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Despite what Master said, Bruce wasn’t stupid.
He knew he’d have to be careful. If he wanted to get away from Master in one piece without leaving his children behind, he’d have to plan his escape down to the smallest detail.
It started with winning Master’s trust. Doing exactly what he asked without any complaints or hesitation, no matter how sick or depraved it was. Bruce tried to keep Master’s attention on himself as much as he could, keeping Dick, Jason and Tim on the other side of the manor. He started stockpiling money, where he could find it. A few cents here, a dollar there. He kept it in a sock under the bed he got to sleep in when he was good, hidden between the mattress and the bedframe.
He was on his best behaviour. Couldn’t risk any injuries. Not now. Not when they were so close.
He had a connection he met at a gala who offered to sell him sleeping pills. Bruce was not allowed medicine that Master didn’t give him. He carefully crushed the pills and stored them away in a small envelope, which he kept in a hidden pocket in the mattress, separate from the money.
He told his boys the plan over and over again. Swore them to secrecy.
He would take Damian on walks around the manor grounds, getting him used to being held for long periods of time. Taking a baby with him would make their situation a lot more dangerous, but Bruce couldn’t leave Damian behind. It had taken so much begging for Master to agree to let the child live at all; if Bruce left without him, he was sure Damian would be dead by the end of the day.
Damian’s mother had been the best thing to ever happen to him. He met Talia at a gala he’d been forced to host. They’d had a brief but passionate affair. When she found out she was pregnant, she had asked to marry him.
Bruce didn’t know how to tell her that he wasn’t allowed things like that.
When Damian was weeks old, Talia showed up at the manor, a baby in her hands.
She had only wanted to talk, she said. Master had offered to hear her out, listening to her story, his fists tightly clenched as he sat in his armchair, a firm and immovable presence. Bruce cowered at his side.
Talia had sipped at the tea Master offered her as they spoke. Bruce silently pleaded with her not to drink it, but he wasn’t allowed to speak without permission around Master.
He couldn’t do anything to stop it.
Talia was dead minutes later.
A heart attack. That was what the EMTs told him. Bruce cried, unable to stop himself, holding Talia’s baby in his arms.
“How unfortunate,” Master had said, taking Damian out of Bruce’s hands. “We shall have to take care of her child, won’t we, Mister Wayne?”
Bruce nodded, silent.
He wasn’t allowed to speak around Master, after all.
Master had no love for children. He hadn’t decided to take in Damian out of any sense of affection for the baby. All he had seen in the child was another convenient way to control Bruce.
Like Dick, who spent days looking at Bruce out of the corner of his eye, clearly suspicious, unaware of the real danger present in the Manor.
Like Jason, who Bruce had convinced Master to take in, rather than beat the boy to death with his cane.
Like Tim, the bright eyed little boy next door who thought he could save Bruce, and learned a swift and painful lesson about what happened to children who meddled in adult business.
Bruce deserved the pain, but his boys didn’t. They were just children.
You were a child once, too.
The thought was too awful to bear, so Bruce pushed it away, going back to his preparations, running through every possible eventuality in his mind.
His plan would work.
It had to.
They left under cover of night. Tim had figured out a way to disable the security system, allowing them a brief period of time to leave the manor. They stole Master’s car, ditching it once they hit the interstate.
They hitchhiked, mostly. Some people were kind enough to see a terrified man and four children and got him where they needed to go. Sometimes, Bruce had to bribe them with the meagre money he had.
Sometimes, they wanted something else.
Something Bruce had gotten used to giving.
As long as his boys didn’t see, he didn’t care. Hell, some of them would feel bad afterwards, and throw him a few bucks to make him go away.
They travelled at night. During the day, Bruce left the boys at local libraries, going out to find food, money or work. He gave Dick strict instructions to keep the other three out of trouble, and to scream as loudly as he could if he saw Master.
Bruce knew that, if they caused that sort of scene - got that sort of attention - he would lose his boys. Probably what he deserved, honestly. He knew he wasn’t giving them what they needed. They were always hungry, and rarely had opportunities to wash themselves. They’d only been able to bring one change of clothes, and if both sets were soiled, they would have to wear the cleaner ones for as long as it took to find a laundromat that took quarters. Damian was becoming underweight, with Bruce being forced to water down his formula to make it last, and was developing a nasty rash.
They were all miserable from a lack of sleep. Exhausted from the travels. Jason still had a broken hand from the last time he tried to steal food from Master’s pantry.
Bruce clung to the promised safety in Metropolis. Batman might have been a criminal, but his children, even Dick, who had been forced to become Robin, were innocent. They could not have helped the situation they ended up in.
Superman was in Metropolis. Superman would help them. All they had to do was get there.
Closer and closer every day.
Despite his extensive planning, Bruce hadn’t truely figured out what he would do or say when he arrived at Clark Kent’s doorstep.
He’d figure it out, though.
He always did.