Archive of Our Own

He’s not your son.

It’s become somewhat of a mantra Bruce repeats to himself, quietly, shamefully, in the privacy of his own head.

He’s not your son, Bruce thinks again, tries not to linger too long in the living room, where Peter is forcing Tim and Duke to watch all the Star Wars movies back to back, quoting them from heart, honest to god vibrating in excitement.

It’s not an unfamiliar process. It’s his third time around now, singing the same old song. He’s sure there’s a joke about his child hoarding problem somewhere, but right now, he just looks at his sons and the boy living with them who is not his son, and repeats it to himself again.

The first two times had failed miserably. He remembers how adamant he'd been about not replacing Dick’s parents, who’d done nothing but love him. He remembers Dick when he was impossibly small, calling him a friend, a partner—never a father.

He remembers Tim’s parents, no matter how neglectful they were, and how he told himself that he wasn’t Tim’s father because he already had a father.

The rest of his kids, there wasn't much time between meeting them and then adopting them. There wasn't really a need for denial. Jason's father was abusive and gone. Cassandra's was vile. Damian's was a given, and even with Duke, Bruce could easily step into the role left behind.

But with Peter, it’s the same old song again.

It’s so hard because it’s so easy, how he fits in with the family. He’s already close with Tim and Duke, and he’s been friendly with Dick as Nightwing before. And Damian might be prickly, but at least he doesn’t hate Peter. Even avoidant of Bruce’s youngest son as he is, Peter’s been nothing but patient and gentle to Damian in their few interactions—at most, a good-natured, teasing manner, and taking all of his crankiness in stride.

And honestly, if it wasn’t for Tony Stark, maybe it would’ve been just as easy for Bruce to slip in.

From the loose, casually-spoken details Peter's shared about his life, Bruce knows that his parents died in a plane crash when he was six, leaving him with an uncle who was shot in front of him in a bodega robbery, and an aunt that Peter closes up about every time. Probably dead, Bruce deduces. Recently, too—likely why he ended up in Gotham.

Peter crawls on his hands and one knee towards the popcorn, takes a handful and throws it at Duke.

Bruce dawdles a little too long. Peter catches his eyes and gives him a bright, easy grin—mischievous and childish, reminiscent of Dick when he was young. Bruce makes his quick escape.

Not yours, he mopes, and goes to check on his other children.

-

For how talkative Peter is, he’s stayed pretty tight-lipped about where he came from.

He'll talk about Queens as his home, with a familiarity that is lacking to him in Gotham. The closest it gets is Crime Alley—But Bruce doesn't want to think about that, doesn't want to remember the places Peter's been ducking down in for months.

He'll mention old friends with an air of sadness. He'll even talk fondly of old bullies—which Bruce doesn't find endearing at all. He never really mentions his parents because he doesn't remember them much, but he holds his uncle with the sort of reverence and guilt that Bruce holds his own parents.

But none are held with that same hero-worship as Tony Stark.

Peter doesn’t bring him up too often, but when he does, there’s a heavy sense of adoration in his voice that makes Bruce grit his teeth. Tony Stark abandoned him. Peter might say that Tony wouldn’t have stopped looking for him unless it was hopeless, but all Bruce can see is that a sixteen year old child was homeless in the worst of Gotham because the seemingly best, smartest, and most capable man in the world couldn’t keep track of him.

And all Bruce sees is Peter, still with so much hope.

He doesn’t talk about it, but Bruce knows. He knows that Peter hopes Tony would stumble in to take him away from Gotham, back to whatever ruins of a home they had in Queens.

And he lost Peter. A boy so brilliant and bright and good that even Bruce could see, that even the Bat found him, when he had no reason to be looking. Bruce checks in on the alley every night, holding up his promise to upkeep it in Spider-Man’s absence.

People are beginning to worry. More than a few locals have asked Batman where Spider-Man’s been, and nobody ever approaches Batman if they can help it. There are murals, Where’s Spidey graffitied on walls, the familiar tear-shaped lenses of the mask. The kid’s got a community to flock to him because he gave them a chance when no one else would.

Bruce stays out later than the rest, who have school, or work, in Dick’s case, with steady and set hours. Only Bruce and Peter have no particular schedules, with Bruce’s flexible work hours and Peter’s excusal from school—which Peter’s been endlessly abusing for lab time.

“How was it?” Peter asks every night, when he finally comes back to the manor. He’s as bad as Tim—maybe even worse, with how little he sleeps. With Tim, it’s puzzles and cases. It used to be books for Jason. Damian listens to classical music, and he always has to finish a symphony. Dick never wants to stop moving if he could help it.

Peter stays holed up in the lab, and this is the time when he talks about Tony most.

“Fine,” Bruce says, growl slipping from his voice now that the cowl’s off. “People are wondering where you are, but the crime rate hasn’t risen, and I’m managing it.”

Peter winces, swivels his chair around so he can look at Bruce properly. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something,” he says, pushing his chair so it rolls backwards. He lands on a notebook, one of many sprawled out and scrawled in almost illegible chicken-scratch.

Bruce’s mouth twitches into a small frown as Peter gets up from his chair to hop closer to him. He hands the notebook over.

In it are sketches of a mechanical leg prosthetic.

“Okay, so I know how we said I wouldn’t go out until I was fully healed,” Peter begins reproachfully, and Bruce already knows where this is going, has an answer already prepared in his mouth. “But, it’s taking so long to grow back, and I remembered these leg braces Mr. Stark designed—”

“No,” Bruce says forcefully, biting back the bitterness. Stark again. He sets down the notebook on a table nearby. “Absolutely not. You’re still healing.”

“I’m still growing,” Peter corrects. “The injury itself is already healed. I just gotta grow back my leg, but that’s gonna take months.”

Bruce feels exhausted just from what he’s suggesting. “You can’t go out in the field with one leg, Peter,” he sighs, barely stopping himself from massaging his temples. Is this how Alfred feels, seeing them go out every night? He should give him another pay raise.

Peter scowls at him, which doesn’t look all that intimidating. “I’m not going to go out with one leg,” he says petulantly. “I’ll have two. One’s just mechanical.”

“No,” he repeats again, more strenuous this time.

Peter takes his concern in another way. “You don’t need to worry,” he tries to reassure, picking up the notebook again. “Mr. Stark’s a genius. I tweaked the design, obviously, so that it works as a prosthetic and not a brace—but the movements should be as fluid as the real thing. It’d be just like normal.”

Bruce doesn’t reply, swallowing down the sour taste on his tongue instead. He doesn’t think he can keep himself from snapping unfairly.

Peter just continues on. “I’d have to put a pin on getting home until I figure this out,” he says, gesturing to the sketch of the prosthetic. “And split my time afterwards with patrol. But it’s taking too long to wait, and what happens if when I come back, I get too rusty and actually get hurt?”

And Bruce knows. He knows the point he should be taking from that, but he also sees Peter, who is not his son, looking at him hopefully the way he only looks when he talks about Tony Stark coming to get him. And he sees, despite that, Peter being trapped in Gotham just a little while longer.

All of his convictions drain from him at once. He’s an awful parent—person, an awful person, to let such selfishness get ahead of Peter’s safety, who should probably run away from this life and never look back, same as all his other kids should. But he’s always known this. It’s why he feels so much contempt for Tony Stark, who can’t even be bothered to be here for Peter right now, but Peter has never spoken anything about him that hasn’t painted him as perfect.

It’s Bruce’s fault he even got hurt in the first place.

“Make the prosthetic first,” Bruce resigns. “If I think it’s not enough, then no arguments. And even if it is, you’re patrolling with me—never alone.”

He tells himself that no matter what, he can always say no. At the very last minute, he can pull back, forbid Peter from leaving the manor at all.

But Peter beams at him in such a raw, unfiltered way, that Bruce knows he won’t be able to bring himself to do it.

Bruce just manhandles him back to his bedroom so he can let his guilt wash over him in peace.

It doesn’t help when Peter grumbles, “Good night,” clearly unhappy about being forced to sleep but also unable to stop himself from saying it. It’s strangely charming, how Peter doesn’t quite have the manners of upper-socialite class, being raised in a fairly low-income household, from what Bruce can gather. But he’s so polite.

It took him a while to batter the Mr. Wayne from him, (there's a petty satisfaction curling in his chest that they're on first name basis, unlike Mr. Stark,) and he knows Alfred hasn't quite managed to get him to drop Mr. Pennyworth completely. A stark contrast from Dick and then Jason's first years, who immediately nicknamed him into Alf, Alfie, Alfster, until Alfred sniffed, annoyed.

And even now, he still calls them both sir. Slips out to Dick a few times, too, which always has him complaining about his age.

“Good night,” Bruce forces the echo out, the words sounding clumsy and awkward in his mouth. Peter doesn’t seem to notice.

Not your kid, Bruce thinks again, and repeats it until he falls into a dreamless, exhaustive sleep.

-

Lab time doubles from what it already was, and Bruce and Alfred work to drag Peter away from time to time.

“You’re done for the day,” Bruce says, smoothly picking Peter up out of his chair and bridal-carrying him like an overgrown toddler. “You need to sleep.”

“It’s the afternoon,” Peter complains like he doesn’t already know. It’s an empty house except for them and Alfred, with Dick at work and everyone else at school. “And I’m not a baby. I don’t need a nap.”

Bruce shifts him in his hold. Even after a month at the manor, Peter is too thin. He weighs practically nothing, even if he’s almost all muscle. They’ve had to control his diet, make sure he wouldn’t get refeeding syndrome, slowly easing him back into the abundance of calories he needs in a day.

“Lunch first,” He says decisively, in a tone that books no argument. “And if you won’t sleep, then you’re at least resting.” Peter sulks, even as his arms hold on, looped around Bruce’s shoulders so he doesn’t fall.

Peter suddenly wiggles in his arms. “Crutch,” he says, pointing at where one of his crutches has been strewn randomly on the floor, discarded and abandoned at some point where Peter had just decided it would be better to hop or crawl. He has two crutches, one for each arm, but for some reason only uses one at a time, and the rest of the family had been finding them in various parts of the house for weeks now.

Bruce reluctantly puts him down, watching as he crawls towards the crutch and then props himself up with it, following after Bruce. “I’m going back when you all leave at night,” Peter informs, with all the defiance and the confidence of a teenager with superpowers.

“No, you’re not,” Bruce says, noting the heavy bags under his eyes. “We’re putting a limit to your lab time. No more than eight hours a day, no more than three hours without a break, and you have to take two days off a week completely.” Basically, school schedule.

Peter looks dismayed. “That’s way too little,” he protests, staggering after Bruce with a renewed urgency. “I’ll never get anything done.”

Only Peter would argue that it’s too little. Bruce doesn’t know what kind of kid he’s gotten— not your kid.

“We can discuss extra time on a day by day basis,” he allows, turning into the kitchen where Alfred greets them. “For now, these are the rules.”

Peter pouts at him, but still manages a smile for Alfred.

It quickly becomes clear how little self control Peter has.

Every day, he’ll get his lab time over with first thing in the morning, and then pester Bruce, hoping for another crumb. Most days, it’s all for nought—although Bruce does grant him extra time between when he leaves for Batman to when he returns.

Some days, Peter gets a little hopeful smile, and he leans over to Bruce, asks for another two hours. And then Bruce can’t say no.

One night, Bruce checks in on Peter’s room to find his bed empty. Which is strange because he could’ve sworn he remembers hauling Peter off for an early night.

The lights to the lab are on.

“I’m not going back to sleep,” Peter calls out, and his voice sounds more than tired. There’s a cup of coffee at his table, which says a lot because Peter hates coffee, needs a ridiculous amount of sugar and cream to even choke it down.

He’s hunched over some schematics, and a new, upgraded version of his spider suit—now with all the electronic bells and whistles, and adjusted to work with the prosthetic that’s still coming along its way—faster than Bruce would like it to.

Bruce steps closer to him, somewhat hesitant. Eventually he decides to just take his coffee. “No more of this,” he says, setting it aside on a different bench.

Peter slumps in his seat, fingers stalling from where they solder metal.

If Bruce was a better man, one deserving of the absolute gifts he has for children, he would ask him if he wants to talk. Ask what drove him out of bed in the early hours of the morning, what kind of nightmares could put a tremble to his hands like this when he’s remained steady in front of the Joker.

But he’s not, and maybe that’s why he’s not Tony Stark.

Instead, he just slides into the seat next to Peter.

“Show me what you’re working on,” he instructs, and Peter gives him a stunned, exhausted, grateful smile.

They stay up until the sun rises, and with it, the rest of the household.

-

It’s not all bad nights though.

Sometimes, Bruce finds him passed out on the couch, a deep sleep only interrupted by a heavy purr rumbling from his chest. Those days, if Alfred hasn’t done so already, he’ll find a blanket to lay on top of him, watching as he snuggles in deeper, face soft in dreams.

Sometimes, he checks in on the lab to find Peter buried in scratchy sketch paper, fallen asleep on the table even when he swore to anyone around that he was just going to rest his eyes. Bruce would wake him with a small shake to his shoulder, murmur, "Let's get you to bed," and Peter would rise slowly and shuffle back to his room. His lashes would cast shadows, with how low his eyelids would droop, and there's almost always a spot of drool on his cheek.

Bruce checks in on his room every night, the way he does with all of the kids. Just to make sure they’re in bed, that they’re sleeping, in a few of their cases. Some nights, Peter looks less tired as he walks Bruce through the mechanics of his new and improved suit. Modelled after one Tony Stark had designed for him, he reveals.

But he never stops looking so wistful, so sad and more than a little lonely, and that damned hope.

One day, Peter walks into the lab with crutches and then out with a new prosthetic.

It’s not fully complete yet—Peter assures that he still has some kinks to work out, and is only testing it out. But he starts trying to walk everywhere now, only succeeding half the time.

“Shit,” Peter curses as he stumbles. Bruce’s arms swiftly shoot out to catch him before he falls onto the floor.

Bruce just feels his age. He’s not sure if he’s more worried whether the prosthetic turns out perfectly functional or if it doesn’t.

“I’ve got it, I’ll figure it out,” he starts mumbling straight away before any reassurance that he's okay. Bruce holds onto him just a little too long before remembering he should let go.

In a week, the leg is done.

-

The first night they go out, it’s Batman and Robin and Spider-Man. Peter’s pretty much entirely benched—his job is just to keep up, stay away from the fighting for now. Of course he doesn’t listen.

He quips at the criminals, goading them into anger until they make a mistake, laughing the entire time. Damian calls him an idiot, Peter shrugs it off and compliments his fighting.

The second night, they go to Crime Alley.

It’s just the two of them, because the rest are still banned. Honestly, if Bruce could ban Peter from the alley too, he would.

But Crime Alley is his, the way Gotham is Bruce’s, and he can see Peter itching to return. And Bruce can hear all the unsaid words Dick wants to scream at him about his hypocrisy, sometimes—but this is one thing he can understand.

They start their patrol earlier than Bruce normally would—bleeding into Spider-Man’s original, after-school patrol schedule. Every local they see points at them, yells excitedly about Spider-Man’s return.

Peter makes them both stop by the bus station.

“Spidey!” A middle aged man, large and soft-looking with a permanently surly expression almost trips over himself to greet him. And then, to Bruce’s surprise, pulls Peter right into a hug.

“Hey, Lou,” Peter says, hugging him right back. He looks so small compared to the man, and Bruce can hear the smile in his voice. “I missed you too.”

When they pull apart, Lou has a scolding scowl on his face, but his eyes are much too relieved to have any bite. “I was worried,” he chastises, holding him by the shoulders and looking him over. His eyes skip right over where the metal leg is hidden by the suit. “You haven’t been by the bus, either. I was a week away from putting up posters.”

Peter winces. “I got injured on the job,” he admits, rubbing the back of his neck. “I was benched to heal for a while. Now, I’m getting babysat.”

Lou narrows his eyes at where Bruce stands awkwardly to the side, studying him scrutinizingly. Then, he claps Peter’s shoulder. “Come by for dinner sometime, yeah? And take it easy. If you need a place to squat, you know where to find me.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Peter replies warmly, leaning into him in a friendly manner. “You’re the best.”

Peter was wrong that the leg would be just like normal, because he can’t quite do his spidery movements in them. They come out jilted, slightly wrong, and his left leg sticks out awkwardly whenever he climbs because he can’t stick with it.

But he also can’t deny that even with that setback, Peter’s more than capable of going out. He wishes he could.

The prosthetic is still a prosthetic, though, at the end of the day. The movements are far smoother than anything else they’d have on the market—Bruce should really talk to Peter about patenting it—and it works perfectly naturally with most of his movements, other than the extremely acrobatic maneuvers. But Bruce is there at the end of the night, when Peter has to take it off.

The stump, which now ends just above where his knee should be instead of above his mid-thigh, is red with blisters and irritated skin. Bruce isn’t hypocritical enough to try to argue that point for why Peter shouldn’t go out, but every night they do—which is about half of them—he ends up rebandaging his skin.

Peter grimaces, even as he claims it doesn’t hurt. Bruce knows better.

But then, when a part of a building collapses, Peter’s the only one who can catch it and hold it up, allowing the others to quickly evacuate everyone else. Later, as Bruce waits for Peter to gather himself, muscles trembling from the exertion, he points that out as proof, that they need Spider-Man, that he can do things the others can’t. Bruce can’t deny it, because he’s right.

Spider-Man stops the bad guys, Bruce watches.

At least he’s in Gotham.

-

Peter doesn’t like to wear the prosthetic outside of patrol.

Every time Bruce has to carry him up or down stairs, he gets a pang.

He doesn’t even hold his kids this often—the ones he doesn’t have to convince himself are not his. And he should, probably, but there’s no excuse, no reason to, and Bruce has never been good at all this stuff. It’s why he needed Dick—still does. Dick can translate him better than anyone, lay out all of his thoughts that even he doesn’t understand.

Dick was the only one of his kids who Bruce used to hold when they weren’t injured. He was the only one who was young enough, small enough, and being who he was, Bruce rather had no choice in being used like a jungle gym by a scrawny kid all elbows and knees climbing all over him. He’s carried Jason a couple times while he was sleeping, and the rest came when they were too old for it. Technically, he could do Damian, but that’s a death wish for anyone but Dick—even for his father.

The thing is, Peter’s so open.

Of course, he’s stubbornly independent. He doesn’t like to ask for help, always tries to do things on his own even when he can’t. But he’s an open book—Bruce can read everything about him on his face, and he doesn’t really try to hide any of it. Some details from his past are a mystery, but his every emotion can be read from a mile away.

It stuns him, sometimes, how much Peter reminds him of a younger Dick.

Today is a good day. Peter comes out of the lab a few times, eats his body weight in food, lightly prods Bruce into small conversations.

Bruce has pretty much given up on his mantra, on trying to convince himself out of something he’s already shamefully accepted. If he’s lucky, Peter will stay in Gotham for a few more years. Once he turns eighteen, though, there’s a good chance he’ll fly coop, start looking for Tony Stark full time.

But for now, Peter is in Wayne Manor, and he ribs Tim and Duke like they’ve known each other for years, and he follows Dick around like a stray puppy, and his endless optimism annoys Jason to tears as much as he’s softened by it, and Damian begrudgingly lets him play with Titus the dog and Alfred the Cat.

It doesn’t last.

They find Tony Stark in a lab.

-

“This is disgusting,” Peter says, kicking his artificial foot out. “And oddly familiar.”

Bruce agrees. They’re in some kind of abandoned lab in one of the worst parts of Crime Alley, where they found more dead mutant bats. Peter had heard suspicious noise coming from it, unusually loud, he’d said, and they’d gone to investigate.

It was a lab like one Bruce had seen before, in another part of Gotham.

“There’s a heartbeat,” Peter says lowly, on edge. “Just one. Pretty slow, I think he’s unconscious. Human, not… whatever these are.”

Peter quietly stalks off in a direction, and Bruce follows. They reach a room—the largest, covered in tech Bruce doesn’t understand—and he’s not exactly a slouch when it comes to mechanics.

Leaning against the wall furthest away from the door is an iron suit, red and silver and taller than Bruce. A blue light glows from its chest.

Peter makes a strangled noise.

“Mr. Stark?” He chokes out, frozen still. And then just as suddenly, he scrambles over to the hunched figure. “Mr. Stark!”

Bruce moves to stop him, getting in Peter’s way. They don’t know what this armour is, and if he’s being completely honest, he doesn’t know which he’d prefer. But Peter is stronger than him, and easily side steps, falling to his knees besides the figure.

“Friday, off, take it off,” he shouts in a panic, pressing the blue light on the chest piece. Suddenly, the armour completely detracts, metal melting into nothing, leaving a middle aged man in an expensive-looking tracksuit. Peter goes to take off his mask, despite Bruce’s protests. “Mr. Stark, wake up. It’s me, it’s Peter.”

“Kid?” Tony Stark groans, wrenching his eyes open. He still seems out of it—if Bruce had to guess, he’d say he’d taken down all of the mutants, and that was the sound Peter heard.

Peter sobs. His hair is a mess from the mask, and his eyes are watery. “Oh my God,” he cries. “You’re here. You’re here. I missed you.”

Tony shakes his head, eyes glazing over. “No, no. You’re dead. I saw you die.”

“I’m not,” Peter says, grasping onto his hands tightly. “We’re just… far away from home. But it’s me. I promise. You came to me about the September Grant, we went to Germany, it was the coolest day of my life. The last thing I ever said to you was that I was sorry. I woke up here.”

Tony starts coming out of it, and his eyes focus on Peter, who’s barely holding himself together. “Kid,” he gasps, voice filled with pain. “Peter.”

With another sob, Peter throws himself onto the man, and Tony’s arms instinctively lift up to cradle him, tucking the boy into himself. He keeps murmuring, variations of this isn’t real, and Peter, but Peter’s crying too hard to speak.

“I never told you I... I—” he breathes, and Bruce can tell he doesn’t quite believe this is real yet. “I should’ve. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you. Peter.”

Peter’s taking little gasping breaths, heaving too hard to be completely comprehensible. But Bruce catches little pieces, the “—you, too.”

The kid looks like he’s been wandering for months in a desert and stumbled upon an oasis. To Bruce, it feels like his worst nightmare.

There are worse, he reminds himself, watching Tony Stark cradle Peter. He’s not yours.

Bruce forces himself to approach Peter, places a solid hand on his shoulder. “Let’s head back to the cave,” he rumbles, even though the last thing he wants to do is take Tony Stark back to his home. He feels Peter tremble under his hand.

He nods, but he doesn’t move from his position. Instead, they wait as Tony’s eyes clear up and the grip on Peter relaxes slightly, and Bruce feels the world cave in on him.

-

Peter’s from a different universe.

He died and woke up in Gotham, attached to a Lazarus Machine.

He doesn’t once let go of Tony Stark, who hasn’t stopped looking at Peter like he’ll disappear any second. Who stares at his missing leg the way Bruce does.

Peter cries into his arms at the news of his aunt’s death, confirmed. Tony just rocks him back and forth, gentle voice apologizing and soothing.

“I’ll get us home,” he promises in a low voice. “I’ll find a way. I’ll bring her back.” He presses a kiss into Peter’s temple, and he melts into his embrace.

Peter nods, clutches onto him.

Bruce just feels numb.

-

Tony whistles as he enters the lab, skimming through all of the frantic notes Peter’s scribbled, sprawled out and covering every free inch.

“Not bad, kid,” he compliments, flipping through a random notebook.

Peter flushes, face turning a bright shade of red. “Thanks,” he stammers, and Bruce wants to hit something.

If Peter was bad with the labs on his own, he’s ten times worse with Tony. They work together, spouting words no one else can understand at a rate that no one else can follow. As clearly as Bruce can understand Peter when he fights, Tony understands him when he talks.

They work on a way home. To another universe, so they can disappear forever.

If there’s one thing Bruce is grateful to Tony for, it’s that he upgrades the mechanical leg.

Peter still takes it off at the end of the day, and gives himself plenty of breaks, but it’s much more reliable during their nights out, and he doesn’t have as many blisters, either. He doesn’t even have to be carried anymore.

Bruce returns from a solo night to find both Peter and Tony working in the lab. They work pretty quietly, moving unconsciously around each other in a way that feels familiar to both of them. They’d given Tony a room to stay in, slightly further away from the rest of them, and Bruce grits his teeth. The rest of the family doesn’t quite know what to do with him either, judging by the weary way they eye him.

If he had it his way, Tony Stark would just go back to his universe, and nothing else would change. But Alfred gave him a look, and Peter watches Tony like he hung up the stars. So he couldn’t not give Tony a room in the manor.

Honestly, Tony would probably like to have his own place, too, from how uncomfortable or out of place he sometimes seems. But where Tony goes, Peter goes, so Bruce gritted his teeth and offered the mi casa es tu casa speech. The thrilled grin on Peter’s face was almost worth it.

Bruce enters the lab, feeling as if he’s intruding in his own home. “Bed time,” he clears his throat, and Peter stands up without protest.

Tony gives him a soft smile and ruffles his hair, and Peter leans into it unconsciously. “Can we work on the AI tomorrow?” He asks, that goddamn hope shining in his eyes.

“Sure thing, kid,” Tony agrees, lightly pushes him towards the door, where Bruce waits. “Snug as a bug.”

“Arachnid,” Peter immediately corrects, and follows Bruce out the door.

Bruce walks him to his room, watches hesitantly from the doorway as Peter gets on his bed and takes off the prosthetic. His leg’s grown to his knee, now. It’s unbelievable.

“Night, Bruce,” Peter smiles sweetly, sitting criss-cross on his bed, hugging a pillow. When Peter grins, it's lopsided—the left corner of his mouth lifting slightly higher than the right. Any reply Bruce could possibly have made gets stuck in his throat, and he simply just nods and turns off the lights, closing the door.

Bruce has long since accepted that he could live a thousand lifetimes and never once deserve any of his kids. He remembers the thought keeping him up at night, when Dick first came into his life. He remembers thinking that it was the universe’s retribution, when Jason died.

But this is what he reads from Tony Stark: He’s arrogant, sure of himself, never wanted for anything in his life. He’s smart and he knows it, he lives in his own head, and he’s about as far away from Peter as someone could get.

He’s a recovered alcoholic, but based on the guilt that racks his face from time to time, Bruce would guess he’d momentarily fallen off the wagon some time after Peter died.

God, Peter died. Like Jason. Like Damian and Dick and Steph and—maybe it’s a curse, or something.

He’s unconsciously started up his mantra again, which has made several appearances since the arrival of Tony Stark.

Not your kid, he tells himself.

He’ll have to keep telling himself that, again and again. He doesn’t believe it at all.

Maybe it’ll sink in when he’s gone.

-

A week later, Bruce checks in on Peter’s room at night to find him absent from his bed.

He sighs, figures it’s another one of those nights, and heads to the lab. He’s not in there, either.

He feels the low threads of panic pulling at him. His stir crazy, super-powered vigilante rebellious teen is missing, and that doesn’t tend to lead to good things. He checks his room again, is prepared to go down to the cave to track his suit, when he finds the door to Tony Stark’s bedroom just slightly ajar.

He peeks inside, feeling a sourness in his gut. Peter is curled up on the edge of the admittedly large mattress, in the way he does to feel safe, or warm. Bruce knows—he’s checked in on his kids enough times at night to know.

He has the feeling that it wasn’t always that way, that there was a time where Peter spread out, limbs tangled everywhere around sheets and pillows, lanky in the way only teenaged boys could be. Now, he curls tighter in on himself the longer he sleeps.

Tony Stark is sleeping on the bed, too. They’re pretty far apart—opposite sides of the mattress, really, untouching except for one arm casually thrown aside, functioning as Peter’s pillow.

Bruce swallows hard and shuts the door.

Peter gets nightmares. He has nights when he’s too wound up to sleep at all. He has entire days at a time where he walks around the manor like a zombie, with a wild, tired, impossibly frantic look in his eyes. It’s something all of his children have experienced from time to time, really.

It’s an occupational hazard.

Bruce should probably just be grateful that there’s someone who can talk him down, lay him out, take the fears apart piece by piece and lull him into sleep. God knows Bruce’s wanted to do it, since that very first night. God knows Dick has tried, and Duke, and even Tim, when he’s not joining Peter in his strike against sleep.

Bruce finds him in Tony’s room a lot of nights.

-

Sometimes Peter comforts Tony, too.

He soothes and calms him like he’s the adult, like he’s not the one who died.

It’s almost all too familiar.

-

“I know,” Tony says to him, bright and early in the afternoon.

It’s strange, how the manor is much louder during the moments where all of his kids are gone, now that Peter has Tony to bounce off of. But it seems colder to Bruce, who just wanted a cup of coffee.

Peter’s taking a nap on the couch, the way he often does. His feet are kicked up on Tony’s lap, and Back to the Future III is playing on a low volume on the screen, the first and second movies sprawled on the rug. Bruce has no question who chose the movie.

He pauses where he stands, at Tony’s direct acknowledgement to his existence at all. Normally, they avoid each other, don’t really speak much at all. He doesn’t answer, doesn’t know exactly what he means, only grunts in that non-verbal way of his that Dick so liked to tease him about, not necessarily inviting elaboration but not shutting it down, either.

Tony stares at the feet on his lap, one socked, the other cold metal. He sighs before he continues. “I know he’s too good for me. I know you think he’s too good for me. And you’re right.”

Bruce has trained himself enough to not outwardly react. Instead, he takes a slow sip of his coffee. “Don’t all parents think so?” He says, mildly.

“I’m not his parent,” He replies firmly, but—there’s something in his voice. Misery. “I never raised him—not like you, and your kids. His aunt and uncle did a number on him, and I just get to reap the benefits.”

“I could say the same for most of my kids,” Bruce says in response, although there’s a small flare in the pit of his stomach that feels a satisfaction at this revelation. “Duke only came recently, and most of them when they were teens.”

Tony wavers, then shakes his head. “It’s not the same.” He looks at Peter, deep in sleep after a few nights up, and his thumb tenderly brushes on his flesh ankle. “It’s one thing to adopt kids who have no parents because they need you. Peter’s aunt is the best possible mother anyone could ask for. He’s never needed me—not like how your kids need you.”

Bruce takes another sip of his coffee. “His aunt’s not here now.”

“No,” Tony sags. “When we figure out a way home, I’m going to try to get her back. You should’ve met her—strongest woman in the world. Wouldn’t let me have an inch. And if I can’t, he’ll stay with me. But really, there is no one alive who could compare to May Parker. He should be with her.”

It’s like he doesn’t even know what he’s saying, the implications of this, of everything. Peter doesn’t need Tony Stark, but he chose him. And doesn’t that count for more? Bruce’s kids were forced into the manor by circumstance, when they lost everything and needed anyone at all. Peter came missing a leg.

If Dick could trade all of this life for his parents back, wouldn’t he? Duke? Does Tim’s family keep him up at night? Would Jason want to spare himself the pain that followed? Hell, Damian doesn’t even like him.

Dick had once told him he harbours no grudges against him. That Bruce was the best possible father he could be, all considering. But Bruce is smart enough to read between the lines Dick hadn’t meant to draw—that is not the same as John Grayson.

But Peter’s lost just as much as all of them—and he still chose Tony Stark. And that’s what it all comes down to, isn’t it? The crux of this matter.

Bruce is bitter.

Because Tony Stark is exactly the same as him, only different.

Because Bruce’s children had long ago been disillusioned by him. They bore witness to his every mistake, his every flaw, every choice that he’s made that plagues him at night, every reason why he’s unfit to care for them, for his family. Donna Troy had said, cold and impossibly tender, that it was impossible to have known and loved Dick growing up and not hate Batman, at least a little bit.

And all of the painful past, it’s been laid to rest, but really it was only buried. They’ve never fully healed. Not any of his children. No one would ever look at him again the way Dick did, over a decade ago, when he’d been eight and believed full-heartedly that Bruce was the best partner-friend-not-father that he could ever have asked for. That was lost to him, the moment he put on that cowl and let it consume him.

And Tony Stark, who is exactly like him, only not, has a child hanging onto his every word. One who by all means should be past the disillusionment, should have seeds of resentment buried deep, should be questioning everything and believing in nothing.

And Peter still looks at him like an eight year old whose favourite hero had just flown in and saved him from a villain of his own creation.

If it’s impossible to know Dick and not hate Bruce, then maybe it’s also impossible to know Peter Parker and not hate Tony Stark.

“You think I don’t know what you’re thinking?” Tony Stark says, and the words are almost biting, forced out through the small spaces between grinded teeth. “I know. I know.”

Bruce looks at him, and then Peter, who hasn’t once stirred—a true testament to how much he hasn’t been sleeping, if they can’t wake him up when they’re not even trying to be quiet. He’s not your son.

“You don’t know anything,” he says, and then walks away.