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Everyone was a little insecure when they came there. Always were. Course who could blame them. Being surrounded my numerous dead bodies does that to people, even if they are underground.
“C’mon,” Dick edged Tim forward. “I’ll help you find them.”
Both were carrying bouquets, almost perfectly matching their individual parents’ flowers at their weddings. Off to the side Jason only held the flowers his mother used to bring into their apartment. He was even more uncomfortable than the rest. He hadn’t been to either parent’s grave since their burials. Their adoptive father made a point of visiting his own parents’ graves regularly. He was the only one who really gained comfort from them.
“I don’t know…” Tim started, unsure as always. He had no memory of his parents, except for vague ones that sometimes made him wake up screaming. Coming to visit them was like trying to know Dick’s or Bruce’s parents. How could you miss someone you never met?
“Come on Timmy,” Dick pushed. Unlike the others, he went to his parents' graves at least five times a year. There was once even a time he went daily in order to talk to them when he was frustrated with Bruce. That was before he learned Batman’s secret. After that secret was shared and Zucco taken care of, he only came by for holidays, birthdays, and their death anniversary. This though, was the week many of their parents died. They should pay their respects then at the very least, and it set a good example for Damian. “Your mommy and daddy misses you. All our mommies and daddies miss us.”
“Do I really have to go?” Jason asked, looking upwards to their father now.
Slowly the man nodded. “You’ve avoided it far too long. It’s time you saw them again Jason.”
“But I—“
“Last time you were here you were six. You’re twelve now. I think you’ll be fine.” He gave a nod to Dick, letting him lead Tim towards where their parents’ graves were. It was almost pure accident that theirs were so close together. Janet Drake had died little over a year before John and Mary Grayson. When Jack bought a plot in his family’s cemetery, they ended up being very close together. Willis and Catherine Todd though were placed somewhere else. “We’ll be with you the entire time.”
Bruce repositioned Damian in his arms and inclined his head towards Cassandra looking at the epitaphs of different graves. Alfred was back at the gate, letting them have their time alone. His parents were long dead in London. Jason looked a little scared towards the ground as the other two wandered towards their designations. “We’ll meet back at my parents’ in half an hour.”
“10-4,” Dick called back, keeping the younger boy with him. He would have taken Cass with him to give Jay more privacy, but Tim was having his own trouble coming there. Maybe it was best to just let her wander the yard on her own. So the acrobat took the little genius to where their parents laid to rest.
“Come on.” Bruce nudged the twelve-year-old along. “Cassandra, you coming?”
She shrugged. “Don’t think so. Don’t have someone to say hello to.”
“Wouldn’t want to meet your parents anyway,” Jason added in a low tone before taking a step forward. Bruce nearly scowled at him but even Cass shrugged in agreement. She returned to wandering around and reading gravestones while the boys walked over to their destinations.
Bruce kept a close eye on Jason as they made it over to his parents’ graves. Years ago the kid refused to go to his biological father’s funeral. The city did his mother’s burial and he had her casket moved to his family’s cemetery to keep them together in peace. He hoped someday Jason would willingly come and pay his respects to them one day, but now half his life had passed and he hadn’t gone to them once. He really needed closure.
“Do I really have to do this Dad?” He looked up to him, trying to hide his fear and failing.
“Yes, you do.” The man readjusted his hold on the two-year-old he was carrying as they walked. He had to keep the boy focused, even if the other one was more interested in the wildlife over the graves and people in it. They weren’t alone there. Cemeteries in Gotham were pretty active places, regardless of how many improvements had been made over the years.
“He really wasn’t much of a dad you know.” The preteen kept trying to have a strong face and failing miserably. “I mean, he just up and left me and my mom one day. And for what? Some big score? A job with the mob? He was nothing like you. He wasn’t brave or smart or just. Standing up to the bad guys, he’d never do that. He’d just…”
Jason looked away, ashamed of the man who sired him. “He was never really my dad. He didn’t care about me. Or Mom.”
Bruce sighed heavily. “This isn’t about Willis. It’s about Catherine, your mother.”
The discussion caught Damian’s attention when he said ‘mother’. His older brother looked further away at the mention of his. His father could guess what the kid really felt when he became silent. Like Dick, he usually wasn’t quiet for long, unless he was scared about something. Or ashamed. “Jason, you didn’t abandon her.”
“I should have stuck around,” he murmured. At the heart of it all, he felt he was just like his old man. “I’m no better than he was for leaving.”
“You were five years old. You were scared. And you saw a movie about runaways and orphanages. You did what any kid in your position would have done.” Sadness filled his voice as he spoke. “Running away after finding your mother dead was only natural in your position. There was nothing you could have done. You didn’t abandon her.”
“I should have stayed.” He looked towards his dad now a bit. “You did.”
“There’s a difference. I was in shock after they were murdered in front of me.” The memory replayed itself in his mind. Bruce would never forget it. “Your mom died of cancer, in her sleep at home.”
“I still should have stayed.” A sardonic smile brushed on the boy’s lips. “I really am my father’s child.”
Sorrow took over both their features, thinking about different things. Damian was the only one not saddened by the conversation, but kept watching the two curiously. They could see the Todd plots when Bruce spoke again.
“I looked into your dad’s death, Jason.” This jerked the kid’s gaze around with a snap, wide-eyed in shock. “In case you ever wanted to learn the truth. It was a bit too suspicious to me. Willis didn’t abandon you two because he wanted to. He left to save your lives.”
“What?” The kid couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He gaped at the man he learned to call ‘Dad’ nearly half a lifetime ago.
“Willis Todd got in too deep with the wrong people, and realized it too late.” Bruce’s eyes locked onto the man in question’s headstone. “Two-Face had a plan that would have killed about a third of Gotham, if your father hadn’t intervened. He took a key component of his bomb and locked it somewhere safe where the police could get it. Two-Face tried to make him talk, tell him where it was, but clearly he hadn’t.
“Your dad died a hero.”
They were at the site now, Jason barely realizing they made it there. He was too transfixed on what his newer father had said, and what it meant. For a minute or two, his mind returned to a past he long tried to forget, the one with his birth parents. He remembered his mother’s laughter in the kitchen at the dumb joke his father made. He remembered his dad telling him stories and changing what the animals said in the books he read him. He remembered how tired and scared the man looked the last time he saw him, and the smile he forced on his face when he told his family ‘good night’ for the last time. Now that he thought about it, other than his dad being a crook and leaving before his mother’s death, there really weren’t any bad memories with the man. He wasn’t like Bruce, he knew that much, but he tried.
And his dad died a hero. His dad now wouldn’t lie to him about that.
Now at the graves, he looked at them both, trying to even out his breathing. Why was it so hard to breathe now? Well, it was hard before but nothing like now. For nearly seven years he hated his biological father. Built up a whole mythos around him of being an evil man who’d abandon his sick wife and young son. He didn’t want to hear the truth about him when he was six, and Bruce didn’t push him to know until now. And now here he was looking at two graves he avoided because of guilt and hate. What was he supposed to say?
“I’ll leave you alone with them if you want,” the man who took him in when he had nothing offered. This brought Jason’s eyes back to him, wanting to stay a bit. Bruce smiled in understanding. “We won’t be far.”
The kid blinked a few times before looking back to his parents’ graves and nodding. As Bruce turned away to read neighboring headstones, he could hear Jason starting to talk, shakily. “Momma? Daddy? Hi. I…”
A little ways off, Bruce smiled a little to himself, silently prodding Damian to look elsewhere other than at Jason talking to his parents at last. “Fwader?”
“Hm?”
“Wats Daddy?” The two-year-old blinked at him innocently. It made the man blink as well. For months his siblings were trying to get the kid to call him ‘Daddy’. Timmy was starting to go by Tim these days in an attempt to grow up, and ‘Dad’ came out of his mouth more often. Dick had even referred to Bruce as ‘Daddy’ around the toddler, though never to him directly. Until then, the boy had never called him that.
“Daddy is Father,” Bruce tried to explain, hiding his own joy in being called that. “Father is Daddy. It’s the same name for the same person in your life. Everyone has a father and a mother, a daddy and a mommy.”
“Where mudder?” Damian asked, the next logical question anyone would ask given the circumstance. Hearing it though made Bruce sad.
‘Oh Talia…’ “Your mother… She’s not really the nicest lady in the world. She left Daddy before you were born.” He held the boy close, wishing he didn’t have to tell the boy at all. More than likely he’d forget it soon. “But I’ll be your Daddy and Mommy for now. At least until I can find someone who will be a Mommy to you.”
“No,” the kid exclaimed, pouting a little. Blinking in surprise for a moment, he was really taken aback when Damian instead snuggled up to him, hugging him around his neck. “You my Daddy.”
This made the man’s heart warm, and he gladly took the hug from his baby boy. “Yes, I’m your Daddy. And Timmy’s and Cassandra’s and Jason’s and Dick’s. Can you share with them?”
Reluctantly the tiny boy nodded, rewarding him with a back rub with his hug. “That’s my good boy.”
As promised, at the end of the half-hour everyone was waiting at the headstone of Martha and Thomas Wayne, Bruce’s parents. Alfred had brought over two roses as was Bruce’s personal tradition when visiting the site, and a picnic basket to cheer up the depressed earlier adoptions. Dick was holding on to Damian now while both Jason and Tim fought to be on Bruce’s lap for comfort. Neither of them knew what to say to people they barely knew or never met, but still felt strong ties to the people who rested there. Cassandra seemed to be the only one there perfectly at ease, nibbling on a sandwich she managed to filch out of the basket early. To her, this place merely was a garden filled with stone-baring names.
“Stop shoving!”
“You get off! You’re way too big!”
“Quit being a big baby!”
“How old are you?”
“Enough, both of you.” Bruce gripped the bridge of his nose, wincing at the oncoming headache from listening to those two bicker. “There’s plenty of room for the two of you, so stop fighting.”
“Can we join in then?” Dick joked, grinning like always. He hid the fact he had cried at his parents’ graves pretty well in comparison to the others. Course, he had practice.
Bruce gave him a quick glare. “I don’t think do. Pass me a sandwich.”
“Tea sir?” Alfred dutifully offered a sturdy cup over to the man, hiding an amused smile at the sight before him. The head of the household gladly accepted it, careful not to drip on himself. On the boys’ heads was another story.
“DAD!”
This won a short chuckle from nearly everyone not being dripped on. Bruce looked over to his parents’ names, thinking rather than saying what he wanted to tell them this time. ‘Well, you wanted grandchildren right? Hope you like them as much as I do.’
“Daddy.” They nearly all jerked around violently when they heard the youngest speak. “Firsty.”
“Did he just…”