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Whenever he walks into a room, his children start giggling.
Bruce pauses in the doorway of the living room, arms laden with three bowls of popcorn (they have come a long way from Bruce and Alfred sitting on the couch with a single bowl between them, Alfred trying to hide his disgust every time he ate a kernel in an attempt to convince Bruce to eat some). When he starts getting the guilty looks—the guilty, scandalized looks—he sighs. “If you’re trying to figure out how to get out of the office party, you can just tell me. I would not be offended if you do not attend.”
In all actuality, Bruce tries to squirm his way out of this office party. Wayne Enterprises accepted his return with a surprising amount of grace, but now, Lucius forces him to become a better boss. He needs to be a ‘boss of the people.’ His persona of Brucie Wayne needs to go untouched. People need to see that his brief ‘misunderstanding’ with death did not faze him. He is the same person they have all known.
Of course, none of them really know him, but that is beside the point.
“Tt. Don’t be silly,” Damian says, still holding the remote above Dick’s head. “We are all attending.”
“We have to attend because of…” Steph does a complicated hand movement instead of finishing her sentence. “And I literally came home from college to have Halloween hijinks, so it’s too late to back out now.”
“You came back for Drake,” interrupts Damian.
Tim, reaching up to snatch the remote back from Damian, dances away from his brother’s grasp and practically collapses on top of Stephanie. He gives her a big smile. “Did you come back for me, Steph?”
“I bought so much spray paint—”
“You cannot spray paint anything,” Bruce says in a knee-jerk reaction. Sometimes, he forgets how much Tim and Stephanie play off each other. While Stephanie might leave chaos in her wake alone, combined with Tim, they become almost unstoppable. Tim, his most mild-mannered child—
Well, actually, he would argue none of his children are mild-mannered.
“No spray paint,” Cass agrees because she has always been the most reasonable child. Then, a glint enters her eyes. “Rooftop tag?”
“I love rooftop tag!” Dick declares as he scrambles after the remote, leaping for it.
Tim tosses it over to Duke.
“No rooftop tag either,” Bruce says as he sets the popcorn down. Immediately, Tim scrambles for it to pelt at Stephanie’s face, and Stephanie only opens her mouth in an attempt to catch all of it. Cass starts keeping score on her fingers, a huge smile growing. He hopes they remember this joy when Alfred makes them vacuum the floor of the living room later. “I prefer you without broken bones.”
“I forgot how much of a buzzkill B is,” Jason says, draped over the side of the armchair. His legs—his much longer legs than Bruce remembers; how did he grow so much in a single year?—dangle off the edge, and Duke drums an idle rhythm on the sole. “Damian let us get away with anything.”
“That is not true—” Damian gets cut off when the remote goes sailing back towards him. He barely manages to catch it from slamming against his nose, and he scowls over at Duke.
Duke shrugs. “Sorry, Little D, but—”
“That is not a real nickname!”
“But you can’t go lying to Bruce now,” Duke continues as if he hasn’t been interrupted.
“I kept things more orderly than Drake!”
Tim shrugs, halfway sprawled between Stephanie and Jason now. Jason notices and takes a playful swing at his head, and Tim retaliates by grabbing his ankle and dragging him off the armchair. By the end, both are collapsed on top of Duke, and all three of them try to contain their laughter.
“No argument?” Damian says triumphantly.
“Well, I was Batman longer than you—”
“That is unfair—”
“I was Batman longest,” Bruce says as he sits down in the now-vacated armchair. “If I could have given you any advice, it would be that nobody will listen to you anyway.”
“Tt. Maybe they didn’t listen to you, but…” Damian softens before he finishes his sentence, though. He tosses the remote over to Dick and ducks his head, careful not to make eye contact with Bruce. “Besides, when I was Redbird, I listened to you.”
“I always listened to you,” Tim says quickly. “I was the best sidekick you ever got—”
And the moment gets ruined by the new roar of voices, and by the time they are all wrestling and laughing together, Bruce forgets about the way they keep laughing whenever he enters rooms.
Towards the end of the movie, Duke leans his head back against the armchair and whispers up to Bruce. “None of us would miss this office party, you know.”
“It’s just an office party,” he whispers back, careful not to raise his voice. Most of the others sit, enraptured in the thrilling conclusion of a saga they started long before Bruce got lost in time. He never enjoyed it that much—it was too flashy with its action sequences, and he did not get the humor of the characters—but they insisted on having a family movie night with these movies specifically.
“It’s not just an office party,” Duke says. His gaze sweeps across the room, trying to take in all of his siblings at once. It ends up lingering on Damian—who now sits with Dick curled against him—and Tim—who sits in a pile with Jason still halfheartedly restraining his arms and Cass perched on his knees.
Something twists in Bruce’s gut. “You still celebrated the other holidays, right?”
“We did our best. Last Halloween, though…” Duke bites down on his lip before scooting closer to the armchair. “You ‘died’ last October. Nobody was in the mood to play dress-up and go trick-or-treating.”
“I know, but what about the other holidays? Thanksgiving? Hanukkah? Christmas? New Year’s? Valentine’s Day?”
“I know we’ve tried to catch you up, but things were rocky last winter. Thanksgiving was… fine, I guess. Alfred made good food. We all came home. We all pretended we didn’t notice you were gone.”
Bruce resists the urge to sigh as he sinks deeper into the armchair. None of them especially enjoy Thanksgiving; most of the time, they eat a lavish meal at lunch and spend the night trying to prevent crime. Still, he never considered the weight he might hold at the head of the table. He thought they could just… forge forward without him.
“And Hanukkah and Christmas… when I tell you things started going wrong, I mean things started going wrong.” This time, his gaze darts towards Stephanie, Cassandra, and Jason. All of them wear big smiles, washed out by the colors of the TV, but Bruce can imagine everything that happened.
One of the first things he did upon coming back was search through the reports. Damian had always been religious about his paperwork, and from his tenure as Batman, every single file was neatly labeled. Still, the farther he sunk into it, the more typos and fragmented sentences emerged. Damian had been drowning as Batman.
Tim liked the paperwork, but he also liked omitting details. He detached most of the emotions from the files—though, Bruce supposed that would be true of both Damian and himself.
Still, in the span of one winter, they had been through too much to name.
“This will be our first holiday as a family,” Duke tells him. “As a whole family. Alfred agreed to come, and Damian is taking Jon as a date, and…”
“And?”
“Well.” Duke shrugs. “It means a lot. We’re excited, B. Even if we don’t say it all that much because most people here are emotionally constipated, we really missed you.”
Bruce fights back a smile.
He missed his family too.
+++
Bruce might murder his family.
He walks into the office party fifteen minutes late—paperwork tends to pile up when you come back from the dead—only to see all of his children already arrived in costume. They float around the party with big smiles and snickering laughs, waiting for him to notice their greatest crime yet.
He takes a deep breath and strides to Alfred first. “Did you know they were up to this—”
“Costume, Master Bruce.” Alfred produces a cowboy hat from the table and places it upon his head. He examines Bruce for a moment before sighing. “You could not have purchased something online?”
“It’s my party. I don’t have to participate.”
Alfred gives him an unimpressed look.
Bruce sighs. “I never liked Halloween as a kid. I don’t know why you’re surprised—”
Alfred only lifts an eyebrow, the message clear. Bruce knows when they go home tonight, he will get an earful about how he dresses up as a masked vigilante every night. For now, he offers an awkward half-wave and hurries away before Alfred can even give the beginning of a lecture.
He goes to his favorite child (at the moment). “How long have you been planning this one?”
Cass turns to him, and he imagines her eyes lighting up underneath the almost clunky helmet. Anyone who enters the party won’t be able to tell it’s Cass—which, of course, will be for the best considering what Bruce learned—but from what he can see, she offers a bright smile and bows her head.
“It’s funny,” she signs through the thick yellow gloves.
“Doesn’t it feel a little… on the nose?” he says instead of what he wants to say.
She shakes her head. “We all agreed to dress up as our favorite heroes.”
“And—”
“And we did!” she interrupts, gently reaching out to grab his wrist before he can finish speaking.
Right now, she stands in one of those costumes packaged and sold in every Halloween stores. They tend to carry what Jason nicknamed ‘the Big Three’— Batman, Signal, and Redbird. Everyone else was either too young to get costumes made for them, or they were too controversial. Nobody could dress up as Red Hood without being forced into a conversation about politics, and even Drake and Blackbird inspired a conversation about whether or not they should be considered child soldiers.
She wears Signal’s costume, and he’ll allow that one.
He looks away awkwardly. “Make sure to get a photo with Duke before the end of the night.”
“Already did!” She grins again. Then, she nudges him away, pointing him in the direction of her siblings. “Go mingle.”
Bruce can do many things, but he cannot mingle well.
He also cannot let his children get the upper hand. They keep sending smug looks in his direction, proud they pulled this particular prank off. So, rather than talking to any of them, he offers a half-hearted wave and sits down at one of the tables, content to observe until he gets forced into a more social role by Lucius.
They all grew up in his absence, but some things stay the same.
Damian talks to Clarence from HR, his spine rigid and his posture perfect. He seems… excited, though, and Clarence from HR lived on a farm growing up. Bruce was almost shocked when he came home and Damian hadn’t turned the Manor into a zoo. Some of their worst fights came from Damian bringing up stray animals—and not just cats and dogs, he brought home alligators and elephants somehow—and he would have to tell Damian he couldn’t keep them.
Right now, Damian wears a Superman costume. Usually, it would make Bruce angry— not that Bruce doesn’t like Clark. But… really? Clark Kent? That is the man you want to resemble? Damian even swept his hair in that same preppy, asshole way of Clark’s.
But, Damian’s gaze keeps flitting over to Jon Kent, and Bruce will let it slide.
Jason and Stephanie both linger by the snack table, waiting for their chances to shove as much food as possible when people look away. Bruce can make out enough of their conversation to figure out some sort of bet is happening. Knowing them, it could be anything from ‘see how much shrimp you can fit in your mouth’ to ‘see if you can rewire the fire alarm to play Never Gonna Give You Up.’
Stephanie, in her act of being the most defiant child, wears Green Lantern colors, and no, he will not elaborate. In a small way, he’s glad to see her still smiling. He knows what happened to her dad by now, and while neither of them talked about it in any real way, she sought him out one night to ask about legacy.
They ended up having ice cream at 2 AM and watching the Bachelorette instead of continuing that thread of conversation.
Jason dresses up as Wonder Woman, and his joy is clear in every move he makes. When some of the other coworkers compliment his outfit, he grins before squashing it down, careful never to seem too happy. Still, he catches Jason beaming to himself when he thinks nobody else is watching.
Jason… might be the one Bruce is the most afraid to talk to. He has changed, that much is clear. He has grown taller, and his baby fat has dropped away, and all of his shields seem to have been replaced with new defenses. Jason will hang out with Tim now, but he’ll skirt around Bruce. Jason will go out on patrol with anyone unless they are in the Batman uniform; then, he’ll insist on a new partner.
Alfred tells Bruce it’s because he’s a teenager, and Bruce will get used to it.
Bruce thinks he never will.
Tim and Duke talk to Jon, all huddled in the corner. Those two never liked social interactions, especially now. Tim is careful never to let it slip that he’s Tim Drake-Wayne, instead masquerading as someone else who just happens to bear the same resemblance. Duke tried his best to avoid this lifestyle the whole time he grew up. He didn’t want to go to stuffy parties or galas or anything like that. He wanted to live his life in the Narrows and be content with the Narrows.
Tim dresses as Martian Manhunter, and Bruce can’t begrudge him that. He’d like to think Tim would have dressed as Batman if he hadn’t been Batman these past few months. They can’t make it that obvious for Gotham to figure out. He already read some speculation about the nature of Batman ‘changing’—after all, it went from Bruce to Damian to Tim, and some people could start seeing the link. None of them will ever fully believe in it, though.
Duke has the colors of the Flash on, and, again, Barry Allen? Duke liked Barry Allen enough to wear that obnoxious shade of red? It doesn’t surprise him all that much; Duke has always been an adrenaline junkie. In terms of changing, Duke has remained one of the steadiest children. He discovered who he was when he was younger, and since he liked who he became, he stayed the course.
It’s everything else that has changed.
And, as Bruce looks around the party, taking in his children once more, he can feel a weight start to settle in his chest.
He hasn’t seen the Justice League since Duke brought him home.
It wasn’t anything malicious; they were all busy people with busy lives. Right now, Bruce couldn’t operate as Batman on such a broad level. He still let Tim take the lead there, and people even commented on how Batman was suddenly more of a team player. He kept discussing with Alfred, long after his kids fell asleep, whether or not he should let Tim keep that role.
He…
Things changed.
And he still hadn’t found his footing.
Someone pulls up a chair next to him, and Bruce turns before freezing.
Dick Grayson—little, baby Dick Grayson, a boy he hadn’t known before, and a boy who had joined the family in his absence—blinks up at him, his bright blue eyes shining beneath his miniature cowl.
“You went as Batman,” Bruce says with a quiet laugh.
Dick nods. “He’s my favorite.”
“Yeah?”
Dick nods again, but he ducks his head and starts playing with his gloves.
It reminds him of Damian, back before Bruce learned how to be a father and Damian learned how to be a kid. Neither of them ever knew what to say. A distance yawned between them, and while they knew they needed to find a way to bridge that gap one way or another, they didn’t know how to take that first step.
Right now, looking at Dick Grayson, Bruce doesn’t know what move to make. He… avoid would be a strong word and, in his opinion, the wrong word. According to Alfred and Damian, however, Bruce does avoid Dick.
But can Bruce be blamed?
He doesn’t know Dick, not like the others do. He knows the basics; he knows what happened to his family, and he knows why he had to join the Waynes. He knows why he chose Robin as his moniker, and he knows why Robin tends to choose acrobatic tricks over more practical moves.
And he can see how Damian’s gaze softens every time he sees Dick. He can see how the others carve out a space for him in their lives. He can see how he gets everyone to smile on the worst days after the worst patrols.
(And the question keeps echoing in his head, again and again—should Bruce attempt to be a father to this kid, or should Bruce attempt to be a grandfather? Every time he thinks he might be able to work up the courage to ask Alfred, the idea of being a grandfather strikes him again.
Bruce never had a family growing up. He had Alfred, but as a kid, he never acknowledged it. He chose to deprive himself of a family, digging himself deeper and deeper into the hole of being alone.
How did he get here, asking these questions?)
“My favorite,” Bruce says carefully, “is Robin these days.”
And when Dick lights up, he thinks “it’s a start.”