Chapter Text
When Bruce Wayne was born, he had a lily of the valley on his chest, and a white rose on his elbow.
“Alfred, looks like we might have to raise your hours.” Thomas joked, eyeing the lily of the valley that had materialised on the back of his valet’s hand during the night, an exact copy of his sons.
“Quite so, sir.” Alfred replied, a softness in his voice undermining his formality as he beheld his new soulchild, who was currently sleeping, tucked into his mother’s arms. Soul parents and soul children - the cosmos’s way of forging bonds outside of blood.
Martha looked down at her baby boy, tracing the symbol on his chest. “A lily of the valley,” she said softly. “It symbolises the return of happiness, and purity, but the whole flower is toxic,”
Not everyone has a soul parent and not everyone has a soul child, but a symbol on your chest indicates you will have one or the either - while also representing who you are. They often followed a theme - animals, instruments, flowers. As a child, Alfred had often considered his own white rose and lack of other marks, indicating no soul parents, but possible soul children. A part of him felt complete. The room settled into silence as the baby slept, unaware of the loving gazes of his three parents that were focused on him.
“Would you like to hold him, Alfred?” Martha asked, shifting slightly.
“It would be my pleasure,” he replied, gently taking Bruce from Martha’s hands, rocking him slowly. Bruce opened his eyes at the movement, a quiet blue like the ocean on a cloudy day. “Hello, young Master Bruce.” Alfred said, as Bruce looked up at him, curious. In that moment, Alfred never wanted to let go of the infant in his arms, tied to him by the will of the universe itself.
Thomas smiled. “I’m glad, you know. That someone will take care of him whenever Martha and I are away.” Alfred’s gaze never strayed from his new charge, but with conviction in his voice, he promised them.
“I will always be there for him. That, I can promise you.”
How bitterly this promise had been fulfilled.
---
When Bruce’s first soulchild mark appeared, he was 16. He was many things - angry, clever, driven, lonely - but he was not the type of person to become a father. Naturally, this led to a small freakout.
“Alfred!” he yelled, running down the stairs and into the kitchen. Alfred put down the dishes he had been washing and turned to see the panicked visage of his charge. Bruce had always been a reserved child, so this display of emotion was shocking, to say the least.
“Whatever is the matter, Master Bruce?” Alfred asked, a small seed of concern growing in his chest.
He showed Alfred his wrist, where a small Daffodil had grown. Ah, Alfred thought. A soulchild. Suddenly, a wave of warm emotion washed over Alfred at the thought of his small family expanding. Although he tried to give Bruce as much love and attention as he could, the boy was lonely - his aversion to making friends didn’t help with this matter. Perhaps more family would.
Bruce still looked slightly panicked, although his face was smoothing back again, his mind erecting the walls that had fallen with this revelation. “Alfred, I can’t be a dad. How am I meant to take care of a kid? I’ll just mess them up, I -”
Alfred put his hand on Bruce’s shoulder and met his eyes. Bruce had grown so tall, taller than him. He looked more and more like his father everyday, but his eyes would forever be his mothers.
“I was born with simply my own symbol, and none for soul parents. Because of this, I knew one day a child would be born, and I would have to protect them, and perhaps even raise them as my own. Most days, I did not believe I would be fit for the job.” He’d doubted himself as a teenager, scared of this large responsibility. He’d doubted himself the most during the war, when his hands had taken lives - hands destined to nurture another. He’d doubted himself when Bruce’s mark appeared on the back of his hand in the waiting room next to his boss and best friend, the night that Bruce was born.
He hadn’t doubted himself the moment he saw Bruce, knowing instantly he’d protect this child with his life. Alfred smiled and looked at his boy, whose frame was tense with nervousness and resignation.
“Some things, Master Bruce, are decided for us by fate. I know the kind of man you are, and I know that the child born today is lucky to have you as a parent.”
Daffodils symbolize hope, renewal, and truth. Looking at the yellow flower on his wrist, feeling the seeds of hope it planted, Bruce almost believed him.
---
Four years later, Bruce’s second mark appeared. A blood red dahlia, bright and confident, bloomed next to his daffodil. It was the flower of change, of danger, and of inner strength - of rising from the ashes. When it appeared, Bruce had been thousands of miles away from home, training so he could return to protect it.
The League of Assassins was unforgiving. Everyday, Bruce had been pushed to his limit, given new challenges that would leave him sore and bruised. Everyday, Bruce became a little harsher, a little more violent. Everyday, he became more of a man that could save his city. Everyday, Bruce considered himself less of the type of person who could be a good father. But, evidently, the universe was determined to prove him wrong.
Like with his first mark, those feelings of resignation returned, of fear - but this time, he had no-one to tell him it would be fine. One child was already nerve racking, but two?
(Somewhere, under his reluctance, unbridled joy for one day having a family again bloomed.)
Ignoring the marks and their weight on his wrist, and ignoring the longing for comfort, Bruce continued working through his katas. He had a mission to complete.
---
Mark three appeared when Bruce was twenty four, two weeks into his crusade. A gladiolus silently took place next to his existing marks, white petals tipped with purple. It had appeared sometime during patrol but Bruce had only noticed when he had gotten back to the cave and stripped his gear.
Patrol that night was rough. Some goons had gotten lucky with a bat and managed to crack a rib and dislocate his left shoulder, much to Alfred’s disappointment and worry. They sat in silence while he patched Bruce up.
By now, Bruce had accepted his fate, but he couldn’t help that pang of fear whenever he saw his marks, now with a new one added to the roster. Alfred simply looked at his marks and sighed.
“You shouldn’t worry so much about the inevitable, Master Bruce,” he said, meticulously wrapping bandages around the bruises and cuts that littered Bruce’s body. “I’m sure you’ll love these children life has given you.”
“That’s what I’m worried about, Alfred.”
---
A little under one year later, the fourth mark appeared, an orange snapdragon. A few months after that, a blueish-purple iris. Three months after that, a purple chrysanthemum. Three more kids. Three more, in one year. Bruce was ready to faint.
Alfred on the other hand, merely looked amused at the ring of flowers around Bruce’s hand.
Snapdragons symbolize resilience, growing in difficult and sun-starved places. Blue irises symbolise unyielding faith and hope, more violet hues symbolise wisdom. Purple chrysanthemums represent longevity, positivity and good luck.
Bruce, underneath his shock, idly wondered if these flowers, these children, would bring these gifts into his life.
---
Bruce met his first mark, his daffodil, as the child sobbed into his chest, crying over bodies that would never fly again, under circus colours and lights too bright for the tragedy that occurred that day. The lily of the valley on the child's shoulder - on his child's shoulder - almost felt inadequate to Bruce in the face of such loss, but something inside of him told him that maybe he could help this child so similar to him. Perhaps he could be enough.
---
Dick was 16, and training in the cave when it happened. Much like another occupant of the manor at this age, he began to freak out.
“Bruce! Bruce! I’m a dad!” he yelled, as he scampered over to the batcomputer where Bruce was engrossed in a case.
For a few seconds, Bruce froze, his mind jumping to a natural conclusion. “Did you get someone pregnant?” he asked, trying to remain as neutral as possible. Dick rolled his eyes and showed him his arm. There was an orange Amaryllis, nestled in the crook of his elbow. Bruce’s heart rate began to slow back down, and instead, warm nostalgia and happiness bloomed in his heart. Is this how Alfred felt, sixteen years ago, when Bruce showed him his first mark?
“You have a soulchild,” Bruce said, trying to keep the emotion out of his voice but failing to do so.
“Yeah,” Dick said softly, his subdued demeanor different from his normal spontaneity. “I do.”
A beat passed before Dick put on a big grin. “Guess that means you’re a grandad at 32, huh?” He joked, much to Bruce’s exasperation.
“You know that’s not what it necessarily means.” Bruce said, amused. “You could just be their pseudo-uncle or something. Don’t make me sound older than I am.” But although Bruce wasn’t the best at emotions, he was still a detective and the tension in Dick’s frame made how obvious his nervousness was under his mask of humour. Bruce stood up from the batcomputer chair and looked at his son in everything but blood, one that the universe had blessed him with. “You’ll do fine, you know. I know that child will be loved,” he said, an undercurrent of affection and hope present in his voice.
The tension slowly eased from Dick’s body. “I can’t wait to meet them," he said, a glimmer of excitement in his eyes. His smile this time was genuine, as the promise of a bright future shone from his mark. Amaryllises symbolize hard won achievement, creativity, strength and determination. Dick knew that he would love his child more than life itself.