Chapter Text
Bruce took a moment to breathe, watching the toddler meticulously sorting shapes on the rug. As best as anybody could determine, Damian had been reverted to approximately 18 months old- walking confidently, but just barely beginning to use recognizable language. The magic user responsible had been apprehended, and Zatanna consulted; she had determined the spell would wear off eventually, and that it was best not to try and break it early. For the foreseeable future, the manor was home to a toddler, for the first time in 40 years.
To Bruce’s pleasant surprise, Damian had known who his Baba was, and loved him fiercely. When Bruce first brought Damian home after that fateful patrol, he had attempted to pass Damian off to Alfred, so the butler could put the little boy to bed while Bruce contacted Zatanna. Damian had peeked out of the cape at Alfred, greeted him with a shout of “Ah!” and a pat on the cheek, then clung back onto Bruce and refused to be removed. After a moment of hopeless wrangling, Bruce had given in and sat down at the BatComputer, toddler snuggled happily against his chest in a doze.
That pattern continued from there.
“Ok, jaan, time for bed!” Bruce said, settling his son down in the crib Alfred had magicked out of storage. Big green eyes blinked up at him, but Damian seemed reasonably content lying there in his soft jammies. Bruce looked around, and spotted a stack of books that had been set out alongside a box of baby toys. He grabbed one that seemed sturdy enough, printed on thick cardboard, and set it in the crib as well. “Look, Dami, a book to read for bed!” One curious little hand flipped the book open, and Bruce took his window to tiptoe out of the darkened room. As he drew the door shut behind himself, however, he heard a rattle, and then a thud.
He turned back to look into the room—Damian, flat on his butt, struggling to his feet, outside of the crib. As soon as he got vertical, the toddler ran towards the door, babbling “Baba-baba!”. Stepping back, Bruce let him through. It melted his heart a little, as his little son grabbed his hand, still chattering away. What the hell, Bruce figured. It’s not like letting him sleep with you will create a bad habit anyway. This is temporary.
When he laid down with his son in bed, and the baby wrapped firmly around his forearm, any resolve which might have remained evaporated entirely.
The next morning presented a fresh challenge. Neatly dressed in a little overall outfit, Damian flatly refused to be put into a high chair. The instant Bruce got one limb situated and moved to the next, it was thrown back over the side, or kicking him in the chest, or pushing off the seat. After several increasingly comedic (for Alfred and Tim) minutes, he finally surrendered.
“Alright jaan, you’ll just have to have your breakfast on Baba’s lap then,” he said, moving some banana slices and an extra piece of toast onto his own plate for Damian. Damian seemed quite pleased with himself, as he took his piece of toast and settled more comfortably into his father’s lap.
The day continued on in this manner- Damian scribbled in a little notebook on Bruce’s lap while Bruce worked in his study. Damian sat in Bruce’s lap for lunch. Damian wore a little domino mask and watched intently, still in his father’s lap, while Batman took a League call down in the Cave. Finally, at some point after Alfred had gone to do the grocery shopping before dinner, Bruce finally managed to set Damian down properly. He had bribed Titus and Alfred the Cat into the nursery and distracted the toddler with a pile of colorful blocks and shapes. Hopefully, that would keep Damian out of trouble while Bruce ran to the bathroom at long last. Bruce drew on his long years of stealth and infiltration experience to back slowly towards the en suite attached to the nursery, and breathed a sigh of relief as he got the door shut without Damian noticing.
He didn’t get but three steps further into the restroom before his heart sank. “Baba? Baba!” Bruce heard, then suddenly Damian began banging on the restroom door sobbing. Bruce hurried back to open the door and console his son, but before he could, the wailing child shoved his tiny hand in the crack beneath. “Baaaa-baaa!” he shrieked, wiggling his fingers as though he could grab his father and drag him back through the tiny gap.
“Damian, jaan, baby, you need to scoot back for Baba so he can open the door,” Bruce called desperately. He didn’t have high hopes of reasoning with a one year old, but he wasn’t sure what else to try. A little white paw slipped under the door next to the chubby arm, and he heard the whuff of a large dog snuffling at the gap along the other side. Great. There were accomplices.
After another minute of pleading, Bruce realized he had his phone. He called Tim, who hopefully was still in the Manor.
“Tim? Are you home?” tumbled out the instant the line connected.
“Uh, yeah B, what is it?”
Bruce slumped in relief. “Can you please come to the nursery? Damian is jamming his arm under the bathroom door and I can’t open it without hurting him.” Before the call cut off, Bruce would swear he heard his son snicker at him.
Thankfully for Bruce’s eardrums, he heard Tim enter the nursery only a minute or two later. “Titus, Alfred, get! Go away, I gotta get the baby.” A few shuffling steps closer, and then “Dami. C’mon buddy, c’mere.” The grasping hand slid slowly out from under the door. “Ow! You little bastard! Bruce, it’s clear, but the brat bit me!”
Gratefully exiting the restroom, Bruce took the whimpering child back from Tim. “I know you’re very upset, but biting isn’t nice, jaan,” he told Damian, “but Tim, for once he’s young enough to have an excuse, be nice. I don’t wanna see how Alfred reacts if he learns to swear from you.”
“Hey, you rat me out and the pictures I took of you trapped in a bathroom by a baby and a cat are going straight to Jason. Your choice.”
