Chapter Text
The invasion had been alien in nature. Far too big and far too cohesive even for Bruce to tackle alone. His propensity for planning ahead wasn’t exactly useful when the attack came so suddenly, and he wasn’t so proud that he could ignore when he really needed the backup. A League-level threat required a League-level response, after all.
He called in the cavalry and they responded as efficiently as he had come to expect. Gotham would recover. It always did.
Now, in the aftermath of what was essentially eight hours of the city being jammed through the ringer, Bruce stood by the arching remains of a shattered overpass. The substance in the alien weaponry had eaten right through the weave of his cape, so now it hung limp and frayed around his shoulders. He’d take a sample to analyse later, he decided absently. But for now, he surveyed the wreckage with a detachment he practised but struggled with.
Objectivity was something of a necessity when he lived in a city like Gotham. It was a place that ate itself up from the inside out and he always hated to see it bleeding. The exhaustion was probably not helping either. It seeped into every little ache and bruise, every inch of grime clinging to his suit, and it burned too wild down his left leg. Definitely wounded, then. Possibly broken.
Alfred was probably going to force him into bed rest. Irritating.
There were the scattered splinters of alien tech glittering in the firelight. Shards and husks of weapons too advanced for his immediate understanding, but he had already made a mental note to take some for study later. The sharp lance of green metal jutting from the asphalt nearby looked like a promising specimen. It was humming faintly with an energy he didn’t dare touch yet. Perhaps he’d even consult with Flash. That whirlwind mind was interesting to bounce ideas off, particularly whenever they found something new to examine.
That would have to wait. He had more pressing matters at hand. Though, it didn’t stop him from updating his internal to-do list. He’d have Lantern do a sweep of the area to clean up the remnant tech later. They couldn’t exactly leave that kind of weaponry on the streets of Gotham. The gangbangers would be swarming within the next few hours, and the thought of them getting their hands on this kind of devastating tech was just another headache waiting to happen.
While he trusted Lantern to do a thorough job of removing the weaponry (though he’d rather chew off his own foot than admit that to the man’s face), he knew in his gut that somehow pieces of it would work its way onto the black market. Another item in his to-do list.
In the meantime, he continued sweeping his gaze across the wreckage.
He knew what the League probably thought of him. He was brooding. He was being dramatic. Honestly, he probably would have proved them right if his cape hadn’t practically melted away during the fight. He wanted to huddle in it and slip into the shadows, find a better vantage point so he could get a better view of the field.
Everyone was hard at work and Bruce probably should have joined them. But it just didn’t seem all that important right now. He wasn’t interested in the discarded weapons just yet. Any straggling civilians still struggling in the aftermath would’ve already been cleared out of the immediate area by Superman or the Flash, so he didn’t have to worry about that either. The League were under the direction of Wonder Woman as she led the cleanup. It was handled. They didn’t need Batman right now.
He searched the shadows carefully.
There. Lurking in the spaces the League would have overlooked. In the darkest part of the clearing. He saw them all.
They were slipping silently through the shadows to retreat and regroup, seeking out the deepest corners of the rubble-strewn battlefield. Quickly, quietly, carefully. Exactly as they were taught. From where Bruce was watching, he could see they were bandaged and bruised, but at least they were alive. All seven of them were there. Entirely against his orders, of course.
Bruce exhaled. It was a barely audible thing, barely there over the crackle of fires being put out around him, but it was a completely automatic reaction to seeing them all safe. Of course, he had tried to keep them out of the fight. Too dangerous, he told them. Too big. He’d even gone as far as to seal off the Batcave in the hopes that they’d actually stay put for once and leave everything to the League.
Stupid idea, really. Bruce was smarter than that. He’d known better to think that any of them would actually stay out of the fight. This was their city too, after all. The moment some big-headed aliens dared to set foot in Gotham, all bets were off. The family responded as they always did. Recklessly, secretly, and completely, utterly efficiently. In hindsight, there hadn’t been a chance in hell of Bruce actually stopping them.
The League hadn’t spotted them yet. Maybe Manhunter caught a glimpse of their mental presence, or maybe Superman had heard their footsteps as they swarmed together to wait for Batman, but nobody was reacting. That was good. Everyone was probably too busy with the debrief being held a little ways out of the family’s space.
Bruce was being unprofessional, he knew. He should be heading towards the League to resume position. He was a figurehead, he was a leader, and he supposed he had to thank them for the help, too. Or at least he probably should at least acknowledge that they had turned up at all. But quite frankly, he was far too exhausted to even begin to deal with them right now.
Superman and Flash were touching base, likely about their joint efforts in evacuating. Wonder Woman and Martian Manhunter were directing Lantern in his efforts to heft some of the more precarious mountains of rubble away to safer spaces. The others were crowding together in what looked to be a debrief that Batman almost certainly should have been leading.
Bruce turned his back on the Justice League and walked in the opposite direction.
Oh, he knew for certain he’d be avoiding all sorts of questions later. He may even decide to field a few if he was feeling generous (unlikely). For now, though, he could feel their eyes snap to his back and watch as he quite willfully and quite obviously blew off protocol. Protocol he himself had instated, so he knew that he’d be getting an earful from some of the more mouthy members — in his periphery, he could already see Green Lantern frown at him like he was planning to confront him about it later. That was, to put in simple terms, going to be a ballache.
Any comments were lost over the roar of a fire Cyborg was putting out and the shriek of tinnitus he’d had for about an hour now. Explosion. That wasn’t fun. He had landed awkwardly on his leg and had been too busy to care about the nasty crunch that broke his fall. Superman had taken the time to give him a single glance of horror as he proceeded to ignore his probably broken leg, but everyone knew by now that Batman would rather get the job done than worry about secondary problems like that.
His leg very nearly gave out as he limped towards the shadows, but Bruce had his pride and he certainly wasn’t going to let that happen with so many witnesses around. Later, he knew one his sturdier kids would insist on supporting his weight so they could leave. He would refuse. They were probably tired too and he wouldn’t be a burden on them. They would insist. It would take their combined efforts for him to finally accept the help. It was all very performative at this point, but he’d rather make sure they were okay before thinking about himself.
As he stepped into the shadows, the faces of his children came into view.
“That’s gotta be broken,” Jason pointed out, nodding at his leg.
Some of the League members had augmented hearing. They definitely would’ve heard that.
Batman had drawn attention to them, which seemed like a contradiction to everything Bruce tried to do in life. Especially when it came to his children. Within the last few months, he’d been doing a fairly terrible job at keeping them all a secret. He couldn’t exactly remember all the times he managed to reveal their existence, but at least four members of the League started treating him differently because of it.
Wonder Woman and Superman in particular were being insufferable about it. They were great about letting Bruce keep his identity underwraps, but as soon as they discovered that he had a child, they’d been insistent. And now that his children were actually here within reach, he suspected it was only a matter of time before they’d take the opportunity to make introductions.
Right now, tired, injured, and comfortable around his children, Bruce couldn’t find it in him to care.
“I’m fine,” he said like the huge liar he was.
“Sure you are.”
Jason's presence alone was probably enough to warrant curiosity. He stood more to the edge of the family with his helmet half-shattered by his feet and his expression perfectly unreadable beneath the domino. If anyone was looking, which at this point they probably were, they would have almost certainly recognised him as the Red Hood. That could complicate things. Bruce didn’t care right now.
The fact that Jason was there at all still caught him off guard sometimes. They’d both been making the effort recently, ever since Bruce embarrassingly got himself doped up on some weird drug that made him a little more uninhibited than he cared to be. It was slow work, but Jason was rejoining the family one step at a time.
He was always going to be there to defend the city. Now that Bruce was thinking about it, he was probably the first one to suggest breaking lockdown to throw himself into the fight. His love for Gotham was just as fierce and as unexplainable as Bruce’s. He loved that about him.
Jason sneered automatically at Bruce’s scrutiny, and he adjusted the weight on his back to offset the stare. Only then did Bruce notice that Damian was slumped against his big brother, arms loosely looped around his shoulders and a glare on his little face. The sight was almost surreal, enough to momentarily override the pain in Bruce’s leg.
If Damian was letting Jay carry him, one of two things had happened: he was concussed, or he had somehow discovered how to express affection like a normal human being. Given the way he tried to stop his head from lolling as Jason shifted him higher, Bruce decided it was probably the former.
He resisted the very real urge to hobble over and scoop him up. That was an instinct he had been holding back ever since Dick was a rambunctious nine year old doing handstands on the top of buildings. (And it was an instinct he hadn’t quite tamed, even when Dick was a twenty-four year old doing handstands on the top of even taller buildings.)
“Sit over there if you’re broken,” Steph said, nursing her arm. She gestured towards Tim with her boot. “Weak boned people don’t get to stand.”
Tim raised a hand in a small wave from where he was perched on a flat slab of debris. His leg was stretched out in front of him, already set and bound with a makeshift splint.
As much as he hated seeing his kids injured, at least Bruce wouldn’t be alone when Alfred inevitably confined them both to the manor. Tim didn’t even live at home anymore, but Bruce knew exactly how all this would play out. There was no way Alfred would even think about letting either of them leave once he got a good look at the damage. Tim’s resigned expression as he shuffled over to make room for him suggested he’d already come to the same conclusion.
Bruce lowered himself down, only just stopping himself from letting out an old man groan, and immediately the tension began to bleed out of him. It would never be gone completely, he was far too high-strung for that, but the relief of seeing all of them together always helped.
The display in the cowl was in a disarray. Debris had smashed right into his head at some point during the fight, so one of the lenses had a spiderweb crack in the centre that wasn’t doing him any favours. It was messing with his head worse than the headache creeping up his temples.
Hm.
Well.
His back was to the League. He was sitting in the darkest part of the immediate area. Only his children could really see him. It just made sense for him to tug off the mask and hold it in his lap.
The murmurs behind him began immediately. Someone had noticed, of course they had noticed, and the gossip was quickly spreading among the group. Let them watch. For now, he just wanted to sit with his family unimpeded.
“Injury report,” he called out.
Tim answered first. “Well, my leg’s messed up,” he announced, gesturing theatrically to the splinted limb as if it weren’t glaringly obvious. “Pretty sure I ruptured something too.”
“Yes, your brain,” Damian muttered into Jason’s shoulder.
“Says the kid who took a metal pipe to the head.”
Bruce frowned and settled his gaze on Damian. In the low light, he had missed the faint discolouration along the side of his son’s face. “Robin—”
Damian lifted his head just enough to cut him off. “A minor concussion,” he declared with the kind of defiance only one his children could muster while being piggybacked by their brother. “I’m still able to perform. Unlike Drake, who should be remanded back to the manor immediately. For his own safety, of course.”
“Brat,” Tim sneered.
“Ingrate,” Damian replied, just short of sticking out his tongue. He settled his head back against Jason’s shoulder. Incredibly telling for someone like him. They would have to keep an eye on that concussion.
Ah, there was that urge to coddle him again.
Bruce valiantly stopped himself from staggering towards his youngest and let his eyes move to Stephanie next. She was leaning against a shattered concrete support with her arm cradled awkwardly against her chest.
“Dislocated,” she explained, though he’d already suspected as much. “BB shoved it back in. I’m all good.”
Cass, standing close by, offered a small nod of confirmation. She didn’t verbalise her injuries, but she opened herself up for a visual checkup instead. She was favouring her left side and seemed a little more sluggish than she’d usually be after a fight. Bruce could see the torn fabric of her suit where something had scored a deep cut along her ribs. One of the others had already patched her up.
Next to her, Duke was shifting uncomfortably against the concrete chunk he was sitting on. “Signal?” Bruce prompted.
“Definitely bruised. Almost got brained by a hoverboard, so that was pretty neat, but I’m mostly okay,” he said, grinning. “Think I got away with the least of it.”
Bruce nodded, pleased, and he looked at Dick next. He was leaning against a section of collapsed wall, his arms crossed and an easy smile on his face. Which was suspicious as hell. Bruce knew his eldest far too well not to recognise the way he had deliberately posed himself to stave off concern.
“I’m okay,” Dick assured, like a liar. Bruce stared at him and he grinned wolfishly. “Okay, maybe I’ve got some sprains, maybe I’ve got some bruises. Nothing broken.” Bruce narrowed his eyes and Dick laughed. “Fine, fine, I also may have a few cracked ribs, but it’s nothing serious.”
Cass nodded to corroborate, and Bruce trusted her word over Dick’s any day when it came to things like this, so he finally turned to Jason. Jay had been quiet up until now, which was rarely a good sign in this family when it came to reporting back. There was blood staining the side of his armour and the lining of his jacket.
“I’m good,” he said casually, rolling his shoulder like he wasn’t carrying a small child and potentially a bullet wound.
“You’ve been shot.”
“By an alien,” Jay corrected. “Doesn’t count. They missed all the important bits.”
“Doesn’t count?”
“Yup.”
This was probably karma for all the dramatics Bruce had given Alfred over the years. “You’re being stubborn.”
“Gee, wonder where he gets that from,” Steph said. She looked at him pointedly. “Injury report, Boss. That means you too.”
He gestured to his leg in the same way Tim had. “Likely broken, but that’s the extent of the damage.”
“You have a hole in the side of your armour,” Dick pointed out. “You’re bleeding.”
“I was also shot, but—” He looked at Jason and raised his eyebrows in challenge. “That doesn’t count.”
“It absolutely counts,” Dick said. He sounded, shockingly so, very much like Bruce when he was particularly exasperated with the kids. Dick wouldn’t appreciate the comparison, so he kept it to himself.
“What do you say, Hood?” Bruce asked dryly. “Does it count?”
Jason grimaced. “That’s a trap and I’m not falling for it.”
Bruce would take stock of everyone’s injuries properly back at the manor. Alfred was an inevitability and he’d enforce a medical lockdown with the kind of authority that none of them dared to challenge. If Bruce was going down, he damn well was going to bring the rest of the family down with him.
Even with the domino on, he could tell Dick was rolling his eyes. He was always expressive like that. With a weary, fond grin, he opened his mouth to say something, probably to disparage Bruce’s terrible habits, but he snapped it shut almost instantly. His jaw clicked at the speed of it and his entire posture snapped to attention. Shoulders squared, spine straightening, smile dying on his lips before it could rise up properly. It was like he had sent out an invisible signal to the rest of the brood, because one by one they all followed suit.
Attuned to them as he tried to be, it took Bruce less than a second to register their shift in demeanour. Steph stopped cradling her injured arm and had crossed it over her chest. Cass tucked herself into her cape and stood frighteningly still within the shadows. Even Damian, still perched and concussed on Jason’s back, managed to sit up primly as if his brother was his steed rather than his support.
It would’ve been unsettling to anyone unfamiliar with it, the way they stared past Bruce’s head. Their expressions fell in perfect, synchronised neutrality, wiped clean of exhaustion and pain. Instinctive intimidation. They got that from him, he realised belatedly. Even Tim, who had been facing the same direction as Bruce, had twisted his head to look over his shoulder. His reaction mirrored the others almost instantly.
Bruce, maskless, froze in place.
“Is this a bad time?”
Wonder Woman’s voice was careful when she spoke, but there was certainly an undercurrent of amusement in her tone. Maybe even wistfulness as she probably understood exactly what she was looking at. There was a low murmur alongside her, their words indistinct, but Bruce was familiar with the League by now. Clearly, she hadn’t come to investigate alone. Of course, she hadn’t. When one member of the League found something interesting, the others rarely strayed far behind. Bruce didn’t know why he expected otherwise.
Well, he didn’t expect otherwise actually. He had just been too exhausted to care.
“There’s more than one,” Superman whispered, dashing all of Bruce’s hopes that maybe everyone would decide to mind their own damn business.
“Do we focus on how he doesn’t have his cowl on?” Flash said as quietly as he could. Which wasn’t very quiet at all. “Or on the many, many kids surrounding him like a flock of— well, a flock of bats, I guess?” He didn’t give anyone time to respond before he raised his voice in surprise. “Oh, hey, Black Bat.”
Cassandra automatically offered a small wave and Damian glared at her. “Put your hand down, we don’t know these people,” he hissed. “Where is your dignity?”
And that, much to Damian’s chagrin, seemed to be the sign for all of them to relax in place.
Steph snorted. “What, you just wanna stare them down in silence?”
“I mean, it’s kind of our thing,” Tim said lazily. He had turned to look at Bruce, narrowing his eyes in thought. After Cass, he was probably the best at reading the subtle nuances of Bruce absolutely losing his mind.
Dick was also watching him carefully, but he stayed conspicuously quiet. Jason, on the other hand, was frowning at the League and trying to look as intimidating as possible while he had an actual child attached to his back. “Stare at ‘em untl they get the picture that they’re not welcome here,” he agreed pointedly.
“They helped,” Duke said with a shrug.
Cass nodded. “And they are nice.”
“They’re stickin’ their nose in where it doesn’t belong,” Jason muttered. He sneered at the League behind Bruce. “This is a private conversation. Kindly get fu—”
“Language,” Bruce cut in tiredly.
“Screw you, old man.”
Behind him, Superman let out a strange noise that would’ve been amusing had it not directly related to one of Bruce’s biggest secrets being spread out for everyone to look at. “I know that voice,” Superman said. Jason snapped his head to look at him directly. “It was you, wasn’t it? You were the one on the communicator when Batman was— Well, you know. Impaired.”
Jason looked distinctly uncomfortable at that. Bruce could relate. That whole situation had resulted in an incredibly awkward conversation over lasagne and an even more awkward hug that neither of them could admit they desperately needed.
“Yeah? What’s it to you?”
“Aren’t you…” Superman faltered for a moment, like he was in thought. “It’s nice to meet you, Red Hood,” he settled on.
At that, Jason grimaced. “Wait, that’s it?” he said. “You just find out that Batman’s kid is Crime Lord Red Hood, and that’s it? You do know about the bag of heads, right?”
Bruce sighed. “Hood—”
“Well, you’ve never been a League-level issue, and Batman has always been interested in rehabilitating his rogues, so I just assumed—”
“What do you mean I’ve never been League-level?!” Jason looked towards Bruce, betrayed. “Seriously, B? What the hell?”
“It makes sense,” Tim said unhelpfully. “You’re a glorified gangster. Why would B ask for help to fight just some guy with a gun?”
“I want to remind you all of the literal bag of heads.”
Damian tsked. “A pack of puppy dogs could deal with you, Hood. Try to contain your unearned ego before it leaks, it’s embarrassing for you.”
“Oh, I’ll give you unearned ego, you little shit,” Jason snapped, reaching for his gun. At the same time, Damian reached behind for his sword. It all looked rather silly, really, since neither of them made a move to detach themself from the other.
“Boys,” Bruce said warningly.
Behind him, Wonder Woman let out a soft gasp. “All of them,” she realised, equal parts mystified and delighted. “They’re all your children.”
Well. There was no use in denying it now, Bruce supposed. Most of the League knew about at least one of his kids, thanks to some creative mistakes on his part. What difference would it make to know about all of them? But even though there was no secret left to spill, Bruce was a man defined by his privacy. He couldn’t bring himself to answer.
Steph, the only one who wasn’t actually his kid, took the opportunity for herself. “We’re actually more like strays who got taken in by a weirdo,” she said, gesturing towards Bruce. She raised her hand before Damian could speak. “Well, most of us are.”
“It was all done super legally,” Duke said abruptly, unasked. Which, frankly, probably made the whole situation come across as incredibly suspicious on Bruce’s part.
“Speak for yourself,” Jason muttered.
Tim stared at him incredulously. “You were legally adopted before Nightwing was, and he was there first.”
“Doesn’t make the acquisition any less weird.”
“Don’t say ‘acquisition’ like we’re a case of drugs. You’re the one who’s making it weird.”
“The only reason you don’t think it’s weird is because you were weirder than B about the whole thing.”
“How would you even know? You weren’t even around when I joined the family.”
“Oh, so we’re playing it like that now. Well excuse me for dying—”
“Play another song, Hood,” Steph cut in.
Someone else stepped up behind Bruce, clearing their throat awkwardly to draw the family’s attention. Heads turned in unison — which Bruce suspected they practiced beforehand — and this intruder in the conversation found themselves under the collective stare of the Bats. Usually, it would’ve been like before. Seven pairs of eyes staring into your soul, the kind of intimidation tactic each of the kids had latched on to immediately. But instead of that, they looked…open. Receptive. Welcoming?
That was suspicious. Bruce was always suspicious when his kids went off script.
Dick, Duke and Steph were usually the first to display any kind of immediate warmth to strangers (though that was often later undercut by how unhinged they tended to be), so it wasn’t so strange for them to smile obligingly. But Jason, Cass and Tim were usually a lot more guarded than their current demeanours would suggest. Even Damian seemed to ease up. Just a little. He was still Damian, after all.
“Um. So…does that mean he’s not really your dad?”
Ah.
That explained it.
Duke had managed to extract all kinds of information from Bruce during the whole truth spell incident last month, and some of those secrets hadn’t exactly been Bruce’s to share. Of course, Duke had been apologetic at first, genuinely regretful for prying too far, but that hadn’t stopped him from sharing the info to the rest of the family. Since then, everyone had been more than a little bit interested in meeting Captain Marvel.
Dick was the one who answered. “He’s really our dad,” he confirmed, smiling warmly at the Captain. “We don’t need blood to be family.”
Captain Marvel made a noise of understanding and seemed to shrink back under the scrutiny of the family. Bruce would probably look into that later. He really had no intention of pressuring Captain Marvel — Billy, he reminded himself — into accepting his help. But…well, if the family were up for it and if Billy was all alone in Fawcett City…
That was a thought for later. He added it to his to-do list.
“And I guess that all of you looking like carbon copies of each other is just a coincidence?” Green Arrow asked, breaking Bruce from his musings. He could hear the sneer in his voice, and honestly, Bruce was surprised it hadn’t clicked for Oliver yet. He was smarter than this. They had known each other since their boarding school days, and even though his back was to the League right now, he thought Oliver would be able to recognise the back of his head. Or perhaps the group of bat-kids that matched the Wayne children perfectly.
Maybe Brucie Wayne really was just that good of a cover.
“No, B’s just really picky about what kind of strays he picks up.”
“It’s also a woeful misrepresentation of what we look like,” Damian said snippily, as if he, Jay and Dick didn’t look almost identical to Bruce.
Sure, in Damian’s case, it made sense. He was biological, after all, so the resemblance was expected — down to their sharp eyebrows and the way their mouths pulled up into an automatic grimace when they were thinking. That was normal. Though, he supposed it was a little coincidental for two of his adopted boys to look just like him. Dick and Jay had both been mistaken for Bruce recently, much to their horror.
Even Tim, now that Bruce thought about it, looked similar enough for Alfred to insist on conducting a paternity test. Bruce had never slept with Janet Drake before. It didn’t stop him from doing the test anyway.
“I don’t know, guys, I think I’m a dead ringer for B,” Duke said seriously.
For a moment, the family fell blissfully silent as they looked at their foster brother. Then, as one, they all nodded with exaggerated stoicism.
“Absolutely.”
“No question.”
“Uncanny.”
“Is this really the place to discuss this?” Bruce said weakly, a pathetic attempt at trying to get his hand on the wheel.
Cassandra took pity on him and she gestured towards the League. “We have guests. We also have secrets.”
“Does it even matter now?” Steph said. “They’re literally right there in front of us. The only real secret left is—”
They all looked at Bruce. Specifically, at his unmasked face.
Bruce was suddenly all too aware of the air brushing his skin and the breeze tugging at his hair. The cowl sitting in his lap was ten times heavier than it had any right to be and he automatically curled his fingers into it as if it could help at all. He needed to process the situation properly. To react beyond sitting dumbly. To decide what he wanted to do next.
He didn’t need to turn around to know the League were watching him the same way his kids were. He could feel it — more than one pair of eyes boring into him, the collective presence of expectation. All any of them had to do was take a few steps forward, and they’d be able to turn and look Bruce in the eye for the first time. It said a lot about them that they didn’t immediately take the opportunity. Bruce supposed he should appreciate that about them.
Logically, he knew this was something he should have properly accounted for. It had been reckless to take the cowl off at all, but all that seemed so unimportant. Especially in front of the family. The mission was over. They were battered and bruised, and these were his kids. The weight of his identity had felt fairly inconsequential.
For a brief, irrational moment, he considered staying perfectly still. Maybe, just maybe, if he didn’t move the League would mistake him for a trick of the light
“Okay, this is killing me,” Green Lantern finally snapped. “Either turn around or put on your damn mask. This is all getting way too dramatic for me.”
“Lantern, don’t pressure him.”
“Goddamnit, Lantern.”
There was a rustle behind him and Bruce imagined one of the team had stepped forward to take point. “Batman,” Superman began. Of course it would be him. “As much as we’d love to meet you and your family, it’s okay. We understand if you’re not ready.”
“We can head back first,” Black Canary offered. Bruce wondered if she had figured it out yet. She was always more perceptive than Ollie.
Speaking of, Green Arrow was muttering to himself. “All that drama for nothing? What a waste of time.”
The way Bruce rolled his eyes was completely instinctive, but the reflexive irritation was always good at keeping him grounded. Without thinking, he lifted the cowl, more than ready to restore the barrier between Bruce Wayne and Batman once more.
Before he could, a hand reached out and stopped him.
Bruce blinked and looked up. Dick looked back at him.
His partner. His eldest. His little boy, all grown up. He didn’t say anything as he extended his hand, palm up, offering to help Bruce to his feet.
And of course, Bruce hesitated. He wouldn’t usually, not with Dick. He would grab Dick’s hand and follow him into the fire if it came down to it, but that wasn’t what this was all about. This was about letting the cowl fall from his grip. It was about standing up and letting his oldest son support his broken leg as he faced the people he had fought alongside with for over ten long years. It meant exposing himself, his children, to people outside of his circle for the first time.
He raised a brow.
Dick shrugged, his smile widening just a fraction. It’s okay, that look said. It’s time.
“Oh my god, he’s gonna do it,” someone, possibly Flash, muttered behind him.
Frowning, Bruce looked around at the rest of his children as if that would offer any clarity.
Damian was trying his very best to feign disinterest in what was happening, but his unsteady eyes were as bright as they could be while he had a concussion. His arms had tightened hard around Jason’s neck, hard enough to choke him out if he had any strength left in him. Jason, the brick wall of a man he had become, didn’t seem to notice.
“Do as you will,” Damian said, a little too casually. “If you think these… colleagues of yours deserve to know, then that’s your prerogative.”
“That’s unlike you, Robin.”
“I’ve been informed that friendships are nurtured more easily when both parties are unmasked.” Damian gestured towards the League, who were doubtlessly watching the scene, but he didn’t take his eyes off Bruce. “You are clearly in dire need of friendship.”
Well, that certainly sounded like an insult. Or maybe he was sincerely trying to be helpful. You could never quite tell with Damian. It was one of the more infuriating habits he’d inherited from Bruce.
Now that he thought about it, Superman had a son his age, and Damian had precious few friends. It would be good for him to have a friend like Jon, just as it had been good for Bruce to have a friend like Clark. (And Clark was his friend. Just like Diana was. He had absolutely no deficiencies in the friendship department, thank you very much.)
“Is that so?” he said dryly.
“I think Robin just called you a loser,” Tim said.
“I did no such thing. I only implied it.”
Duke looked towards Bruce, nice enough to sidestep the issue. “He’s got a point, though.”
“What, that B is a loser?” Steph said. “Truer words have never been spoken.”
“Not about that,” Duke clarified, grinning. “I mean about the masks. Look, B, if you can trust them to have your back in a fight, why not trust them with…well, you know. You?”
“Because,” Tim interjected before Bruce could, “if the mask comes off, he’s not just trusting them with his identity. He’s trusting them with all of us. It’s not just his call.”
“The mask is protection,” Cass said softly. She was looking at Bruce so knowingly despite her own cowl. She was always good at saying what he needed to hear. “It keeps out danger. It also keeps out people. If you hide for too long, you…forget. How to step out.”
“What BB is trying to say,” Steph butted in, “is that we’re with Robin on this one. You are seriously lacking in the friend department. It’s quite sad, y’know. What are you, like, sixty? Seventy? Get a life, big guy. We support you.”
Tim was holding back a smile, but he looked at Bruce seriously. “Look, the mask protects us as much as it protects you. We get it. But do we really actually need that protection? It may have made sense when Nightwing and Hood were kids, but it’s not just you guys anymore. I think between the whole family we can handle a few people knowing your name.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“No,” said Cass. “But it can be.”
“At the end of the day,” Tim continued, “it comes down to whether you think it’s worth it. I’m pretty sure I speak for us all when I say that we’re cool with it.”
“Don’t put words in my mouth,” Damian snapped.
“Most of us are cool with it. Robin is being contrary for the sake of being difficult.”
“And you, Hood?” Bruce asked as Damian growled at Tim.
“Don't look at me, old man,” Jason said. “It's your face.”
“It's our secret.”
Jason shrugged, jostling Damian on his back. “Sometimes secrets come out. Could be funny. Considering—” He gestured towards Bruce’s face. “You know, that.”
Steph nodded in agreement. “For the record, I actually think it’s a terrible idea, but I’m pretty sure their reaction would be worth any repercussions, so I’m totally on board with it.”
Bruce sighed and let his gaze sweep over each of them slowly. His team, his family. It was hard, sometimes. Most of the time. Being the figurehead of the family. Having all these young men and women look at him like he was supposed to know all the answers. They were so much better than him, so much smarter and stronger and braver in every way. How was he supposed to know what was best for them when they had clearly decided for themselves?
Tim was watching him back just as carefully. It was like he was trying to predict what Bruce would decide and was planning his own reaction accordingly. He had a team of his own to look out for. Friends who didn’t know who he was behind the mask. It never seemed to bother him, but Bruce had always been bad at reading between the lines when it came to things like that.
Damian wasn’t quite glaring, but he had inherited Bruce’s — to quote Stephanie — ‘natural resting bitch face’. It made him look displeased, especially with his chin tilted up like he was trying to belie his exhaustion with childish tenacity. He’d adhere to whatever decision came out of this moment, he probably would even support it. Bruce wanted to set a good example for him, if only he knew how.
Beneath Damian, Jason looked thoroughly but unconvincingly uninterested. Honestly, Bruce had expected Jason to have already revealed himself to his own team. A big ‘screw you’ to assert his independence from the rest of the clan, so to speak. But he hadn’t and he wouldn’t, not without the rest of the family also doing the same. He should’ve expected that kind of solidarity from Jason — he had always been big on family, despite all the ways Bruce had failed him.
Cass and Steph, huddled together, seemed to share the same point of view. They were concerned about the consequences of unmasking (of which, Bruce reminded himself, there were many), but ultimately they seemed to support the idea. Cass, for the extended support structure it could create for the people she cared about; Steph, for the sheer chaos of the League discovering just what vapid billionaire sat under the mask. She’d push for unmasking just to see Oliver’s face.
Near the girls, Duke was trying not to look too eager. Out of everyone, he probably had the most to gain from this. He hadn’t had the opportunity to make friends of his own on the superhero scene just yet, not outside the family anyway. And as much as Batman could train him, Bruce wasn’t a meta. He couldn’t actually offer advice beyond logic, theories and wild speculation. He could learn so much from someone with experience. The League had plenty of people with experience.
Then there was Dick. And Dick… Well, he was still smiling, hand outstretched.
Bruce could feel himself crumble under their collective gaze. “This is peer pressure.”
“It’s about time,” Dick said, “don’t you think?”
Bruce looked around at them all and they all looked back. Waiting for him, for permission.
Behind, the League stayed silent.
He’d spent years building walls so high and so thick that they felt like an extension of himself. The mask was just as much his identity as Brucie was, and it seemed wrong, somehow, to throw all that away. But all of them, all seven of them, were looking at him so expectantly. Whatever they did, they’d do it together. Maybe it was finally time for Bruce to understand that.
Without giving himself another moment to think, he clasped Dick’s hand. The cowl slipped from his fingers, forgotten, and his son pulled him to his feet.
“Everyone,” Bruce Wayne announced, turning around to face the Justice League, “I'd like to introduce my children.”
END