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2022-07-23
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2022-09-10
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Go to sleep

Summary:

Dick snuggled into Bruce's arms, "I don't want to be alone. Can I sleep here?"

Bruce was petrified. What could he answer? No, you can't, I'm working on a very important case that could get Sionis arrested.

But Dick had come to him for comfort, he trusted Bruce to put everything aside and calm him. Like a parent.

---------------------

Where Bruce is still new to the whole parenting thing and Alfred found a surefire way to get him to go to sleep: send his children.

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

 

 

 

"Bruce?"

 The man looked up from the file he was examining and saw Dick standing in the doorway, Superman's blanket draped over his shoulders and held tightly like a shield.

 " Bad dream?" Bruce asked. 

 The boy nodded stiffly, "The fall. I cannot stop them."

 Bruce understood that.  For months after his parents died, he too had dreamed of that damned night.  His mind was full of what if.

 What if I was quieter?

 What if I hadn't insisted on going to see that movie?

 If I had been braver?

 

He never found an answer to any of those questions.  It was a torture he still underwent today, twenty years later.

The child approached Bruce. He threw himself into the adult's arms.

Dick snuggled into Bruce's arms, "I don't want to be alone. Can I sleep here?"

 Bruce was petrified.  What could he answer?  No, you can't, I'm working on a very important case that could get Sionis arrested.

 But Dick had come to him for comfort, he trusted Bruce to put everything aside and help him.  Like a parent.

Bruce had no idea what he was doing most of the time, and he feared he would harm Dick more.  But nights like this showed him that maybe he wasn't incapable. A bit rude, but still caring. Alfred's words, not his. 

 "Sure, chum."

 "Will you stay?"

 "I won't move from here," he promised to the kid.

 Reassured, Dick settled into the big bed, and after five minutes his eyes were closed, with Bruce stroking his head with his free hand.

 Bruce could still work on the case, he was close to solving it.  But the warmth of the child next to him sent signals to his tired brain.

 Rest, you are tired, take a break.

He tried, but his mind didn't help him. Bruce didn't sleep for thirty hours, moving forward thanks to spite and adrenaline.

He had trained himself to endure worse, to overcome the limits of his body.  He should be fine.  

He wasn't.

In the end, he accepted the inevitable. 

 Five minutes, Bruce told himself.

 He'll close his eyes for five minutes and then go back to work.

 

 

 The next time he opened his eyes, it was past noon.

 

 

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

 

 

 

 

Years passed, Dick's nightmares lessened, but not his desire for justice.

No one could understand him more than Bruce, but he had wanted a different path for the boy.

When Dick was little, Bruce could stop him from wearing a costume and patrolling with him, but now the boy was fifteen, he had trained, and wanted to help Batman.

Bruce hadn't been happy to see Robin the first time on the field, but there wasn't much he could do to get his son to give up.

Bruce became Dick's shadow, no criminal could get close to Robin without Batman intercepting him.

And soon, if Batman was the shadow, Robin was the light, someone more reassuring to turn to. Robin wasn't scary.

Thanks to this, Bruce gained another child when seven-year-old Jason Todd was rescued by Robin from human traffickers and refused to part with the teenager.

Jason was brash and tough, Gotham embodied in its pain, misery and hope.

He didn't hesitate to call Bruce a sad wet cat man and he and Dick were inseparable.

So it was no surprise when Bruce found them in his bedroom at two in the morning, equal determination of their looks.

"Alfred says you have to sleep!" the younger said, supported by Dick.

"Jason, this case is ..."

"The case is important, Penguin could go to jail for years, blah blah blah."

Jason looked at him, unimpressed, "The judges are all corrupt, after a couple of months he'll go out and do the same shit again."

"What Jason meant," Dick stepped in to prevent another type of collapse of their guardian. "You're tired. You haven't slept in forty-three hours, and you might make mistakes. You always say I can't be on patrol too long not to get tired."

"You have school," Bruce said softly.

"Everyone needs sleep. Criminals too," Dick noted. 

"Crime never sleeps."

Both boys groaned. Dick said, "I owe you twenty dollars, Jaybird."

"The easiest twenty dollars of my life."

Bruce blinked, "You bet about ... what would I say?"

Jason shrugged, "It's not my fault that you look like an old cop from one of those black and white movies."

"I'm not old."

"This is something an old man would say," Jason pointed out.

Bruce had to fight the urge to laugh, stifled by a half yawn. He was getting soft, thanks first to Dick and now to Jason as well.

Alfred was probably happy with it, Bruce could see it from the way the butler's shoulders were more relaxed and the smile he tried to hide when he saw Bruce with the children.

The boys were right. He was tired. And he could leave out important details for the case.

"Okay. I'll sleep. But only two hours."


Dick smiled in that mischievous way that promised trouble, and in an instant he and Jason were in bed next to Bruce.


"We will check that you are really asleep," the teenager said.


"And that you don't wake up before dawn," Jason added.


The real dynamic duo were Jason and Dick, not Batman and Robin.


For this time, Bruce will give it to them.

 

 

 

Chapter 3

Chapter Text

 

 

 

Dick was on patrol, Jason was with him.

Bruce wasn't thrilled to have both of his children out on the streets of Gotham without him, but his broken leg made it difficult for him to follow them.

He had made a lot of recommendations to both of them, had asked Dick not to underestimate his opponents and, above all, to come back soon.


Dick had assured Bruce that he would be fine, while Jason had fed up, "We're professionals, old man. Nothing's going to happen."

Spoken by a thirteen-year-old, he didn't make him feel comfortable at all.


"They're good. I trained them," was what he kept repeating, but logic could do little in the face of a father's anxiety.

Alfred was in the cave, he was monitoring them. He had forbidden Bruce to come near, reminding him of the doctor's orders for absolute rest.

Bruce had never been very good at obeying orders, and despite the meds and forty hours without sleep, he didn't want to rest. Not until his children returned.

Fortunately, Alfred already knew what to do.

"Bruce? Am I disturbing you?"

Bruce looked up from the files. If it weren't for his training, he would hardly have heard the little voice.


Tim had been with them for almost two months, but he was a silent presence, he didn't do much to let people know he was there.


It broke Bruce's heart remembering why.

Tim was so small. Nobody would have thought he was nine.

Not him, nor Jason who found him on a patrol and declared "Hey, I found our shutterbug!"

They had driven him home. But as soon as Jason saw the mausoleum that was Drake Manor, he hugged Tim and said, "Fuck them, he's ours."


Bruce hadn't even objected. Drake Manor was no place for a small child, unsupervised and left to fend for himself. His lawyers managed to get him temporary protection, without particular fights from the Drakes.

He didn't know whether to prefer it or not.

"No, Tim. You never bother. What happened? You had a nightmare?"

Tim shook his head, "I'm scared. I don't want to be alone."

"Oh…"

"The room is too big, too dark, I thought… I thought I came back."

And he didn't want to go back to the solitude of his old home.


It was understandable. Bruce had sought solitude as a child, he had become a recluse, preferring to go out a little, but he had read that children needed constant presence in their life for proper development.

Loneliness was not for normal children.


"Do you want to sleep here?"


The child's gaze lit up, "May I?"


"Yup. "


Tim didn't expect it, incredulous even for that little attention, as if he didn't think he deserved it.


Bruce would burn the world for that baby to keep him warmer.


By now, it was a script already seen. The ending, the same. Shortly after Tim, Bruce fell asleep too.


(In the morning, Jason and Dick were there too. His family was there.)

 

 

 

Chapter 4

Chapter Text

 

 

 

Bruce didn't expect to have a son.

Correction; Bruce didn't expect to have a biological son.

It was necezzary a certain physical activity which required a deep knowledge and trust in the partner that he could not afford, and with whom he did not feel comfortable.

Yet here he is, cradling his one-year-old baby, trying to get him to sleep and with no idea what he was doing.

Did he want to curse Talia and her crazy experiments? Yes, and a lot too.

She had created a child without Bruce's knowledge using his DNA, and she had brought Damian to him as soon as she realized that the League of Assassins wasn't the place for him.


(Bruce suspected there was more in the story. He suspected there were power struggles within the League and Ra's was at a disadvantage

He didn't care, it wasn't his business. The baby, however, was a whole other story. .)


"Damian ... please ... I have to work on a case..."

The plea didn't have the desired effect.

Damian wasn't crying, but Bruce knew something was wrong. The child was upset and he didn't know how to help him.

Maybe he missed his mother. He was in a strange place with strange people and he missed her.

Bruce couldn't replace her.

"I have no idea what I'm doing ..."

Damian was staring at him, eyes so similar to his, the same serious frown. He seemed to judge him.

Bruce deserved his hate: he was little more than a sketch of a man, a mass of darkness that believed he could live with others, his only reason for existence was revenge, justice and ...

Plump little hands grabbed his cheeks hard.

Damian was demanding his attention.

"Fawther."

"Yeah, chump. I'm your father. And you should sleep."

"No," and he became more attached to Bruce.

Bruce was confused. Did that mean Damian didn't want to sleep? Or that he didn't want his father to go away?

Getting an answer from such a small child was impossible (he felt warm at the thought that Damian was latching on to him. Maybe he was doing something good.)

He sat in the chair, stroking the baby's back.

He began to hum softly, his voice a low, soothing murmur. He didn't put Damian to sleep instantly, but the baby was lulled by the parent's voice.

Result? Two hours later they were both so tired that they fell asleep.

 

 


(Dick took pictures on his way back from patrol. Seriously, how could he not take them? They were so cute!)