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Winter had fallen across Gotham as a thick blanket of snow, and across the manor as the flu, raising everyone’s temperatures and tempers.
As Bruce stepped over a puddle of vomit—not left by one of his sons, this time, but Alfred the cat had decided to puke out of solidarity to his owner—he tried not to worry about Tim.
His middle child. The one with a compromised immune system. The one that forwent proper care of his body until he collapsed. The one that hadn’t escaped his fever delirium for the past five hours.
Alfred said not to worry, that he had Tim’s fever under control, but Bruce couldn’t help himself. He alone had escaped the sickness, but somehow that made him feel even worse. It was his fault, after all, that Tim had caught the flu.
Bruce had picked Damian up from school four hours before the boy began to vomit. Dick succumbed soon after, followed by Duke and Jason. Stephanie, as far as he was aware, was unaffected, but she remained as far from the manor as possible. Bruce’s darling Cass was in Hong Kong and would be until Alfred gave the infection zone the ‘all-clear.’
As soon as the first wave of sickness hit, Alfred locked down the manor to keep Tim safe. Bruce had waited two days, showed no symptoms, and persuaded his butler to let him quarantine with Tim.
Bruce had never become sick, but Tim had.
Tim had stayed miserable but lucid for three days, but this morning couldn’t recognize Bruce when he woke up. He nearly broke down the door in his haste to get Alfred, and the butler hadn’t let him inside since, as “Your hovering and fretting, Master Bruce, is enough to drive the hardest of men to tears.”
Alfred the cat blinked at Bruce wearily as it sat outside Damian’s door. “You feel under the weather, too, huh?”
The cat meowed plaintively and stood on its rear legs. It pawed at the door twice. Inside, a young voice groaned.
Bruce turned the door knob. Alfred the cat darted inside. By the time Bruce stepped into his youngest’s room, the cat had settled on Damian’s stomach as if it had laid there for hours.
“Hey, Dami,” Bruce said softly. He put a hand on Damian’s forehead: low-grade fever. “How are you feeling?”
Damian’s eyes cracked open. He regarded Bruce for a moment with the slits of green, then huffed. “Tt. Father, if you think one measly virus is enough to—” He cut himself off with three great, hacking coughs. Bruce wished he could take the sickness unto himself, but it didn’t work that way. All he could do was watch his son suffer.
“Do you want some water?” he asked, hushed. “Soup?”
Damian leaned against the pillows. He wheezed ever-so-slightly when he breathed. “I wish to sleep, Father.”
“Okay, Dami.” Bruce leaned down to kiss his boy’s forehead. The warm skin felt warmer against his lips, but Alfred said not to worry.
Before he could leave the room, Damian said, “Is Drake all right?”
Bruce paused and said, “He will be. Get some rest, okay?” He shut the door gently behind himself, knowing that if he didn’t, Damian would raise hell.
The next room was Duke’s. Bruce didn’t know Duke as well as his other children, but he cared for the boy deeply all the same. This time he knocked before entering.
A low groan permitted him entry.
“Hey, buddy,” Bruce said softly. He tried not to wrinkle his nose at the small mountain of used tissues on the ground by the bed or the untouched plates of food that piled up on the bedside table.
Glassy eyes met his. Duke’s hair was lopsided: smushed on one side where he slept, and unruly on the other. Dick would have a hell of a time fixing the twists, and Bruce knew that Duke felt worse when his hair wasn’t styled well, but the process of twisting his locks required more energy than either Dick or Duke could exert.
“Hey, kiddo,” Bruce repeated. Duke was half-in and half-out of his covers. His forehead blazed with heat, but his body shook, so Bruce tucked him back under the sheets. Shouldn’t someone sweat out a fever? He could have sworn that worked.
“Bruce?” Duke slurred. “This is the worst winter break ever.”
“I know,” said Bruce. “I’m sorry, Duke. You should recover within the next few days.”
“When my cult takes over,” the boy said, eyes bright with fever, “we’re eradicating germs.”
Bruce decided to ignore that concerning statement for the time being. He hummed, nodded, and patted Duke’s hot cheek, then exited the room.
He hesitated for only a moment outside of Jason’s new room. Sometimes, late at night, Bruce found himself looking for his son in his childhood room, but no one went in there anymore.
Again, he knocked.
A wordless snarl reached his ears.
Bruce took that as permission. He opened the door, stuck his head inside, and jerked it back just in time to avoid the Superman figurine that hit the door frame so hard it broke in two.
“Look what you did,” Jason complained.
It was now safe to enter (Jason only threw something at him once per visit unless Bruce really upset him) so Bruce padded through the room and stopped at the bed.
Tired and sick, Jason looked so young. He could have been thirteen-year-old Jason plucked out of Bruce’s memories, if not for the streak of white in his hair that jolted Bruce’s stomach every time he saw it.
“How are you feeling, Jaylad?” Bruce murmured.
“Like I’ve been puking my guts out for the last two days,” Jason snapped, the words heated but tone tired. “This is why I hate coming back. You and your fucking kindergarten are a virus breeding ground.”
“I know you hate being sick,” Bruce said softly. “I wish I could make it better.”
Jason’s mouth clicked shut. For a moment he eyed Bruce, wary and more alert than his other sons, and Bruce almost—almost—tensed to avoid a knife. Finally he settled further down in his covers and said, “You know what would make me feel better? Being left alone.”
“Okay, Jaylad,” said Bruce. But he saw the lost look on Jason’s face, and the way he curled his own arms around himself.
Bruce couldn’t hug Jason. He’d lost that privilege long ago. But he knew someone that could.
In stark contrast to his second eldest, his eldest son’s room had never been clean any time that Bruce could remember. He stepped over piles of dirty and clean clothes, a pile of tissues just like the one by Duke’s bed, and sifted through three comforters before finally unearthing a sweaty, pink-cheeked Dick, who hadn’t vomited once, but complained more than any of the other sick children combined.
He hadn’t woken when Bruce entered the room, so he shook his son’s shoulder.
Dick didn’t rouse.
“Hey, chum,” Bruce said. “Dick.”
Dick groaned and tried to open his eyes, but they refused to cooperate. As always, panic gripped Bruce tightly at the sight of any of his children sick, but years of dealing with an ill Dick kept him from flipping out. Illness made Dick tired, and a tired Dick was a cuddly Dick.
“Come on, chum,” Bruce said. He grunted and lifted Dick from the bed—Bruce wasn’t as young as he once was, and Dick wasn’t as small as he once was—to carry him out the door. Dick barely stirred until the sound of Jason’s angry voice roused him completely.
Jason’s head snapped up when his door opened, and the moment he saw Dick, he said, “No. Absolutely not.”
“Jaylad,” said Bruce.
Jason threw back the covers. “I’m leaving. No way am I—” He tried to stand and went sickly pale. Bruce froze—to catch Jason would be to drop Dick; to hold Dick would be to let Jason fall—but Jason recognized the futility of his protests and flopped down onto the bed. “Don’t you put him in here with me,” he said, pointing.
Bruce held eye contact as he slowly laid Dick on the bed next to Jason. Dick frowned in his half-sleep, confused at the commotion and relocation, but as always, a heat-seeking missile, he sensed movement on the other side of the bed and gravitated that way, even as Jason repeated, “No. No. Stay on your side of the bed, Dickwad!”
Bruce left his two sons to negotiate their spacial situation. It was high time to return to Tim.
The sound of retching hit his ears halfway down the hall. Bruce picked up his pace despite himself.
When he opened the door to Tim’s room, he saw an empty bed and the bathroom door ajar. Inside the bathroom, Tim knelt in front of the toilet as his stomach violently rejected what little nutrients they had coaxed into it that morning.
“Oh, Timmy,” Bruce sighed.
Tim looked up. His sweaty hair clung to his forehead. His eyes watered.
Bruce fetched him a clean towel before he wiped his mouth on his sleeve, then gently pulled Tim’s bangs from his face using one of the hair bands he always kept around his wrist for Stephanie, Cass, or Kate. “How are you feeling, Tim?” He tried to rub his boy’s back affectionately.
“I don’t feel so good,” Tim blubbered. Fresh tears squeezed out of his eyes.
“Oh, I know.” Bruce felt Tim’s forehead with his palm. “Your fever is still high. Did Alfred leave to get you something for it?”
“Alfred was here?” Tim looked at him oddly.
Bruce took a breath to stabilize himself. He knew that Tim had been delirious for hours. It was a good thing that he was conscious enough to answer Bruce’s questions. “Yes, very recently.”
“Oh.” Tim shivered. He swallowed. Then, lightning-fast, he grabbed the toilet bowl and retched into it once more.
Bruce filled a glass of water and held it out for Tim to rinse and spit with once the vomiting stopped. The cold bathroom tile couldn’t be comfortable for Tim, right? Bruce should get him a blanket. Except the moment he stood, Tim clutched Bruce’s hand with both of his and pleaded, “Don’t go.”
“Oh, Tim,” Bruce sighed. “I won’t go.”
He settled in for a long night sitting on the bathroom floor.
Five minutes of Tim staring into the depths of his toilet later, Bruce suggested they return to his bed, as it seemed the vomiting had stopped for now. Of course, the moment he said that, Tim puked up stomach acid, then slumped, exhausted, against Bruce’s chest.
Bruce hummed and ran his fingers through Tim’s hair, making sure not to pull on the strands caught in the hairband.
Alfred returned several minutes later with a cold compress for Tim’s forehead and a bowl of soup all three knew would go cold on the floor.
Tim didn’t want to leave the bathroom in case he puked again, and Bruce didn’t have the energy to argue. They spent the night dozing on the tile floor, Tim pillowed in Bruce’s arms until he jerked up and scrambled to empty his guts into the toilet bowl. Bruce handed him a glass of water, Tim rinsed and spit, and they repeated the process all through the night.
In the morning, Alfred took Tim’s temperature and declared him to be ‘in recovery.’