Chapter Text
Bruce waits. He is still standing where he was when the boys had walked out of the med bay, running his fingers through Dick’s dark hair. His little boy who grew up so far and so away from him not your boy echoes in his head and he flinches
One question that often crept into Bruce’s mind over the years was, how had the boy who came to him the youngest and lived with him the longest, retained his independence so fiercely?
All his children can survive and thrive on their own- he had never been under any illusion otherwise. After Jason, he had given up trying to be a parent. Tim hadn’t needed one – he had his own. Then Nightwing took Tim under his wing and did a fine job of it. When Jack Drake died, Bruce thought an offer of adoption was the least he could do for the boy who had centered him again after Jason’s death.
Bruce startles as he hears the boys his boys come out of the showers and he can hear Jason herding the younger boys upstairs. He smiles, fondly. Everyone was under his roof tonight. He listens to the light snores of the boy in the Cave and wonders if he should go change himself. He still remembers the nightmares of Dick’s early nights at the manor and decides otherwise. He removes as many parts of his armour as he can in the med bay, lays them neatly by the side and pulls a chair by the bed and sits down.
When Dick wakes, he does it quietly. Bruce sees it because he is looking at him. He had indeed dozed off for a while there but the change in Dick’s breathing had awakened him.
Dick turns his head slowly and tries to sit up in confusion. Bruce jumps up, raises the pillows and gently eases Dick to sit up against them. “Brooose” Dick slurred.
“Shh… it is okay,” Bruce soothes as he brushes the dark mop damp with sweat away from his forehead.
“Wh’r m I?” the boy asks licking his dry lips.
“In the med bay,” Bruce says as he gets iced-water in a tumbler with a straw and brings it to the boy. “Here, drink this.”
The boy drinks greedily, so Bruce puts a soft hand under his elbow “slow down, you know how it is.” Dick looks at him wide-eyed and nods. This time, he takes small sips. There is a pang in Bruce’s chest as he watches this particular child, small and seemingly so fragile again.
When he is done, Bruce takes the tumbler and places it by the low table to the side of the bed. He turns around to the boy who is blinking owlishly up at him. “Are you my B? Did I get transported to another universe?” Bruce squeaks down the involuntary sound that rises up his throat. “I am and you did not,” he croaks.
“What happened to you, B?”
Bruce is reminded of nights years ago when a tiny child who could read him inside out would stick to him as close as he could, delicately mindful of Bruce’s issues with physical touch. He thinks if he has to raise that child again, he would do the right thing and send him away. He cannot bear to watch this child be destroyed in the wake of pursuing Bruce’s happiness, once again.
Bruce has to contact the League – they need to learn what magic has taken away his boy given him back his boy . But for now, Bruce needs to have a painful conversation.
What does he even say? If there is one thing certain about this boy looking up at him with those large blue eyes, it is this: He will not flinch at whatever Bruce has to say and he will always seek out the truth. Bruce owes the boy. He will not appreciate any attempt at “protecting him”. So he decides.
Bruce drags the chair closer to the bed, sits down on it, and sighs. He takes Dick’s little hands in his. These hands that have worn his gauntlets; these hands that raised his boy as a father should; these hands that caught him as he fell ~jumped~ from the contraption Raptor had him in.
“Something happened tonight. You encountered a magic wielder.”
“Oh?” Dick sounds frightened.
Bruce looks up at his face. “I look different because I am 45 years old, chum.” The boy was always very clever; always so good at filling in the blanks.
“Did the magic wielder turn you old?” There is a tone in his voice, of so much affront, that it drags a reluctant chuckle out of Bruce. Dick brings a hand to Bruce’s face; thumbs under his nose and around his mouth. The gentleness mists his eyes and Bruce closes his eyes and gulps. A solitary tear winds its way down. “I am sorry Dickie,” he whispers.
The boy removes his hand, almost scalded. Bruce feels strangely bereft. “Why?”
Bruce sniffs and sits up straighter and begins his report like he once taught Dick. “I am 45 years old, and you are 28. You were with Jason when a sorcerer surprised you and ended up spelling you. There was a portal involved and the sorcerer disappeared through the same portal afterwards.” Bruce ends lamely with, “I have to contact the League – I need help.”
“Who is Jason?”
Of all the things to pick up.
Bruce rubs his face as he sighs. “He goes by Red Hood. He is a Gotham vigilante.”
“He works with us?”
Bruce gets up abruptly. This…he cannot do this. “How are you feeling now?” he asks as he rummages in the lower cabinets for some protein bars.
“Bruce?” Dick sits up straighter.
“Listen, you must eat something….”
Dick cuts in with a “Tell me! I do not understand!!”
Bruce had forgotten how good the boy was at reading him. The years of distance between them has wrought this too. Bruce stands at the cabinet, head hanging low, one hand scrubbing his face, a scream lodged in his throat. After everything, they are here now. In a dark corner of the cave the boy likes so much. A family waits above… His sins have come home to roost.
Bruce breathes in deeply. There is so much to do. He is itching to put in a call to the Watchtower. Call up Zatanna. At least, tell Clark so he may have someone to – to what? Hold his hand as he –
“Bruce!!!”
Damn the boy!
“What?” he snaps as he turns around. He can feel his fragile hold on himself slipping. “Have I not trained you to be alert during patrols? What were you even doing in Gotham? Why do you come into my city without reporting in? Nightwing does not work in Gotham, isn’t that what you said?”
Bruce is now towering over the boy in the bed. Bruce muses how often he had misjudged the boy’s steel when he was a kid. His brothers and enemies have often misjudged his easy demeanor to be weakness and have been shocked to find him:
unflinching
unbreakable
When Dick was a teenager, Bruce had found himself occasionally overcome with a powerful distaste for the boy’s lack of fear of him. It tasted like mockery and disrespect. Where Jason thought disrespect lay in irreverence, Tim in sulking and avoiding sleep, Damian in practiced arrogance; Dick’s act of disrespect was to ignore Bruce. When Dick’s eyes looked at him, Bruce thought he read disappointment in their blue depths. It drove him into wild rages. He had thought those easy judging eyes couldn’t rouse his rage anymore. In his moments of quiet seething anger, he would examine the contents of that anger. Diana had once remarked, “having one of those moments when the teacher seeks his student’s approval?” and he had bared his teeth at Diana who had nearly laughed in his face. Oliver with that knowing smirk only rankled him further. Bruce would never ever admit it, not even if there was a gun to his head, but he had been envious of Oliver’s bandaged relationship with Harper.
Bruce clenches his jaw as he forces himself to the present.
Dick was staring at him with those liquid blue eyes, his mouth set in a straight line, and Bruce felt an overwhelming urge to strike the boy. He curled a hand into a fist and watched as Dick followed the movement and the muscles in his shoulders and back bunched up; ready to spring away or at Bruce. It dislodged the blanket around his torso revealing the scar of a healing knife slash and Bruce felt ghosts walk over his grave. His shoulders fell and his fist loosened.
“Who is Nightwing?”
“Dick –” he choked as he slumped into the chair once again.
They sat there, still, for a long moment. Then Dick threw the blanket off and sat up. “Fine! I am going up to my room.”
“You can’t!”
“Why not?!”
Why? Because –
“Bruce, tell me what happened to me. Why do you keep looking towards the stairs. Who is Nightwing? If you are going to be – You are afraid, B. Why are you so afraid of me?”
“Master Dick, I am glad to see you are awake. We have been worried.”
Alfred neatly glides into the simmering situation and the med bay. Bruce thanks Alfred and his impeccable timing in his head even as he can see Alfred’s clenched jaw - sure sign he wasn’t happy. Alfred sets down the set of clothes and put a hand on Dick’s forehead.
“Alfred?”
“The very same, Master Dick,” Alfred smiles softly at the boy. “I brought you some clothes. They were still around and I think might not be too off for you now.” Lying around was Alfred-speak for keeping aside a set of clothes for sentimental reasons . It was a habit Alfred had made with Dick and followed through with the others.
Once Dick had changed, Alfred took to brushing his hair. Bruce had near forgotten the early struggles with Dick’s thick hair and the untamed curls. “Come now, Master Dick. While Master Bruce makes his calls, please help yourself to tea and cookies,” offers Alfred as he pockets the comb and leads Dick out to the main Cave.
Bruce calls the Justice League as he follows them out. Superman is in the Watchtower and he reports that while Zatanna is off-world with GL Cruz, Constantine was last seen hanging around the Marvels and he would call him in. After telling Clark that yes, Dick was alright and no, he could not fly over right now, and yes, he will tell him whenever Dick was ready to meet Uncle Clark, Bruce cuts the call. He walks past Alfred fussing with Dick over his tea for a shower and change. When he returns, Dick is sitting under the dinosaur with his plate of cookies. Bruce doesn’t see Alfred anywhere.
Bruce thinks he should have let Clark fly over. Nothing could ever distract Dick like Clark could. He remembered them gushing about the sentimentality of flying and the physics of flight. “Peas in a pod” Lois had remarked once at a dinner Bruce and Dick had hosted for Clark and Lois to celebrate Lois’ first Pulitzer win. Lois and Bruce were sat sipping on some Penfolds Ampoule and discussing The Philosophy of Labour while Clark and Dick had their heads knocked together in deep discussion about Bernoulli’s Principle, lift and drag, and history of flight in Krypton as they munched on shrimps and scribbled on paper napkins.
“How long have I been here?” Dick asks.
“A few hours,” Bruce tells him. “Clark wanted to come by. I thought it best to hold him off until we know the exact circumstances.”
Dick nods. Biting his lip, Dick asks, “You said my city. Are we not friends when I grow up?”
“Dickie, you have gone nearly 15 years to the past. It is a lifetime, chum.”
“Oh. Are you friends with this Jason then?”
Bruce nearly gags in surprise.
“Bruce – ” There was something terrible in the way Dick said his name. Bruce forced himself to keep eye contact. “You said I am not supposed to be here. Do you want me to go? I – I think I can arrange something – just don’t send me to the Centre.” Bruce fell on one knee as he grabbed for Dick’s upper arm and only then realized he wasn’t going to find the powerful biceps coiling there. It was still the sinewy thin arm of a boy, “not a bit of fat in him” as Alfred mourned sometimes, but it was small and felt far too fragile in his large hand.
“You are staying right here. Got it?” Bruce growls.
Dick doesn’t even blink. “But you are angry with me. Grown up me and you aren’t even friends. Did you fire me again?”
Bruce sits down next to the boy. Raises a large hand to Dick’s neck and gently twists the hair at the back there.
“Do you not want to talk about it because of timelines and paradoxes?”
“No Dickie. You are not here from another universe or dimension. This is you. It appears to be a case of de-aging. We will get the League involved. Zatanna or Constantine will be able to find the origin of the magic. We will wait for them.”
Dick jerks his head once in acquiescence. They sit in companionable silence for a moment.
“So -”
“We are friends, Dickie. I – I did fire you again and you left and made a life and name all by yourself. I am very proud of who you become.”
“Nightwing?”
“Yes.” Bruce can’t help the way his mouth curls sourly. Dick certainly doesn’t miss it. From the corner of his eyes, Bruce can see the boy smirking at him. Bruce concedes and looks straight at him.
Dick bursts out laughing. “I took my new name from Uncle Clark! What did you do, Bruce?”
Bruce’s finds his mouth curls in a different way this time.
“Why do you think I did something wrong?” Bruce puts a hand on his heart in mock outrage.
“
Dick giggles. It emboldens Bruce.
“I did a few things very wrong.”
“Yeah? Like what?” Dick still has his mouth quirked up in a smile.
“Bruce gulps. He sits cross-legged on the floor in front of Dick. “I have to tell you some things, Dickie.” Bruce leans forward, puts his hand on Dick’s shoulder, and, closes his eyes as he touches his forehead to Dick’s for a moment. Bruce takes a shuddering breath as a small hand grabs the soft material of his grey tee-shirt. Bruce opens to his eyes to a sea of emotion in blue depths and a white-knuckled grip.
“I am sorry, Dickie.” Bruce swallows as he abruptly gets up. Bruce could feel the pain, the very physical pain of talking through a lifetime of issues between both of them.
“I was blindsided. One day you were by my side and we were the Dynamic Duo working together to save Gotham and the next, you were older and going away with your own team. I was angry. I - was lonely. We got into fights. I – you left.”
“I left you.” Dick says flatly as he brings his knees to his chest and wraps his hands around them. Dick looks like he is biting his cheeks. Bruce feels like he is betraying him all over again.
“Hmm. You were growing up. You left Robin, became Nightwing. Became a better hero, a better man. You made me very proud, chum.” Dick is still – except for how he is picking the skin on his right thumb. A tell. Bruce feels like he just committed high treason; trying to use the child’s thirst for his praise to soften the blow that waits round the corner.
“You – left, and Jason needed a home and a purpose. He had lost his mother and I thought I could help him. Then there was Tim – a boy who saw you in the circus. There was a girl, clever, with a heart very like yours. I – I have a son now; he is Robin now.” Bruce clamps his mouth shut and braces.
Dick is staring at the foot of the dinosaur.
Dick sniffled into a hand, “I don’t understand, B.”
“Dick, chum, after you left, there were other Robins. Damian, my son, wears it now.”
“You have a son?”
“Yes. Damian is 13.”
“And Jason is?”
“23. He was Robin after you and now he goes by Red Hood.”
“Oh.” Dick wipes his nose on his shirt sleeve and wonders, “isn’t that Joker’s gang?”
“Jason was –” Bruce stumbles but in for a pound and all that. “Joker killed Jason when he was 15. Do you remember the Lazarus Pits, chum?”
Dick eyes him warily. “Ra’s al Ghul.”
“Yes. I have not been told all the particulars but the League of Assassins took Jason and put him in the Pit. There was a period of time when he tried to hurt his brothers after coming back but he is not that man anymore.” Bruce takes a deep breath. For some things, he does give thanks to higher powers.
“Why would they do that?” Bruce looks askance at the boy on the floor. He has just dropped some heavy data on him, but true to form, the boy seeks understanding first. His heart warms in memory. This is why, together, they were such formidable partners.
Bruce huffs. “I cannot say. Whether it was to hurt me or save me, Talia wouldn’t elaborate. I have tried to seek answers.”
“Why Talia?” Dick asks as he stuck his chin into the fortress of his folded knees and arms.
“Hmph – Damian is Talia’s and my son.”
“Oh.” Dick says as he absently rubs his upper arm. “You have a son and he is Robin.” Bruce grunts an affirmation. He peers at the boy huddled miserably under the dinosaur. He is not used to this, this cajoling of a child. Once long ago, he had cracked the code and then somewhere between Dick’s fierce streak of independence and learned stubbornness, Bruce had lost it. Even the boy he had adopted into his home and heart couldn’t revive the lost art of talking to a child. Now years later, Bruce stands in the Batcave – exhausted, and battered with the hurt he himself engineered over a decade ago.
“And you were his Batman.” It is an olive branch. Bruce doesn’t do olive branches. Not as Bruce Wayne, Director of WE; not as Batman; not as a father. But he is here now and while this is his child and not the boardroom, he is very aware that it is this child and for this child – who has always known how to tear him apart with a well-placed reflection – he needs to be deliberate. So Bruce calls upon his gifts of negotiation in the boardroom. Bruce holds all the leverage here. He knows a lifetime worth about Dick while the child himself has no idea. As long as he can keep the leverage, he holds all the cards. So he gives him this.
“You took my place – twice. The first time you were barely 22, I was hurt, and Gotham needed Batman. The next time, you were 25 and Batman because I was – I had to go away and you took care of Gotham, my son, and our family. Alfred was very proud of you.”
The boy doesn’t move other than chewing his lips but at Alfred’s name he looks up at Bruce. Bruce knows the question being posed. He won’t give it yet. Cards…
Dick looks at him for a handful of tense moments – then looks away.
“You adopted everyone?”
“Yes.” That is not a lie, after all.
“How many children do you have now?”
“Including you, five. I am fostering another boy, Duke, as well.”
“You – you adopted me?”
“Yes.” Again, not a lie...
“I gave Robin to –” Dick searches for the name; Bruce stays silent, Dick may not have had a photographic memory, he never needed it, his capacity to remember anything exactly is prodigious. “- Jason?”
“You gave him your Robin suit, yes.” Not a lie either.
“Oh.”
“And the others?”
“You gave Robin to Damian, yes.”
“You said a girl was Robin.”
“Stephanie Brown. You know her father.” Bruce pauses and gives Dick a look.
“Oh?” Dick chews his lips. He whispers “Brown – Brown” until he snaps a finger “Arthur Brown, Cluemaster?”
“You got it right, chum.”
Dick huffs a laugh. “Do you call your son that?”
“What?”
“Chum.” Dick scoffs.
What now? Dick has always liked that
. “No, he was raised to be rather formal.”
Dick laughs darkly at that. “Sure.”
Bruce stares at him, helplessly.
“So Damian and Stephanie have parents who are villains? Is that same for Jason and the other boy?”
Bruce staggers at the insight. “Willis Todd was a Two-Face henchman; Timothy is the son of the Drakes.”
“Jack and Janet Drake? The archaeologists?”
“Hmph” Bruce grunts.
“You –” Dick wets his lips, looks around at the cave, and goes back to biting it. “You wanted to adopt me?”
“Yes.” It is not a lie either.
“Oh.” His eyes are looking everywhere but at Bruce.
“When the call went out, everyone came home. You are important to them.”
“Okay,” says Dick dully. He gets up, picks up 2 cookies from the plate and puts them carefully into his pockets. Then walks around the dinosaur and Bruce spots the rope a second before he clocks what Dick is doing.
Bruce narrows his eyes. “Dick? Where are you going?”
Dick turns around and Bruce sees the blue of his eyes are hazy with oncoming sleep. The corner of his lip has a cut now and it is bleeding. “okay, Bruce, okay,” he mumbles.
“Dickie?”
“I wanna sleep, B,” he murmurs as he takes hold of the frayed climbing rope by the dinosaur that had been one of Dick’s 11th birthday gifts. They hadn’t been sure the dinosaur could take the weight of an energetic boy constantly going up and down the rope and so they had tied the rope to a natural overhang. Bruce feels a cold chill thinking of an exhausted sleepy boy missing his landing 20 ft away from the ground. Even if that boy is an acrobatic prodigy named Dick Grayson, Bruce wasn’t taking any chances.
Bruce rushes and takes grabs him by his hand. Dick is slight, the growth spurts await round the corner, but as Bruce fingers the calluses on the boy’s fingers, his heart stutters in momentary grief. What if we can’t sort this? What if?
“Come on Dickie. You can sleep in your room. You will meet the others tomorrow.”
The boy keeps his silence. When he stumbles on the stairs, Bruce looks down at the sleepy exhausted child and gently picks him up. He pillows Dick head on his shoulder and gently rubs his back as he gets into the elevator. As he steps out into the manor, Bruce cricks his head to look, and Dick is already asleep. His mouth is open slightly, body slack in Bruce’s arms. Bruce’s gaze softens and as he climbs the stairs up the dark living room, Bruce can almost deceive himself that he was 15 years in the past. Bruce hums a soft lullaby as he gives in to the ghosts of the past.