Work Text:
Bruce wakes to find his kids staring at him. Pretty much all of them, the only one absent being Cass who is still touring the world. Even Stephanie is here, which is nice. Bruce likes his son’s best friend.
“Bruce?” Dick asks and his eldest eyes are wide and scared and hopeful and Bruce doesn’t fully know what happened to him but it must have been scary if it puts this look on his eldest son’s face.
“What happened?” he asks.
They hesitate. He isn’t sure why, but Dick turns to Jason who shrugs and Tim tilts his head as if Bruce is a puzzle and Damian leans into Stephanie’s side and Duke looks anxious and sleepy, as if he’d just woken up.
“What do you remember?” Jason asks carefully.
What does he remember? Bruce furrows his brows. He was driving, very fast, even if he doesn’t quite remember why and then he was slamming against a wall and-
Nothing.
“Did I have a car accident?” he asks slowly.
His children all simultaneously turn to Dick who briefly grimaces, but then smiles sympathetically. There’s something about it that reads as fake to Bruce, but he isn’t sure why. “Yeah, you had a car accident,” Dick says. “But you got lucky. Just a little banged up.”
Bruce looks down on himself and yes, his arm is in a sling, but he looks overall pretty alright considering that he remembers what speed he was going at. Towards a wall.
“Is there something you aren’t telling me?” he asks.
Dick shakes his head with an easy smile, but Bruce isn’t looking at him or Jason or Stephanie or Duke or Damian. He’s looking at Tim, not because his second youngest son isn’t a good liar too, but because he still has hangups from his parents that make him painfully unable to lie to Bruce.
Indeed the teenager, almost a man but not quite yet, is biting his lips.
Stephanie catches the expression and elbows Tim hard, but it’s too late already.
Bruce raises an eyebrow at his children.
His ward looks away and so does Tim. Jason frowns but doesn’t speak, Stephanie crosses her arms and Damian…Damian surprisingly looks away, just like Duke. Huh.
Dick meets his eyes steadily, never one to back down. “Leslie said we shouldn’t tell you right now. We think you lost some of your memories and it’s better if they come back naturally.”
Bruce hums at the new information, turning it over in his mind. “Alright,” he says.
“All-right?” Jason asks, drawing the word out in a way that shows his scepticism.
Bruce nods. “I mean, I don’t like it, of course. But I trust you. You’re my kids.” He smiles at them.
There is a long, long moment of silence and something in his chest twists at the way they look so surprised. At what? That he trusts them?
“Cool,” Tim says and it’s clear that he’s trying to go for casual and composed, but it sounds slightly squeaky instead.
Bruce turns his smile on him and his son flushes, looking pleased and overwhelmed. Then he stands, pushing away Stephanie and jostling Damian in the process, before all but fleeing the room. Stephanie quirks an eyebrow, but follows with an apologetic look, pulling Damian with him.
“So how long was I out?” he asks Duke, Dick and Jason.
They exchange another look and Bruce fully expects to be fed another lie, but then Jason says: “Three weeks.”
Three weeks? Bruce looks down at his arm, the only visible injury and then at them, before he nods. “Damn. When can I get up?”
“Doc said whenever you are awake,” Duke replies and his bright brown eyes are fixed on Bruce’s arm. Of course, this would be very upsetting for the boy with his parents and all. Bruce’s heart clenches with sorrow for his ward and he opens one arm invitingly.
“Do you need a hug?”
Duke looks at him with something shattered in his eyes, mouth opening and closing, before Jason nudges him. He leans into the hug, turning into Bruce’s good side and burying his face into his shoulder. A moment later, his shirt grows wet and then he has a shaking teenager in his arm.
He tightens his hold, looking up at his two oldest sons.
Both have identical passive looks on their faces and they’ve never looked more like siblings.
It has to be something big that they’re hiding from him if they all react so weirdly to him displaying affection for Duke.
His ward stops shaking and his breaths even out.
“He wasn’t sleeping well,” Dick says softly.
Bruce searches his face, taking in his eldest’s deep eyebags. “He doesn’t seem to be the only one,” he pointed out dryly and Dick smiles tiredly.
“I guess not,” he admits with a shrug too casual for the sentiment and Bruce’s chest does that weird thing again. It almost feels like regret, but he’s not sure what for.
Carefully, very carefully, he moves Duke off himself and arranges him comfortably on the bed. Then he tucks him in and opens his now free arm. “Come on then,” he says when Dick just stares at him.
“Nope,” Jason mutters with a sharp look at Dick and then the scarred young man shoulders his way past his older brothers and leaves the room in the same speed as Tim before him.
Dick though…Dick hesitates and then shuffles over to him, slowly leaning into his side.
He’s tense, Bruce can feel it, but all he does is pull the man closer to himself until Dick is tucked into his side perfectly.
“I don’t know when you last hugged me,” Dick says, voice muffled against Bruce’s shoulder and he is pretty sure the man is crying too.
“What do you mean?” he asks, honestly baffled. “I hug you kids pretty often.”
He does. Even just thinking back the past few times he’s seen Dick, he had always pulled his eldest in for a quick hug. Perhaps it was not long enough? How long did children want to cuddle properly?
Dick makes a choked sound. “Oh yeah?” he asks and there is an edge to his words that sounds suspiciously like something broken. “And how old am I in those memories?”
Bruce pauses, honestly confused. “I mean,” he starts and then stops.
The man in his arm now is going towards thirty, but all he remembers is hugs with someone more boy than man.
“I-” He stops again. What is happening? He knows he has seen Dick recently. He sees him all the time, but he’s missing those memories.
Is that what they meant?
He remembers a handful of times where he’s met Dick, like at brunches or at Damian’s birthday party, but they didn’t really hug them.
“Yeah,” Dick says softly.
They don’t speak more after that, but Bruce tightens his arms some more.
Just because he can.
~•~
“Master Bruce,” Alfred says, when he walks carrying a tray with broth and pudding and tea and water. The butler pauses briefly when he sees Dick and Duke sleeping, both equally carefully tucked in. “I see the young masters succumbed to their fatigue,” he comments and Bruce quirks a smile.
“Alfred,” he says and it sounds a bit like ‘Dad’ when he says it.
The butler smiles, lifting an eyebrow. “Yes?”
“The thing they’re hiding from me. It’s big, I can tell.”
Alfred hums in acknowledgment, but it’s not a question, so he doesn’t answer.
“Do you agree with them keeping it from me?”
Alfred puts the tray down and presses the mug with tea into his hands. “Yes,” he says simply.
“Alright,” Bruce acquiesces, taking small sips of the tea.
Alfred searches his face for a moment.
“Bruce,” Alfred starts and Bruce is so taken aback by the lack of a title, something he’s been trying to get Alfred to drop for ages, that he just stares.
There is a very long pause.
“Bruce, are you happy?”
The question lingers between them, entirely unexpected, too deep and too heavy. Bruce fumbles through his thoughts. “I mean…yes? I have my children and you, right? We’re all safe and…” He feels like there is something missing, something he should know, but all he can remember are warm meals with his family and the time he took Stephanie and Tim to the aquarium and going to a trampoline park with Damian and Jon and that one time they had managed to convince Jason to stay for movie night and…
Why does Jason not like to stay with them for movie nights?
Bruce swallows.
He swallows again.
“Very good, sir,” Alfred says softly and then he leaves Bruce alone with his two sleeping kids and a tray full of hearty home-made meals.
Of course he is happy.
Whyever would he not be?
~•~
Bruce knocks his hand against the frame of his son’s open door.
Damian looks up from where he is sitting at his desk, drawing. His green eyes are immediately fixed on Bruce’s face, intently searching it. Whatever he is searching for doesn’t seem to be there and the boy’s lips turn into a sneer.
“Damian,” Bruce says. “May I come in?”
The boy shifts slightly. “Of course, father.”
He doesn’t sound uncomfortable or like he’s just saying it to appease Bruce, so he enters. “What are you doing?”
Damian looks from his drawing to Bruce and back down again with an expression that plainly spells out that he thinks Bruce stupid and the man has to fight back a laugh. “What are you drawing,” he amends.
“Alfred,” his son replies and then, after a beat clarifies, “the cat.”
Bruce steps closer and peers at the drawing. It’s really good, most of his son’s drawings are. Ever since Damian’s therapist suggested he find a non-violent outlet, the boy had taken to drawing like a fish to water.
“It’s very good,” he compliments. His son makes an odd little face, halfway between constipated and pleased. There’s a light flush creeping into his cheeks.
“Thank you, father,” he says softly, eyeing his drawing as if it has the answers to everything.
“You have this art show soon, right? At your school?”
Damian looks up at him with wide, wide eyes. “Uhm…yes, tomorrow actually,” he says and the stutter is so uncharacteristic that Bruce blinks at him.
Damian doesn’t uhm.
“Perfect,” Bruce replies, smiling proudly. “Do you know if your siblings are aware?”
“I- yes. They promised to come.”
A pause.
“Are you?”
It’s clear that Damian expects him to say no, but Bruce isn’t sure why. He’d always gone to his children’s performances and exhibitions. He went to Tim’s photography exhibition and Dick’s gymnastics tournament and Jason’s spelling bee and Cass’ ballet performance.
He hasn’t gone to anything of Duke’s yet, but Duke hasn’t had anything since living with them.
“Of course. I always come to your kids’ things,” he replies.
Something flickers over Damian’s face, something tight and pinched and pained. “Of course,” he repeats, but Bruce doesn’t think he means it.
He stares at his son, but his son doesn’t look like he wants to offer up anything else, so Bruce sighs, turns around and leaves.
~•~
“We could go get pizza after the art exhibition,” Bruce suggests.
His children exchange those looks again, but then Dick just grins and says: “Sounds good, yeah. It’s been a while since all of us went out together. Well, minus Cass, I guess.”
Jason grunts something and then makes a more high-pitched sound and jolts, which Bruce takes to mean that one of his other sons kicked him.
Likely Tim, based on the sunny expression on his face.
Jason glares at his little brother.
“We could go to Verdis. They got that Lasagna you like, right, Tim?”
Tim flushes at being adressed, something in his eyes that is a little bit too pleased at having Bruce’s attention. Perhaps still leftovers from the Drake’s handsoff parenting?
“You reme- I mean, yes. I like it, yes.”
Bruce furrows his brows, eyes flickering around the room. His oldest is looking at Tim with a tender expression. Understanding. Pained too, Bruce thinks. His children have all been looking pained the past day and Bruce aches to make it better, to smooth it. He doesn’t know how.
Doesn’t know who put it there.
With the way Jason is glowering at him, he thinks…he thinks it may have been himself.
He doesn’t understand.
“Verdis it is,” Bruce says, because he doesn’t know what else to say.
~•~
It’s three weeks after the art show and pizza that Bruce walks past Dick’s room and hears his name.
“-gotta tell Bruce.”
There’s a scoff and Bruce slows to a halt, feeling vaguely guilty about eavesdropping, but not enough to stop.
“Why? Huh?” Jason says heatedly.
“It’s pretty clear that his memories aren’t just coming back,” Dick replies, sounding reasonable and also a tad guilty. “Zatanna made absolutely zero progress on the spell.”
Bruce lifts an eyebrow. Zatanna? Spell? What the hell are his kids talking about.
“But Dick,” Jason starts and he sounds like his throat is aching, like he is forcing jagged words out. “He’s so…I mean…you see the way Tim lights up every time Bruce remembers he exists outside of Red Robin.”
Red Robin? What is that and why would he forget his son over it?
“That’s just because he doesn’t remember Tim is Red Robin,” Dick says softly.
“Exactly my fucking point,” Jason shoots back. “You think he won’t go right back to how he was once he remembers?”
There is a long moment of silence.
“Dick,” Jason says. “Damian has started calling him dad sometimes. After three weeks of this. Three weeks. This could help him get better.”
“But-” Dick starts.
“Duke is opening up too,” Jason continues.
Bruce is so confused. Something in his chest is aching. Was he not a good father to them?
Was he…was he a father to them? Before he lost whatever memories he’d forgotten?
“What about Batman?” Dick asks.
Batman? Weird name.
“Maybe,” Jason says and his voice is sharp made of broken glass and steel. “Maybe Batman is collateral damage.”
“Bruce wouldn’t want that,” Dick replies and he sounds close to tears, as if he wants to do nothing more than to agree with Jason but can’t. His morals getting in the way, if Bruce had to guess. His oldest son had always been such a kind-hearted boy, always eager to help Bruce with donating and accompanying him to the soup kitchen on Thanksgiving.
“Bruce is happier than I’ve ever seen,” Jason says.
Bruce wipes a tear he didn’t realise escaped his eye. He is happy. So very happy. Was he not before?
Were his children?
“So are we. Don’t the kids deserve this Bruce as a father, Dickie?” A long pause and then, much more quietly, “don’t we?”
Bruce wipes away a tear.
“We can’t keep this from him, Jay. We can’t.”
They’re silent for so long that Bruce thinks he missed Jason’s answer, but then his second oldest son says: “I know.”
Bruce slips away.
He thinks of the way Duke had to be nudged to hug him, of Dick asking him how old he was in the memories. He thinks of Tim when he remembered the Lasagna and of Damian’s art exhibition, him calling him dad.
He thinks of Jason asking ‘Don’t we deserve it.’
Batman.
A name he doesn’t remember.
He isn’t sure he wants to know what memories he’s lost. Not when clearly everyone is better off without them.
Collateral damage.
He wipes away another tear and his eyes steel.