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Bruce climbs the stairs tiredly, ready to sleep for three sweet hours before waking in the morning to drive Dick to school.
The night has been fruitful.
He managed to find out what Penguin was cooking: a shipment of smuggled art works that were arriving to the harbor in a few days. They will hit it right after the ship docks, without making a single move before the day of arrival in order not to alert Penguin. Cobblepot’s ego is big enough that he will fool himself into thinking that he has managed to hide the deal from the vigilantes, and they will take him without much resistance.
Bruce pensively rubs his eyes. These past days have been nice. Quiet.
Except Oswald rearing his head up like he always does every couple of months, Gotham has been calm.
Dick and Jason are getting along better than he could have ever hoped.
They spent every afternoon of the past week in Dick’s treehouse: neither of them wanted to share what they were working on with Bruce. They snickered, when he asked, and refused to elaborate, like it was a big secret that only they could know. Bruce is glad that they have each other.
He arrives in front of Jason’s bedroom. Like he does every night, he lowers the handle and soundlessly leans inside.
The bed is empty.
Bruce’s hand spasms around the handle.
He swings the door open, to see if Jason is in the attached bathroom.
No light on. The door is open. The space is empty.
Bruce almost breaks the handle.
It’s fine. Jason probably had a nightmare and is taking a walk around the manor. Probably in the library. Bruce will go check. He will find him, because nothing could have gotten in: he has the best security measures in the entire world. He would have received an alert, if someone had broken into the premise.
He leaves the door and rushes to Dick’s room.
He lowers the handle and soundlessly leans inside.
The bed is empty. The bathroom is dark and lifeless.
Bruce turns around and starts running down the corridor.
He is probably overreacting: his boys tend to have frequent nightmares and try to distract themselves however they can. It’s fine. Everything is okay: there is no other reasonable explanation for their absence.
Bruce checks the library first. He checks every corner.
It’s completely empty. The lights are not even warm.
He rushes to the parlor, the one with the glass ceiling that Dick has elected as his emergency site for loud and horror nights.
Bruce can’t feel his heart.
He should have known that calmness is a state of being not destined for him. He should have known better than to allow himself to feel tranquil…
The boys are sleeping on one of the couches of the parlor.
Dick is wrapped like an octopus around Jason, who is curled up against his brother’s chest. There is a cocoon of blankets encasing them. Dick is snoring loudly, and Jason has a frown on his barely visible face, even in his sleep.
Bruce finds his heart, then, and forces it to slow down.
He knew, of course, that they had to be inside the manor, completely unharmed. He just had to see it with his eyes.
Bruce walks up to them, because from the doorway they seem too distant, like a mirage.
He has to know that they are really whole and here. Safe and alive. That the city, the people, those he loves are not dying if he takes his eyes off of them for two seconds.
He looks at the boys, laying on the couch that he spent so much time on, talking and playing with Dick.
They look so peaceful, nesting in each other’s embrace.
It’s like a scene out of one of Bruce’s rare dreams.
There isn’t enough fondness in the world to rival the amount that has bloomed in Bruce’s chest at the sight of them.
He looks at Dick’s face, completely unrestrained in his sleep.
Bruce knows that his boy has been… suffering, since the day that they went to Blüdhaven, in search for Freeze. He has been mulling over if he should breach the subject: he and Dick don’t usually talk about what they go through. They lean on each other, they support and believe and unquestionably side with one another, but they don’t voice their thoughts, unless the situation is dire.
Bruce was starting to think this was the case. And maybe it is.
If Dick is in this room, it means that something is troubling him. Bruce will do something about it this time, but not tonight. Tonight, he lets the boy get his well-deserved and long-awaited rest.
He holds his hand out to rearrange the blanket around Jason’s shoulder, since it was falling on the floor.
He doesn’t even graze Jason’s arm, since he doesn’t want to disrupt the boy’s calm sleep, but contact of the blanket with his clothed shoulder is enough to jostle Jason awake.
Jason springs upright, more alert than any boy should be, and tenses his muscles, like he is preparing himself to fight.
It breaks Bruce’s heart, how similar to Dick’s instant attentiveness to his surroundings that look is; Dick, a trained vigilante who prowls rooftops at night to duel with the worst that a city has to offer, and Jason, a nine years old boy who has seen too much.
They haven’t discussed the details of what happened during Jason’s residency at Ma Gunn’s school, since Bruce has elected that it would have been more delicate to leave to Jason the decision to open up to him, but he knows enough to make assumptions.
He hates every single one of them.
He should have let the blanket fall, but he didn’t want Jason to get cold.
-It’s just me, Jay- Bruce shushes him with a hand on his chest, gently pushing him down again. -I just passed to see if you two were here. Your bedrooms were empty-.
Jason turns around to looks at Dick and rolls his eyes, for some reason.
Bruce finds it endlessly amusing. He hides a smile in the shadows.
He has overstepped and created distress enough for tonight. And he is tired.
-Go back to sleep, it’s still too early- Bruce whispers, smoothing down the hem of the blankets and standing up to leave.
Jason’s hand snaps to grab his finger without permission.
Bruce turns around, an eyebrow raised in a silent question.
Jason understands instantly, and it warms parts of him that Bruce didn’t know were cold.
-Can you keep watch?- he sniffles and yawns.
Bruce doesn’t know what scares Jason enough to offer his vulnerability to him without hesitation, but he doesn’t need to.
He immediately crouches in front of Jason and sits down, his crossed knee touching the sofa. He doesn’t jerk his hand away from Jason’s hold, and Jason clutches it tight.
Bruce wraps his enormous hand around Jason’s and starts stroking his knuckles with his thumb.
Jason exhales: his muscles let go of every ounce of tension. He is out like a light in a minute.
Bruce keeps stroking his knuckles, ready to stay at Jason’s side until the end of time.