Archive of Our Own ^beta

Dick

When he took in Dick, Bruce was wholly unprepared to be a parent. He had known this almost immediately after making the decision, of course, but he hadn’t known the magnitude until he realized just how many of his bad habits he’d passed on to his eldest.

The worst of them was the tendency to keep going until he physically couldn’t. This was a habit Bruce had developed early on in his training, and it had only gotten worse when he took to the rooftops as Batman. In hindsight, that particular habit was one of the many things he probably shouldn’t have exposed Dick to at the ripe old age of nine, but there wasn’t much he could do about it now.

What he could do right now, however, was get Dick off of the banister and into his bed.

“Richard John.” He lets a bit of the Batman growl enter his voice, relishing in the way Dick’s shoulders tense almost imperceptibly. Dick hadn’t been Robin for nearly a decade now, but the instinct to obey Batman’s orders was deeply ingrained in his son.

Unfortunately, the instinct to ignore Batman’s orders was just as deeply ingrained in his son, just like it was in all of his Robins.

Bruce’s eldest seems determined to send him to an early grave, if his sock clad feet perched on the banister are any indication. Dick was a highly capable acrobat, Bruce knew this, but he also knew that Alfred polished the banisters daily and his son was wearing his favorite, Superman-themed fuzzy socks.

“Hey, B.” Dick turns to shoot Bruce a cheerful grin, feet steady and body relaxed. “Wanna see me do a flip?”

He knows his son is going stir crazy. He’d only just gotten the cast off of his leg, and he still had one on his arm keeping him from going on patrol. He knows this. But he also knows that Dick is one wrong move away from plummeting to the hardwood floor at Bruce’s feet, a sight he would really prefer not to see.

“I want to see you get down from there right now.” There is a hint of a threat in his voice, although what he’s threatening Dick with he’s not sure. He's sure he can find something to use.

Dick’s socks allow him to easily turn so he’s looking down at Bruce from the second story, and Bruce clenches his jaw against a gasp at the sudden movement.

“Relax, Bruce.” Dick’s voice is light, even as he lifts his recently healed leg to balance on his good leg. “I’ve been doing stuff like this for as long as I can remember. Literally.”

Bruce does gasp, albeit quietly, when Dick switches legs with a leap, landing confidently on his weaker leg. Bruce can tell that Dick noticed his gasp by the way his eyes hold a mischievous glimmer that hadn’t been there before.

“B,” his son gasps in faux outrage. “Do you not trust me up here?” Still balanced on his weaker leg, his son extends his other leg in front of him. “I gotta say, that hurts. It hurts me right here.”

As his cast covered arm moves to place his hand on his heart, his knee buckles. The months that his leg had spent in a cast had finally caught up to his now weakened muscles, and Dick slipped from the freshly polished banister to the hardwood floor of the story below.

Dick hadn’t been exaggerating his talent and proclivity for elevated surfaces. His son had been trained before he’d met Bruce on how to take a fall from much higher than that, and he maneuvered instinctively, letting his momentum dissipate with an easy roll when he hit the ground.

He popped up right in front of Bruce, but his weaker leg was telling him to get back to bed it seems, because it buckled underneath him again.

This time, Bruce is able to catch him, sliding his son’s healthy arm over his shoulder and wrapping one of his own around his waist. His heartbeat hammers in his ears and he avoids looking at his son for a few seconds.

For just a moment, Bruce had been back in the circus tent, watching John and Mary Grayson falling. He hadn’t realized just how much Dick had grown up to look like his father until his vision was flickering between the two.

“Bed. Now.” He manages to growl out, shooting his son a glare as he starts towards Dick’s room. Dick, to his credit, doesn’t argue, instead shuffling along with Bruce. The socks that had been so dangerous earlier are on Bruce’s side now, allowing his son to support his own weight without being able to go in any direction other than the one Bruce wants him to.

It’s easy enough to get his son upstairs and down the hallway, even despite the fact that Dick has stopped walking and instead has wrapped his arms around Bruce and let the older man drag him.

As Bruce opens the door, he laments the fact that his son has grown since he was nine years old. As he maneuvers his uncooperative son into his bed, his back laments that fact. It also laments the fact that his body has aged since Dick was nine.

“I’m fine, B. I’ve been taking falls like that for like, my whole life. That was nothing.” Dick’s keeps his body unhelpfully limp as Bruce tucks his limbs under the covers one at a time.

“Hrn.” Is Bruce’s only response, and he resolutely ignores the teasing grin from his son. Bruce allows himself a few more seconds of worrying over his eldest, but when his hands begin to tuck in his adult son without his permission, he curls them into fists and straightens from where he’d been stooped over the bed..

Dick’s smile is still teasing, even if something warmer has entered his eyes. He extricates his arms from where they had been tucked before Bruce regained control of his hands and crosses them over his chest.

“Y’know,” He begins conversationally, his tone immediately putting Bruce on alert. “I’m an adult. You’re not the boss of me anymore, I could totally go back out there if I wanted to.”

Bruce keeps his face impassive, confident that his son can feel his skepticism in his gaze.

“I was trained by Batman. I could totally sneak out of the manor and be out as Nightwing before you could stop me.” Dick’s expression is smug, but the glimmer in his eyes is daring Bruce to speak.

Bruce takes the dare, even if he isn’t yet sure why Dick is giving it.

“Before I could stop you, maybe. Doubtful, but possible. Alfred, on the other hand, would be on you before you could get down the stairs.” It’s not the right thing to say, he knows instantly from the annoyed disappointment on Dick’s face. But he quickly wipes it off and replaces it with a cocky expression that does absolutely nothing to convince Bruce that it’s real.

“I’m not afraid of Alfred.”

And that’s a lie, Bruce knows it’s a lie, because any of them would be afraid of Alfred in that particular scenario. But then he wonders why his son would lie about that and he realizes what Dick is actually doing. What he’s asking for without asking, what he’s offering Bruce without offering, what he’s been saying without saying.

“Well then,” and Bruce smiles at his son. “I guess someone will just have to keep an eye on you while you rest then, won’t they?” Then his hands are back on sheets covering his son, pulling them back as he slides into the bed next to him.

Dick is already moving over, lifting his head just enough for Bruce to fit his arm underneath it. Once they’re both settled, Bruce is struck with a reminder of just how long it’s been since Dick was a little boy. The long legs, the muscular shoulders, and the thick head of dark hair is all that’s left of the knobby knees, bony shoulders, and the unruly mop of hair of the nine year old boy he’d taken in all those years ago.

“Go to sleep, Dick.” His voice is impossibly soft, the tone reserved for the ears of his children, and occasionally Alfred, only. He lifted a hand, resting it gently on the crown of his son’s head where it lay on his chest. “Rest.”

He can already tell that sleep is overcoming Dick, who only furrows deeper into his chest with grumble. “You really aren’t the boss of me.”

“I know son,” Bruce begins to gently stroke Dick’s hair, a fond smile tugging at his lips as he looks down at the boy. “I know.”

Cass

If Bruce didn’t know any better, he’d say that Cass was just another one of his children who’d picked up his worst habit. But he did know better, and he knew that Cass hadn’t just picked up this habit. No, it had been trained into her. Trained into her by a father who didn’t have a daughter, but a weapon, and who treated her as such.

There were many reasons to despise David Cain, but the way he had raised Cass was perhaps the worst of them.

So when Bruce woke in the middle of the night, a fluttering sense of wrongness in his chest, he knew that his daughter was awake somewhere.

It had been a rough night, the case they’d been working a success in technicality only. Technically they’d found the trafficking ring they’d been tracking for weeks. Technically they’d succeeded in taking down said trafficking ring. But three of eighteen women in captivity were dead. Two had been dead before they’d even arrived, and the third was a casualty of the gunfire from the traffickers when Batman had arrived.

When they weren’t able to save everyone, when their interference led to casualties, it affected all of them.

But when those casualties were people who had been treated like property, like inanimate objects, it affected Cass more than anyone.

So Bruce shuffled around the manor, making no effort to conceal his presence as he methodically entered every room. In situations like this, it would do you no good to go look for Cass. If she didn’t want to be found, you would be searching for hours.

You didn’t find Cassandra, she found you.

Cass found him after he’d been wandering for half an hour. The second he passed through the doorway to the third floor gymnasium, she stilled, relaxing out of the stance she’d been practicing. She shot Bruce a glance over her shoulder, eyes sweeping over him as her chest heaved from exertion.

He couldn’t help but wonder how long she’d been here avoiding sleep, how long she’d spent working on a single move if the girl who’d been trained to fight since birth was silently gasping for breath.

For a moment, Bruce thinks about what he will say. Words have never been his forte, a fact made abundantly clear any time he attempts to pair them with his feelings. He loves his children, all of them, so much, he just can’t say it.

Over the years, all of his children have come to recognize this about him. They know he loves them, he’s sure of it. But even so, Bruce’s inability to properly convey his emotions has caused an argument or two with every child.

Every child except Cass.

As much as Bruce loathes David Cain, and as much as he hates himself every time he feels this way, he can’t help but feel grateful for Cass’s ability to know his feelings without needing him to say anything out loud. It’s pure selfishness, but her constant approval reinforces in him that he is a good father, even if his words get in the way sometimes.

Whatever Cass sees as he searches for unnecessary words is enough for her to march over and wrap her arms around his waist. Bruce can’t help the sigh of relief that escapes him as he wraps his arms around her. This he can do, no talking, no thinking, just hold his daughter in his arms and keep her safe.

Bruce can tell when Cass starts crying. Not because she starts to sob, not because of hitched breaths or shaking shoulders. No, Cass goes unnaturally silent and still when she cries, even more so than usual, which is saying a lot.

Another thing he can thank David Cain for.

Bruce doesn’t speak, doesn’t try to move them, he just rubs soothing circles across her back as tears steadily soak his shirt. When Cass starts to move again, deep, slow breaths expanding her ribcage, Bruce knows she’s almost ready to go to sleep.

Finally, her head draws back from where it had been pressed into the crook of his neck, eyes red and dried tear tracks on her face. She sends him a gentle, tired smile, and Bruce responds with one of his own.

Then, he gathers her into his arms and stands. He is struck at once by how small she is. It’s not even that she is small, it’s that his other children are so large. Dick, Jason, even Tim was taller and broader than Cass, if not by much. Damian had recently hit a growth spurt that left him an inch taller, and Duke was slowly but surely catching up to Dick’s height. Cass was the smallest of them all, a fact that was often forgotten when they watched her fight.

As they make the trek back to her bedroom, Bruce relishes that he has one child who won’t grow any bigger, won’t make it any more difficult for him to carry, to protect.

When they reach her door, Bruce easily opens her door one handed–and by easily he means he was able to do it without jostling his daughter too much or breathing too heavily–and deposits her on the bed.

Cass crawls under the covers and immediately reaches her hand out, eyes wide and sad as she blinks up at him. Bruce takes her hand without thinking, halfway into the bed before she starts pulling on it.

When she has Bruce settled where she wants him, Cass adjusts, placing her head over his heart and wrapping an arm around his waist. Bruce returns the favor, wrapping one arm around her and bringing his other hand up to soothingly rub her head, fingers buried in her dark hair as his nails brush against her scalp.

Not a day goes by that he doesn’t wish he could have saved his daughter from her childhood. But not a day goes by where he isn’t entirely grateful that he has her now.

Jason

If Bruce had realized that this particular bad habit was the one that his children were going to pick up, he would have tried much harder to hide it from them. It was hard enough to take care of himself when he was sleep deprived, much less his children.

It had been much easier to make them sleep when they were small, and young, and actually lived in the manor. But now, as Bruce Wayne climbed the stairs of a dingy, overpriced Crime Alley apartment, hood pulled low over his face and sunglasses covering his eyes despite the late hour, he considered how difficult it would be to make all of his children live at the manor again.

Dick was already there more often than not, and Tim almost never stayed the night at his apartment anymore. But the biggest challenge to reuniting his family under one roof lay on the other side of the worn down door Bruce now faced.

He raises a hand to knock, but before he can move his fist towards the door it is swinging open. Bruce keeps his face carefully impassive, even as he sweeps his gaze over his second eldest son and the gun now pointed at him.

Jason’s eyes are cloudy with exhaustion, and the bags under them are almost certainly the most impressive in the family at the moment. There’s a layer of stubble on his face that suggests that it’s been a few days since he last picked up a razor, and the way the gun is slightly wobbling in Jason’s shaky grip indicates he likely hasn’t eaten a good meal in that time either.

“Can I come in?” Bruce keeps his voice light, free of any expectations as he carefully looks past the gun to look his son in the eyes. It takes a few seconds for any sort of recognition to seep into Jason’s eyes, and a few seconds more for Bruce’s words to penetrate the fog clouding his mind.

Instead of replying, Jason merely lowers the gun and sneers, but he leaves the door open as he walks away and Bruce interprets that to be an invitation.

Inside, there is soup in a pot on the stove, the stove turned off and the bowl next to it empty. Jason has collapsed onto the couch, but Bruce can see the calculating green eyes tracing his every movement over the arm of the couch. The gun still rests in his son’s hand, but Bruce had heard the click of the safety when Jason had lowered it earlier at the door.

Bruce carefully shuts the door behind him and moves to the stove. The soup is cold, likely having been in the pot for hours at this point, but he carefully pours it into the bowl. Jason needed to eat, and Jason needed to sleep, and the sooner the better for both of those things.

When Bruce approached with the soup, Jason let out a sigh and placed the gun on the coffee table as he sat up. His eyes never left Bruce as he neared, even as he took the bowl with a glare.

Bruce sat at the opposite end of the couch, carefully not looking at Jason. Occasionally, he was struck with the urge to speak, to prompt Jason to talk about it. But every time he opened his mouth to do so, Jason glared, and Bruce was reminded how hypocritical it would be for him to urge others to talk about feelings.

It wasn’t until the bowl was sitting empty on the coffee table that Jason spoke. “You can go now.” His voice was hoarse, and Bruce tried not to imagine the screams that had made it so. “You’ve done your little check up, I’m alive, I’ve eaten, see you next time Scarecrow manages to get the jump on me.”

“When was the last time you slept, Jason?” Bruce tries very hard to keep any sort of judgment out of his voice, but judging by the way Jason’s tired eyes immediately shutter, he fails.

“Fuck off, Bruce.” The low grumble of Jason’s voice would be more effective if it wasn’t more of a hoarse rasp. “I didn’t ask for a therapy session, and I definitely didn’t ask for you to show up at my door, unannounced.”

Bruce clenches his jaw and slowly inhales through his nose, knowing that he can’t respond to the words Jason baits him with. If he responds then he knows that it’ll start an argument, and, although he never wants to argue with his son, he especially doesn’t want to tonight.

Instead, he waits patiently, although patience never was his virtue. The silence grows, and Bruce ignores the prickle of Jason’s gaze on his cheek as he resolutely stares at the black screen of the tv.

His patience pays off, though, and Jason lets out a quiet curse as he lowers his head to his hands.

“Three days, B.” His voice is muffled and sounds so pathetic that Bruce finds his hands twitching with the urge to hold him, but he manages to keep them from doing anything but twitch.

That had been the response he’d been expecting. Three sleepless nights since they’d encountered Crane. Out of all of them, Jason was usually the safest when dealing with Scarecrow. His helmet had a built-in filtration system that was frequently updated with the latest technology in the rebreathers that everybody else wore.

But all it took for him to be taken down was a tiny, unnoticeable crack in that shiny, red metal.

Jason reacted worse to fear toxin than the rest of them did. Not during the trip, they all tended to scream themselves hoarse or claw angry red lines into their skin if they didn’t get the antidote in time. No, Jason’s suffering didn’t begin until after. Fear toxin drew the Pit to the surface, until it was a constant whisper in the back of his head, goading and threatening and unrelenting.

Fear toxin brought the Pit, and the Pit brought paranoia. It left Jason in a constant state of alertness, unable to relax lest he be attacked, and unable to be around others lest he attack.

It usually only took a good night’s rest for the Pit to subside when this happened, but Jason usually didn’t get a good night’s rest until he passed out from sheer exhaustion, unable to physically stay awake.

“You can sleep now, Jason.” Bruce focuses very hard on his voice this time, refusing to allow anything but love to show in his tone. “I’ll stay awake.”

I’ll protect you, is the assurance he doesn’t say. I’ll protect others from you, is the assurance that he refuses to say.

It’s a few seconds before Jason lifts his head out of his hands, and Bruce’s careful facade crumbles. There are tears in his tired, red-rimmed eyes, and the relief on his face is guarded by quickly dissolving doubt. When Bruce slowly lifts his arm to the back of the couch, a silent offer, the doubt disappears entirely and Jason slumps forward.

His son’s head lands roughly against his shoulder, but Bruce doesn’t make a sound as he curls the arm on the back of the couch around Jason’s shoulder. Dark curls tickle his chin as Jason adjusts, and Bruce finds himself staring at the streak of white at the front, the reminder of what haunts Jason during his bouts with fear toxin.

Jason’s voice draws Bruce away from the warehouse, back to the dingy apartment they sit in.

“This doesn’t mean I’m not still mad at you.” Already sleep is claiming Jason, slurring his voice and pulling at his eyelids. “You’re still a fucking asshole.”

Bruce can’t remember exactly what Jason is mad at him for this time, and he’s pretty sure Jason can’t either, but he smiles and hums an affirmative anyway, lifting his hand to gently run his fingers through those dark curls.

“If you say so, Jaylad.”

Tim

Some days, Bruce could convince himself that he wasn’t to blame for Tim’s terrible sleeping habits. After all, the boy had been following them across the rooftops for years before Bruce had met him.

But Bruce doesn’t like to think about his son alone on the streets of Gotham at the ripe old age of nine, so he’s willing to take the blame for it.

Regardless of who is to blame, Tim’s insomnia isn’t as bad as his siblings like to tease him about it being. He drinks more water than coffee, he sleeps as regularly as any of them, he’s really very healthy in regards to his sleep schedule.

Most of the time.

Occasionally, and admittedly not as rarely as Bruce would hope, Tim wouldn’t let go. He’d find a case, one that couldn’t be solved in a day, and he would latch on as if he was drowning and it was his preserver.

Okay, that particular tendency might be something he picked up from Bruce, but there was really no need to assign blame at the moment.

All this to say, it wasn’t uncommon to find Tim at the Batcomputer at an ungodly hour of the night. Which is why Bruce merely sighed when he spotted his son hunched over the keyboard and muttering to himself.

“Tim.” He brings a hand up to rub tiredly at his face. “Go to sleep.” He should have noticed earlier, should have seen the signs that it would be a long night for his son. Tim had been unfocused during their briefing after patrol, and he hadn’t come upstairs with everyone else, promising to ‘be right up’.

He should have realized the second he’d been unable to sleep that one of his children was awake. That was always the issue. Instead, he’d taken melatonin and slept through every alarm he had, waking up nine hours later. Then, he’d come down to the Cave and realized that his son had been working that entire time.

Tim doesn’t flinch, merely raising a hand to wave dismissively at Bruce. So it’s gonna be like that then.

“Tim.” Bruce decides to try again, give his son one more opportunity to do it the easy way. “Go. To. Sleep.” He allows a bit of Batman to creep into his voice, but Tim had long since outgrown his ardent admiration that caused him to follow Bruce’s orders without question. Life was much easier when that tone could get his kids to listen. He didn’t have to worry about what he was saying so much as how he was saying it.

Tim does look at him this time, if only to send him an unimpressed look, one eyebrow raised, before he returns back to the screen.

It’s easy, comically easy, to get the drop on Tim when he gets like this. All of his focus is on the case at hand, none of it on his surroundings.

Or his well-being.

This is why Bruce is able to grab his son and fling him over his shoulder with almost no trouble. Tim, for whatever reason, seems shocked by this. He lets out an outraged squawk and half heartedly beats at Bruce’s back.

“Bruce, what the hell?” Exhaustion is obvious in Tim’s voice, even with the outrage he’s trying to focus on.

“I tried to ask nicely.” Bruce allows his amusement to show in his voice, his grip on Tim’s legs unwavering even as he kicks. Bruce much prefers carrying his children in his arms, but he can’t deny that this is much easier these days. For instance, when he reaches Tim’s bedroom door, not only are his arms not aching, he has a free hand available to open the door with ease.

Bruce kicks the door shut behind him, ignoring Tim’s outrage, and focuses on navigating the minefield that is his son’s bedroom floor.

“I can’t believe that Alfred hasn’t quit.” He mutters to himself as he barely avoids stepping on something mold-covered. “Tim, how do you sleep in here?”

Tim is quiet, but a startled laugh escapes him as Bruce unceremoniously dumps him on the bed. The bed that is, thankfully, devoid of any food or clutter. Bruce is very appreciative of that fact as he collapses on top of Tim, pinning him to the bed.

“Bruce!” Tim complains again, pushing at Bruce to no avail. “I was almost finished. I’ll sleep soon, just let me go and finish it.”

Bruce ignores his son as he writhes underneath him, adjusting slightly so that one of Tim’s arms is pinned underneath his chest. Tim’s free arm takes the opportunity to hit him, but it’s easy enough to ignore. Bruce takes it as a sign that his son isn’t actually upset with him, because not only can Tim hit about ten times harder than he currently is, he can also get out of his position in about ten different ways.

“Sleep.” He adjusts again, wrapping both arms around Tim and flipping them over so he’s on his back, his son pinned against him.

“Work.” Tim argues, taking advantage of their new position to jab an elbow into Bruce’s stomach, but the fact that his arms are pinned between their bodies hinders its effectiveness.

Bruce keeps one arm firmly around Tim while the other lifts to gently scratch the hair at the nape of his neck. It works exactly as Bruce had expected, causing Tim to melt into his hold despite his grumbled protests.

“Tim,” he keeps his voice low, the arm around Tim loosening and that hand moving to rub circles on his back. “Nobody benefits if you fall off a roof because you haven’t slept in three days. Sleep.”

Tim’s voice is already drowsy, and Bruce grins as the only response his son can muster is a halfhearted grumble.

“When you wake up I’ll go over the case with you, help tie up whatever loose ends were left when I kidnapped you.” Those are the magic words, apparently, because Tim’s breathing almost immediately tapers into a soft whistle.

Bruce softly chuckles to himself, pressing a kiss to the top of his son’s head.

Duke

Bruce was sure Duke hadn’t lived with them for long enough to pick up the family habit, he was positive. After realizing the impact his habits were having on his children, Bruce was doing better, he was. He made sure to get at least six hours of sleep every night, and if he didn’t, then he at least didn’t let his children see.

Unfortunately, it didn’t seem that Duke had gotten the memo that Bruce wasn’t passing on this particular habit anymore.

Maybe it was contagious?

Either way, Duke was awake, and Bruce had a problem. He was expecting Duke’s insomnia tonight, he knew it was going to happen, but that still didn’t mean he knew how to get the boy back to sleep.

“Duke, kiddo, this isn’t healthy.” Bruce’s voice was nothing short of pleading, and if anyone ever tried to spread the word that Batman wasn’t above begging he would deny it, but it would be true. Whatever it took to get Duke to look away from the screen.

The screen that was currently displaying the live feed of the Joker’s cell at Arkham.

It had been a long 53 hours since the Joker escaped Arkham. The second the alert went out it was all hands on deck, and that included Duke. Bruce was worried about the boy. His day-shift schedule meant that he had a much more normal sleep schedule than the rest of them, he shouldn’t be used to pulling all-nighters and staying awake for over two days straight.

Yet here he was, three hours after they’d put the Joker back in Arkham and finished debriefing. The rest of them had gone to bed hours ago, and Bruce had been happy to join them, but he hadn’t been able to sleep. Something had been keeping him awake, so Bruce crept down to the Cave to blow off some restlessness.

Which led to right now.

Bruce stared helplessly at the young boy, at the bags under his reddened eyes, the way his thumb was almost twitching as it tapped his knee. He was pretty sure Duke hadn’t even blinked since he’d found him here.

He’d known Duke would have a hard time after tonight. It hadn’t even been a year yet since his parents, and the victim the Joker had left behind tonight would only serve as a reminder.

He knew that Duke was finding some sort of reassurance from this, knew it only reassured the boy that the Joker was locked up again and wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone else, but he also knew that Duke was only hurting himself.

When Duke doesn’t move, doesn’t blink, doesn’t react in any way to Bruce’s words or presence, he sighs.

As Bruce goes to turn off the screen, Duke’s hand reaches out and grabs his wrist. The boy’s eyes don’t leave the screen, his expression doesn’t change, but his grip is unrelenting and Bruce can see a muscle in his jaw tick.

So Bruce changes course. He stands behind the chair and places one hand on Duke’s shoulder, the other one rising to settle on his forehead, before he slowly slides it down over the boy’s eyes. He repeats this motion, over and over, his other hand squeezing Duke’s shoulder reassuringly.

When Bruce had first taken in Dick, he’d bought a lot of parenting books. He hadn’t realized that most of them were aimed for infants and toddlers, because when most people became parents that’s what age their children were. As such, he’d learned a lot of tips and tricks for babies that he’d never gotten to use.

At first, Duke tried to bat Bruce’s hands away, intent on nothing blocking his view of the man in the cell. But Bruce merely paused his movements, resuming as soon as Duke’s hand settled back into his lap.

Then came the tears. Hot, wet, tears began to appear with every brush of his hands against Duke’s eyelids. Bruce ignored them, keeping his movements even and rubbing circles into Duke’s shoulder with his thumb.

His eyes begin to stay closed between passes of Bruce’s hand, fluttering open every so often as if he’s fighting to stay awake. Bruce can’t reach to turn off the screen, not without moving his shoulder hand and Duke noticing, so he opts instead to slowly turn the chair so they’re facing away from it.

“This is not your fault, Duke.” He keeps his voice low and soothing, never faltering in his motions. “You did nothing wrong, and you can’t change anything by exhausting yourself.”

“But I can prevent it, Bruce. I can make sure it won’t happen again.” His exhaustion is evident in his voice, in the way it’s low and gravelly save for the occasional cracks.

Bruce shushes the boy absently, noting the way Duke’s eyes have been closed for 73 seconds.

“That is not your responsibility. And even if it were, this wouldn’t be the right way to go about it.” Bruce winces as he hears the unintentional harshness of his words. He wasn’t here to berate Duke, he was here to make him sleep.

Luckily, Duke either didn’t notice Bruce’s slip up, or he didn’t care.

Or, Bruce noted as he heard a faint snore, he had finally fallen asleep.

He slowly stilled his hands, waiting for any hint of awareness in Duke. When he was confident the boy was asleep, he slowly removed his hands. One reached to turn off the batcomputer, banishing the Joker’s presence from the cave.

Bruce couldn’t ignore the sigh of relief he let out once the screen turned black. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t half-expected Jason to walk downstairs with him on the screen, what with the way his luck had been going the past few days.

The next step is to carefully gather Duke in his arms, and start making his way to the boy’s room. Bruce ignores the fact that his arms feel fatigued by the time he reaches Duke’s room, he could carry the boy for hours if he needed to.

But he is very grateful that he doesn’t need to. Instead, he’s able to gently lay the other boy on the bed. He doesn’t want to risk waking Duke by trying to pull back the covers that he’s laying on top of, so he grabs a blanket from the end of the bed and drapes it over his sleeping form.

Once he’s satisfied, he stands, suddenly hesitant. With any of his other children, he would crawl into bed next to them. He would stroke their hair and be there for them when they woke up. And he wants to do that for Duke, but he doesn’t want to replace Duke’s parents. Doesn’t want to do something the boy wouldn’t want.

So he allows himself to lean forward and press a gentle kiss to the boy’s forehead, then he’ll leave.

Except Duke’s eyes are open when he pulls back, hazy with sleep, and his hand is gripping Bruce’s wrist again.

“Stay?” He asks, his voice hesitant but sure.

Bruce is climbing into the bed before he starts nodding, leaning against the headboard with a pillow behind his back. Duke adjusts so his head is supported by Bruce’s hip. He’s pretty sure his hipbone is digging into the boy’s skull, but Duke isn’t complaining so Bruce isn’t going to move.

Instead, he rests his hand on the side of Duke’s face, one hand skimming the short hair on the side of his head.

“Sleep, Duke,” He whispers. “I’ll wake you if he escapes.” They aren’t words Bruce would normally use to comfort one of his children, but he can tell they’re the right words by the way Duke relaxes almost immediately into sleep.

Damian

Bruce knows Damian’s insomnia isn’t his fault. He’s pretty sure it’s not a hereditary issue, and Damian arrived on his doorstep as the lightest sleeper known to man. His youngest son’s inability to sleep may not be Bruce’s fault, but right now it is his problem.

It’s pure luck that he happens to pass by his youngest’s bedroom. He’d already been in bed, ready to get started on his mandatory six hours of sleep, when the sudden urge to do one last bed check struck him. The entire family was in the manor tonight, and Bruce seldom passed up the opportunity to check up on his children.

However, before he can begin the rounds, he notices shadows moving under Damian’s door, and he starts towards it. As he approaches, he hears Damian’s voice murmuring something too quiet for him to hear.

Ever so gently, he reaches to push open the door. Damian is already turned to look at him by the time Bruce gets a glimpse of the boy.

“Damian, you should be asleep.” He admonishes gently, gaze sweeping over the cat curled in his son’s lap, the dog his feet are resting on, and the sketchpad on the desk in front of him.

“I’m perfectly well-rested, Father, there is no need for sleep at the moment.” Damian returns his gaze to the sketchpad, idly rubbing Titus with his foot as he draws. Bruce goes further into the room, standing behind Damian to look over his shoulder.

He recognizes the scene on the page, watching as Damian idly traces over a line that is much darker than the rest. It’s the view of the manor grounds from his bedroom window, a view that is currently dark.

“It’s two in the morning, Damian, and you’re thirteen years old. You’re a growing boy who needs his sleep.” He gently sets his hand on Damian’s shoulder and watches as his son hesitantly sets the pencil down. His now empty hand settles over the cat purring in his lap and begins to gently pass it over his fur.

Bruce waits a moment before speaking again.

“Do you want to talk about it?” He offers hesitantly, bringing his other hand to join the first on Damian’s shoulders. Damian shakes his head, eyes trained on Alfred as he pets him. Bruce nods to himself and focuses on applying a gentle squeeze to Damian’s shoulders as he waits.

After a few minutes, Damian changes his mind and opens his mouth.

“It’s foolish.” He mutters, shoulders slumping in a way that is uncharacteristic of him, a far cry from the poised confidence his son usually carries himself with. Bruce doesn’t respond, having learned over the years that it’s much easier to get his children to talk to him if he doesn’t try to talk first.

“I tried to sleep, I did.” He insists softly, a tinge of uncertainty underlying his words. “I just couldn't. So I decided to take the opportunity to improve my artistic skills.” The uncertainty is replaced with faux arrogance as he speaks, and Bruce smiles ruefully.

This happened occasionally, Damian’s apparently inexplicable insomnia. His son was a good actor, an even better liar, but Bruce was better at both and had learned his son’s tells over the years, so he never believed for a second that Damian just wasn’t able to sleep. Bruce had been League trained, he knew the importance they placed on constant vigilance, even in sleep. In his relatively short time with the League, Bruce had lost count of the times he’d been attacked in the middle of the night to test his awareness.

Damian had been with the League for a decade, and it pained Bruce to imagine how often his son had been awoken by someone trying to kill him.

“Let’s try again.” He urges, taking a moment to privately relish the gentleness he manages to instill in his own voice. “I’m having some trouble falling asleep too, so I’ll stay with you.”

Damian hesitates before he nods, carefully placing his feet on the floor around Titus and shifting Alfred into his arms. Bruce takes it as a testament to his son’s tiredness that he doesn’t even try to argue, only hesitating slightly.

Damian gently deposits Alfred on the bed before climbing in. Bruce follows him, carefully pulling the sheets up over the both of them as Alfred stands from his spot at the end of the bed and migrates towards the top to curl up next to Damian’s head.

Bruce reaches out to pull his son to his chest, ignoring the halfhearted protests from his son’s mouth. Damian’s body betrays his words, curling into Bruce and gripping his shirt.

“You’re safe here, Damian. You know that, right?” He gently assures his son, moving his hand to gently brush against his hair. “This isn’t the League, you’ll always be prepared and forewarned for training.”

Damian nods against him, fingers curling tighter in Bruce’s shirt. “I know, Father.” He assures. “You have told me before.”

They both tense slightly at the sudden added weight on the end of the bed before realizing that Titus has left his spot on the floor to join them. The dog curls up behind Damian’s knees, resting his head on his legs and staring up at them.

“I have,” Bruce continues, a fond smile pulling at his lips as he looks at the dog. “And I’ll keep telling you whenever you need me to.”

He focuses on keeping the rhythm of his hand steady against Damian’s hair, listening carefully as his son’s breathing slowly evens out until he slips into unconsciousness. Bruce has to resist the urge to pull him tighter, too much movement would wake him up after all, but he doesn’t resist the urge to gently press his lips to the messy hair under his chin.

Bruce may never quite forgive himself for leaving Damian in the clutches of the League of Assassins for so long, but he will do everything in his power now to undo as much of the damage he can.

Bruce

Bruce winced slightly when he looked at the clock. The red number four glared at him from the bedside table, a number he had no reason to be awake to see right now. That number was the reason he was hunched over paperwork on his bed, curtains pulled wide to allow the light from the full moon to illuminate it.

He was a proud man, but he wasn’t too proud to say that he didn’t want to face the lectures from his children or, god forbid, Alfred.

Unfortunately, Bruce’s children were some of the best detectives in the world, and Alfred seemed to have some sort of sixth sense.

His eyes shot to the door as it silently opened, and he winced as his daughter stuck her head inside just as silently. Cass’s dark eyes glittered with playful annoyance as she silently shut the door behind her.

“I’m almost done.” He offers futilely as she begins gathering up his paperwork. She sets it neatly on his desk then moves to close the curtains. The room darkens immediately, and Bruce blinks slowly until his eyes adjust, focusing on his daughter as she stares at him with his arms crossed.

“Six hours.” She states, making the statement sound like an order and an admonishment at the same time.

Bruce sighs, but he doesn’t even have a chance to lie down before his door is opening again and Duke is slipping inside. He shoots Cass a knowing look and circles to the other side of the bed, reaching to gently push at Bruce’s shoulder.

He opens his mouth to say something, though he isn’t quite sure what, when the door opens again. It’s Damian this time, and Bruce lets out a noise of disbelief. He’s not quite sure what is bringing his children to his room right now, but it’s growing more concerning as his door keeps opening.

“It is rather hypocritical of you to preach the importance of sleep to us all if you won’t take your own advice.” His youngest’s voice is haughty in the way it gets when he’s concerned, so Bruce merely smiles.

“You need to sleep, all of you.” He adjusts so he’s under the covers, although he leaves them scrunched around his waist as he extends his arms to the side. Cass moves immediately, sliding under the sheets with ease. She rests her head on his arm, but leaves a gap between their bodies intended for Damian, if the hand she extends towards him is any indication.

Duke moves with little hesitance, a marked improvement from when he’d first arrived, and cautiously takes his place on Bruce’s other side. At the same time, Damian crawls into the spot between Bruce and Cass with only a small sneer.

They’ve barely settled before the door opens again, this time with a slam and hushed arguing, a far cry from the silence from earlier.

“I don’t care, Tim, you haven’t slept in two days, you should be glad I’m not calling Kon.” It’s Dick’s voice that reaches Bruce first, but it’s Tim that he sees first, shoved inside by Dick’s tanned hands. All things considered, Tim doesn’t look as bad as he could, but Bruce can see that his son is beginning to fade from his caffeine induced spree.

Tim whirls on Dick to argue, but he’s cut off by a different voice behind Dick.

“Listen to him, Timmers, because my solution is to hit you upside the head with a blunt object.” Jason pushes Dick aside and grabs Tim, flinging him over his shoulder. In a few steps he’s standing next to the bed and he unceremoniously dumps Tim on it.

“You people need to stop flinging me around like a bag of potatoes.” Tim grumbles, rubbing the back of his head where it had collided with Bruce’s knee.

“Then maybe you should sleep every once in a while.” Dick suggests, following Tim to the bed and stretching across Duke and Bruce’s legs next to him, one hand curling into Tim’s shirt and the other wrapping around Damian’s ankle.

Damian lifts his head slightly, verifies that it’s Dick grabbing him and not Tim, and sniffs, satisfied, as he lays his head back on Bruce’s shoulder.

Jason turns to the door, but stops when the final resident of the manor steps through the door. Alfred raises an eyebrow, arms behind his back and spine as ramrod straight as ever, despite the hour.

“I should have known.” A fond smile makes its way onto Bruce’s face as he looks at Alfred. The man barely spares him a glance, an amused sparkle in his stern eyes.

Alfred nods towards the bed as he stares at Jason, and Jason lets out a disgruntled sigh as he shuffles towards them. He slides in next to Cass, who turns to press her back against Damian so that she can wrap her arms around Jason.

“Did you wake them all up, Alfred?” Bruce doesn’t bother to hide the amusement in his voice, taking a moment to appreciate being surrounded by his children.

“All but Master Tim, sir.” Alfred doesn’t quite conceal the fondness in his voice as he turns his disappointed gaze on Tim, who groans and buries his face into Dick’s shirt.

“Care to join us?” Bruce offers, causing soft laughter to sound from the people surrounding him.

Alfred lifts his chin, the barest hint of a smile on his face. “Not on your life, sir. Now, if any of you should need my assistance, I’ll be in my quarters.” He turns to leave, stopping to look back at them. “Though I’m sure you won’t need it for the next six hours or so, correct?”

Bruce smiles, looking around at his children again, before returning his gaze to Alfred. “I’m sure we can manage without you for that long.”

Alfred nods, shutting the door behind him as he leaves. The room is silent again, save for the breathing of the seven highly trained vigilantes in the room. Bruce can’t quite allow himself to close his eyes, too worried that one of his children will slip away the second he falls asleep.

He turns his head to look at the child he most expects to disappear as soon, finding Jason’s face turned towards him, staring back. Their eyes meet, and Bruce can only hope that whatever is showing in his doesn’t scare Jason back to Crime Alley for the night.

Jason lets out a sigh and rolls his eyes. “Quit staring and go to sleep.” He grumbles, closing his eyes and tilting his head onto Cass’s. Bruce ignores how that puts his head directly into the palm of his hand.

He focuses very hard on ignoring it.

“Close your eyes, asshole.”

He closes his eyes.

The sound of his children’s breathing surrounding him is better than melatonin, he decides, as he discovers that he can’t open his eyes again. Alfred, as always, knows him better than he knows himself.

If the solution to getting his children to sleep is Bruce himself, then it stands to reason that his children are the solution to getting him to sleep.

This may end up being detrimental to his sleeping habits, though, because if this is what he can expect whenever he avoids sleep, he may have to return to his insomniac tendencies.