Chapter Text
Despite his reputation, waking up with beautiful people wasn’t how he usually spent his Saturday mornings. Granted, that was mostly due to the fact that he’s not exactly a fan of spooning. Being the little spoon wasn’t particularly common either.
Bruce cracks one eye open gingerly, and amends his previous thought. Middle spoon. Extricating himself from the bed has suddenly become twice as difficult as previously thought. Figuring anything out from the sight in front of him is useless, except perhaps that one of his bed partners takes good care of her hair.
The other occupant of his bed is a man, if the warm and overly heavy weight against his back is anything to go by. The arm thrown over his waist to rest on the woman’s hip is larger than his own, and notedly less scarred. He frowns at the limb for a long moment, blinking away sleep.
Clark and Diana might be a viable explanation. He lifts his head gently to see the shoulder in front of his eyes better, and decides no . Diana is never anything less than glowing with a natural tan, and this woman is as pale as a sheet of paper and as slim as one too. Definitely not Diana.
Conclusion, Bruce is sandwiched between a mystery couple. Not unusual, really. Though the lack of pounding headache or bitter aftertaste of alcohol is unusual in this situation. Actually, the lack of any memory of insinuating himself into a marriage last night is downright worrying.
The man’s arm moves with minimal nudging, and Bruce gets the feeling the woman is used to being crushed under her husband's weight when she doesn’t stir in the slightest at Bruce sitting up, lifting his weight off her shoulder.
They’re not Bruce Wayne’s type.
The man is a mountain, with a shoulder width to rival Bruce’s own, and he’d remind Bruce of Clark if it weren’t for the monstrosity on his face. Large everywhere from head to toe, and the fact that Bruce doesn’t feel a familiar ache is more confusing than anything else about his presence in Bruce’s bed. Aside from the dark moustache under his nose, he’s a particularly handsome man, very classical with a cut jaw and thick swathes of hair on every visible patch of skin.
Of which there is a lot. Skin, that is, when the man seems allergic to the sheets, kicked down to his ankles. No wonder when he radiates heat like an open fire, Bruce’s back prickling in the cold air where he’d previously glued himself to.
The woman is entirely look, don’t touch. Unless you’re lucky enough to be her husband, or invited into their bed, it seems. She’s much more liberal with the sheets, though it does nothing to hide the figure underneath that seems to have fallen straight from the 50’s, waist a deep dip in her form where she lays on her side, and her legs seem to go on for miles.
He’d recognize her face in an instant if it had been on the front of a magazine the way it deserved to be. Cheekbones as sharp as her husband’s jaw, and skin as flawless as the rest of her, and the faint pale lipstick still clinging to her mouth, underselling the plumpness of her lips, points to a self consciousness, probably for the same reason men like it so much.
Kind of a shame he doesn’t remember it last night.
They’re not Bruce Wayne’s type. The dark circles under both their eyes, though the woman’s are much more hidden under make-up, speak of children. Parents. Bruce Wayne beds socialites, not ordinary people with more to worry about than how to get a playboy off.
Still, he’ll enjoy it while he can.
The moment he thinks it, the man groans sleepily, deep and baritone, and then, “You’re not Alfred.”
Bruce blinks. Bruce almost laughs. Almost. The fact that he’s an absolute moron does not escape him, sunlight catching on the thick bracelet over his wrist spelling it out perfectly for him. Of course .
Bruce’s first thought, of all things, is to cover his eyes. His second thought is to cover himself.
He should probably say something. Probably should be feeling something. Shame maybe, sizing up the people in his bed suddenly seems a lot worse than it previously had. Horror, definitely, when the woman rouses from sleep gracefully.
“Thomas?” She mumbles, voice like a hot poker to his nerves. He’d know their voices anywhere, even if he can’t recognize them sleeping like the dead. He tends to avoid those thoughts, after all.
This time, Bruce does laugh.
“I do believe there is a stranger in our bed.”
“It does seem that way.” She replies. Her voice is sharper than it should be for someone who just woke up, and Bruce still can’t bring himself to move his hand. Mostly because he’s fairly sure his father hasn’t bothered to pull up the sheets. “I think we’d both like to know who the gentleman in our bed is…?”
One of these days, tinkering will get him killed.
Alfred loves to remind him of such facts every time Bruce drags home half-destroyed alien technology like stray dogs. This time it had been, after some poking and prodding, a time travel device with a neural interface that takes a short period of adjustment to the new user. Minimal side effects — headaches, amnesia of the time spent in another time period, brains like swiss cheese after prolonged use, paradoxes if you step on a butterfly, the usual. Of course, Bruce had slapped the thing on his wrist and gone to bed.
How, exactly, he’d forgotten that is a question for another day.
More pressing questions need answers, such as, “Actually, this is my bed.”
Thomas huffs a laugh. “I don’t think so, son.”
God. Bruce winces behind his hand. “No, really.”
The sheets rustle, deafeningly loud over the silence between them, and Bruce’s hand clenches around the corner of Egyptian cotton keeping his dignity intact. Slowly, Bruce lowers his other hand, blinking against the morning sunlight dubiously.
“You know,” Thomas murmurs, sheet pulled up to his waist, “I’m rather inclined to believe him.”
“I’m not.” Martha cuts in, and looks as though she’d hit her husband's arm if there weren’t a Bruce-sized space between them. Instead, she settles for needling Bruce with a sharp stare. “You’ve got the same look my son does when he tells me he lost his homework.”
Really, this couldn’t possibly become more awkward. Really, truly, honestly— “Let me guess,” he replies, a little hoarse, and oh , there’s the emotion he was waiting on, “You always find it in the creek between Wayne Manor and Elliot Estate, ripped into shreds.”
His mother is silent for a long moment. “Yes, we do.”
Bruce, between them, nods. Thomas, despite the mood of the room, seems perfectly content to sit in silence, unaffected by the stiffness of his wife's thin shoulders. Bruce wishes he could adopt the same manner, but the sheet over his mother’s chest is beginning to slip, and his body is beginning to be rather confused.
His dick isn’t exactly used to prospective partners being his parents.
His parents are smart, and even Bruce has been able to look at his own face in paintings hung on the walls, and see the resemblance of who he used to be.
“Bruce,” Thomas rumbles beside him, though neither of them make an effort to look the other in the eye.
“Yeah?” He replies quietly.
“How is that Elliot boy doing these days?”
“Not good.”
Thomas shifts beside him, shoulder resting against his own warmly. “And you?”
“Even worse.”
His mother sounds more mystified than anything else when she finally speaks up, only to ask, “Why are we clothesless?”
Bruce closes his eyes, replying levelly, “I’d rather not think about it, Mother.”
“Good God,” his father admonishes, and sounds highly amused, “We went to bed with our clothes on , thank you very much.”
“Oh.” If he weren’t fighting the course of blood through his body at every turn, he’d probably blush. He really, really wishes the sheets were bigger.
The manor is uncomfortably quiet, with none of the boys home and Alfred most likely on the other side of the building, cursing him out while preparing a protein shake. Yet another thing Alfred loves to remind him will probably kill him one day, while pointedly returning the makings of a regular breakfast to the fridge.
“Alfred.” Bruce says, suddenly, eyes snapping open against the bright morning light. “We have to get dressed.”
He makes to move, and stalls at the wall of muscle to his left and then, the delicate figure to his right. Of course. His original problem of extricating himself from the bed suddenly seems a whole lot dire.
Thomas is moving before Bruce can even begin the downward spiral of the pros and cons of his mother or father leaving the bed first, and really, that’s one list he doesn’t ever want to make. He raises his hand to shield his eyes and yelps at the brief glimpse of his father anyway, and swears he hears Thomas huff a quiet laugh.
“Warn a guy.” Bruce snaps.
“I am naked.” Thomas states leisurely. “Don’t look.”
“ Thanks. ” He shifts away from his mother, and that’s worse somehow, landing squarely in the spot Thomas had occupied, the bed warm under him. “The walk-in still has your things inside.” He adds.
Silence greets him, and even his mother’s breathing stops for a long moment.
One of them should say it, really. But Bruce can’t force the words past the lump in his throat, and his eyes sting like fresh wounds under his hand. One of them should say it , but nobody does, and Thomas’ sigh is heavy.
There’s a perfectly good explanation for why Bruce’s fingers separate over his eyes once the dampness clears. Curiosity. Definitely that. Curiosity at why Bruce hears no footsteps, or the sound of the dressers doors creaking open.
Thomas stretches like a cat in the morning sunlight, entirely shameless in his lethargy, and yet again, Bruce wishes he could leech some of it from him. His whole body feels wound up and ready to blow.
He should categorize the things he sees, put them into neat boxes to remember morbidly when they’re gone again, and he might even be able to blame the ache in his chest for why he looks, and looks, and looks .
Thomas isn’t how he remembers in the slightest. As a child, he’d seemed imposing, borderline stern though there was always the warmth he carries with him like a second skin.
Bruce is beginning to think the reason he’d been intimidating may have just been the sheer build of him. With thick corded muscle and dark hair from his chest to his ankles, Thomas’ is everything most men wish they could be, arms stretched high above him with a soft sigh escaping his mouth, still clinging to sleep despite their situation.
“Bruce,” his mother admonishes, and that has his fingers snapping closed again over his face, “It’s rude to stare.”
“I wasn’t— how do you know I was—”
Martha laughs, soft and musical. “I saw you.” And then adds, light and faux innocent, “I’m his wife. I’m allowed to look.”
Thomas definitely huffs a laugh this time, and Bruce feels all of six, caught with his hand in the cookie jar. His cheeks burn.
“Can you please get dressed.”
Thankfully, they both get to work quietly in sliding their clothes on with minimal comments on the fact that everything is where they left it, Thomas’ shirts pressed perfectly and his mother’s heels lined up neatly the same they were the night they died.
Outside the four walls of the master bedroom, things have changed. Alfred and the boys and all of the things they accumulate over time has pushed his parent’s belongings to unused areas of the manor. Bruce himself has pushed things to unused areas of the manor.
It’s better that way, less painful to walk the halls, and he had never really apologized to Alfred for forcing the man to see the remnants of Thomas and Martha Wayne every day until Dick had come along. Some days he thinks Alfred remembers them better than he does, and maybe he would have recognized them from their faces alone where Bruce failed to.
Over the years, he’s found himself rather desensitized to their faces. Every miserable anniversary, there is some newspaper with their faces plastered on the front page. Every painting has their warm, happy smiles. Bruce has seen, studied, and memorized every minute dip, flaw, and inch of their faces.
It doesn’t hurt to see them anymore.
Their voices hurt a lot more than their faces manage to these days. There was nothing, really, to listen to of theirs, nothing to categorize and neatly label and pick apart until it barely resembles a voice to his ears. Their voices are familiar but faded, forgotten, and he hadn’t realized just how much until Thomas had spoken, and then again, when his mother chimed in.
Their scents are the same, and Bruce swears he won’t wash the sheets until every last trace of it has been washed away by his own.
The walk-in closet used to smell of them. His father’s aftershave, and the cigar smoke that clung to every article of clothing he ever owned no matter how much Alfred washed them, and his mother’s L'Heure Bleue, — vanilla and carnations, and Bruce still owns the half-empty bottle she’d left behind — Thomas’ cigar smoke clinging to her dresses, too, as close as they always were.
His chest hurts. The scent of them, mixed up and cradled in the walk-in that’s as big as most household rooms, is familiar but it’s faded, both in his mind and in their spaces.
He’d spent too many afternoons in that walk-in, curled up on the floor reading books aloud, conversing with the clothing hung there, and far too soon the scent of them had been washed away by his own. And more afternoons still, careful not to displace a single thing; sleeping, eating, living in the last place to have had the comfort they carried with them everywhere, the carnations and cigars—
The fingers of his his hand dig into his chest, feeling out the bones under muscle, his lungs spasming. His other hand remains over his eyes, though by now he’s sure they’re both dressed, dressed in their clothes, living and warm and breathing , and Bruce can’t remember how to do that, how to do any of it.
“Bruce,” Martha says, soft and real and it hurts more than he ever thought it could, hearing his name from her mouth again. “You need to breathe.”
Light and colour pops behind his eyelids, the heel of his hand digging in. His shoulders are warm, from the junction of his neck to his shoulder blades he feels hot, overheating uncomfortably. His mouth opens, and that aches like everything else, words clogging his throat until he swears he’ll drown from the weight of them alone.
His chest hurts. His fingers ache, clutching at his own skin as if that makes him any more real under his own hands. His mother rubs his shoulders, soothing, and it burns. Warmer still, his father’s hand on the back of his neck, large and comforting, tugging Bruce backwards gently.
The headboard is sun drenched, and painfully grounding the further he digs his back into the oak wood. His hand loosens it’s death grip on his chest the longer he pushes against the headboard, solid and unforgiving, exactly what he needs.
It feels like forever that he remains there, drawing in raw breaths and digging his shoulders into the wood until they ache. His mother stays quiet, hand on his arm, her caring fingers over deep scars, and eventually the bed dips beside him heavily, his father sitting on his other side.
“You’re alright, son.” Thomas says, soft and close.
Bruce nods stiffly, drawing in a handful of raw breaths until his brain reboots. His mouth doesn’t cooperate for a long minute, opening and closing, relearning how to speak when his tongue still feels like a sandbag in his mouth.
“Clothes.” He forces out roughly. “Alfred’ll be up.” Squeezing his eyes tightly is the last stall he allows himself before drops both hands to his lap, forcing down every other thought. He can deal with it all later. He swallows, clearing the emotion. “Need clothes.”
Blinking his eyes open against the morning light is painful, eyes feeling gritty and abused.
His mother looks unreal — though, he thinks blandly, that might just be the shock — rifling through his wardrobe, head-to-toe in charcoal from her pencil skirt to the neat sweater that hugs her frame. She doesn’t look right without her pearls.
Bruce gets himself dressed mechanically with his limbs stiff, shuffling his boxers on under the sheets, eyes fixed on the task. It’s easier to focus on pulling his shirt down than it is to look his parents in their eyes, his chest filled with something close to shame.
It’s one thing to live the life he lives, but it’s a whole other can of worms to have his parents see the effects. Thick, rough skin is hidden quickly, Thomas’ eyes tracking each raised scar and burn.
Bruce puts his sweatpants on one leg at a time. The fact that she’d chosen perhaps the only comfortable clothes — relatively speaking, when everything he owns is more expensive than most people’s rents — out of a sea of dress shirts and slacks doesn’t escape his notice, though he doesn’t mention it. The care stings, and his mouth thins against the fresh wave of discomfort.
He doesn’t particularly want to think about what his mother must think of him, looking far older than he should, looking far more tired than he should, living with his dead parents’ clothing where they left it. Skeletons in the closet, indeed.
Bruce inhales, deep, and finally rises out of bed. Whatever they think, it won’t matter in the end. The bracelet blinks with how long they have left, and they most likely won’t remember any of this anyway. They’ll be okay. He’ll be okay.
And then there is a knock at the door.
Martha and Thomas’ eyes meet across the length of the room, his father frozen by the edge of the bed and his mother, reaching painstakingly slowly, for the doorknob.
They look terrified, and entirely heartbroken, suddenly faced with the reality of how long they may have been gone. Bruce’s chest clenches in sympathy, and it only gets tighter when Alfred asks, “Master Bruce?”
His mother’s mouth opens the same moment Bruce’s does, though she remains quiet, hand hovering over the door.
“Hold on,” Bruce calls, and edges his way around where his father is frozen by the bed, eyebrows knitted together with concern. He’d never noticed how old Alfred sounds until now, his parent’s looking more anxious by the minute.
Martha makes room for him at the door, though not by much, hand on the small of his back when Bruce cracks the door open an inch. He hides her from view, buying the most time he can with a large shoulder.
Alfred looks much the same as he always does. Slightly annoyed at the protein shake and morning newspaper he holds in his hands, pristine white gloves fitted to perfection. Black morning coat, the straightest tie Bruce has ever seen, and the sharpest edges to the collar of his shirt — he looks as every butler should. Perfectly put-together, despite the time, as he always is.
He looks tired, too.
“Good morning, Master Bruce. The Gotham Gazette and what passes for breakfast in this household, at your request.”
“...Alfie?”
The floor opening up and swallowing him whole would be nice right about now.
“Sir?” Alfred asks, slight alarm somewhere in his tone but it’s mostly drowned out by the fragile hope. The fact that it hadn’t been Bruce who had spoken was obvious, and his eyes close against whatever expression takes over Alfred’s creased, tired face. He’d know his mother’s voice better than Bruce had, of course he would.
Bruce’s voice isn’t soft, wobbling, and close to tears. His father’s hand joins Martha’s on the small of his back, warm through the soft cotton shirt, and there’s no mistaking it.
“Alfred,” Bruce murmurs, “One day, tinkering will kill me.”
He thrusts his wrist through the ajar door, the bracelet on his arm flashing a countdown of a little under a day.
“I don’t understand, Sir.” Alfred whispers.
He sighs. “Time travel, Alfred.” Bruce explains, and he supposes that’s all they need, really.
No force in the world could stop Alfred from pushing the door open, newspaper dropped to the floor in an instant, and Bruce makes no fight against him. It would be cruel, using his strength against the man who raised him. It would be crueller still to bring this on him.
Bruce’s back presses against the wall and finds stability there, as grounded as he can be when Alfred stands in the doorway, his hands shaking where they rest at his side, the lid of the protein shake beginning to leak.
His mother is crying. He’s never seen her cry, not even the day she died. She looks unbearably vulnerable like this, hair falling to her shoulders naturally, none of her jewellery or lipstick to distract from the anguish written across her face.
“Oh, Alfred ,” Martha whispers, cheeks wet and hands shaking much like Alfred’s when she brings them up to cup his face with incredible care, looking as though she’s scared he might break under her touch alone. “It has been a long time, hasn’t it?”
Alfred’s mouth works silently for the longest time, pale blue eyes overspilling with tears. “The very longest.”
Her thumbs run over his cheeks gently, soothing almost, motherly in a way that has Bruce averting his eyes, chest seized again by shame.
It’s too easy to forget, sometimes, that Alfred lost his family too.
It’s too easy to think that Bruce lost them first, lost them most , when he can barely remember them anymore. They’re neatly categorized painted smiles and empty clothing to him these days. They’re the blank spots in his memory, everything before their murder dark and faded and not there—
Alfred remembers them more than he ever will. Alfred remembers all of the things a distractible child wouldn’t bother to remember, thinking the world would keep spinning the way it always does. Thinking they would always be there.
Bruce might bear their name, and own their home, but Alfred remembers.
He feels disgustingly neglectful, childish and selfish, and doesn’t remember asking even once if Alfred was okay afterwards. He feels ashamed. (Alfred would say something quintessentially Alfred, reasonable and sure, “ You were a child ,” and he’d put his hand on Bruce’s shoulder, comforting, an undeserving gesture, “it was not up to you to take care of me.”)
Thomas’ eyes meet his own, warm and understanding, sympathetic in a way that makes Bruce think he knows what’s running through his head. It’s painful to look at, and so he avoids that too, gaze drawn back to the fragile warmth radiating from his mother and surrogate father, eyes still locked together despite the tears.
Alfred smiles, though it’s barely there, and the slightest movement might just knock it off. “The years have not been kind.” He murmurs, smile slipping into something close to the grief welling up in the both of them, Bruce’s own eyes beginning to wet.
His mother nods, lip caught between her teeth and shaking like a leaf. She looks resigned, chest fluttering with the strength it takes to hold back— what? Horror? Sadness? Anger, perhaps, at how Alfred has suffered at Bruce’s side.
Alfred breathes in deep, and it would almost be interesting to watch someone visibly lock their feelings away if it didn’t wrench at his heart viciously. “But I would not change them for anything, Martha.”
“That,” she murmurs, and pats his cheek gently, hand sliding down the length of his neck to straighten his tie, “Is very good to hear, Mister Pennyworth.”
Stepping back seems to take all the strength she has, and Bruce almost moves to hold her when her arms come up to hug herself tight. His father does it instead, arm around her waist, and then with his other, he pulls Alfred into a crushing hug with none of the gentleness Martha had.
Alfred goes easily, and makes something close to a sigh against Thomas’ collarbone. His father’s grip tightens gently, a comforting squeeze before they part again.
“Why, you don’t look a day over a hundred, my good man.” Thomas says, looking Alfred from head to toe, entirely too cheerful, though his smile becomes genuine at the choked-off laugh Alfred makes.
“Same to you, Sir.”
“I think we’ve known each other long enough to drop the formalities. Wouldn’t you say?”
Alfred smiles, stronger than the one he had given Martha. “Only your wife could talk me into that, Master Wayne.”
Thomas grins, and how he has the heart for happiness is beyond Bruce, though the feeling is infectious. His mother looks better, still leaning into his side, but more herself by the minute, cheeks wiped dry and breathing evened.
“I think a tour is order, no? I want to see what’s changed.” Thomas asks, and now he bounces on his heels, smile only widening when Alfred slides his gaze to where Bruce lingers on the fringes of the room.
“Not much, Sir.” Alfred replies dryly.
Bruce narrows his eyes at him. Thomas beams. Martha sighs.
A tour, it is.
They make it through to the east wing before Bruce loses sight of his father, though his mother seems unconcerned, arms linked gently with Alfred’s ahead of him.
He’d never particularly thought Alfred to be the linking arms type. The concept of Alfred as anyone but the stilted butler that Bruce knows him to be is as alien as Clark is. The concept of Alfred as someone who might enjoy that kind of closeness, or even something more than that, is too foreign to think too hard on.
Yet another way he’s taken the man for granted, perhaps. All of his time is spent at Bruce’s beck-and-call, dragged into Batman’s war all because he needed somewhere to lay-low for a while. Never, not once, had he considered the man might want something more than playing nanny for the rest of his life.
He loses sight of them as they turn a corner, conversing quietly, comfortably. The most comfortable he’s seen Alfred in all his life, maybe, looking as though all the years of pain have been washed away by his mother’s touch.
Bruce can’t bring himself to follow like a second shadow over him.
He loops back the way they came, the halls as familiar as they always have been, and finds Thomas bent at the waist over a small sideboard with all the focus in the world.
When he steps closer tentatively, almost touching shoulders, Thomas asks breathlessly, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Bruce’s eyebrows raise slowly. “Tell you what?”
“I have grandchildren. ” He states, amazed, and turns to look at Bruce like he hung the stars in the sky. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
His mouth thins, stepping closer to see the photographs lining the surface of the sideboard. “I had other things on my mind.”
Dick, ten years old and already winning competitions, smiles out from the photograph in Thomas’ sizable hands. He looks happy, one front tooth missing, and Bruce remembers how he lost it, a well placed kick to the face for the Boy Wonder on a drug bust gone wrong. Bruce stands behind him, though only the lower half of his face is visible, and he’s smiling too, jaw less defined than it is now, younger than he remembers ever looking.
“How many? How old are they?” Thomas asks, and picks up another photograph with all the excitement of a toddler on Christmas morning. “Do they live here? I would love to meet them.”
His mood is, again, infectious, and Bruce finds his mouth tipping up of its own accord. “That’s Dick,” he taps the glass covering the photograph gently, “he’s a police officer now, works in Blüdhaven.”
“Wonderful, I love him already.” Thomas states, and places the frame down gently, holding up the next picture. “And this one? Do you have all boys?”
“Jason,” he murmurs, smile a little harder to hold onto but the glee on his father’s face keeps it up. Jason looks painfully young, tugging at his tux with a look that says he’ll be ripping it off the moment he can. “Almost twenty now, little younger than Dick, drops by on the weekends when he wants Alfred’s baking.”
“Can’t blame him. I love this one, too.” Thomas looks at the photo for a second longer, mouthing out Jason’s name as if he’s committing it to memory. “Are they all yours?”
“Adopted.” Bruce shakes his head, picking up the remaining photograph. “Except for Damian, that one.” He adds, fingertip tracing the outline of his sons faces carefully.
One of the few times he’s ever been able to capture proof of Tim and Damian getting along. Curled up together, phones in their faces, though it’s clear they’re there for each other, shoulders leaned toward each other on the couch.
They look relaxed , the weight of the world lifted from their shoulders. They look how they should, young boys tired from the time of day and not the stress of life under his roof, they look like kids and Bruce swallows thickly, handing the photograph to Thomas.
He’s seen the sight more times than he can count, there’s no shortage of subtle affection between the two. It’s the photographic evidence that’s the hard part.
“That’s Tim. Smartest kid I know,” Bruce murmurs with a fair amount of pride. “Though he doesn’t always use that for good. ”
“Is this all of them?” Thomas asks, and he still sounds amazed, cheeks flushed.
“And Cassandra. She doesn’t like cameras, much.”
He snorts. “Me neither.” He sets down the photograph gently, straightening them back out one by one gently. “Damian,” Thomas starts, a little hopeful, and then turns to Bruce with a raised eyebrow. “The mother?”
Bruce snorts. “Not in the picture if I can help it.”
“Ended sour, huh?”
“I don’t think it was sweet to begin with.” He replies, and straightens Damian’s picture gently. “She likes to take no as a suggestion. I’m sure you can imagine how that might carry over to her parenting.”
Thomas’ eyebrows draw together seriously for a long moment, blue eyes searching Bruce’s face with a sudden intensity that makes his skin crawl uncomfortably. The anger there, the authoritative protection he manages to convey with a single look isn’t something Bruce remembers ever having sent his way.
He wonders if it’s a look he gives Bruce as a child often. He can’t remember. He’s kind of glad he doesn’t, eyes stinging at the sudden display of emotion.
“Like I said, she’s out of the picture.” Bruce murmurs, mouth turning up with frail nonchalance.
“I’m…” Thomas trails off, and leans into Bruce’s space experimentally, slow enough that Bruce doesn’t realize his intention until Thomas’ strong arms are encompassing him gently. “I’m sorry, Bruce.”
His eyes squeeze shut against the dampness, Bruce breathing in the scent of cigars strongly. His arms hang limply at his sides, entirely useless. He should hug him back, probably, might be his only chance to do so and never forget it.
Thomas clutches him closer, and doesn’t mention Bruce’s shudder when Thomas noses against his hair gently.
“I’m fine, Father.” Bruce says, muffled against the fabric of Thomas’ shirt. The closer he leans in, the more he can feel his father’s heartbeat, steady and strong, perfectly alive . “I’ll be fine.”
His father doesn’t reply, and doesn’t move, and keeps breathing steadily. He stays the same, calm as ever, though Bruce feels as though the rug has been pulled from under his feet, cheek pressed against the firmness of his chest — stable, as he always is.
They stay like that for the longest time, Thomas beginning to sway slightly at the hips, reassuring in its gentleness when he takes Bruce with him. He feels closer and closer to a child the longer he does, dwarfed by his father’s build and close to overwhelmed by the painfully familiar scent, stinging his eyes.
“Is there anyone else?” Thomas asks softly, breath puffing against the slight waves in Bruce’s hair. “Someone else in your life?”
Against his better judgement, Bruce nods jerkily. “Clark.” He breathes in deep, steadying. “Clark’s good.”
Thomas is quiet enough for long enough that he begins to second guess himself. His parents may be warm, loving people, but they’re not perfect. His father was born in a time that wasn’t particularly accepting, and Bruce has thought this over more times than he can count, from the first time he ever kissed a boy until now, forty years old and still as cagey as ever.
He’d always thought he would be able to live with the consequences of finally telling his father about the man he loves. That had always been theoretical, though, the logical part of him always knowing he’d never get a reply from the cold headstones.
This is as far from logical as anything in his life has ever gotten.
His father pulls back slowly, holds him at arm’s length and it hurts more than he ever thought it could, Thomas regarding him with a serious look.
Bruce had thought the pit in his chest couldn’t get any deeper, and he supposes that’s true still when it feels closer to the brittle walls of that pit are collapsing inside of him and taking everything with it.
He waits, and waits, and waits for the disappointment to fill his father’s eyes as they flit over his face carefully.
“I’m sorry.” He whispers, and can’t meet Thomas’ eyes for anything in the world, fear creeping in the longer Thomas holds out.
“I think,” his father replies quietly, comfortingly, “I would be a rather large hypocrite if I had a problem with this.”
“…What?”
“I think you heard me perfectly clearly.” Thomas says and sounds far too amused.
“I did.” Bruce replies, and then repeats, “What?”
“I’d like to think my son has two brain cells to rub together, Bruce.”
“I’d like to think so, too.” He chews on his lip for a long moment. “You’re…”
“Bisexual? Yes.” Thomas smiles, and yep, definitely far too amused for the situation. “And you?”
“Bisexual.” Bruce breathes. “I didn’t think— you never—”
Thomas pats his shoulder gently, thumb circling over the joint soothingly. “Coming out didn’t seem wise, and frankly, I don’t want to.” Again, he pats Bruce’s shoulder, finally pulling back. “I am perfectly comfortable as I am, nobody but the people I love need to know.”
Bruce nods, slowly. It makes sense, and fits into the new picture he’s begun to build of his parents — his living, breathing, alive parents. Not paintings, not empty clothes, but them .
Thomas begins to lead them both down the hall, the way Martha and Alfred went, leisurely running his fingertips along the walls, around the rims of vases and picture frames. Taking it in as if he’s never seen it before, and Bruce wonders how he’s handling this, seeing what’s become of his family home.
After a few minutes spent in comfortable silence, Bruce finds his tongue moving ahead of himself, asking, “Does Alfred know?”
Thomas turns to look at him, one eyebrow arched incredulously. “He never told you?”
“Never told me what?” Bruce’s eyes narrow sharply, moving until he’s matching Thomas stride for stride.
His father pauses, lip caught between his teeth. “I think that if he hasn’t told you, then it’s not my place to tell you.” He nods, self-assuring, and then continues down the hall.
“Never told me what?” Bruce presses, and getting in front of his father is pointless but he does so anyway, Thomas coming to a halt not an inch from him.
“It’s not my secret to tell, son.” He says gently. The look he adds pointedly says move.
“If Alfred has been keeping secrets—”
“ Enough questions, Bruce. ” Thomas snaps, entirely parental, and suddenly Bruce feels like a child tracking mud through the house.
He swallows thickly, eyes averted from his father’s stern gaze. “Yes, Sir.” He steps aside stiffly, following when Thomas sets their pace again, just as calm as before, the tightness gone from his face.
“I would much rather talk about this Clark . Care to share?”
“Clark’s…” An alien. “Good.”
“That has been established, yes.” Thomas smiles. “But what’s he like? ”
A fucking alien. Bruce’s cheeks heat up despite himself, and finds himself shrugging after struggling to bring words to his mouth.
Describing Clark has never been easy, especially now with his father waiting on his answer. Superman seems like such a large part of who he is. It’s not possible to describe Clark without Superman.
“I have a picture of him?” Bruce finally offers, feeling a little inadequate. What man can’t describe his partner?
“That’ll do.” Thomas grins. He raises an eyebrow as Bruce digs into his pocket.
Phones probably aren’t what Thomas remembers, barely making it into the eighties by the time he died. He takes in stride, though, and somehow manages to smile wider at the picture Bruce shows him.
Clark, looking about two seconds away from hitting the phone out of Bruce’s hands. Absolutely miserable, first thing in the morning, sunlight streaming through the window. Miserable, but happy, sitting at Bruce’s kitchen table.
Miserable but happy seems to be the simplest way to describe how he feels now.
Thomas finally tears his eyes from the phone, eyes alight with approval. “You really know how to pick them, son.”
Bruce matches his smile, cheeks heating up. “Actually, I think he picked me.”
Conveniently, that particular picture had a wide berth of father-friendly pictures on either side. Inconveniently, Thomas is determined to burn through them all, flicking his way through the album.
“Father,” he murmurs, and fights the itch in his fingers to snatch the phone back. “I will not be held liable for whatever you see. Continue at your own risk.”
His finger pauses on the screen. Thomas’ mouth twitches. “Nothing I haven’t seen before, I’m sure.”
Bruce chokes.
“Oh.” Thomas murmurs. “My, that is one flexible man.”
“It was for a bet.”
“I’m sure.” Thomas chuckles. “And who won?”
“Clark.” He sighs, looking to the ceiling. If a hole were to open up and swallow him whole right now, that would be fantastic.
“Well,” his father inhales, sounding far too amused, “you must be a very happy couple.”
“Can I have my phone back?” Bruce asks weakly.
“It is a father’s responsibility to embarrass his child.” Thomas smiles, flicking to another picture. “ Is that my tie?”
“Phone time is over, now.” Bruce mutters, clumsily wrestling his phone from his father’s hands.
“We’re all adults here, Bruce.” Thomas reminds him gently, mouth split on a grin. “And I must say, it runs in the family. I have some wonderful photographs of your mother—”
“That is enough.”
“Polaroids were a great invention.”
“ Father.”
“Alright, alright.”
“You are a disgrace to this family, an absolute disappointment to the Wayne legacy, and I shall write you out of my will.”
“It’s just a bottle of wine.”
“It is an eighteen-seventy Lafite.” Thomas yells, waving the bottle in Bruce’s face. “Are you mad?”
He had, rather innocently, asked to taste some of the wines in the cellar. It had seemed like a simple enough request, thirty years had passed and some of the wines must have matured.
They’d both been rather respectable with the first few tasters. After a while, they’d stopped spitting.
Many of the wines, despite Alfred’s dry comments, had survived his lifetime untouched. Thomas had appeared delighted by this fact, until the Lafite.
“I leave you a perfectly good wine cellar.” Thomas waves expansively, bottle in hand. “And you haven’t even drank the best one in here.”
Bruce raises an eyebrow. “How do you know it’s the best if you’ve never tried it?”
“Well—” Thomas pauses. “Well.”
“You’re going to drop it.” He murmurs, and smiles around the rim of his glass. “Also, it’s not from eighteen-seventy. The label’s worn off.”
Thomas makes a noise close to a humph. “I’ve been waiting to try this wine.” He informs Bruce, and sets it clumsily down on the table in the middle of the cellar. “My father bought it.”
“Oh?”
It's not often anyone talks about his grandparents. What little he knows doesn’t paint much of a picture, and even Alfred hadn’t ever met them.
“He used to show me this bottle.” Thomas tilts his head, looking at the innocuous object. “Brought it out whenever I did something exceptional. I graduated with honors and he almost took the cork out.”
“But he never did?” Bruce raises an eyebrow. “Why?”
“It wasn’t the right time. Always said we’d know when it was time. He lorded that wine over me for years, had a whole speech he’d give every time.” He laughs, quietly, eyes sad. “Always changed how old it was, too. Started out as a fifty-year-old vintage when he bought it, then a hundred, then it was the first bottle of wine in the world . ”
“The label was rubbed off when he bought it?”
Thomas shrugs. “Maybe. I never really got a good look at it.” He picks his own glass up, swallowing the last of it. “First time he took me hunting, he brought that and two other Lafite’s. Said if I did well, we’d drink it.”
He sighs, and looks to the bottom of his glass. Bruce dutifully refills it with the Pontet-Canet, spilling a few drops.
“I couldn’t do it.” He admits, quietly. “It’s fine, anyway. Dad didn’t mind, he wasn’t there to hunt. He was more interested in getting drunk in the woods and beating his son for being weak.”
Bruce pauses, glass in hand.
He should say something, really. Meaningful words should go here, not the silence of the room. Thomas gives him a brittle smile, and takes the whole bottle Bruce offers.
“He died.” Thomas shrugs. “So I sat there, after the funeral, and thought to myself: I’m going to drink that whole bottle, and take the world’s most expensive piss.”
“But you didn’t.” Bruce murmurs, head tilted.
“No, I didn’t.” He inhales, finally tearing his eyes from the Lafite to meet Bruce’s gaze. “I didn’t want to be that kind of father. I wanted to be the kind of father who’d open the world’s first wine when his son graduated.”
Gently, Bruce drags the bottle closer. They may have drank a lot so far, but he’s sure they’ve got space for one more.
“I think I’m a little late, though.” Thomas murmurs, hand coming up to rub at his neck. “Where’d the corkscrew go?”
“This tastes like piss.” Bruce laughs, handing the bottle back to his father.
“I agree.” He slurs. “But it feels damn good.”
“I’ll drink to that.” Bruce mumbles, and groans when he takes another mouthful. “Don’t think this was meant to last more than fifty years.”
“This is disgusting.” Thomas sighs. “Why don’t we own a vineyard? We’d make great wine.”
“We do.”
“We do?”
“We do.” Bruce nods, vision swimming a little. “‘s not bad, either. Alfred likes it.”
Thomas nods jerkily, and sets the bottle onto the table at their feet. “How far’s the cellar?”
“Too far.”
It isn’t actually all that far. They’ve only moved down the hall, but Bruce doesn’t think he could get up from the couch for love nor money. His legs had struggled on the way there enough as it is.
“Did you bring the bucket?”
“What for?”
“I need to take the world’s most expensive piss.”
He snorts, slouching further into his seat. “Gonna have to hold it, Father.”
Never has he seen his father pout. Thomas does his best to look both forlorn and sober, mouth set sadly. “Must I really?”
“Yes.” Bruce tilts his head. “Why, do you see somewhere else to go?”
“That plant is looking very inviting.” Thomas comments, pointing with his glass and spilling at least half onto the rug.
Bruce squints at the plant itself, a well-tended lily in a tall vase. He probably wouldn’t be able to go over the rim, though Thomas might not have the same issue, as tall as he is.
“Is that what you did before I came along, pissed on potted plants?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I wasn’t an animal .” He huffs, settling against Bruce’s shoulder. Conversationally, he adds, “That’s what I did before Martha.”
“Where’re we goin’?” Bruce whispers. There’s nobody but Thomas around, but he still finds himself talking in hushed tones.
“Need the bucket.”
“You traumatized that plant for nothing. And me.” He replies, poking his father in the bicep. “You gotta learn to warn people ‘fore you whip it out.”
“You need to stop looking.” He replies, poking Bruce back. It’s a little more forceful than he intends, and Bruce whines. “Where’d Martha go?”
“Every boy wants to know if he’s the biggest in the family.” Bruce pauses, eyebrows pulling together. “Went with Alfred.”
His mother — and Alfred — are largely the reason he’s still whispering, he realizes. She’d probably try and ground him for this. Probably ground his father, too.
Best not to let them find himself and Thomas drunk before noon.
“Where’re we goin’, again?”
“Bucket.”
“‘s the other way, Dad.”
“Bathroom?”
“Uh,” he mumbles, stumbling forward a few steps to see where they are. “My room?”
“ My room, young man.”
Bruce turns to his father, steadying himself enough to tilt his head back. “Got my stuff in it.”
Thomas’ mouth thins. “Still my room.”
“Well it can’t be both. ”
“Need to piss. Can we go?” He pushes Bruce’s shoulder lightly, prompting him to begin moving again.
Two wrong turns later and Bruce finally finds his — not his father’s — room again.
Thomas excuses himself to the ensuite, oddly polite, closing the door behind himself gently. Bruce stares at the innocuous door for a long moment, somehow both straining his ears and doing his best not to listen to the noises inside.
The bracelet on his wrist blinks red, flashing numbers. Counting down the hours they have left together, and it still doesn’t feel real. As solid, breathing, alive his parents are, none of it feels real.
His mother, what little he’d seen of her thus far, is what he remembers. A peculiar woman, predisposed to protecting her family with everything she has.
He remembers less of Thomas, and wishes that weren’t the case. Taking him for granted, perhaps, Bruce doesn’t recall much more than the basics, believing he’d have the rest of his life to know his father.
He swallows hard, blinking his eyes open to watch the ceiling swim in his vision.
Thomas is as vibrant and odd as his mother. No wonder Bruce himself turned out so strange, with a parents like this.
As a child, Thomas had been such an imposing figure. Authority incarnate in a six-foot-six man. Now that he’s older, he’s somehow both more and less.
Still imposing, but it’s easier to see the warmth now. It’s hard not to intimidate when he towers over even Bruce, but he does his best. Thomas might be built like a brick shithouse, but every line of muscle is softened at the edges.
Alfred’s baking is a difficult thing to turn down, after all.
A family man, through and through. Willing to get drunk on a Saturday morning just to make his son feel better.
He wishes he were that kind of father. The kind who’d open the world’s first wine with his son.
He should invite them over. Give them the chance to meet their grandparents — their only chance. They deserve it more than he does.
And Clark — Clark, who’d looked so embarrassed when they’d driven to Kansas in Bruce’s grey Aston Martin, sat and ate homemade Thanksgiving across from his Ma , and kissed everywhere they could— the porch, and the cornfield, and in the loft of the barn. He’d been so excited, like a puppy as he introduced his Ma, glowing how he does when he soaks up the sun during July.
Clark’s a family man. It keeps him grounded, more essential than air to breathe or food on the table. Bruce owes him this, after all the trouble he’s put him through, and all the trust Clark has thrown his way.
His phone remains firmly in his pocket, Bruce swallowing hard. Selfish. His parents weren't his — they were more Alfred’s, more his children’s, more Clark’s. They deserved this, not him.
“Thinking of Clark?” Thomas asks lightly from the doorway. He hadn’t heard him enter the room, even with his usual heavy footsteps.
Bruce narrows his eyes at the ceiling, trying to piece together Thomas’ train of thought. Drunkenly, he props himself up to raise an eyebrow at his father, and stops short.
Oh. Well isn't that all kinds of fucked up?
Slowly, wide eyes locked with his father’s, Bruce drags a pillow over the tent in his sweatpants. Somehow, the eye contact makes it worse.
No wonder none of this feels real. This is, quite obviously, a dream. At this current moment he is comatose, living out his worst nightmares, all because of tinkering.
Yes. This isn’t happening.
“You are incredibly easy to embarrass, son.” Thomas murmurs, huffing a laugh when Bruce flops back onto the bed with defeat.
“I hate you.” He groans, alcohol bitter on his gums.
“Love you, too, son.” Thomas snorts.
The bed dips beside him, Bruce’s side warming almost immediately. His father burns like a furnace, even through his shirt.
“I hear if you use your left hand, it feels like your lover.” He muses, head turning to look at Bruce. “‘Course, that never helped me. I’m already left-handed and it never felt like Martha.” He raises the offending hand, wiggling his large fingers in Bruce’s face.
“Are you suggesting I masturbate.”
“If that’s how you wish to take my words.” He replies, faux innocent. And then, slowly, “I leave you alone for five minutes and you’re already miserable.”
“I’m not miserable.”
“So look at me, Bruce.” His father sighs.
“No, thank you.”
“Fine, then.” Thomas huffs. The bed wobbles under him, Thomas settling his weight a few inches further from Bruce.
The silence is comfortable, despite their current situation. More comfortable than Bruce has felt in a long time. Yet again, emotion bubbles in his throat, and he swallows it down forcefully. Not yet.
When they’re gone — he checks the wristband, the numbers blurry — he can fall apart. Self-destruct in silence.
“Father,” Bruce mumbles, “I am something of an outlaw.”
“Were you always this dramatic, son?” Thomas asks, the bed beneath them shaking as he shifts.
“Alfred.” Bruce snorts, shaking his head. “Theatrics are his speciality, remember?”
“I shall have a word with him, then.” He nods, serious. Then, the facade cracks, a smile tugging at his mouth. “ You are an outlaw?”
“Of a kind.”
“Oh,” Thomas sighs, shifting closer, a large arm sliding under Bruce’s head to pull him closer, “I think we all are.”
“Now you're being dramatic.”
He shrugs. “Alfred.”
Silence falls again, warm and enveloping. They remain like that, the nightstand clock ticking away faithfully, counting down the seconds until his parents leave. And they will — they’ll disappear just as quietly as they came. He doesn't know if that’s better or worse.
At least, if they're gone, things can do back to feeling real.
Eventually, Thomas tires of the position they’re in. Calves hanging from the bed, splayed out like drunken students on a Saturday, alcohol on their breaths. His hands worm under Bruce’s knees, and then his shoulders, groaning with force. Bruce allows it, dumb with confusion.
“God, you’re as heavy as your mother.”
“Nobody asked you to—” He starts, stomach lurching, “ Dad. ”
“Lightweight, son?” Thomas asks, chuckling quietly. Unceremoniously he places Bruce down again, lengthwise against the bed, throwing the comforter over him in clumsy care.
Bruce twists, tugging his foot away when Thomas slips his shoe off. “ What are you—”
Thomas shushes loudly him, a large finger to his mouth. “Martha will hear you, and then we're done for. You need to sleep it off.”
“No,” Bruce rolls his eyes, the room spinning slightly, his father’s face doubling. “I’m good.”
“You’re still a terrible liar, Bruce.”