like he’s going to cough up a lung, at any rate. The voices of his team fade, blend together in his mind.

That can’t be a good sign.

He does what he does best: he takes stock of the situation and makes a plan.

First, one thing is obvious. He’s not getting out of here on his own. But, he can’t reveal the true extent of his condition, because the majority of those on his team are prone to overreacting. Namely Clark, Hal, and Barry. Diana and J’onn are the ones most likely to keep their heads on straight.

Well, that’s a first step, at least.

Bruce activates his comm link again. “J’onn, I need you to contact Agent A. Tell him to have the MedBay ready. And my boys - make sure they don’t find out about this.”

“Understood,” J’onn says. “Though, I am aware of their dispositions. They’ll probably fight to see you.”

“They won’t. Penny-One knows… He can…” Bruce says, but he trails off. What was he saying, again? “He…”

“Batman?” J’onn says. “Come in, Batman.”

“I’m…” Bruce tries, but he can’t quite clear the fog in his head enough to think. “J’onn? What’s…?”

“Batman needs emergency medical,” J’onn says, this time on the regular comm link. “Immediately.”

Bruce vaguely registers a few cries of shock and alarm, but he can’t decode the noise into words, can’t find the meaning in…in anything, really.

The darkness claims him in his confusion.

It’s peaceful.

Blue eyes.

“Dad, stay awake... Please stay awake...”

Blue eyes flash green.

“Don’t you fucking dare, old man. I’m the only one who gets to make the death jokes in this family, so you better... Don’t you dare.”

Blue-grey eyes.

“Please don’t leave us. Not you, too. I don’t… I can’t lose you, too.”

Green eyes.

“I failed you. I’m sorry, Father, I should have...”

When Bruce’s eyes finally open, he finds himself in a familiar place - but an unfamiliar situation.

It’s the Batcave MedBay, that much is obvious. He designed the place himself.

He looks over to the side, over to the satellite-connected clock he installed, and finds the date.

Two weeks have passed. Two weeks and four days.

And there are people in the MedBay.

It takes a second for his brain to fully kick in, but he would recognize his boys anywhere. Dick sits to his left. He crosses his arms when Bruce’s eyes settle on him. Jason stands in the corner, leaning against the countertop, posture casual as always but his eyes sharp. Damian sits on Bruce’s right, tension in every muscle. He has a sketchbook on his lap, a half-done drawing of Alfred the Cat on the page. Bruce notices the cat last, curled up down by his knee and fast asleep.

It’s the first time that Bruce has seen the boys in over a month, but he has a sinking feeling. His mind is picking up on something that he isn’t conscious enough to fully register - something wrong.

Damian stands up. “I will fetch Drake,” he says, and he strides out of the room, moving quickly.

Bruce goes to call after him, but his throat is dry. He coughs instead, causing his broken ribs to shift and grind in his chest.

Dick stands up and puts a hand on Bruce’s shoulder to steady him, then wordlessly passes over a cup of ice chips. Bruce nods his thanks and pops a few of them in his mouth.

Dick sits back down.

This time, Bruce clears his throat before speaking. “Luthor?”

“Got away,” Jason says. “Same with Joker and Ivy. Captain Cold was in Blackgate for awhile, but he broke out. Cheetah’s under surveillance.”

Bruce nods, processing the information. All of this pain, and for next to nothing. The Injustice League would be back - more than likely, they would be back soon.

Silence reigns in the MedBay. It’s a distinctly wrong atmosphere. Dick should be chattering at him. Jason should be throwing in quips and barbs. 

They say nothing.

“Where’s Alfred?” Bruce asks, trying to fill the silence himself.

“Dinner,” Jason says.

Silence again.

The patter of footsteps eventually fills the silence, and Tim and Damian come back into the room. Tim hesitates, looking over Bruce to make sure he’s fully there, then sits on a stool at the foot of his cot. Damian takes the chair he had occupied, earlier.

They’re quiet.

That’s a first.

Finally, Dick speaks, his arms crossed tightly across his chest, a blank look in his face. “The bats on your shoulder. Are they tattoos?”

Bruce's brain short-circuits.

And that’s when it hits him: he’s shirtless.

Everyone can see his soul marks.

He is so screwed.

Bruce tries to meet Dick’s eyes, but the best he can do is speak to the bridge of Dick’s nose. “No.”

Dick doesn’t look like he knows what to do with that answer. Bruce wonders if he knew what kind of answer he wanted in the first place.

“Why?” Tim asks, his voice quiet. “You said you didn’t… You said you didn’t have soulmates.”

Damian scoffs. “Obviously, he was ashamed of you three.”

“He didn’t tell you either, brat,” Jason grumbles.

Damian flinches, but he tries to hide it and shifts his position. “Tt.”

“That’s not it at all, and you know it,” Bruce says, but he fails to muster the bite that the statement requires. It comes out tired, lost. “It didn’t mean anything-”

“Yeah, we figured we didn’t mean anything to you awhile ago. Thanks for saying it out loud, though,” Jason snaps.

Bruce hides his flinch well. Tim’s the only one that catches the small twitch in his hands, but he doesn't mention it.

“Damn it, Bruce!” Dick yells, standing in a rush of fury. “Do you have any idea-?! All this time, thinking that I was missing someone - that we were supposed to find someone else… That you couldn’t have possibly been our true father, because we still had a soulmate out there somewhere…” 

Dick scrubs tears from his cheeks, getting rid of them before they can fall. “Every time you pushed us away, I blamed it on us not sharing a soul mark. Because of course you wouldn’t understand. No wonder we didn’t work well. We weren’t soulmates. But we are and you didn’t tell anybody. Alfred says you chose not to tell us, that you knew the first night I ever stayed here, and you still…”

“I want to know why,” Jason says, shifting and placing his hands on his hips instead. His eyes flash green with Lazarus Pit rage, and Bruce knows how much mental control it must be taking him not to lash out.

Well, not to lash out physically.

“Okay,” Bruce says, his voice quieter than he had hoped it would be. He clears his throat again. “Okay. I can explain everything. I promise. Just...sit down.”

Dick’s fists clench and unclench for a moment, but he sits back down. Jason drags over a chair and follows suit.

Bruce takes a deep breath - well, as deep a breath as he can manage without devolving into a coughing fit - and says, “I didn’t have soul marks, growing up.”

Before, the air was vibrating with contained anger, but it settles now. Each of the boys around his MedBay bed are quiet, watching him like statues. As if the wrong move could spook him.

They know him well.

Bruce continues before he can second guess himself. “You can look up the headlines. ‘The Eternal Bachelor’ and whatever else they thought was catchy. I didn’t even have an identifier. The popular rumor was that I was cursed. Soulless. But I loved my parents, and I loved Alfred. I wanted someone to tell me why I couldn’t have had my parents’ marks, or Alfred’s. I was taught that having no soulmates meant that you were destined to be alone, outcast forever, but I loved them all and I couldn’t understand why that love wasn’t validated with a mark.

“Alfred helped me learn that it was still just as true, just as deep. He taught me that love isn’t something tied to a soul mark. My love for my parents, for Alfred, for all of you - it’s my choice. I chose to love you. I did not take you in because you have bats on your shoulders. I took you in because I wanted to give you a home. I wanted you four to grow up and learn that same lesson as I did.

“When my parents... They died, right in front of me. I watched their soul marks fade away, and it stuck with me. My whole life changed in two seconds. And on top of that, my identifier finally appeared. Something started, that day. Something in me died that day, too - that’s why it’s black, I think. The color of grief. A bad omen. But then, a few years later, a smaller bat appeared on my shoulder, and it changed my perspective. Even though I didn’t recognize it at the time.

“It was just the one, for a few years. And I wasn’t sure what to think. I had been alone for so long… My idea of myself, of who I was, was so tied to this idea of being alone that I wasn’t sure who I was supposed be, with a soulmate. With a soulmate who was younger than I was. And then, I get two more soulmates, and I was so…so lost. I was in my twenties. I wasn’t the parenting type. And so I ran. I hid. And it was wrong, I know. I knew it at the time, too.

“I thought of telling you all. So many times, I wanted to tell you. But every time I wanted to, it was because I was afraid of losing you, and I thought that maybe if you knew that I was… I thought that would convince you to stay. That maybe you would obey my orders more often if you knew. And so I didn’t say anything, because it was manipulative. It was selfish. I wanted to be sure that, when I finally told you, it was for the right reasons. And I was afraid of…of everything; of being a disappointment; of breaking an already fragile trust and losing all of you.”

There are tears in the eyes of his boys, and Bruce’s heart twists. He didn’t want this to be how they found out. He didn’t want this to be a sad moment.

Though, he supposes that sadness and hurt is inevitable. Especially given how long he has lied to them.

Tim puts his face in his hands and leans forward. Damian scoffs wetly and looks away, hiding his eyes.

Dick stares at Bruce, tears freely flowing. He is so much Bruce’s opposite: open and honest with his emotions. His spirit is so much stronger, practically invulnerable - especially when compared to Bruce’s. Bruce’s spirit is fragile. He has to keep it guarded at all times, because it will shatter if left open and exposed.

Which makes this moment one of the most terrifying in Bruce’s life. Because he’s gone through heartbreak. Losing his parents, losing Jason, every fight with Dick, every time one of his boys comes back injured or scared… His heart breaks a little more with each passing year, it seems. But this moment, right now…

If they decide he’s not worth it.

If they decide he’s unforgivable. Irredeemable.

If they decide to leave him, for good, to reject him even now that they know, his heart will break. He doesn’t know if that’s something he can come back from.

Jason coughs a bitter laugh - but judging from the small sniffle, it’s less a laugh of humor and more of a coverup for his emotional state. “Figures that you’d have to be on your deathbed to finally talk about this stuff.”

“I’m neither dead nor dying,” Bruce chides.

“Not anymore,” Tim says.

What?

“Your heart stopped,” Tim continues, a quick glance up to Bruce’s face before his eyes fall back down to the MedBay blankets covering Bruce’s body. “Five minutes, twenty-two seconds.”

Oh.

Oh.

“Yeah, kinda gave us a bit of a shock, too,” Jason says, picking up on Bruce’s surprise. His anger starts to seep into his voice again. “The fucking Superman himself flies in here, and they get you out of your costume and boom. All of a sudden, the four of us see the marks on your shoulder, and our marks start burning. Alfred sends us out, and we’re left watching each others’ marks for a whole fucking week to make sure you weren’t gonna…” Jason sniffs harshly, clears his throat, but says nothing else. He looks to the side, whispering a curse to himself, under his breath.

Dick wipes more tears from his face. “I was so awful to you.”

Bruce tries to sit up as much as he can manage. “No, Dick-”

“I thought you didn’t have soulmates and used that against you, even when I knew that it would hurt you. Because I knew that it would hurt you.” Dick looks up at him, true sorrow on his face. It’s infectious, and it cuts straight to Bruce’s core. “I’m so sorry. Bruce, I… What I’ve said…”

“You didn’t know,” Bruce says.

Dick looks up at Bruce, and there’s something broken in his eyes. Something that Bruce  has only seen in him once before - the night of an accident in the circus, when the Flying Graysons fell. It’s grief - grief over him.

Bruce curses his injuries. If not for that stupid Kryptonite bullet, he would be able to sit up on his own. He would be able to take Dick by the wrist and pull him in for a hug, to hold him close and rock him like he used to when Dick was just a child.

If Dick would let him in the first place. Which he…probably wouldn’t. He resisted any and all attempts to be treated like a child, especially when it came to interacting with Bruce.

So, he sits, silent, as Dick’s gaze falls back to his hands and he sniffs, clearing his sinuses. He wipes the tears from his face, pulling himself back together by sheer force of will.

Dick stands up, takes Damian by the hand. “Come on.”

Damian glances back at Bruce. “Richard-”

“Now.” His tone leaves no room for argument. He pulls Damian from the room, and they leave.

A moment passes.

Tim sniffles, pulling himself together before he, too, stands and leaves the room, his footsteps quiet.

It’s just Bruce and Jason, now.

Bruce doesn’t speak. He doesn’t say anything, because every thing he’s said so far has done nothing but driven people away.

Jason stands up.

No-

And moves closer, to the head of the MedBay bed. “So,” Jason says. He shoves his hands into the pockets of his cargo pants. “Big Bat.”

Bruce nods.

Jason nods back, processing the information. He glances up to the door, and Bruce can’t help but think that this is it. That Jason is going to leave, just like everyone else, because why wouldn’t he? Why would he stay? After everything he’s been through, everything Bruce has done to him, to his brothers…

Bruce half-expects to go upstairs and find an empty house.

Karma’s a bitch, but it’s always deserved.

Jason turns back to him. “Can I see it?”

Bruce pushes himself up, off the MedBay bed, and it hurts like hell and makes his chest constrict and he swallows back a coughing fit-

No. He can do this. If Jason wants to see the mark for himself, he will show him.

Bruce leans forward, exposing his right shoulder. Jason puts a hand on Bruce’s back for stability.

Not for the first time, Bruce hates that his mark is on his back. He can’t see Jason’s reaction, can’t see how he’s taking the news. He just waits in suspense, the gentle pressure of Jason’s hand on his back the only comfort.

Jason’s fingers trail lightly over the soul marks, tracing the line of bats, lingering on the red bat for a moment more. “A tattoo?”

Bruce clears his throat - a disguised cough, hiding the fear in his voice. “Yes.”

Jason hums. After a second, he asks, “When did you get it?”

“A few years ago.”

“So when I told you I was upset that Dick hadn’t…?”

“I had had it for awhile already, yes.”

“And you didn’t say anything.”

“No.”

“Because you were scared of us leaving.”

Bruce takes a breath, looks around the now empty MedBay. “Three of you did.”

Jason stills. “Yeah. I guess they did.”

Carefully, Jason helps ease him back onto the MedBay bed, and even when Bruce is back against the pillows, his hand lingers on Bruce’s shoulder for a few moments.

Finally, Jason takes a step back and sits in the chair Dick had occupied minutes ago. He kicks his feet up onto the bed, next to Bruce’s legs. Bruce watches him, not saying anything.

Jason scoffs. “Stop looking at me like that. I’m not going to disappear.”

“No?” Bruce asks.

A shrug. Jason folds his hands in his lap and plays with his thumbs, not making eye contact. “I wasn’t planning on it.” Jason’s eyes flick over to Bruce, his muscles taught and still - save for his thumbs, which circle each other in search of something to do.

Bruce lets out a breath. “I’m glad.”

Jason freezes, something of a blush on his cheeks. He recovers in an instant, hiding his true feelings by shifting and rolling his eyes as he settles into the chair. “We’ve gotta tell Alfred to ease up on the pain meds. Can’t have Batman getting all sappy on us.”

Jason is the only one that visits him in the MedBay. In fact, he almost never leaves. He brings down a stack of books at the beginning of the week, and reads through most of them a few days later. From then on, he brings down books one at a time - mostly because Alfred says it’s good exercise for him. An excuse to get him out of the Batcave aside from showers and the occasional demand for him to sleep in a proper guest room instead of a chair or one of the other open cots nearby.

Bruce doesn’t mind. Jason has always had a passion for literature that came through in his reading. It used to be that Bruce would read books aloud to Jason, when he was sick or when one of them was too injured to go out on patrol. Now, the tables are turned.

It’s a nice feeling.

Finally, a week after he first woke up in the MedBay, Leslie deems him somewhat recovered. Recovered enough to move back into his room, at any rate.

Dick, Tim, and Damian haven’t shown their faces yet, since their talk. At least they don’t see him struggle into a wheelchair, then begin the slow and arduous journey to his room on the second floor of the Manor.

After the hassle of getting him up a staircase built two hundred years ago, Bruce starts seriously considering the addition of an elevator. He makes a mental note to ask Barbara for her opinion.

Leslie helps Bruce get settled once again, this time in his room - the room he rarely spends time in - and then she’s out again, back to helping the people that are not stupid enough to get shot with a Kryptonite bullet. This time, instead of pulling up a chair, Jason plops onto the bed, next to Bruce. The movement jostles Bruce’s injuries, but he bites back his wince. He’s not about to ruin this.

Jason hands over a copy of Hamlet. “We’re splitting this one up. I’m tired of reading.”

“You? Tired of reading? I don’t believe that’s possible,” Bruce says, but he takes Hamlet and opens up to the first page. “Are we dividing up the parts?”

“You take Hamlet, Guildenstern, Bernardo, and Polonius, and I’ll take everyone else,” Jason says. “And if there’s any unnamed part - like, ‘servant number one’ or something - then just whoever reads the line first can take it.”

Bruce nods in approval. “Sounds like a plan. I will read the stage directions, as well.”

“Okay,” Jason says. “That everything?” He thumbs through the book in Bruce’s hands, his eyes alight with that imaginative focus that Bruce has missed seeing. Jason’s guard is usually up, around him.

Bruce would take a Kryptonite bullet every day, if it meant seeing Jason at peace like this.

“I think that’s everything,” Jason says. “Come on, old man. Start reading before Alfred makes me go help him with dinner.”

“As you wish,” Bruce says. He flips back to page one and begins. “Act one, scene one. Elsinore - a platform before the castle. Francisco at his post. Enter to him, Bernardo. ‘Who’s there?’”

“‘Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself,’” Jason says. He crosses his arms and settles back into the pillows, leaning comfortably against Bruce’s side.

“‘Long live the king!’”

“‘Bernardo?’”

“‘He.’”

“‘You come most carefully upon your hour.’” Jason lays his head on Bruce’s shoulder, eyes still locked on the play in front of them.

Bruce becomes lost in the poetry. It’s easy, with the warmth of the afternoon sun and the company of the son he once lost by his side again. He doesn’t pay attention to the story - not that he wanted to, in the first place.

Hamlet has always been Bruce’s least favorite of Shakespeare’s plays. The story of a son, discovering his father’s death was actually a murder, then using that discovery to justify a murderous killing spree.

He doesn’t know why Jason would pick this one. Jason prefers Austen, Dickens, Shelley. He prefers Fitzgerald and Orwell. He likes wordy prose that blurs the line between poetry and narrative. He likes literature that is deep, with layers of thematic interpretation. Shakespeare is too bare for him.

Maybe it is a message.

This is what I would do for you.

A few years back, there was an apartment in Crime Alley.

“I thought I’d be the last person you’d ever let him hurt. If it had been you that he beat to a bloody pulp, if he had taken you from this world, I would’ve done nothing but search the planet for this pathetic pile of evil, death-worshiping garbage and then send him off to hell!”

Maybe it’s an olive branch.

I get it. I know this is what you’re afraid of.

Because it is what Bruce is afraid of. Hamlet is terrifying. He destroys everything and everyone he has ever loved, dying himself in the end and losing his kingdom, everything he fought for. It’s what Bruce knows will happen to him, should he give in to the grief and the anger.

He’d rather destroy himself, instead.

Jason elbows him gently. “That’s your line, B.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

After Hamlet, Jason hands him another book. Frankenstein.

Bruce raises an eyebrow. “Have something you want to say, Jaylad?”

Jason rolls his eyes, tossing his leather jacket over the footboard and kicking off his shoes. “It’s my favorite. Always has been. Shut up and read.”

“Well, which is it? Shut up or read? I can’t do both-”

Jason swats at Bruce’s arm as he climbs back to his usual spot, shoulder-to-shoulder with Bruce. “Your dad jokes are fucking awful. Read. But skip the letters at the beginning. Go straight to Victor.”

Bruce tsks. “Sacrilege.” But he flips past the letters to chapter one. “‘I am by birth a Genevese, and my family is one of the most distinguished of that republic-’”

“What are you doing?”

Bruce and Jason look up to the doorway, where Damian stands, half in, half out of the room, almost hiding behind part of the door frame. Damian frowns. “Todd. You’re still here.”

“Jason is allowed to be here for as long as he likes,” Bruce says, leveling a look at his youngest. “This is his home, too.”

“Chill, Bruce,” Jason says, but his arms are crossed defensively. “He didn’t mean it like that. Right, brat?”

Damian scoffs, but pointedly does not answer the question. Instead, he repeats himself. “What are you two doing?”

“Reading,” Jason says. Then, to Bruce’s surprise, Jason pats the bed. “C’mon. Plenty of room.”

Damian hesitates. “I cannot waste an entire day. I have important responsibilities, such as training, schoolwork-”

Jason groans dramatically. “Ugh, stop being a nerd and get over here.”

Damian’s eyes narrow. “You are the one reading classical literature, nerd.”

“Alright, boys,” Bruce intercedes. “Damian, Jason and I are reading right now. Did you need something?”

Damian shifts self-consciously. “Richard has benched me for today and tomorrow.”

Jason barks out a laugh. “Are you lonely, Baby Bat?”

“I am not,” Damian scoffs with all the indignation of a nine-year-old. “I am investigating the manor. That is all.”

Bruce sees directly through his youngest. He sees the way that Damian’s hands open and close, his mind torn between two thoughts.

Bruce gestures for Damian to come into the room. “Stay with me, son.”

This seems to be what Damian was waiting for. He ventures into the room, watching Jason with a wary eye. Jason - thank goodness - doesn’t move. He simply watches as the youngest Robin climbs up on the bed and sits, cross-legged, his posture perfect. He glances between Bruce, Jason, and the book like he’s not sure what to do with himself.

Bruce opens an arm. “Come here. I don’t bite.”

“No, but the brat does,” Jason snirks. Damian glares at him.

Bruce beckons Damian closer. “Come. Are you really going to make me sit up when I’m injured?”

“Of course not,” Damian sniffs. He uncrosses his legs and moves closer to Bruce, mirroring Jason’s posture on Bruce’s opposite side. He doesn’t meet their eyes, but he doesn’t protest when Bruce starts running his fingers back through Damian’s spiked hair, either.

Jason pokes Bruce in the arm, dodging the bruises and bandages. “Read. Let’s go.”

Bruce nudges Jason’s side with an elbow in return. “Still skipping the letters?”

“What?” Damian demands. “No. Do not skip anything.”

Jason rolls his eyes. “You can pick up the letters at the end, after Victor’s half of the plot-”

“The author intended for the reader to go through the letters first, hence why they are at the beginning of the novel-”

“I’ve already read the thing, punk. I know how to read it.”

“Clearly not.”

“We could just pick another book,” Bruce says, interrupting.

“No!” Jason and Damian say at the same time.

Bruce can’t keep the grin from his face. “Look at that. You agree on something.”

Both of them scowl at him, but he knows what real anger looks like from them. It’s been directed at him many times.

He puts his hands up in surrender. “Alright. Jason, I’ll start from the beginning. If you don’t want to listen to it, you can rest your eyes. I will wake you when Victor’s testimony starts.”

Jason gives a dramatic groan, but gives in. “Fine.”

“An excellent choice, Father,” Damian says, giving Jason a triumphant look.

“Damian, don’t antagonize your brother.”

“I am doing no such thing - and if it’s antagonistic, it’s only because Todd’s skin is as thin as a coffee filter.”

“You little shit-”

“Be quiet or else I’m reading nothing,” Bruce interrupts, cutting off the argument before it can get worse.

Both boys fall silent.

Finally.

Bruce clears his throat and begins. “‘To Mrs. Saville…” Jason and Damian shift their weight on either side of him as they settle in for the story. Jason’s head returns to Bruce’s shoulder and he takes a deep, quiet breath. Damian slyly grabs onto the fabric of Bruce’s shirt, his breathing relaxed and even against Bruce’s side. “‘You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings…’”

Jason lets Damian pick out the next book. Bruce is only somewhat surprised when his youngest walks in with a copy of Julius Caesar’s Commentarii de Bello Gallico in his hands.

“This one,” is all Damian says. He pushes it into Bruce’s hands, then climbs over both Jason and Bruce - to Jason’s loud protests - and settles on Bruce’s other side. His spot.

“Alright, we may have to finish this one tomorrow,” Bruce says. “Alfred will no doubt have dinner ready soon-”

“Wasting time, old man.”

“I agree. We would have more time for reading if you would begin.”

Jason leans forward, mischievous grin on his face. “Thanks, Baby Bat.”

Bruce can see the indignation take hold in Damian’s eyes, so before Damian can start yelling or tackle Jason off the bed for his transgression, Bruce clears his throat. “Book One. All of Gaul is divided into three parts, one of which the Belgae inhabit, the Aquitani another, the third those who in their own language are called ‘Celts’, in ours ‘Gauls’.”

Damian glares at Jason, but he sinks back into the pillows and slowly lets go of his anger, focusing his attention on the book in Bruce’s hands, instead.

Bruce keeps reading. So long as he is reading, Jason and Damian won’t fight, and so long as they aren’t fighting, then they’re staying next to him.

He’s not going to blow this one.

“All these differ from each other in language, customs, and laws,” he reads. “The river Garonne separates the Gauls from the Aquitani; the Marne and the Seine separate them from the Belgae. Of all these, the Belgae are the bravest…”

Bruce keeps reading, at a slower pace than usual simply because of the odd wording. He would have preferred to read the original Latin, but Damian has yet to learn it and Jason only knows the basic rules - only the parts that make other Romance languages easy to pick up.

“But when Caesar discovered this,” Bruce reads, pausing a half second to glance up at his boys and enjoy the intense focus on their faces, “he commanded those through whose territory he had gone, to seek them out and bring them back again, if they meant to be acquitted before him; and considered them, when brought back, in the light of enemies-”

A soft knock at the door makes Bruce stop and look up - much to the chagrin of Jason and Damian.

“Go away, Timmy-”

“Ignore him, Father. Caesar is much more important.”

“Caesar’s dead,” Bruce says. “He can wait.”

“Tt.”

Tim smiles apologetically from the doorway. “Alfred wanted me to come get you for dinner?”

“That’s us,” Jason says, sitting up and patting Damian’s knee twice. “C’mon. Maybe we can get him to let us have desert up here.”

“Unlikely,” Damian grumbles, but he climbs off of Bruce’s bed in obedience.

Before he leaves, Damian turns back to him. “We will return shortly,” he says. “Do you wish for us to bring anything back with us?”

“I’ll be alright,” Bruce says with a small smile. “I’m sure Alfred’s already on it.”

With a respectful nod, Damian leaves the room, leaving Bruce alone.

It’s not a feeling that is foreign to him - Batman often works alone, after all, and he has spent countless hours alone in the Batcave, pouring over new cases and clues - but it’s decidedly more unwelcome, now that he knows the feeling of having his family by his side.

He takes a deep breath and waits for their return.

Sure enough, Alfred delivers dinner shortly after the boys leave, and after he’s finished, Alfred takes the tray back down to the kitchen.

Jason and Damian return moments later, moving to their designated spots as they argue about the quality of film franchises, but a third figure hovers in the doorway.

Tim shifts his weight to his opposite foot and back again. “Um, do you…? Would you mind…?”

Bruce smiles. And to think that Alfred made fun of him, when he ordered the Wyoming king size bed. Something to do with it being too large for just him. An unnecessary extravagance.

Bruce hadn’t been able to defend it at the time, but now he can. After all, how else is he expected to fit all of his sons by his side?

“Come on, Timmy,” Jason says.

“He’s staying on your side, Todd,” Damian says, watching Tim like a hawk.

Tim shoots him a halfhearted glare and approaches the three of them, but as soon as he gets close enough, Jason darts forward and grabs Tim’s wrist, pulling him off balance and onto the pile of Waynes. Tim yelps and crashes on top of them. Jason laughs, Damian yells at the two of them, and Bruce holds his breath, riding out the pain from being jostled. He can take it. He just…needs a second.

Tim looks up and sees Bruce’s face, and he stops moving. “B?”

Jason stops laughing. “What- Oh, shit. Sorry, Bruce,” Jason says. It’s casual enough - or, rather, it would be, if Jason weren’t watching him, stock still, muscles tense.

“I’m fine,” Bruce says. He tries to go for a smile, but it’s too tight to be reassuring.

He sees what’s going to happen milliseconds before it does.

Bruce reaches for Damian, but the little Robin deftly dodges his grasp and rolls off the bed, hurrying out of the room. “Pennyworth!”

“Damian-!” Bruce barks.

Tim climbs off of Jason, carefully maneuvers over Bruce, and takes Damian’s spot. “Scale of one to ten-” he starts.

Bruce shakes his head. “I’m fine.”

“Sounds like a seven,” Jason says. He sits up, taking care to not touch Bruce.

Tim looks over at Jason, ignoring Bruce. “You think so?”

“I’m fine,” Bruce repeats for what must be the billionth time this week, but none of his Robins listen to him, as usual.

“Has he been taking his meds?”

“Fuck if I know.”

Before Bruce can repeat that he just needs a moment, Alfred strides into the room, with Dick and Damian at his heels. “Master Bruce?”

Dick glares at Jason. “What’d you do?”

Fiery green anger sparks in Jason’s eyes and he snaps. “Nothing, Dickhead-”

“You can be silent or you may leave the room,” Alfred says. The boys fall quiet as Alfred approaches Bruce.

“I’m fine,” Bruce tries. Maybe Alfred will listen.

“Of course, sir,” Alfred says, fiddling with the IV. “Extend your arm.”

Bruce knows better than to argue and he extends his arm. Alfred always wins.

“A little prick,” Alfred says out of habit. A moment later, there’s a small pinch in the crook of his elbow. Alfred straightens and begins to connect everything that needs to be connected. Bruce doesn’t pay that much attention. “I’m adding a mild sedative to help you sleep, sir.”

“We were reading Caesar,” Damian says. It’s a statement, but it sounds like a pout.

“Caesar will be here tomorrow,” Alfred says.

“Dad?” Tim whispers. “Are you okay?”

Bruce huffs. “I’m fine-”

“No more lies,” Tim says, cutting him off. “Please?”

Bruce stops, looks into the steel-blue eyes of his second youngest, and nods. “I’ll be fine. Just a little sore.”

Jason barks a laugh. “Holy shit. Timmy is the favorite.” Feeling self-conscious, Tim climbs off of the bed and stands up.

Bruce sends a glare at Jason, but the sedative is starting to kick in. It doesn’t feel as strong as it should.

Doesn’t matter - he can prove that all of his sons are his favorites through action alone.

He grabs Jason’s wrist. It’s a loose grip, but Jason doesn’t pull away. He simply goes with the motion as Bruce pulls him down on top of the covers, back to his unofficial spot on Bruce’s left side.

“Uh…whatcha doin’, old man?” Jason asks. His voice is muffled from where his face is trapped against Bruce’s chest, but he doesn’t fight back.

Bruce settles, wrapping his arms around Jason’s frame to take advantage of his compliance. “Going to sleep.”

“Cool. Mind letting me go?”

Bruce grunts and closes his eyes, unrepentant.

Jason shifts against Bruce, but he’s still not fighting back as much as he could. With Bruce injured and on heavy medication, he could break out of the man’s grip easily.

But he doesn’t.

“Hey, Goldie. Get your ass over here and help.”

Dick snorts from where he stands by the doorway. “And be caught, too? Not a chance, Little Wing. I’ve got patrol tonight.”

Bruce’s stomach twists. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that his boys were probably still going on patrol. Going into Gotham, taking on criminals big and small, without the Batman watching their backs…

He tightens his hold on Jason.

Jason harmlessly bats at Bruce’s arm. “Bruce! Can’t! Breathe!”

Bruce grunts again, unable to muster the energy for a proper reply, but he gives in and loosens his grip somewhat. Jason settles.

Dick laughs at him. “Looks like you’re not going anywhere.”

There’s small footsteps that run up to the other side of the bed. “Father, I wish to stay with you and Todd.”

Jason sputters. “Hold on, I’m not staying-”

Bruce opens his eyes to see Damian standing by the bed. He lifts his free arm in an open invitation, and Damian crawls up next to him in obedience, settling in for the night.

On his opposite side, Jason starts to try and actually free himself from Bruce’s grip, but Bruce doesn’t let go.

Damian swats at Jason’s arm. “Cease your fussing. You’ll injure Father.”

“I wouldn’t ‘injure’ the old bat if he’d let go,” Jason counters.

“Tim,” Bruce calls.

Tim glances to either side of Bruce. “Are you sure? I don’t want to hurt you again.”

“If I’ve gotta suffer through this, so do you,” Jason says, turning to make room for Tim between him and Bruce. Carefully picking his way between limbs and injuries, Tim nestles himself between the two of them.

Dick has a smile, a soft look on his face as he surveys the Wayne pile, but as soon as he realizes Bruce is looking at him, it disappears. “I’m going out in a Batsuit. Be back before three,” he says, all business.

He doesn’t wait for Bruce to say anything before he turns on his heel and leaves.

Jason shifts to get into a more comfortable position and makes a noise of derision. “Drama queen.”

“Todd,” Damian says, pushing himself up slightly to make eye contact. “Can you finish reading the book to us?”

“I will if B’s sleeping. You sleeping, old man?”

Bruce grunts. He keeps his eyes closed.

“So that’s a ‘yes’.”

“What were you guys reading?”

“Caesar’s Commentary on the Gallic War. English translation, as I have yet to study Latin.”

“I mean, I know Latin, if you guys want me to read that, but…”

“Perhaps, once we have finished reading it once, we may read it through again, this time in its original language.”

“Hold up, pipsqueak. Tim gets to choose the next book. Then me. Then you. If you want to waste your turn on reading the same book again-”

“Tt. Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous, Todd.”

In the end, Bruce has no idea whether they start reading Caesar again or not. He gives in to sleep sometime during their conversation, content with simply listening to the sound of their voices.

Slowly, his life stitches itself back together.

Tim picks the next book: The Moonstone.

Jason hums in approval, and Bruce can’t help but agree. That particular copy is actually a gift - from Selina. The story of a young English woman receiving a stolen gemstone as a gift. It was right up her alley.

Damian doesn’t recognize it, but he doesn’t protest as Bruce opens it and starts reading.

They spend the entire day in there, sometimes reading, sometimes simply talking. Jason manages to convince Damian to sneak a small pile of snacks up to Bruce’s room. Tim and Jason grab assorted pillows and blankets to make Bruce’s bed more like a fort. Damian brings Titus and Alfred the Cat into the room.

He goes to get Batcow, as well, but Bruce has to draw the line somewhere.

Once Tim solves the mystery (approximately one third of the way through the book), the boys grow disinterested with The Moonstone and they decide to switch gears. Instead, as Bruce grows tired from another round of pain medication, they turn on the television in his room, grab their PS4, and plug everything in, beginning a session of video games that will continue long after Bruce wakes up from his afternoon rest.

They play until dinner (at which point Alfred discovers the food wrappers and gives all four of them a long lecture - one that every single person in that room knows will have to be repeated many times before the behavior stops).

After they return, Tim reconfigures their setup for movies instead, and between the three boys, they pick out so many movies that they couldn’t possibly watch them all.

Jason sits on Bruce’s other side this time, Damian in his lap as the current Robin picks apart each movie’s plot holes and story logic issues. For the most part, he gets away with it, but Jason blows air at the boy’s ears if he begins to talk more than the film itself. Meanwhile, Tim takes Bruce’s unoccupied side, breathing easy as he cuddles close. Bruce presses a kiss to Tim’s forehead, and Tim leans his head on Bruce’s shoulder.

The three of them fall asleep in Bruce’s room, again.

It’s almost a perfect day, but someone is missing.

The next morning, Bruce wakes up to the sound of running feet, out in the hallway. Alfred shouts after whoever is running, telling them to slow down.

The door to Bruce’s room opens a few seconds later, and Dick stumbles through, closely followed by Jason and Damian. Tim brings up the rear.

Dick looks back at Bruce, but it’s too early. The sleepy haze hasn’t cleared from Bruce’s eyes yet. He can’t tell what emotion is on Dick’s face. Whatever it is, it’s not relaxed, and it’s not happy.

Tim locks the door. “Nobody leaves until we finish every single one of these.” He holds a copy of the Harry Potter movies in his hand.

“I was just on patrol,” Dick says, crossing his arms. It’s a common gesture for everyone else, but for Dick, it’s…wrong. He’s usually so open. “I’m tired. I need a shower. Get out of my way-”

“Hey, Dickhead,” Jason growls, stepping forward a few paces and shoving Dick’s shoulder. He draws himself to his full height. He doesn’t tower over Dick, but he’s bigger, more muscled. “You had your whole soliloquy about looking for Big Bat and wanting to spend time with him, and for the first time in for-fucking-ever, he’s stuck at home. And what do you do? Ignore him for a few weeks, of course. Fucking hypocrite.”

“I’m keeping Gotham safe,” Dick argues.

Damian smirks. “You are starting to sound too much like Father.”

Dick glances back at Bruce, helpless.

Bruce returns the look, equally lost. “What’s going on?”

“I’ve been kidnapped by your small army of street urchins!” Dick cries, exasperated.

“Hey, fellow ‘street urchin’,” Jason barks. “We are gonna leave for fifteen minutes. When we come back, I want your victim complex dealt with. You’ve done nothing but get more and more moody over the past week, and I’m sick of your shit. So talk it out, then you can go take your shower.”

Jason and Dick glare at each other for a few moments.

Damian steps forward, taking Dick’s hand and redirecting his attention. “We’ve missed you, Richard.”

Dick looks down at their most recent addition to the family, and something in his posture softens. He looks back at Bruce, still reluctant, but he squeezes Damian’s hand. “Okay.”

“Quick before he changes his mind!” Damian yells, darting out of the room. Tim and Jason are right on his heels, and they shut the door behind them, locking it from the outside.

It’s just Bruce and Dick, now.

Bruce pushes himself up into a sitting position. Pain still pinches his muscles, but it’s getting easier. He should be able to be up and about in a few days or so (though, whether Alfred and the boys would let him push himself like that was another question). Dick picks up on his ache, judging by the way his eyes narrow.

“I’ll be fine,” Bruce says. “I’m mostly just sore.”

“With the painkillers in effect,” Dick points out.

Bruce nods, granting him the point. “I’m not going anywhere anytime soon, I’m sure.” Then, he takes a chance and pats the bed. “Come sit?”

Dick doesn’t move.

He looks back towards the door, looking for a way out. There isn’t one.

He gives in and moves to the bed, sitting on its edge with one leg hanging over the side. “Where do you want to start?” he asks.

“Wherever you want,” Bruce says, shifting to sit up as much as possible. “Ask me any question, chum. I will tell you the truth.”

Dick grips his hands in his lap, clasping his palms tightly around each other. “Anything?”

Bruce nods. “Anything.”

Dick watches him, searches his eyes to find the lie in his words.

He won’t find anything.

For once, Bruce Wayne has nothing to hide.

They sit in silence for a few moments, until finally, Dick whispers, “Are you ashamed of me?”

Bruce fights the powerful instinct that tells him to recoil at such a hideous thought. Him, ashamed of Dick Grayson. The thought is nonsensical. “Why-”

The thoughts pour out of Dick in a flood. “When I was a kid, everyone said that you were ashamed to be seen with circus trash in public, and that’s why you didn’t bring me to public events a lot. And then you didn’t check in on me when I was with the Titans, and you didn’t even contact me in Bludhaven until Jason… And you never tried to see me or contact me until I moved back into your house, and even then, after Tim was ready, you let me move back to Bludhaven and didn’t tell me about Jason coming back… And now I find out that you chose not to tell me about being your soulmate, too. Every time you have a chance to reach out to me, you don’t. You just replace me instead and I never knew…I don’t know why.”

Dick sniffs harshly and shoves the heels of his palms into his eyes, trying to force back the tears. His voice breaks as he asks, “Why did you let me go? You knew we were soulmates - so why did you let me go?”

Bruce gently takes hold of Dick’s wrists, pulling them away from his face and exposing his grief-stricken features to the soft light of the room. “Ashamed? How could I be ashamed of my son?” he asks, cupping Dick’s cheek. “How could I be ashamed that I am a father of Dick Grayson, the first light in my darkness? My first soulmate after wishing my whole life for one? I will love you and cherish you until the day I die, and nothing will ever get in the way of my love for you, nothing can take away any of that affection because you are mine. But it’s because you are mine that I had to let you go. You had to grow on your own terms. You had to be free of my shadow - you were always too bright for it, anyway.

“So I let you stay home from galas because I didn’t want the media to tear its claws into you. And I left you to the Teen Titans because you were becoming your own man. And I left you in Bludhaven because you were finding your purpose. I admit, I should have been more available. I should have told you about Jason. Both times. I wanted to keep you happy, and safe. And part of that comes from me wanting to preserve your childhood, from when you were younger. It was my mission for many years - after that night at the circus, after you took up your own cape. I wanted to save the eight-year-old boy I saw that night. I wanted to make sure he wasn’t forced to grow up in that instant, like I had been.

“But I never wanted to force you or guilt you into staying with me, or doing what I said. That’s not love. And I love you too much to force you to love me back, chum. I love you so much.” Bruce’s voice breaks and he has to stop.

Dick’s face crumples and the tears come back. “Dad…” he says, voice unsteady. He hangs his head. “Dad, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…”

Bruce lifts Dick’s chin up and presses a kiss to Dick’s forehead, then wraps his arms around his eldest son’s shoulders, bundling him close to his chest. “I love you,” he promises. “Mark or no mark, I love you so much.”

“I love you, too,” Dick hiccups. “More than anything.”

“I know,” Bruce whispers. He presses another kiss to Dick’s hair. “I don’t say that I love you nearly enough, but it’s always true.”

Dick grips the fabric of his shirt tightly in his fingers, twisting it. His hands shake and tremble. A sob escapes him and Bruce rocks him ever so slightly, carding his fingers through the short hair on the back of Dick’s head, fingernails lightly dragging across his scalp in what he hopes is a soothing manner. Dick, in turn, sinks further into Bruce’s hold, pressing his face into the crook of his neck. The skin there becomes damp with tears, but Bruce doesn’t move.

The minutes pass, and he continues to hold his eldest, even as the tears start to slow and Dick starts to regain control over his breathing.

But his injuries are becoming more and more demanding, and he can’t ignore them forever.

He shifts, and Dick pulls himself back, out of the hug. Bruce doesn’t want to let him go, but he releases his son upon seeing the worry on his face. “Bruce?”

“Just sore,” Bruce explains, leaning back into the pillows and easing the pressure on his injuries.

Dick wipes the tears off of his face, but he grabs Bruce’s hand as reassurance. “I think Alfred’s been decreasing the pain medication - but he can up the dosage again if you’re not-”

“I’m okay,” Bruce says, rubbing his thumb over the knuckles on Dick’s hand. Dick tightens his grip in return. “If you want to use my shower, you may, but I know you have your own hair products you prefer.”

“Is that supposed to be a hint?” Dick teases. He lifts an arm and smells his armpit, then makes a face. “Oh, yeah. No, okay. I’m gonna go shower.” He stands up, but doesn’t let go of Bruce’s hand. “I’ll be right back,” he promises. It feels so much weightier than it should - Dick’s room is just down the hall. He takes fairly quick showers, especially compared to Jason.

No, it means more than that. It’s an acknowledgement - they’re on the same team again. Dick wants to be by Bruce’s side.

The silent treatment is over.

The secrets are out.

“I’ll make sure they don’t start without you,” Bruce returns, a small smile on his face.

Dick grins. “Okay.”

He heads over to the door and knocks. “Hey, Timmy? Let me out, please. Bruce says I need a shower.”

The door opens and Dick slips out, not about to let his opportunity go to waste. As soon as he’s out, Jason, Tim, and Damian return to the room, somewhat hesitant.

Tim peeks out from behind Jason. “Everything go okay? He left kinda fast.”

“He’ll be back,” Bruce answers. “He didn’t want you three to start without him.”

Damian holds out his hand, a smug grin on his face. Grumbling under his breath, Tim slaps a twenty on it.

“Alright, twerps, Operation Forage is a ‘go’,” Jason says, turning back to his younger brothers. “Timmy, you’ve got Root Beer duty.”

Damian makes a face and gags.

Jason rolls his eyes. “And a Sprite for junior. Damian, you’re on snacks. I’m talking about those mini chip bags in the pantry, the granola bars Timmy has stashed in the Batcave-”

“Hey!”

“The full nine yards, okay?”

Damian frowns. “Where do we keep the nine yards?”

“It’s an expression, baby,” Bruce says, unable to keep the smile from his face. “It’s from football. He means that he wants you to do your best.”

Damian scowls. “I am offended that you think I wouldn’t perform at my best.”

“What about you?” Tim asks, frowning at Jason.

“I’ve got a bag of Halloween candy that some guy was passing out to kids a few weeks ago,” Jason answers, looking proud of himself. “If we pick out the sewing needles first-”

“Okay, yep, no. That’s a no,” Bruce interrupts. “How about you three take my credit card and go buy snacks that don’t threaten your immediate safety?”

Jason grins. “Can I take the Bentley?”

Bruce sighs.

“Or I could take Tim and Dami on my bike-”

“Fine. Take it. No scratches, or else Alfred will have your head,” Bruce says.

Jason hesitates, then says, “You know what? I think I’ll just take Dickie’s car.”

He takes Damian and Tim by the hand and drags them out of the room, but not before Damian has the chance to make a face of disgust. “We’re going in a Subaru?”

“Tell Dick that you’re going out,” Bruce calls after them.

Tim is the only one that bothers to yell back an “Okay!”

Bruce listens to the sound of their footsteps and bickering fade, until it vanishes altogether.

Thankfully, he doesn’t have to deal with the silence for long, as Alfred comes in with a tray of breakfast. “Morning, Master Bruce.”

“Morning, Alfred,” Bruce returns.

Alfred sets the tray down and starts to fix the plate up. “I saw Masters Jason, Timothy, and Damian leaving. Is everything alright?”

“They wanted to buy snacks for their film marathon,” Bruce says, unable to keep the smile from his face. “It seems your lecture will have to be repeated. Tomorrow, I hope?”

Alfred grimaces. “As you wish. But if they stain the carpet-”

“If they stain the carpet, I will gladly pay the price,” Bruce says. “Besides, I’m sure Dick will keep them in line.”

Something in Alfred’s demeanor changes. “So Master Richard has had a change of heart?”

“We talked. We have had a lot of misunderstandings, and a lot of secrets, it seems.”

“But not anymore.”

“Not anymore, no.”

Alfred straightens, eyes twinkling. “I’m certainly glad to hear it, Master Bruce. You’re too young to be an old miser.”

Bruce huffs a laugh. “Be sure to tell that to Jason, next time you see him.”

Dick comes into Bruce’s room before Jason, Tim, and Damian return, allowing the two of them more time to discuss (and allowing Dick to steal parts of Bruce’s breakfast in the meantime).

Damian announces their return triumphantly, leading Jason and Tim into the room and lifting a box of individually packaged cereal bowls above his head. Dick’s eyes light up and he moves to help them.

Thirty minutes later, the refrigerated snacks have been stored away, the pillows are arranged just so, and the blankets create a feeling of cozy safety as the five of them sit on the bed. They talk through the movies, making jokes, pointing out errors, and periodically pausing to ask Damian - the only one who has yet to see all eight films - what he thinks is going to happen next.

Making it through all eight movies was an admirable goal, but they only make it through the first six before all four boys are sleeping, limbs tangled and soft snores filling the room. Dick is pressed up against Bruce’s right, holding Damian as the boy sleeps directly on top of him. Jason and Tim are on Bruce’s left, a casual arm from Jason draped across Tim and resting on Bruce’s chest.

Alfred comes in and turns off the television, moving food and drinks off of the bed and off of the floor where Titus and Alfred the Cat could get to them. He makes eye contact with Bruce and stops his task, setting aside the items in his hands to take Bruce’s right hand.

“You’re not alone,” Alfred says, squeezing Bruce’s hand with his own gloved fingers. The golden sunflower tattoo peeks out from the edge of his gloves, shimmering ever so slightly in the dim light of the room.

Bruce squeezes back. “Thank you, Alfred.”

Alfred smiles at him.

Eventually, Alfred turns back to what he was doing, scolding Titus in a quiet voice after finding the half-grown dog with his head digging around in the garbage.

Dick adjusts his position in his sleep, turning more into Bruce’s shoulder.

With one more look over his boys, his sons - perhaps not by blood, but certainly by cosmic design - Bruce takes a deep breath and drifts off to sleep, himself.

They used to say that he had no soul. That having no soul marks made him cursed, forever destined to be alone.

But after everything that has happened, after all of the heartbreak and the searching, he knows that cannot be further from the truth. His soul had merely been split, entrusted to the four boys that he had raised - that he was still raising, in many ways.

And now that he has them in his arms?

He will never let them go.