Chapter Text
Ok so some info about my au
Bruce: is autistic, He was in Arkham Asylum twice, he should have been there three times, but when he heard he would go back there, he ran away from home with the help of Lily. When he ran away, he was 15 years old.
Lily: has a problem controlling emotions She had a drunkard for a father and a mother who left her alone. Bruce met her in Arkham Asylum and they quickly became friends. She already wanted to escape on her own, so when he asked her if she would go with him, she immediately said yes.
Masson and Mia: They are twins with ADHD, Masson, has a quiet version, so he is not hyperactive, at least not physically, Mia has the hyperactive one, so what you imagine when you hear ADHD. The parents were very homophobic and wanted to send them to a 'camp' again to 'fix' them (they had already done it once and it was a bit better than if they had been in arkham asylum), and that’s why they joined Bruce and Lily on the journey. Back then they had only been on the road for a year and a half.
Kids POV
Something's wrong they don't know what but something is wrong. Bruce has been behaving strangely for a few days, to be precise, three. He is restless, but they see that it is not because of stress. Whenever they ask if something is wrong, he just says no.
Okay, he giveing shorter answers is normal. But that is not the problem, the problem is his tone, because they analyze everything his tone, facial expression, how he sits/stands, but that, that is new. And that scares them.
Bruce POV
I haven’t been this happy in a long time. Three days ago, my friends told me they were coming to Gotham in a week.
Well, I’m speaking as if we don’t talk, we talk every week, but I haven’t seen them in person for a long time. OK I saw them two months ago when I was on a business trip BUT back then we couldn’t hang out much because of my work, now we can)
I haven't told my family or TJL yet. It's not that I don't want to, but these three days they avoid me, I don't know why, they only talk to me to ask if something is wrong. But I can also tell them when my friends come.
We became friends on my trip, at least I met the twins that way, Masson and Mia, who are one year older than me. Lily ran away from home to whid me; she is two years older than me. They are some of the few, no the only people who truly understand me.
With them, I don't need to have a filter, I don't need to watch what I say because they immediately know what I am thinking.
4 days later
I was in the dining room alone; all the children had either already left the house or had not returned home. Well, that's what I thought until all the kids ran into the dining room screaming. Not from fear more because they were confused. It took me a few seconds to hear them because of the ringing in my ears.
But I still had to figure out what they were talking about. Well, that was until Damian, who was closest to me, said, ''Babe, why are there people outside saying they are your friends and why do they have the keys to your house?''
When he said that I almost fell because I got up so quickly. My food, however, was left forgotten on the table. I ran to the entrance door with my children not far behind me, to whom I still hadn't given an answer.
I opened the door, and as I could hardly react, I was already in an embrace that was happening on the floor. But I was laughing like crazy.
Kids POV
He is laughing. And not that fake laugh that Bruci makes or the short one that Batman makes. Not the kind that hurts your stomach when you stop, the kind they don't know. They don't know why this makes them so angry, but it does.
Who are these people, who are they that ther dad Bruce can laugh so freely with them? and why dase he never laugh with them like that.
3.POV
They stood there for a few more minutes until things calmed down. Bruce and the other 3 people, who the kids are realizing are Bruce's friends. They ware flord. He never told them that he has friends.
The tallest girl looked at them. She was the tallest of all, even Bruce, with short dark brown hair and green eyes. At first, she looked at them seriously, as if trying to figure out if they were dangerous. But she soon smiled at them and said, ''Hi, my name is Lily, sorry if we scared you.''.
Before anyone could answer, Jason had already said, ''please, you could never scare us.'' He didn't like the idea that someone thinking he is weak. And the girl, whose name they now know is Lily, didn't even blink when she said, ''I'm not saying that you're afraid of us, but that 1 we have the keys to your house, 2 I don't know if you know who we are, and 3 we, well at least I, don't look particularly friendly. But don't worry, I know that none of you are weak.''. Well, that surprised them. She spoke as if she knew who they were.
They looked at Bruce. When he realized that they ware paying attention to him, he cleared his throat. ''Well, I thought I would tell you earlier, but I didn't have the chance. I guess it's best if I tell you who they are, huh? This is Lily, now you already know that-''he pointed to the woman they had been talking to earlier''-this is Mia-''He showed a shorter girl, compared to the tall one, she had long and curly hair that was light brown almost blonde. She had light brown eyes ''-and this is Masson.''He pointed to a man who was in the middle, neither tall nor short. Otherwise, he just looked like the male version of Mia, was that her name? Besides having shorter hair.
''Baba, why did you never tell us that you have friends?''Damian, who looked a bit too serious for the situation, asked. Bruce didn't know how to respond, he started ''I didn't- I-''. Before he could answer,
Masson already replied to them, ''Well, part of it is because we knew you would want to meet us and because of our jobs and back then you still couldn't fight properly, so it seemed too dangerous to us. Then we all just collectively forgot about it.''
There was silence for a few seconds. Until Bruce started speaking, ''come with me, I will show you where your rooms will be.'' Before they could leave, Dick asked them, ''if you don’t mind, how long will you be here?'' They looked at each other as if they didn’t know themselves.
The girl, who now everyone knows is Mia, finally answered, ''to tell you honestly, we ourselves don’t know, it could be two weeks or it could be a month. But don’t worry, we know your 'secret,' so you won’t have to pretend while we’re here.''. There was silence, the kids were confused.
''Yeeeee...-'' Masson started to speak ''-we know that you are vigilantes. I mean, we helped with a lot of designs for your old costumes and for the Batcave'' Now they were even more confused, at that Lily laughed ''oh God, Bruce can probably handle the mechanics and make all the electronic parts, but he needs help to make things look good and be comfortable. Yes, he can do that himself, but hey, why would he do it if someone else can do it for him twice as fast'' And with that they went up, they heard that someone had made a joke, the others laughed. As if it was the most normal thing in the world.
At dinner
To say that things were strange would be an understatement. Bruce, who most often sat quietly and ate elegantly, was loud and 'argued' on silly topics. Of course, they saw how he was more relaxed, happier, louder. But they also noticed other things, for example, everyone kept mentioning a person called Chief (in my AU they had a teacher/mentor whom they called Chief, and he was also like a sort of parent to them).
It was unusual, it was strange, and well, they didn't like how Bruce could laugh with them. Everything was 'fine' until Tim asked, ''Hey Bruce, has Clark already met your friends?'' The word friends was surprisingly difficult for him to pronounce.
Bruce paused this time, ''I think not, I didn’t have time to tell him they are coming'' ''Why don’t you call him yourself now? I would like to meet him,'' Mia said quickly, barely settling in the seat. ''Okay, I can go call him, and you just finish eating,'' he replied and went from the dining room into the side room. Before he went, Alfred looked up and greeted him, Bruce asking him if he could take the empty plates.
When he left, silence reigned for a moment, until Alfred spoke, ''Could I take your plate, Mr-''. ''My name is Masson, but you don't need to call me that. Since we're on names, how should I call you?'' ''You can call me Alfred,'' he said, and a dead silence fell in the room. ''Your Alfred Pennyworth?'' Lily asked, almost angrily; they couldn't see her face as she was looking down. But just by the way she was sitting, they could see that she was angry.
''Yes. But I'm curious how you know my surname.'' ''Well-'' before Lily could continue, Masson had already started speaking calmly, too calmly, ''Bruce told us about you, we're just surprised that you're still working here.''Before they could continue, Bruce stepped back into the dining room. ''Clark will be here in about 5 to 10 minutes, he still needs to finish something.''
''Well, that's nice,'' said Alfred, who was taking away the empty plates. ''Uh! I have an idea, what if we played a board game to get to know each other better and then watch a movie?'' said Mia, a little too excited, considering what had happened a few minutes ago.
When everyone stopped eating, they moved to the living room. Even though most of the time the children would go somewhere and leave Bruce alone, this time they stayed with him in the living room. It wasn't long before a knock was heard at the door.
Bruce insisted on going to unlock it, even though Clark had his own keys. Soon they returned; Clark was confused but also happy to meet Bruce's friends. (He was upset that Bruce hadn’t told him earlier, but he saw how happy Bruce was, so he pretended it didn’t bother him)
Bruce quickly introduces his friends. Then they started playing the board games they had. When the snack ran out, Bruce volunteered to go get more. As he left, dead silence fell. Lily, who was closest to Clark, looked at him and forced a smile, "What we are going to tell you, we’ll tell you once. We know who you are, we know what you do. I promise you, we know enough to defeat you. We know your weaknesses."
Before he could respond, Messon started with a look that could kill, "Bruce is our friend and we have all gone through too much to let you hurt him. So if you ever hurt him or even kill him, you won’t have to fear his children. They can kill you, we won’t. We will torture you until you beg us to kill you." "That means you have two choices," Mia continued, "either you leave now and never come back or stay here and love him until both of you die, or we will make sure you do not hurt him, okay?"
Clark looked at them a little scared but finally answered ''I promise I will love him until I die.'' They did not answer him but they nodded. After that, Bruce returned unaware of what had happened. During the games, they heard parts of their journey. It was interesting because they never imagined that this was their father Bruce.
They talked a little about the journey and the van they had. After a long time, the children gathered that... Bruce was also their age. After the games, they watched a movie; it was comfortable. They didn't know that Bruce liked stop-motion animation so much. (Yes, I made Bruce and his friends into these things, and you can't stop me)
Night came and the children and Bruce went out. Today they did not talk as much as usual, but the silence was pleasant. They went to sleep without knowing what would happen in the future. And everyone had the same thought ''what else do they not know abot Bruce?''