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Bruce Wayne kept his heart in a safe, in a wall, behind a keypad and a biometric lock, securely covered by tasteful piece of wall art in his office.
[-]
Before Dick came into his life, Bruce could probably count on both hands the amount of times he had interacted with a child in the last decade. And he was, admittedly, floundering.
“You work a lot,” Dick observed.
It was a rare moment where the two of them were in the same place at the same time. By design of course. Alfred called him to the East Wing’s second floor common area under the guise of discussing Dick’s dietary preferences, but conveniently disappeared following his arrival.
“Yes.”
Dick tilted his head slightly to the felt, “Why?”
Oh, no . The books he read told of the dreaded “why” phase. Dick seemed a little far out of the age demographic but books can’t teach everything and if anything was consistent throughout all that he read and every video he watched it was that children are notoriously unpredictable. He was not prepared for this. He should call for Alfred. Alfred always knew exactly how to handle things.
“I have many responsibilities,” he replied, waiting for the inevitable ‘ why?’.
“Oh.”
Never mind, this was so much worse. What do children talk about? Toys? TV? Bruce hadn’t seen Dick watch a single cartoon or play with a toy. The boy had only been living there for three weeks, and it took Bruce far longer than he would have liked to get all of the legal documents in order to get him out of that detention center. So there were likely psychological factors at play that Bruce could only relate to half of.
Still, Dick should be doing kid things. Was he making friends at school? His English was coming along nicely but he still stumbled on some grammar and pronunciation, and schoolchildren were capable of exceptional cruelty.
Should he ask about it? Was that his place?
“I could be less busy, if you wanted.”
If you wanted? What kind of offer was that? Dick probably thought Bruce hated him. This was going terrible. He should make a tactical retreat before he says something else boarding on awful.
But once again, Dick surprised him. Something told Bruce this would be a running theme.
A bright grin took over the boy’s face. “Okay! Can we go to the zoo? I want to see elephants.”
Bruce smiled back, small and hesitant. The zoo was something he could do. They would probably have to bring a member of the Wayne Enterprises Security Team but it was a start.
Two years later, when Dick fished a handmade Father’s Day card from his backpack and shyly handed it to Bruce across the dining room table, Bruce didn’t cry, not until half an hour later when he moved a painting, typed in a code, scanned his iris, and pulled a small steel door open, placing the card inside.
Bruce Wayne kept his heart in a safe, in a wall, behind a keypad and a biometric lock, securely covered by tasteful piece of wall art in his office.
[-]
Jason still looked at Bruce like Bruce was a feral dog. In his defense, Jason had only been there for a week and had understandable trust issues. Theoretically, Bruce had more experience now, than he had the first go-round, but…
It didn’t really click until he ‘caught’ Jason curled up on a recliner, reading a book taken from a nearby shelf.
Bruce had nearly silent steps, but nothing got past Jason, who bolted up as soon as Bruce entered the room. “Sorry, Mr. Wayne.” They were still working on the ‘Mr. Wayne’ thing. The kid either called him ‘Mr. Wayne’ or ‘rich fucker’ depending on the context. “ I’s just lookin’ at it. I’ll put it back, swears. I knows I shoulda as’ed.”
Bruce brought his hands up in an attempt to get Jason to stop apologizing. Which was a mistake. Jason stepped back so fast at first Bruce thought he was falling.
What the fuck is wrong with him? Raising his hands to a traumatized child. Bring a fucking car seat when you pick him up from the hospital because apparently he was born yesterday.
Don’t bring it up. You’ll embarrass him, and he’ll get defensive.
“You don’t have to ask to borrow a book,” Bruce clarified. He should’ve known this would be an issue. They were working on a similar thing regarding food. “Actually, let me fetch Alfred and we can show you to the main library. I actually prefer the third floor’s little library, but we’ll start with the big one.”
It would be faster just to show Jason himself, but Alfred made the boy more comfortable. And, guiding Jason to another location, alone and seemingly more isolated, may give him the wrong idea.
Bruce was sure to be the first one to turn his back, a sign of trust, and came back a few minutes later with Alfred.
“Master Jason,” Alfred acknowledged. “I’m told you have an affinity for literature.”
Well, that’s not entirely true. Bruce saw him reading one time. But as usual, adhering to the known laws of the universe, Alfred was right.
Jason nodded, almost excitedly, definitely apprehensively.
It was the only emotion he’d shown–at least in Bruce’s presence–besides anger and fear since they’d met.
Bruce had the concerning urge to jump for joy.
Eight months later, when Jason came home with a handmade ceramic mug wrapped carefully in newspaper, and handed it to Bruce with a timid “Happy Birthday, old man” which was a significant step up from “rich bastard”, Bruce didn’t cry, not until half an hour later when he moved a painting, typed in a code, scanned his iris, and pulled a small steel door open, placing the mug inside.
Bruce Wayne kept his heart in a safe, in a wall, behind a keypad and a biometric lock, securely covered by tasteful piece of wall art in his office.
[-]
Tim was like no child Bruce had ever met. He was smart, but all of his children were smart. Tim just–Tim’s brain worked like Bruce and it made the whole deal a lot less stressful. For the most part.
Working together was easy. Training together went well. It was the other bits that Bruce couldn’t quite figure out. Tim excelled at everything. His grades were near perfect, his physical training was coming along at an exceptional pace, and he retained his general lesson like nothing Bruce had ever seen before. Bruce hadn’t yet tested him under any actual pressure, but Bruce was hardly worried about it.
They would cross that bridge when they came to it. And if, as unlikely as it was, he buckled under the pressure, then all the better for it. If at least one of his children remained inside at night, led a normal life, went off to college and got a job that they loved where no one shot at them or stabbed them or doused them in gas, then all the better for it. But, that wasn’t going to happen. Bruce could hope and wish and pretend, that wasn’t going to happen.
So, his training wasn’t the issue. It was the not training parts, the sitting at the dinner table parts and the casual conversations parts. He tried, he really did, it just didn’t flow that it was supposed to.
“How was school?” he asked as Tim walked through the door.
“Same as usual.”
Wonderful. Great conversation. Glad I saw you.
“Nothing interesting?” Bruce prompted.
“Nope.”
Bruce resisted the sigh that bubbled up.
“I’m working over a WatchTower security update if you want to take a look,” he offered.
Tim’s eyes lit up, but Bruce felt a bit guilty. Was working really a bonding activity? There had to be a fine line between working with his son and putting his son to work.
But going through the code with Tim, the kid looked like he was really in his element. He was good at everything else, but he truly enjoyed tech. That was something Bruce could relate to. That was something Bruce could help with. Not just stuff for work, but projects for fun.
“Actually, I’ve been tinkering with a drone design for a couple of weeks now and I think another set of eyes could really help,” he commented after they’d gone through about half of the update.
“Yeah, yeah, I’d love that.”
A year and a half later, when Tim placed a Tim Drake original photograph of the Gotham City skyline in his lap as they were opening Christmas presents, Bruce didn’t cry, not until half an hour later when he moved a painting, typed in a code, scanned his iris, and pulled a small steel door open, placing the picture inside.
Bruce Wayne kept his heart in a safe, in a wall, behind a keypad and a biometric lock, securely covered by tasteful piece of wall art in his office.
[-]
Stephanie wasn’t adopted. That didn’t make her not his daughter. He treated her like his daughter, he referred to her as his daughter, he loved her as his daughter.
It was nice, though, that they could joke about it.
“This is my daughter, Stephanie,” he said.
She smiled at heroes in civvies Bruce was introducing her to, “More like a niece.”
“You eat my food, you live in my house, you drive my cars,” Bruce pointed out.
She laughed at him, “That’s cause you’re a pushover, B.”
They didn’t do a lot of one-on-one interacting, not really, but she was his daughter. He might not be her father, but she’s his daughter.
Dinner wasn’t complete without her there. Christmas would have been empty if her voice wasn’t among the many. She fit right into the family as if she was always there.
It would take time, he knew, for her to see them as family the same way they saw her, and he was okay with that. And even if that day never came, he was secure in the knowledge that his home was always open for her. She would always have a room, always have a warm meal, always have a family.
And if she only ever saw this as an outlet, as a just application of the skills that were forced upon her, then that was also okay, it might hurt for a while, it might hurt forever, but it would be okay.
But then something happened. They didn’t see Stephanie for nearly six months. She kept in touch, texting every once in a while to let them know she was alive, to let them know she cared, but Bruce didn’t see blonde hair turning the hallway corner or hear her backpack thudding against the floor as she came home from school.
Tim wouldn’t tell him anything and neither would Dick or Jason. So he waited. He made himself be content with the text messages and the occasional pictures.
Six months later, when she showed up at the door and didn’t even knock–which Bruce treated as a victory–a bag full of souvenirs from a dozen different place in her hand, Bruce didn’t cry, not until half an hour later when he moved a painting, typed in a code, scanned his iris, and pulled a small steel door open, placing the Parthenon shaped paperweight inscribed with world’s best dad inside.
Bruce Wayne kept his heart in a safe, in a wall, behind a keypad and a biometric lock, securely covered by tasteful piece of wall art in his office.
[-]
Cassandra didn’t talk but Bruce didn’t mind, he wasn’t much of a talker. That didn’t mean there weren't any issues, though. He wasn’t used to this sort of dynamic. Cassandra didn’t need him. She didn’t need training, she didn’t need an outlet, she didn’t need food or a place to stay. She didn’t need a family, not the way Stephanie did.
She needed protection, but not specifically Bat protection. He supposed it was an honor, for her to come to him of all people. She was older than Jason and by the time she would be even remotely amenable to joining the family permanently, she would be an adult. He’d adopt her anyway, if she’d let him. He knew after a week that she was meant to be here, meant to stay, but he could wait.
And in the meantime he could help her. In the meantime he could love her.
They all started learning sign language with her. Dick was by far the best at it, but Bruce was coming along decently well.
Him and Cassandra didn’t train together–she would kick his ass–and she was homeschooled by Alfred, working towards her GED. But learning sign language was something they could practice together. Holding a basic conversation was easy enough. The hellos and how are yous and see you laters were near perfect and they both had all of the letters memorized.
Actually fingerspelling was a different story. Cassandra was far faster than him. He was getting there but he’s broken his fingers so many times that they got stiff quickly. The necessity of precision wasn’t helping matters either.
But it gave them something to do that didn’t end with Bruce being a sore loser and Cassandra noticeably no worse of wear. Today, they were working on additional common phrases.
‘How was your weekend?’ Bruce tried, but he muddled weekend , bringing his hand out instead of down.
Cassandra signed it back, correctly this time.
Bruce nodded and tried again, this time a bit slower but right.
She smiled and nodded enthusiastically, then attempted ‘I can hear you.’
It looked right to Bruce, but he referred to the video on his tablet just to confirm. ‘I can hear you’ he signed back.
They went back and forth like that, trying new phrases and refreshing the ones from last week. Moments like this were everything to Bruce, and even if she didn’t need him the way the others did, Cass was his daughter.
Less than a year later, when Cass came down to the Cave, dressed for her first gala with the family, and signed ‘I love you’ for the first time outside of their practice, Bruce didn’t cry, not until six hours later when he moved a painting, typed in a code, scanned his iris, and pulled a small steel door open, placing the flash drive with a clip of the Cave footage inside.
Bruce Wayne kept his heart in a safe, in a wall, behind a keypad and a biometric lock, securely covered by tasteful piece of wall art in his office.
[-]
Damian was unexpected. Bruce was getting older and most of the kids had left the house. Sure it felt a bit empty and a bit quiet and the dinner table looked a little sad with so many vacant seats, but he was managing and he wasn’t planning on adopting any more kids.
It was good, then, that Damian didn’t need to be adopted.
If Tim was similar to Bruce, then Damian was just Bruce in a smaller, angrier body. And Bruce had no idea how to handle it.
But if there were two people who knew how to handle Bruce Wayne–and therefore mini Bruce Wayne– it was Alfred and Dick. Bruce felt guilty for relying on them so much, but he’d never been at such a loss before.
The boy obviously respected him, held him in some sort of high regard, but that respect was limited to Batman. Bruce Wayne was a whole other story. Damian would barely look at him and exclusively called him father in the most unaffectionate way possible.
It was made worse by the fact that Damian had recently gone from calling Dick ‘Grayson’ to calling him ‘Richard’ and occasionally calling Alfred ‘Alfred’ instead of ‘Pennyworth’. It’s not that he was jealous–okay, he was jealous. But not in the I wish it was me instead of you sort of way but the I wish it was me and you sort of way.
Maybe the time would come and maybe it wouldn’t. Bruce had no way of telling.
In fact he was fairly certain he was losing points, somehow. Like every time he tried to bond with Damian, the kid was judging him. Did he really seem that desperate?
The only time he thought for even a second that the kid actually liked him was when they were sparring. And Bruce tried his best to be honest with himself, and although Damian never quite beat him, letting a child get a hit on him bruised his ego more than he’d like to admit.
Nothing seemed to be working until something did, a painting on the wall in the hallway.
“Is that authentic?” Damian asked.
Bruce had no idea. The painting was his mother’s.
“I don’t know,” he revealed.
Damian frowned at him.
“Do you like art?” Bruce questioned, desperately trying to keep the conversation alive.
“It is acceptable.”
The corner of Bruce’s mouth twitched upward. This was huge. Everything else he’d asked Damian about previously had either been ‘awful’, ‘deplorable’ or somewhere in between. Acceptable was practically praise. He was already drawing up plans for a nice art studio on the second floor in his mind.
Four months later when Damian walked out of the room with a colorful canvas in hand, and passed it to Bruce with a purposefully detached “It is finished”, Bruce didn’t cry, not until thirty minutes later when he moved a painting, typed in a code, scanned his iris, and pulled a small steel door open, placing the canvas inside.
Bruce Wayne kept his heart in a safe, in a wall, behind a keypad and a biometric lock, securely covered by tasteful piece of wall art in his office.
[-]
Okay, he was done after this one. For someone with such legendary willpower, Duke had Bruce wrapped around his finger from day one.
He had little to experience with young metas but by now he knew kids pretty well. And out of all of his children, Duke was the most normal kid out of all of them. And that was saying something because he had superpowers.
Bruce trained with Duke like he wasn’t a meta. Just like he trained Clark under red sun lamps. If Duke was going to go out and fight Gotham City crime he needed to be able to defend himself at a base level. He wasn’t the best Bruce had ever seen, that was a high bar, but he was getting better.
He and Alfred set Duke up with a permanent room at the Manor and got him enrolled in Gotham Prep. Dick helped Bruce with his training because he had more experience with meta kids than Bruce.
But what really brought Bruce and Duke was their mutual love for good food. Duke was a teenager and he’d probably forgotten more about food than Bruce would ever learn. It was less that Bruce and Duke were enjoying food together and more that Duke was teaching Bruce everything there was to know about food.
They went out to lunch at a new place Duke suggested at least once a week. Duke seemed to know everywhere that was anywhere on the Gotham restaurant scene. As a well traveled individual, Bruce could confidently say that the little place on the corner of 17th and North College St. the Duke ranted and raved about for two weeks straight was the best Filipino-Thai fusion he ever had.
And unlike the rest of his house, save Alfred, Duke could actually cook. After the first three tries Duke wrote him off as a lost cause in the kitchen, but he was always bringing Bruce samples of whatever he was learning or experimenting with. Apparently Jason would eat anything, Dick would tell him anything he cooked was good, Tim had too low of a spice tolerance, Steph was around often enough and Cass thought there was always too much salt. Bruce and Alfred were the only people he could get an honest review from.
A year and half later, when Duke surprised him with takeout from the burger place they tried together that Bruce swore sent him to another plane of existence for a second, and said “Of course. I love you, B,” after Bruce tried to thank him, Bruce didn’t cry, not until thirty minutes later when he moved a painting, typed in a code, scanned his iris, and pulled a small steel door open, placing a napkin with the restaurant logo and the date he wrote in blue pen on the corner inside.
Bruce Wayne kept his heart in a safe, in a wall, behind a keypad and a biometric lock, securely covered by tasteful piece of wall art in his office.
[-]
Sometimes, on cases that stretched on for days, on nights that seemed to never end, when a body was found that was too young, or too brutal, Bruce would shed the Batsuit as soon as he got back to the Cave. Taking the stairs two at a time after a shower that was purely perfunctory, he would make his way to his office, to his heart. Then he would move a painting, type in a code, scanned his iris, and pull a small steel door open, and look at a Father’s Day card, a ceramic mug, a picture, a Parthenon shaped paperweight, flash drive, a painting, and a napkin.