Work Text:
The Batcomputer’s timer hit 6:00.
“He’s down,” Oracle’s voice crackled over the comms. “Somewhere in the Manor. Battery at 12%. Find him.”
Dick didn’t even sigh anymore. He just stretched his neck. “Alright. Rules: No Batsuits. No grappling hooks indoors. Timers start…now.”
At 5:47, Damian finds him first. Behind the grandfather clock in the study, and no, not the Batcave entrance, the other one. Bruce is found slumped against the gears, arms crossed, chin to chest. Damian pokes him. Bruce swats. Damian draws a katana.
“Tt. He’s faking.”
At 5:12, Jason arrived and rolls his eyes from the doorway. “That’s his ‘I’m meditating’ face. Watch.” He kicks the clock. Bruce doesn’t move. Jason kicks harder. Bruce’s boot swings out and hooks Jason’s ankle. Jason hits the floor.
“He’s awake,” Jason growls.
“He’s not,” Tim mutters, scanning a heat signature on his gauntlet. “That’s muscle memory. He’s been asleep for at least four hours.”
Eventually, at 4:30, Dick tries the gentle approach. He drapes Bruce’s arm over his shoulder and heaves. Bruce doesn't budge. He’s deadweight, like seriously. Not kidding, he’s deliberately, impossibly heavy, like a concrete statue wearing Kevlar. Dick’s knees buckle.
Dick is rightfully offended.
“Impossible I can lift him-“
“You’re lifting with your back,” Cass signs from the ceiling.
“Then YOU try!”
”Wait, Jason can-“
”NO.”
At 3:15, so Cass drops soundlessly onto Bruce’s shoulders and starts prying his eyelids open. Bruce mutters “Case file 47-3” and goes slack again. Cass pats his head as she said, “Sleep-talking. Cute.”
At 2:45, Alfred arrives with a silver tray. He sets down a single cup of Earl Grey but no sugar, no milk, exactly six inches from Bruce’s nose. Bruce inhales once. His fingers twitch.
Everyone holds their breath.
Bruce mumbles, “...five more minutes.”
At 1:55, Tim pulls out his phone. “I’m calling Clark.”
“Don’t you dare,” Jason hisses.
“He owes me. Last time I covered his shift in Metropolis.”
So it results at 1:30 where Clark appears in the window. Bruce doesn’t flinch. Clark tries the vibrating hand through the ribcage trick. Bruce grabs Clark’s wrist in his sleep and executes a perfect Kryptonian wrist-lock. Clark yelps.
“He’s too good at this.”
And then at 0:45, Dick takes off his shirt. “Everybody back up.”
“What are you—”
Dick drops his shirt over Bruce’s face. Bruce’s nose wrinkles. He makes a sound like a grumpy bear. Dick grabs his ankles; Jason grabs his arms; Tim takes the head; Cass hooks her legs around his torso; Damian kicks his shins for morale.
At 0:12, They drag him, still sleeping, still grunting, out of the clock, down the hall, past the dining room, and launch him onto the master bed like a sack of crime-fighting potatoes.
At 0:00, Bruce’s eyes snap open. He looks around the room. He looks at his children, all panting, all disheveled, all glaring.
“I was having a dream,” he says flatly, “about a very comfortable cave.”
Dick throws a pillow at his face.
“Next time,” Jason pants, “we’re leaving you in the clock.”
Bruce almost, likely almost, but he still smiles.
“You’d miss me.”
Six heads groan in unison.
Alfred, from the door, refills the tea. “Precisely, Master Bruce. Now, stay.”