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Duke had been a bonafide member of the Bat household for years. In that time he had grown and molded into himself, now a far cry from the self conscious quiet kid that Bruce had found in an abandoned ally after everything had gone down with Gnomon. Sure the first few months in the manor were overwhelming, Duke trying to find his footing among the chaos of everyone else.
Finally, he was able to find where he fit in, even if he isn't as loud as the others, he still felt that he had a place here finally after almost a full year of thinking he should just leave before Dick retrieved him again.
If nothing else he had a spot as the most ‘normal’ member of the family, being the one who spoke to the most people and had the easiest time blending in with the rest of society.
He supposed his place in this hectic house was being the only one to make sense.
Not that it was a high bar to reach.
All the other members of his family and their quirks made it so him simply enjoying to write to be considered an almost docile activity when compared to the rest.
Like Damian's unending desire for a pet, spending all his free time watching youtube videos of pet care and drawing pictures of dogs and cows.
Dicks endless clinginess, always looking for someone to hold onto like a koala to the point Duke once walked in on him cuddling the potted plant in his room, now with a domino mask on the pot as Dick pored over a burner phone.
Jason's obsessive reading and insistence he hated all of them even when he gave Duke a stack of his favorite notebooks saying ‘thought they were something else, they looked like trash.’ Duke knew what that actually was.
He didn't even need to mention Tim's addiction to caffeine and 90’s sitcoms.
Then Stephs and Cass’s constant home improvement projects went from redoing the trim on the walls, to expanding their room to hold a pool.
All in all, everyone had their own little hobbies and obsessions, Batman being no exception.
However unlike the others,who’s hyperfixaction actually made sense, Batman on the other hand…
Jars.
Jars filled with seeds and salt, along with what looked like water or oils, maybe some flowers.
Placed all throughout the house, on every window, and in every doorway.
They had been there for years and all he knew about them was when they got home from patrol they were supposed to touch one before going about their day, and they couldn't touch the same one.
Call it some superstition of the Batmans he supposed.
Though he wasn't exactly sure what they were for, he did have enough memories of coming back from patrol feeling sluggish or out of sorts, touching the jar, and beginning to feel better. Any time that happened he would usually find the jar had been replaced with something else, or on the one occasion he saw the jar again before Bruce, it had begun growing an odd yellow mold inside of it rather spontaneously.
For all, he knew it could be some sort of magic spell Batman had cast.
While he wouldn't say he believed in magic, he was also a reanimated corpse of a meta after their immortal father tried to ctrl alt delete any humanity inside of him.
Regardless, the jars seem to be serving a purpose of some kind, if nothing else a nice placebo when Duke felt off, but the trays were different.
None of them were allowed to touch them no matter what.
Being around five in total, each in a different room, holding an unlit candle, a few rocks, and some dried flowers.
They stay like that pretty much always, except the one time Duke walked into the kitchen and saw the candlelit there with no one being able to say who lit it when Bruce asked.
When no one spoke up Bruce just… sat down and stared at it.
For hours.
At one point digging up chamomile tea from somewhere and setting it on the tray, where it stayed for days after slowly evaporating.
It was odd.
But harmless.
And they all agreed that whatever deal Bruce had with the odd trays and the jars they weren't gonna mess around with that.
So the trays remained untouched by the Chaotic family out of respect for their pudo father.
While Duke never said it, he hoped that Bruce knew how much of a father Bruce was to him.
Compared to Duke's biological dad, who looked down on humanity to the point he tried to suck every ounce of humanity out of his son in an attempt of ‘divine perfection.’
Duke was happy it didn't work. Even if it ended up killing him, Duke would much rather have death than meet Gnomon’s messed-up ideals.
Bruce wasn’t like that, he didn't care about ‘divine perfection’ or even perfection. He just wanted them to be happy and try their best.
He somewhat reminded Duke of his stepdad, a nice man who cared for his family, even if Duke wasn’t his biological son. Bruce was like that.
Even though they didn't have any obligation towards him, they took him in and loved him all the same.
In summary, if Bruce wanted to be protective about his trays and candles, they had no reason to argue.
They could easily leave them well enough alone.
Until today.
Tim and Steph were having some sort of roughhousing match, in the living room of all places. Jason had taken over Dicks nest in the chandelier and Dick… was most certainly not stuck, hanging from one ankle on the ceiling, as he shouted out encouragement to the two wrestling.
“Are you stuck?” Duke asked finally, already knowing the answer but wanting confirmation of it.
Dick just waved his hand at him.
“Yeah, but it’s fine,” he trilled swinging as he did so. Duke just rolled his eyes with a smirk, watching as Steph had jumped onto Tim's back and was holding on as Tim thrashed around to get her off. At some point having stopped trying to get her off and instead began doing cartwheels with her still on his back.
Duke had to laugh at their very Dick-like antics, looking up to said idiot, still dangling, now with a considerable amount of blood leaking out of his eyes from being upside down.
Duke rolled his eyes.
Leave it to him to choose the ceiling over the ground even when he had blood rushing out of his head.
Getting up to go untangle Dick himself, moving towards the ladder by the wall, somehow not able to predict the two dumbasses hurtling right towards him until he was being shoved to the side, running into an end table as something fell off making a loud crash.
Everyone froze.
Any laughter that would have come from it was gone as all eyes landed on the shattered porcelain on the ground with the glass of a candle jar and the old flowers.
“Shit…” Duke said, feeling the light-hearted mood plummet to that of dread and despair as he wondered how on earth they could fix this.
It was too late though. Curse the dark knight and his weird connection to the shadows in this house.
Watching as all the dark corners began snaking into one corner, forming together as Bruce stepped through, thankfully out of full Batman get-up.
Duke didn't think he could survive the batglare with the full costume to go with it.
All eyes were on Bruce, watching as he walked over, looking down at the damage, then to Duke before letting out a soft sigh. Those blank white eyes never ceased to make Duke nervous when he felt he did something wrong.
“I am not mad. Please put on some shoes and grab a broom to help clean up.” Bruce trilled, tone calming, reinforcing that he wasn't mad.
Really Duke knew that, knew that Bruce would not lash out even if he was.
Jason and Dick would beat the tar out of him if he did.
Still, though, this was one of Bruce's trays.
Even though they didn't know why it was so important to him, the point was that it was important to him, and Duke couldn't help the lace of guilt still gripping at him as he helped sweet up the last of it while Bruce picked out the crystals and what was left of the candle.
“Follow me,” Bruce said once he was done beginning to walk down one hallway.
“Where too?” Duke asked, glancing nervously at his siblings, still watching.
“To get replacements,” Bruce explained in that same tone that assured Duke he was not in trouble.
All the same, Duke followed wearily down one of the hallways that no one ever went down, turning to a door that as far as Duke knew had always been locked.
Bruce said that some doors were locked because they held breakable family heirlooms inside.
Maybe this one was the same?
Or it held more of those odd trays that Bruce seemed to love so much.
Bruce paused in front of it, staring at the door as if stealing himself before opening it and walking in, gesturing for Duke to follow.
“Be careful in here,” he instructed before going over to the closet as Duke followed inside, seeing they had stepped into an old bedroom, the queen-sized bed holding a quilt folded neatly and tucked in, with a doctor's bag at the foot and a pair of loafers tucked underneath. Old bookshelves holding volumes of what appeared to be photo albums and on the end table-
Oh.
That's why this door was closed off.
It was a framed photo of an older man dressed in a stiff suit with an amused expression on his face as he appeared to be cooking.
This was Alfred's room.
Duke had always heard about Alfred. Bruce shares the information like you would gospel, making it hard not to respect the man. They had never known where Alfred had stayed or where his stuff was.
Now here Duke was having the honor to see it, everything from the old shoes to the tea set giving off something comforting almost, something that told Duke that it was alright, and there was no need to be worried as Bruce dug through one of the closets, presumably for replacements.
Duke couldn’t help it, walking around more, eyes landing on an out-of-place brightly colored wall hanging with a note tied to it with twine.
“To my favorite customer, I loved getting to meet you little demon :) try the rosemary next time -Esther”
Esther… that name sounds familiar…
“She owned an apothecary.”
Duke jumped at that, twirling around to see Bruce holding an array of similar trays and candles.
“I-what?” Duke asked, looking at the wall hanging.
Bruce's lips moved up a fraction at that, on any other person it would be a smirk.
“Alfred had… questions about me when I first died. She helped a lot. Makes Damian's favorite blankets now.” Bruce answered warmly.
Duke relaxed a little,
“Oh, Alfred was her favorite customer?” Duke asked, Bruce, huffed a laugh.
“He went in several times a week in the beginning, also I think she liked the number of baked goods he would bring her when he stopped by.” Bruce smiled before pausing for a moment then going over to one of the shelves and pulling out an album before flipping it open to reveal a truly startling photo of young bruce with a young woman, hair braided and tied into a bandana with a bunch of bracelets and necklaces on.
“Alfred once said that she was like his free-spirited niece. Came over for several holidays.” he hummed.
“Does… she know about us?” Duke asked slowly.
Bruce hummed.
“She never confirmed anything, though I do think she suspects..” he sighed, flipping to another page that had the three of them on Hanukkah Esther and Alfred looking a little older while Bruce looked about the same age.
“Any time she came over though there was always the condition that Alfred had to make Baklava, apparently he was the only one in Gotham who actually made it somewhat decently,” he explained showing the next photo of Alfred pulling out large trays of said dessert.
“I got banned from the kitchen whenever he made it.”
Duke grinned at that
“Why? Did you keep stealing it?” he asked.
Bruce shrugged.
“I liked the texture of it.” he trilled simply making Duke grin more as a beat of silence passed over them before he spoke again.
“I like when you talk about him.'' Watching as Bruce got that constipated look he held whenever dealing with more than one emotion.
“I think we all do.” Duke pushed looking up to one of the vents in the corner.
Bruce followed his gaze before sighing.
“Come Out.” he groaned.
As suspected Dick and Cass came out of the vents as well as Jason, Steph, Tim, and Damian from the hallway.
“Ok but you never unlock the doors, it's fair that we’re curious!” Dick argued.
“ I guess we know who the favorite is!” Jason trilled back.
Bruce sighed.
“I don't have favorites…” he said.
“You like Cass cause she’s adorable and Duke cause he knows how to say please and is really good at looking cute when he’s in trouble. Can we look at pictures now?” Steph quipped to Bruce already heading up to one bookshelf, hand hovering over one album, waiting for Bruce's ok.
In reality, they all knew they would sneak back in later regardless.
Bruce seemed to know as well, nodding his head as each kid rushed to grab an album, beginning to look through all the photos and reading the little descriptions and notes in Alfred's neat handwriting on each one.
Duke could almost feel like he was with Alfred when in there, if the atmosphere was anything to go by, the longer they sat in the room, the more welcome he felt. Duke almost felt glad that he broke that tray.