Work Text:
Bruce didn’t consider himself a proud man. Not really. Clark might think he was proud, and sure Oliver definitely had an opinion on it, but Bruce Wayne was not proud. Batman? Maybe a little.
Which is why, when Cass had come into Bruce’s bedroom one Saturday morning with a Rapunzel doll in her hand, and pointed very seriously at the doll’s braided hair and then at her own, Bruce hadn’t been worried. He was Batman, after all. He spoke eleven languages, could tie and untie a knot better than the most weathered sailor, could hold his breath for over seven minutes. He had once defused a bomb using chicken wire and some old gum! Honestly, how hard could a braid be?
“Oh no,” Tim breathes, wide-eyed and utterly aghast. “What have you done?”
Cass stands in the mirror, face red and eyes dark, glaring at Bruce’s reflection. “You are so bad.” Each word is said with force, she looks utterly betrayed. “So bad.”
Bruce has no defence. Her hair is a disaster. Pulled too tight on one side, tangled and knotted on the other. There’s an elastic stuck in there somewhere, trapped in the escalating disaster that was the start of a French braid, along with half the comb that snapped off when Bruce tried to brush it out.
“Why didn’t you stop?” Tim asks weakly. He points at the first mistake, just above Cass’s ear. “Why didn’t you stop here? Why’d you keep going?”
“I—” Bruce has no response. Because he was a fool? A proud and arrogant fool who had never had hair past the tops of his ears before, apart from that one time when he was twenty-two and that only lasted a week because Alfred told him he’d tell Commissioner Gordon who Batman was if he didn’t cut it. “I don’t know,” he finishes lamely.
“This is worse than your squirrel haircut.” Tim sounds like he is delivering news of the death of the president on live TV.
“Way worse,” Cass says. And she stalks out of the room, Rapunzel clutched tightly in her hand.
To say that Bruce is utterly mortified by his inability to braid his daughter’s hair would be an understatement. Normally, Cass would come to him before school, he’d brush her hair and put it in a simple ponytail. After bath time he’d comb it through, once wet, and then again when it was dry, after he’d scrubbed her head with the towel and made her giggle like the devil. Now, she won’t let him near her hair, not even running his hand over her head when he kisses her goodnight. Alfred alone now has hair privileges.
Bruce is devastated.
“Well I don’t know what you expected,” Alfred says smartly, watching as Bruce pulls on the Batsuit later that evening. “She asked for Rapunzel and you gave her Edward Scissorhands.”
Bruce bristles at the accusation. “Alfred, I can assemble and disassemble that Batmobile engine, blindfolded, in twenty minutes. It isn’t unreasonable to assume I could braid hair.”
“Oh yes,” Alfred drawls, moustache twitching. “Because little girls and car engines are exactly the same.”
Bruce doesn’t speak to him for the rest of the night.
~
When Bruce gets home from a particularly gruelling patrol later that week, Cass still hasn’t forgiven him. His boots got filled with sewer water, he tore his favourite cape and his daughter is nowhere to be seen.
Normally, at a weekend, she waits up for him, even though he’s told her countless times that bedtime means bed, all night. She literally never listens to a word he says though, and will sit happily in his bedroom playing as she waits for him to drag himself through the door. Once she’s satisfied he’s home and in one piece (a quick cuddle and a tight squeeze round his middle), she’ll take herself off to her room without a fuss.
Tonight, instead, Dick is sprawled diagonally across Bruce’s entire bed, snoring and drooling on the pillows. To add insult to injury he’s wearing his Superman pyjamas, again. Bruce scowls, and goes to angrily brush his teeth in the en-suite. It’s not his fault he can’t fly, not his fault he can’t braid hair. He can do a lot of other really cool stuff though, and nobody cares! Stupid Clark, stupid Rapunzel, stupid Alfred—
A particularly loud snore from the bedroom and what sounds like a very sleep-shocked “I’ve lost my mushrooms!” breaks Bruce’s spiralling. Dick pads into the en-suite a moment later, Superman pyjamas twisted up one leg, eyes bleary.
“Why are you brushing so loud?” he asks through a yawn.
Bruce tries not to feel even more offended. “I am brushing at a normal volume.”
Dick looks distinctly unimpressed, eyes blinking slowly. He reaches up to pat Bruce on the head. He can’t quite reach, and ends up awkwardly tapping the side of Bruce’s face instead. “Cass said I had to wait and see you’re not dead.” He looks like he’s falling back asleep on his feet. “Good job. She says she doesn’t say goodnight though.”
Bruce doesn’t know what to say to that, so he goes back to brushing his teeth. Dick watches him with a sleepy disinterest. Once Bruce has rinsed and spit and flossed he turns back to Dick, who looks like he’s so tired he’s forgotten he can go back to bed.
“She’s still mad then?” Bruce asks.
Dick’s eyes slide back into focus at the question, a mischievous glint brightening them up. “Remember that time you let Talia sleep over and Alfred was so cross you had to take us to Batburger for breakfast, lunch and dinner all in one day?”
Bruce does not love the reminder. “Yes,” he says, bristling.
“You probably have to take Cass to Batburger for Thanksgiving,” Dick says with barely restrained glee. “Probably Christmas too. And her birthday. And your birthday.”
Bruce decides it’s time to lie down.
~
He wakes next morning to Jason’s face inches from his own. “The baby and Tim are fighting again,” Jason says. “And I’m late for soccer.”
Bruce’s mood does not improve.
Damian spends Jason’s entire practice either trying to escape the stroller, or crying that he’s not in it. In the end, Bruce has to give up his phone so the two-year-old can watch Ms. Rachel, which is annoying because he’d been busy compiling a list of braid tutorials on YouTube.
What is clear, at least from his preliminary research, is that he was woefully unprepared. A couple of elastics and an everyday hairbrush are - it turns out - wildly insufficient for braiding his little girl’s hair. There are about three different types of brushes he should buy, clear elastics, decorative elastics, ribbons, scrunchies, styling cream (for a seven year old!), water mist (what?), sectioning clips, bobby pins and a wax stick (whatever that is).
He manages to send his assistant, Alex, a vaguely coherent voice note over Damian’s shrieks. “Same-day delivery please, Alex. I can’t stress the urgency enough.”
Then he spends the rest of Jason’s practice watching the sky, waiting for the delivery drone to arrive. Which is ridiculous, obviously. Firstly because Alex would have ordered to the Manor, but secondly because none of his kids have ever been mad at him this long and he literally doesn't know what to do. Honestly, it’s worse than that time Oliver came over when they were teenagers, and they got so drunk Bruce vomited red wine on the ballroom curtains. He’s never seen Alfred so furious - before or since.
He’s still watching the sky when he suddenly realises Jason has been stood beside him, doing the same thing, for the last few minutes.
“Is Uncle Clark mad at you too?” Jason asks.
“Huh?” Bruce looks at his second son. “Why is Clark mad at me?”
Jason shrugs. “I dunno, but he normally comes straight away and you’ve been staring at the sky for hours now.”
“I’m not— he’s not—” Damian chooses this moment to let out a particularly loud shriek and yeet Bruce’s phone out of the stroller. It lands with a crack and immediately shuts down. Bruce thinks he feels his brain do the same.
Jason’s eyes go wide with glee, because Bruce knows that Jason knows that Bruce is thinking about just lying down there and then.
“Not a word, Jason. Not a word.”
Jason does an excited little jig instead.
~
When they get back to the Manor, Bruce is putting Damian down for a nap and wondering if he’d fit in the crib for one too, when Alfred appears looking deeply unimpressed.
“Have you completely lost the plot?” The older man asks. “Why did fourteen mannequin heads arrive whilst you were gone? Are you changing persona? Are you becoming Mannequin-Head-Man now?”
Bruce, who definitely did not (mean to) order fourteen mannequin heads, narrows his eyes. “Well Batman rolls off the tongue a little too easily.”
“The children think you’ve gone insane.”
“It’s not insane,” Bruce scowls. “It’s thorough. I didn’t learn sabrage just reading a book, you know.”
“No,” Alfred acquiesces with a roll of his eyes. “But you did waste over thirty bottles of vintage Dom Perignon.”
Bruce is feeling very grumpy by this point. “If you aren’t going to be helpful, Alfred...”
Alfred looks like he is seriously considering not being helpful, in fact he appears to spend what must be a full minute seriously considering it, before he finally relents. “Cassandra doesn’t want Batman,” he says a little softer. “She doesn’t want the world’s greatest detective opening a bottle of champagne with a sword. She wants her father to plait her hair for her.”
Bruce opens his mouth to respond with something grumpy and petty, but Alfred holds up a hand to stop him.
“Perhaps approach this obstacle less like a rogue to be thrown in Arkham, and more like a problem that might be halved if you deigned to share it.”
“Hn,” Bruce replies, because he’s not done being petty, even if Alfred is right.
Alfred pats him gently on the cheek. “That’s my boy.”
~
Turns out, Damian has well and truly destroyed his cell phone, so Bruce has to use the house phone to call Diana. She answers on the third ring.
“Hello, Bruce. Are you well?” He knows her too well not to notice the concern in her voice.
“I need help,” he says, without preamble.
Diana is silent for a moment. “I can be there by 2pm. Should we call Clark in the meanti—”
“What? No, I don’t need Clark.”
“Bruce, you never pick up the phone and just ask for help unless you’re already bleeding out—”
“Nobody is bleeding.”
“Then what is going on?”
“I need— I mean, would you—”
“Bruce.”
“IneedyourhelplearningtobraidCass’shair.”
Diana is silent again, then, in a voice which makes it clear she fully understood what Bruce asked and is feeling smug about it, says “I’m going to need you to repeat that, just a little slower, Bruce.”
Bruce lets out an almighty sigh. “Cass has asked for a Rapunzel braid in her hair. I can just about manage a ponytail.” He pauses. “I need help.”
Diana’s voice is warm as sunshine when she speaks and Bruce can tell she is absolutely delighted by this turn of events. Still better than Clark finding out though. “Tomorrow?” She suggests. “I can be there for eleven?”
“Perfect,” Bruce says, relief flooding his veins. “Eleven it is.”
~
Cass isn't waiting after patrol the following night either. Instead, Tim is star-fished on Bruce's bed, dead to the world, his Nintendo Switch still running Pokemon in his hand. Bruce scoops up the six-year-old in his arms and carries him down the hall. Tim doesn't stir, which is probably why Cass didn't trust him to confirm proof of life. Bruce spots her peeking through a crack in her door as he passes. Only because he's Batman though, his girl is one with the shadows almost as well as he is. He thinks about going in to talk to her, but decides four a.m. is probably not an ideal time for a heart-to-heart about French braids and fishtails.
Next morning, breakfast is the usual chaos. Dick is feeding Damian his fourth yoghurt, whilst Jason and Tim argue over whether Superman or Uncle Clark is stronger. Bruce has tried to explain several times that that isn’t how secret identities work.
"Diana." Cass announces, imperious, pointing her spoon at the pair of them. "Not stronger, but better fighter."
Tim and Jason consider this. "B is the best fighter though." Tim says after a moment, and Bruce is so astounded to finally receive a compliment from one of his children he almost forgets he only had forty-five minutes sleep last night.
Jason snorts into his Cheerios. "B can't even do hair."
Cass’s face darkens. So does Bruce’s. "Thanks, Jason," Bruce grumbles.
“Y’welcome," the seven-year-old replies.
"On that note," Bruce continues, trying not to sound too acidic. "Guess who's coming over later today—"
"Superman!" Dick says at once, accidentally flinging some of Damian's yoghurt over the table.
"Taylor Swift!" Tim says even louder.
"Timmy, I’ve told you, we don't know Taylor—"
"The President!"
"Eurgh, Jason, gross–"
"The moon!" Damian shrieks, in baby babble.
"Okay, okay, enough guessing." Bruce says weakly, why did he even ask? He turns to Cass, lays his palm flat on the table between them. The seven-year-old eyes him suspiciously. "Diana is—"
"YES!" Jason jumps out of his seat. "I LOVE Aunty Diana!"
Bruce winces and pushes on. "Aunty Diana is going to come over and teach me how to braid your hair."
For the first time in days, Cass’s expression softens and the dark cloud that has been following Bruce around for the last week lightens a little. Cass thinks for a moment and then says, "Okay, good. Because you so bad."
Bruce gives her a strained smile.
~
“B was so bad,” Cass tells Diana seriously a little later that morning. She leads the Amazonian by one hand into the playroom, Rapunzel clutched in her other. Diana has dressed for the part; her long dark hair is twisted into an elaborate braid down her back.
“It was even worse than when I gave Tim a haircut,” Jason says proudly, trotting after Diana like a puppy.
“I am sure you give excellent haircuts, Jason,” Diana replies.
Jason goes a little pink, grins proudly. “No, it was ‘dreadful’, Alfred said.”
They stop at the small chair and table Cass usually does her colouring on. Bruce sits opposite, ridiculously oversized in the tiny seat, arranging his numerous supplies of hair accessories in neat piles. On the floor next to him are two of the fourteen mannequin heads.
“An excellent first step, Bruce. Preparation is key.” Diana deliberately ignores the heads. “Now, young Cassandra. You sit here, and Bruce, you come round here.”
“Uh-uh. No way,” Cass says immediately, pulling on Diana’s hand. “You do it.”
“I am going to help Bruce. I promise, he will be much better when we are done learning. And I won’t let him pull, at all.”
Cass looks deeply unconvinced by this. Bruce feels physically wounded.
“Then what are the heads for?” Jason asks.
“I will show Bruce on the… heads. If I must.”
For a moment everyone stares at the heads, then at Bruce. He shifts uncomfortably under the scrutiny. Diana breaks the silence.
“First we detangle.” She sits on the floor and gestures for Bruce to join her. He awkwardly leaves his too small chair, climbs to the floor to sit obediently behind his daughter. Both of them are tense. Diana sits nearby, close enough to help Bruce, but also in view of Cass.
She hands Bruce a brush. He looks at it like she’s just given him a grenade.
“Start at the bottom,” she says gently. “Hold the hair a little above, so you can take the tension off any knots.”
“Not at the top?” Jason asks.
“Never at the top,” Diana says seriously.
“That’s stupid.”
“You’re stupid,” Cass retorts.
“This is boring,” Jason announces. Cass scowls, sticks her tongue out at him.
Bruce, who is still holding a grenade and so isn’t moving, says nothing. He has only ever brushed Cass’s hair from the top.
“Like this,” Diana says, and she moves Bruce’s hands for him, closes his fingers around a small section of Cass’s hair. Gestures for him to begin brushing.
For the first few minutes, nobody speaks, Jason occasionally huffs an impatient sigh, and Bruce and Cass sit stiff-shouldered and lock-jawed. Slowly though, slowly-slowly, the two of them relax. Bruce works his way up Cass’s hair, gently sliding the brush through until it’s shiny and silk smooth.
“Perfect.” Diana says with a smile. “Now—”
A sudden crash rings out from down the hall and everyone freezes.
“Tim you were supposed to jump on the table, not off!” Dick’s voice says loud and panicked.
“You said do a flip!” Tim shouts back.
“I go moon!” Damian shrieks even louder.
“I should go check,” Jason says, utterly delighted at the sudden chaos.
“You should stay here,” Bruce replies automatically.
Jason is halfway to the door and plainly has no interest in listening to anything Bruce has to say. “You stay here and practice hair, I’ll go be in charge.”
Bruce, Diana and Cass watch him go.
“Should you…?” Diana trails off as another crash sounds down the hall. She looks at Bruce expectantly.
Bruce shakes his head. “Absolutely not.”
Diana accepts this without further question. “In that case, braids.”
First she runs Bruce through the theory of a simple braid - three sections of equal size, not too much tension, then right over the middle, left over the middle, and repeat.
“Okay,” Bruce says, shaking out his shoulders. “I can do this. I can do this—”
“Head first,” Cass says, plonking a mannequin head in his lap. “Not me.”
It is marginally less wounding than Bruce expects. Cass only looks unsure about Bruce braiding her hair now, which is a marked improvement from the utter horror of this morning.
He practises on the mannequin, which Cass has named Talulah, five times, before Cass says he can try on her hair. “Small, very, very, very small one,” she instructs.
Diana hands him the bottle of water mist before he starts.
“Huh?” Bruce says stupidly.
“Cass’s hair is very silky, so it might need a little help to hold a braid. Just a light spray, not a shower.” Diana says.
Bruce does as he’s told. Sits there and mists Cass’s head. For a moment he has a wildly surreal feeling; sitting on the floor of what had been his grandfathers smoking room, now a playroom, next to an Amazon princess, learning how to braid his daughter’s hair. He wonders what his mom, who always had her hair done in elaborate up-dos, would have thought of it all. It feels like pressing on an old bruise.
Cass turns to look up at him, must see something on his face, because for the first time since Rapunzel-gate, she doesn’t have that hard glint in her eye. “Be gentle,” she says, quietly. This time, it sounds as though she actually trusts him to be.
Bruce nods, just once. “Of course, darling,” he says, and then “I”m sorry I wasn’t before. I should have been careful.”
Cass nods solemnly. “Very silly.”
“I’m sorry,” Bruce says again. Because he is and he's not too proud to admit it. Not for Cass.
“It’s okay.” Cass says quietly, fiddling with Rapunzel who is still in her lap. “You can try again.”
The words feel a little bit like winning the lottery, and Bruce gets to work with what feels like the first smile he’s had on his face in a week.
It takes time, but finally, it is done. It is not, by any means, a perfect braid. It is not even a particularly good braid. But it is a braid, and it does hold. Cass runs her hand over it, pulls it over her shoulder so she can inspect it more closely, holds it over her eyes and grins.
“Bravo!” Diana claps.
“Not so bad?” Bruce asks, eyes on Cass.
Cass drops the braid, leans towards him. It isn't quite a hug, but it's something. “Not so bad,” she agrees.
Bruce takes that as permission to feel a little smug. Just a little.
~
Like all important skills, braiding takes practice. Fishtails, and French braids, and crown braids even more so. Bruce is diligent with his study, and only a tiny bit mortified that he doesn’t pick it up as quickly as he picked up Latvian Judo-Jitsu - a notoriously rare and difficult fusion martial art he learned from a Slovakian hermit in Peru. The fourteen mannequin heads suddenly don’t seem so excessive.
The school braid is still the hardest, though, and not least because Bruce is usually half-asleep, trying to wrangle four kids into school uniform at the same time, and keep Damian from biting Tim. He does his best to remember what Diana, and Cass, have taught him.
Friday morning, Cass watches him carefully in the mirror as he ties off the braid with a blue ribbon, pulls it over her shoulder to inspect as soon as he’s done.
“Not so bad?” He asks, still a little tentative.
Cass nods. “Not so bad.”
It feels like the best Bruce is going to get, which, given he slept for about nine minutes last night, feels like a win.
The real proof, though, is later that night, when it’s gone four in the morning and Bruce is dragging himself up the stairs to bed. The hallway is dark, save for the single light coming from under his door.
Inside, he finds Cass sitting on his bed playing with Rapunzel, the braid he did that morning still tied in the blue ribbon. There are more than a few flyaways, and it’s definitely lost tension on the left side, but it’s held. The whole day.
Cass looks up as he comes in, scans him critically from head to toe, then jumps from the bed and flings her arms around his middle. He runs a hand over her head, lets the braid slip between his fingers. She squeezes him tight.
“Stayed,” she says, face pressed into his shirt.
“It did,” he replies.
So maybe he’s a little proud.