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Tuesday, 3:47 AM
Something warm and heavy landed across his shins.
Bruce’s eyes snapped open. His hand was already reaching for the knife under his pillow—until he saw the mop of dark hair splayed across his duvet, attached to a nine-year-old who was drooling on his ankle.
“Jason,” Bruce said flatly.
The boy didn’t stir. He’d crawled in sometime after Bruce fell asleep, still in his pajama pants with the worn-out Robin logo, clutching a stuffed orca like it was a tactical weapon. His face was slack, peaceful—nothing like the sharp-edged kid who’d tried to pick the Batmobile’s tires six months ago.
Bruce sat up. “Jason. Bedroom. Now.”
Jason mumbled something that sounded like “sm’ller.”
Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose. Carefully, as if defusing a bomb, he pried the child’s legs off his own. He carried him back to his room—one room down the hall, not even far, and tucked him in with mechanical precision.
Back in his own bed, Bruce lay rigid, counting ceiling cracks, and did not sleep again.
---
Thursday, 1:12 AM
This time it was Dick.
Bruce woke to find a seventeen-year-old pretzeled against his side, one arm slung across Bruce’s chest, cheek pressed to Bruce’s shoulder like he was five again and fresh off the trapeze.
“Grayson,” Bruce whispered.
“Five more minutes, B,” Dick mumbled.
“You’re not supposed to be in here.”
“You left the door unlocked.”
Bruce had not left the door unlocked. He checked it twice. Then again before bed. He was certain. Was he certain? The concussion from two nights ago might have—
“Go back to your room.”
“Your room has better blankets,” Dick said, already resettling. “Also you’re warm. Alfred said you don’t eat enough. You feel like a skeleton. This is a public service.”
Bruce stared at the ceiling. He did not push Dick off. He told himself it was because he didn’t want to wake the boy after patrol. That was the only reason.
He lay there, stiff as a board, until Dick started snoring softly into his collarbone.
Then, very slowly, Bruce’s arm came up and rested on Dick’s back. Just for warmth. Just for a moment.
He fell asleep thirty seconds later.
---
Saturday, 4:23 AM
Tim Drake was a ghost.
Bruce knew this because he did not wake up when Tim slipped under the covers. He woke up when Tim’s phone screen illuminated the entire room at 4:23 AM with a barrage of stock market alerts and three consecutive Batcomputer notifications.
“Turn that off,” Bruce growled.
“Sorry, sorry—” Tim fumbled with the phone, dropped it twice, then tucked it under his pillow, where it immediately vibrated again. “I was just finishing the quarterly financial projections for Wayne Enterprises. And there was a Riddler cipher. And I think Jason stole my coffee stash.”
“Timothy.”
“I’ll be quiet.”
Bruce turned over. His back was to the boy now. He could feel Tim’s bony knees pressed against his spine, could hear the rapid, over-caffeinated tapping of fingers on a phone screen he’d clearly retrieved again.
“No electronics in my bed.”
“This isn’t your bed. This is the family bed now. I read about it in a parenting book Alfred left on the counter.”
Bruce had not left a parenting book on the counter.
Had he?
He groaned. Then he reached back, grabbed the phone from Tim’s hands, and set it on the nightstand. “Sleep.”
“…Fine.”
Five minutes later, Tim’s forehead was pressed between Bruce’s shoulder blades, and his breathing had evened out.
Bruce did not move him.
---
Sunday, 11:47 PM
Bruce had a strategy now.
He locked his door. He installed a deadbolt. He left a note on the outside that said, in his most intimidating Batman scrawl: DO NOT ENTER. I WILL KNOW.
He fell asleep feeling victorious.
At 11:47 PM, he woke to a small hand patting his face.
“Father.”
Damian stood beside the bed in his night robe, sword in hand, expression deeply unimpressed. “The lock was inadequate. I picked it in twelve seconds. You’re losing your touch.”
“Damian. What.”
“I had a nightmare.”
Bruce waited.
Damian did not elaborate. He simply stared, regal and immovable, as if Bruce’s bed were a throne he was entitled to claim.
“You can go back to your room,” Bruce said.
“I am aware.”
“Then go.”
Damian climbed onto the bed. Not tentatively—no, the boy threw back the covers with the authority of a general taking command, arranged himself exactly in the center, and lay flat on his back with his hands folded over his chest like a tiny corpse.
“I will require the large pillow,” he said.
Bruce gave him the large pillow.
Then he lay on the very edge of the mattress, one foot hanging off, and watched his youngest son fall asleep in under a minute, small face slack and soft in a way Damian would never permit while conscious.
Bruce sighed. It was a long, low sound, full of twenty years of exhaustion and the absurd, impossible weight of loving children who had no respect for locked doors or personal space.
He pulled the blanket over Damian’s shoulders.
---
Monday, 6:15 AM
Bruce woke to heat.
Not the dry heat of a Gotham summer, but the oppressive, humid warmth of four bodies arranged around him like a very aggressive human blanket fort.
Dick was tucked under his right arm, head on Bruce’s chest. Jason had somehow migrated from his room and was draped across the foot of the bed, legs tangled with Bruce’s. Tim had wormed his way between Bruce and the headboard, using Bruce’s bicep as a pillow. And Damian, who had started the night on his own side, was now curled into Bruce’s left side with a death grip on Bruce’s shirt.
All of them were asleep.
All of them looked obscenely young.
Bruce tried to move. Jason’s leg kicked out instinctively. Tim mumbled “five more minutes.” Damian’s grip tightened. Dick sighed happily and snuggled closer.
Bruce Wayne, the Batman, the terror of Gotham’s underworld, lay pinned to his own mattress by four children who had absolutely no business being in his bed.
He stared at the ceiling.
Then, very slowly, he closed his eyes.
Alfred would find them like this at 7:00 AM, and he would not say a word. He would simply leave a tray of coffee on the nightstand, along with a note that read: “I’ve taken the liberty of canceling your morning meetings, Master Bruce. Sleep well.”
And Bruce would grunt, and grumble, and pretend to be annoyed.
But his arms would stay wrapped around his children.
And he would not let go.
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