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“Listen, son: I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily wet on your damp forehead. I have stolen into your room alone. Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me. Guiltily I came to your bedside.”
[-]
Bruce spent nearly his entire life up to this point, learning everything he could. Collecting knowledge with the compulsion of a crow collecting shiny, interesting things. Since that night on the dimly lit Park Row, he vowed to always have a plan. In every situation, he would know what to do, he would be ready. No two-bit goon, business tycoon, or situation would ever catch him off guard.
Nothing had prepared him for fatherhood. Every book he’d read, class he’d attended and master he had studied under were entirely useless. He couldn’t help but think that he was bad at it, being a parent. Dick was so bright - is still so bright - shining beyond the hazy streets of Gotham and past the tragedy that clung to him like wet denim.
Bruce, by contrast, was a black hole. Like a black hole he couldn’t destroy light, but he warped and trapped it. The theory of general reality states that if Dick Grayson got too close to Bruce Wayne, he’d twist, bend, and distort, never able to escape.
But Bruce was selfish. He had no right raising a child, no right sucking up all the matter around him until only he remained. He chose to anyway, purely for his own benefit, under the guise of helping a child that reminded him far too much for himself. Helping Dick was certainly part of his decision, but he had many better options that Bruce elected to ignore.
[-]
“There are things which I am thinking, son; I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you
were dressing for school because you gave your face a mere dab with the towel. I took you to
task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things on the
floor.”
[-]
His life changed the day he took Dick from juvie to the Manor. The first time Dick cracked a joke where Bruce would have brooded, Bruce changed. Alfred likes to say that Dick brought life back into the Manor and only a fool would disagree. The heavy fog of death that loomed in the long, empty Manor hallways lifted with every laugh, every pun, every smile, that Dick managed to pull out of himself and others until it was gone almost entirely. The only place it lingered was around Bruce because he refused to let it go.
Bruce was getting better, though. He smiled and laughed exponentially more. Sometimes he took time off from being Bruce Wayne or Batman to just be Dick’s dad. And, although it felt the most uncomfortable out of all the labels he had, he found that most of the time, it also felt the most authentic. Perhaps it’s because all his other monikers are mutually exclusive.
Batman isn't Bruce Wayne or Brucie Wayne.
Bruce Wayne isn’t Batman of Brucie Wayne.
Brucie Wayne isn’t Bruce Wayne or Batman.
But Brucie Wayne, Bruce Wayne, and Batman are all Dick Grayson’s dad. Once he donned that identity, he never took it off.
[-]
“At breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down your food. You
put your elbows on the table. You spread butter too thick on your bread. As you started off to
play and I made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, "Goodbye, Daddy!" I
frowned, and said in reply, "Hold your shoulders back!".”
[-]
It’s not that Bruce didn’t have any good parental examples he could follow; his scattered memories of Martha and Thomas Wayne and much clearer memories of Alfred often provided him a foundation for parenting.
He found himself saying things his father used to say and repeating phrases that Alfred still uses to calm Bruce’s night terrors.
“Only value the opinions belonging to those whom you value.”
“You’re not alone. I see you. I’m here.”
Bruce wasn’t yet accustomed to being the support and not the supported, but he was learning he was growing.
He still fucked up sometimes.
[-]
“Then it began all over again late this afternoon. As I came up the road I spied you, down
on your knees, playing marbles. There were holes in your socks. I humiliated you before your
friends by marching you ahead of me to the house. Socks were expensive, and if you had to buy
them you would be more careful! Imagine that son, from a father.”
[-]
Dick had energy that could not be contained. From sleeping on chandeliers to vaulting off the stairs Bruce was constantly on the verge of a coronary. He kept an ear out at all times for the distinct combination of a wild giggle and an excited “Catch me, B!” to avoid one day turning around to find his son unmoving on the ground - a terrifying parallel of both of their parents. So far nothing happened but it could. Bruce would make damn sure it didn’t, but it could.
[-]
“Do you remember later, when I was reading in the library, how you came timidly, with
sort of a hurt look in your eyes? I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption; you
hesitated at the door. "What is it that you want?" I snapped.”
[-]
Raising Dick was hard because in a way that is all too often the case with young, traumatized parents, Dick was raising Bruce, too. It wasn’t fair to Dick. Bruce lamented this injustice on nights when his mistakes kept him from sleep’s embrace. Dick wasn’t better off in juvie. He wasn’t better off in the Gotham foster care system or the rundown, underfunded orphanage. These were indisputable facts. But did that mean he was better off with Bruce?
Roma take care of their own. They are private people, keeping their history, language, and culture close, confined to their communities for protection. With a history such as theirs, marred by violence, discrimination, and genocide imparted on them by spiteful, evil people, closing themselves off was a reasonable course of action.
And, anyway, who was Bruce to judge? He’d done the exact same thing when faced with albeit incomparable tragedy.
Still, it made it difficult for Bruce to find information on Dick’s culture and traditions. Difficult but not impossible. One common theme, the thread that connected all of Bruce’s research, was the Roma take care of their own.
And yet Bruce selfishly kept his son. Because he loves Dick. To his fullest extent, to his greatest capacity, Bruce loves Dick Grayson. Bruce loves his son.
[-]
“You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, threw your arms around my
neck and kissed me, your small arms tightened with affection that God had set blooming in your
heart, which even neglect could not wither. Then you were gone, pattering up the stairs.”
[-]
Bruce was, admittedly, pretty shit at showing affection. His love language consisted of giving gifts and being overbearing. He was significantly better at one of those over the other.
He said the wrong thing much more than he said the right. For a man of his intelligence, possessing the number of skills and sheer amount expertise that he did, Bruce was inadept at articulating and expressing his emotions.
“I love you” came out as “have you eaten today?”
“Please be careful. I worry about you” came out as “keep up with your training”.
“I trust you” came out as “your presence and contribution are necessary”.
It seemed for all he learned about fatherhood, he just couldn’t learn it fast enough.
[-]
“Well, Son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible
sickening fear came over me. What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault, or
reprimanding; this was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not love you: it
was that I expected too much of you. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years.”
[-]
Robin was a terrible idea, a mistake. Bruce knew a lot about mistakes. He knew from the first he accidently hurt Dick during training. He knew from the first time he saw a bullet narrowly miss his son’s head. He knew before the first time he had to restart his son’s heart with a defibrillator but knew after.
[-]
“There is so much that was good, fine and true in your character. The little heart of yours
was as big as the dawn itself over the hills. This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush
in and kiss me good night. Nothing else mattered tonight. Son, I have come to your beside in the
darkness, I have knelt there, ashamed!”
[-]
He fired Robin. He said the wrong thing again. He must have. Because he fired his partner, and his son left with him. Bruce spent hours wondering, worrying.
He wondered if Dick Grayson, Richie Wayne, Robin, and Nightwing were all his son like Bruce Wayne, Brucie Wayne, and Batman were all Dick’s father. Would knowing the answer make him feel better or worse?
[-]
“It is a feeble atonement; I know that you would not understand these things which I have
told you in the waking hours. Tomorrow I will be a real daddy! I will chum with you, suffer
when you suffer and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I
will keep saying as if it were a ritual: "He is nothing but a boy--a little boy."
I am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet as I see you now, Son, crumpled and
weary in your bed. I see that you are still a baby. Yesterday you were in your mother's arms,
your head on her shoulder. I have asked too much, too much!”