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There was bullshit to be dealt with the one Friday morning Bruce woke up slowly and peacefully, and not with a start. He had not been expecting said bullshit in the slightest.
He’d been lying with his face in Selina’s hair, inhaling her jasmine-scented shampoo with his arms around her waist from behind when she read out the latest tabloid headline.
WAYNE CUTS GRAYSON FROM WILL AMID ABUSE SCANDAL: TIM DRAKE NOW SOLE HEIR TO WAYNE FORTUNE.
Bruce sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. That was some bullshit.
Rascal hissed from the doorway in solidarity in her particular calico fashion.
Why the tabloids refused to stop bothering him was one mystery he could not solve. They were going to have a field day with this.
Bruce laid there, listening to Selina read aloud the rest of the article. The information was reportedly from “an anonymous source close to the family.”
“Who?” Selina said.
“I don’t know. Someone who knows enough to construct a plausible implication and not enough to know the actual facts.” He ran his fingers through her hair. “Or someone who knows the actual facts and chose the implication anyway.”
“Which is worse.”
Bruce turned, pulling Selina against his side with one arm while fumbling around for his phone with the other. He could already hear his lawyers sighing at him. “Tim’s going to hate this.”
“At least this one’s false,” said Selina, beckoning Rascal over to the bed.
“Hn,” Bruce grunted.
“Don’t ‘Hn’ at me.”
Rascal seemed to concur, trotting over to Bruce’s side of the bed and hissing at him before leaping up and settling onto Selina’s stomach.
Bruce sighed again as he pulled up his lawyer’s contact and pressed a silent kiss to Selina’s temple. “I’m sorry. I’m just tired of handling all this.”
“What?” Selina replied, petting Rascal with one hand and putting the other across his chest. “The fallout of your own actions?”
“Selina,” Bruce grumbled.
“Truth hurts, doesn’t it?” She turned her attention back to her cat. “Where’s your sister, darling?”
As if on cue, Pumpkin meowed from the doorway.
“There’s my chonk.” Selina smiled.
Bruce found himself smiling too as the portly orange tabby trotted over. She climbed over Rascal to give Selina a cuddle before settling into her loaf configuration on Bruce’s bare chest.
“Mao,” she greeted.
“Hello, Pumpkin,” Bruce replied, stroking behind her ears.
Pumpkin chirped, paws tucked, tail curled, the compact weight of her pressed against him and began to purr.
Bruce had put out the statement a month after Lois’s article had dropped.
“Richard Grayson deserves to tell his story. I will not contradict him. I failed him in ways I’m only beginning to understand, and I take full responsibility for that failure. He owes me nothing. I owe him everything.
— Bruce Wayne
It had been a compromise between the truth and what would hurt the company the least. And Bruce had been adamant about not dodging the truth.
While he was still a shareholder of Wayne Enterprises, he’d stepped down from The Wayne Foundation completely. Dozens of donours had pulled out immediately after the article and something had to be done regarding the threats to the foundation’s continued existence. Bruce had no doubt his parents were rolling in their graves at the way he'd tarnished the Wayne name.
Bruce sighed from where he was seated in his study. While his lawyers were still drafting a statement, Tim had already put out his own.
@timdrakeofficial: For the record: the story is false. I have not spoken to any journalists. I have not been named in any legal documents differently than I have always been named. I am not now nor have I ever been interested in being anyone's sole heir to anything. I have a job. I have my own income. I worked for it.
Additionally: the implication that I would benefit from or participate in any action taken against Richard Grayson is false and I would like whoever the anonymous source is to think carefully about what they've done.
Finally: I've spoken to Bruce this morning. The full statement is his. I'm only adding this because I'm not going to let a false story sit unaddressed while people draw conclusions about me.
That's all I have to say about this.
@timdrakeofficial: Actually, one more thing: Dick, if you see this — obviously. You know. But I wanted to say it in public since they decided to do this in public.
That's all.
Bruce couldn’t have been prouder of Tim. He could say the same regarding all of his children.
He pulled out his wallet and flipped to the compartment that had formerly been occupied by his license. He took out the folded piece of paper he’d printed the photo on and carefully cut out. He unfolded once and stared at the picture of Dick from the interview. This was the only recent picture he had of his boy. The same boy he hadn’t seen in ten months.
Bruce silently rubbed his thumb across Dick’s face on the photo.
He sipped at his coffee. He’d made it himself today. He had been making his coffee himself for the past three weeks. He was taking Alfred out to dinner tonight. They’d been talking about Dick and accountability and complicity and enabling.
He remembered the night eighteen years ago when Alfred had refused to step away from his path toward an injured Dick’s bedroom. He remembered the weight of his surrogate father’s palm against the bat symbol at his chest.
“We could have lost him tonight and I know that scares you. But for once, you are not to turn your fear into misplaced anger. You can direct as much fury toward me as you need to. But Master Richard is hurt. He needs comfort, not admonishment.”
He still remembered that scowl and the steel in Alfred’s voice.
“Take off the cowl and leave your disapproval at the door or do not enter.”
If only Alfred had kept it up instead of disappearing entirely from his altercations with Dick. Bruce hadn’t said as much to Alfred’s face. But it was implied and they’d both wished they could turn back time.
What had they done? What had he done to his boy?
Bruce couldn’t stop looking at the recent photo of Dick. His eyes were as blue as they’d always been. His hair was longer, the bangs curling at the ends. The set of his jaw had a specific quality about it. A confidence—a sureness in himself that Bruce hadn’t seen in ages. This was who Dick was. Not whatever Bruce had molded him into in his war against crime. This was Dick Grayson. Sure and headstrong and funny and kind in ways Bruce could only ever wish to be. This was his boy.