Archive of Our Own

i. food

Alfred set the plate down before Bruce, hesitation coloring his movements. It was that specific hesitation he had for things he expected Bruce to have a hard time with. Martha recognized Alfred's carefulness immediately, even as she prayed that her son didn't. The food was even served on Bruce's favorite plate, one of the few that was just the correct shade of blue, the correct weight and look and feel, according to her strict son. Simply put, Alfred's whole demeanor was suspicious.

Bruce, despite his mother's prayers, did notice. And Martha couldn't blame him, because her son was perceptive like that. Bruce was… different. Not difficult, never difficult. But Martha had known it from the moment he had begun to develop a personality and preferences, from the moment he had started to become someone — Bruce was special, Bruce was like her.

"Pot-Au-feu," he announced to Bruce. "A new one. I thought we might try something different tonight."

Thomas, who had been served first and had not waited for anyone, was already three bites in. "It's very good, Alfred," he said, aware of the fact that he was the only one holding up a cheery mood across the table, and shouldering the task easily.

Bruce, as expressionless as he usually was, looked at the plate like he was looking at mud. Martha recognized that look. It meant Bruce was in front of something that could be different from the last time he saw it, something that wouldn't feel good — and he wouldn't have a way to express it.

It made her heart ache.

Ace, Bruce's small stuffed dog, sat in the boy's lap as extra support, and nobody commented on it because he might genuinely make things easier.

The meat sat in a light, glossy broth, with all the ingredients fully visible — the carrots, the leek, the little onions. In front of Bruce, the potatoes were kept in another separate plate, because it was one of the only vegetables he ate consistently.

"I don't want it," Bruce said, as both a warning and a complaint.

"You haven't tried it. It's similar to what you already eat most days, it's just a different meat." Alfred's tone was mild, patient, nerves never showing where Bruce could see them. "One bite. That's all I ask."

"It's touching."

"It's meant to touch, Master Bruce. That's rather the point of a stew."

Bruce's hands found the edge of the table and gripped it. It wasn't yet distress, but still the beginning of it, the way the air smells of petrichor before it rains. He looked down at his plate, and did not move.

Martha sighed. She had expected this. Alfred had been making this same dish for Thomas for a few weeks now. They had allowed Bruce to peer into the plate, even touch a few vegetables here and there, getting him used to the new food on the table, the new colors, the new smells. She knew it was important for Bruce to try different kinds of food, although, to be honest, she couldn't fully understand why — after all, she also had been eating the same breakfast for years now, and what Bruce already ate did fulfill all his nutritional requirements.

She turned to Bruce, looked at the way his small fingers traced a pattern in the tablecloth. Motherhood challenged her in ways she hadn't expected, forcing her to broaden her horizons just so that Bruce could have choices, even if she wouldn't allow those same choices for herself.

Across the table, Thomas chased a piece of beef through the broth enthusiastically, unbothered that he had been eating the exact same dinner everyday for weeks now just so that his son might want to eat something new. Bruce watched him do it, face tense. Martha watched him too and made a face, nose wrinkled, tongue out just slightly. Bruce, because he was smart and adorable, noticed and mirrored her exactly, the two of them united in pretend-disgust at Thomas eating his dinner.

"What?" Thomas said, not even looking up.

"Nothing," Martha said.

"Just try it, Master Bruce," Alfred continued, sitting down beside him.

Bruce rocked a bit in his chair, still holding the edge of the table. "Mommy hasn't tried it either, so why do I have to?"

Martha sighed, turning away so Bruce couldn't see the surprise on her face. She caught Thomas's gaze, full of mirth, eyebrows raised, as if saying he got you.

"Alfred?" she said, knowing the man would understand.

He inclined his head and went back to his own plate, visibly relieved to hand the negotiation over. Martha allowed a second to be endeared with how nervous Alfred was when it came to Bruce's eccentricities, how he held himself with tight control, aware of how much power he held over the development of Bruce's self image.

Then, she turned to Bruce. "You know, I don't like things touching either."

Bruce's eyes flicked to her, suspicious of being reminded of something he already knew.

"I know," he said.

"So how do you think I manage it? At dinner. When it's like this."

He hummed to himself, swinging his legs back and forth under the table. "I don't know."

The fact that he had given up so easily told Martha he was becoming more and more overwhelmed by the second.

"I usually try it," Martha said. "Sometimes I hate it, but other times I'm pleasantly surprised. Either way, I try it." She paused, letting Bruce think, because he enjoyed things that seemed like rules. "And, see," she pointed towards the plate, towards every individual ingredient, all made visible thanks to Alfred's carefulness. "You have tried every single ingredient in this by itself, and you've liked it."

Bruce made a face, still unsure, slowly rocking in his chair. But Martha knew he was listening.

"How about this," she leaned down and whispered to Bruce. "We can tell Alfred to bring everything in a separate plate. And then we'll try each thing on its own. We take it step by step."

That got him. His head came up, feet still swinging. She waited for him to process, hoping with all her might that he didn't think of the fact that everything had been cooked together, and so it all held the same underlying flavor. She didn't know what she'd do if he pointed that out.

After a few seconds, he nodded.

"Okay," she said, lifting her head up. "Alfred, could you please?"

The man was already up, taking Bruce's plates away and walking back towards the kitchen.

"You know, I also haven't tried this dish," she said casually, smiling when Bruce lifted his head to look at her. He almost never did look people in the eye, but it was no issue in her book. Just having his gaze near her felt like a blessing.

"I was waiting for you, so we could try it together." At that, he turned away again, hands moving a little under the table. Was he happy at her admission? Or perhaps just nervous about this whole ordeal. "It's scary, right? We don't know how it's going to feel in our mouths." She wrinkled her nose, and he mirrored her, almost unaware of it.

Alfred came back then, a tray in his hands that held a small bowl filled with only broth, and four other plates, with leek, potatoes, carrots and beef each. He placed it all in front of Bruce with a flourish that made the boy smile, before sitting down beside him, always ready if Bruce should need anything.

The food sat in front of Bruce for a few seconds more before he turned to Martha again, seemingly lost.

"I have a proposal." She lifted her chair closer to Bruce's, careful so that it didn't make a sound when it moved against the floor. "I will eat it first. I'll be so brave all by myself." She clutched her chest dramatically, smiling at how Bruce bounced a little, entertained by his mother's antics. "And then I will tell you exactly what it's like, so you don't have to be surprised by it."

"You'll test it," Bruce said.

"I will test it."

She picked up the fork before he could change his mind for her, and was about to try a bite of potatoes before a young voice interrupted her.

"You have to use your fork. Not mine." His hand came up to hers, taking the fork and placing it back again near his many plates.

"Oh, yes, sorry," Martha chuckled, understanding that, for Bruce, this was a meaningful and necessary condition.

"And you have to chew all the way before you tell me. So I know you're telling the truth."

"All the way," she confirmed, and only then did Bruce sit back to watch, satisfied the terms had been properly set.

She speared a tiny piece of beef (cut that way because Bruce wouldn't eat something bigger than a few centimeters), and put it in her mouth. Bruce watched her, her mouth, her jaw, the working of it, waiting for information that would make or break him.

"Mm," Martha hummed, a thoughtful look crossing her face on purpose, because she knew he was reading it. "It's…"

She let the pause stretch a second longer than it needed to, just so she could see Bruce's beautiful little face all focused, expectant.

"It's good," she said. "Really good."

"But how?" he urged, and she understood what he meant.

"You've had beef before," she told him, and he nodded. "This is the same meat, but the flavor is… milder, somehow. And the texture is much, much softer."

While Bruce processed her words, Martha reached for another bite, this time out of her own plate, because it was, in fact, good. Also, because Bruce had now held his own fork and was tentatively getting a piece of beef for himself, and she didn't want him to get self-conscious. This didn't have to be a big deal. The happiness swirling in her chest at seeing her little boy trying something new was just a normal, everyday occurrence, and this was jut a normal family dinner.

When Bruce was ready, she tried every other vegetable on his barrage of plates, and described the texture and flavor of it, trying to connect it to something he already knew. When she stumbled, Thomas was there, offering the word she was looking for, or a joke so their son could feel less tense.

"It's not bad, Alfred," Bruce said after he had tried everything in his assortment of plates twice. "Thank you."

Alfred turned away to school his expression into something he could actually show Bruce. "High praise, Master Bruce," he managed, and right away busied himself with gathering some of the unused cutlery in the table, so no one noticed the smile on his face.

Thomas looked between the two of them — Martha still faintly smug, Bruce cautiously reaching toward his bowl of broth, a new determination on his face — and shook his head, smiling.

ii. return

Thomas had been away for a few days now. He had gone to discuss a case in a hospital half-way across the country, which would take a bit more time.

Martha would have liked to say that she had handled it perfectly. That she had just been proud of Thomas for helping others, and had managed to enjoy a few days alone with Bruce and Alfred.

The reality was far from that. She herself had had a hard time adjusting to the fact that Thomas wasn't there — she hadn't realized how important he was to her routine until he was gone, which was idiotic, honestly.

Bruce was another variable, the most important one. They had prepared for it, of course. Many things happened over the course of several days. Thomas had colored with Bruce the days he'd be gone in the calendar hung in Bruce's room, staying with their little boy and answering his questions until he understood what was going to happen. Martha had watched from he doorway as Thomas talked to both Bruce and his stuffed dog, Ace, a small german shepherd that was given the job of taking care of Bruce in Thomas absence. Both Martha and Thomas had talked to him, using drawings and visual aids to get Bruce to understand what would need to change in Thomas's absence.

Bedtime was usually all Thomas. Martha understood the importance of routine (she herself found it difficult to go on without her husband) and so she knew she would have to work hard to keep it the exact same once he was gone. She had observed them days before, cataloguing everything they did — quiet time, tea for Thomas, warm milk for Bruce, then brushing their teeth (never at the same time, because Bruce couldn't handle the sounds), and a story from that book Thomas had bought, with him making silly voices for every character. Her husband would stay until Bruce fell asleep, even if he barely made it past the end of the story most days. They were truly adorable together.

But Martha was on a mission, and so she worked hard to stay efficient, watching and understanding every step of their routine so she could replicate it seamlessly, making it easier for herself, but most importantly, avoiding any anxiety for Bruce.

How wrong had she been.

The first three days, bedtime had been hell for everyone involved. She wasn't Thomas, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't get it right. Bruce, the sweet boy he was, would endure as much as he could, not wanting to be difficult, as he put it once. It pained Martha to think of her son learning that word in relation to himself. But no matter how hard he tried, before long, his feelings would bubble over and he'd be crying, throwing things and screaming that Martha did things wrong, that everything was wrong, and he wanted his daddy. Those nights ended up with both of them defeated, words too difficult, sleeping in whichever room they managed to crash in — which added to their anxiety, since every day started in a different place. She didn't even dream of asking Alfred for help; this was something that she had to conquer on her own.

On the fourth day, finally, Martha gave up and stopped trying to be Thomas, planning something else while Bruce was away in school. He came home, and after a nap (which needed to happen, since he was constantly exhausted from their nightly struggles), Martha made sure they would have a quiet moment to themselves, Bruce curled at her feet, looking at a picture book. Much like a cat, he refused to be in the same room as her without some part of him touching her, and selfishly, she loved it.

"Honey," she began. "I was thinking about what happens when we have to go to sleep, and daddy isn't here. His bedtime routine belongs to him, right?" She felt Bruce nod against her legs, even as he tensed at the mention of bedtime. "Since I am a different person, I have my own completely different bedtime style—like a secret passage. You know how you like to explore all the secret corridors here in the manor?" She snickered as Bruce looked away, clearly caught off guard by his mom knowing of a game he thought completely his. "This is kind of like that — a different path to the same destination. My bedtime has totally different rules. Do you want to hear what my routine looks like?"

She waited the few minutes it took for Bruce to process everything she had said. Then, he climbed onto the couch beside her, curling up with his head on her lap.

"I want to know," he murmured, wiggling when she carded her fingers through his soft hair.

"Alright, baby, I'll give you a tour," she hummed. "How about we make a drawing of it after? So we can see it all laid out."

Bruce grunted, but Martha noticed the way his gaze moved to the drawer that housed his art supplies.

"Okay, you can get everything out so it's ready for us, but tour first, okay?"

She watched, amused, as Bruce got markers and crayons and colored pencils out, excited to share a secret with his mother. He wouldn't even be using half of those things, but it didn't matter. She allowed her heart to swell with how brave her little boy was — still willing to try new things even through the fear and uncertainty.

When Bruce was ready, she stood, holding out her hand until he took it.

Martha led him past his own room, past hers and Thomas's, to the smaller room at the end of the hall that she had claimed for herself the first night Thomas had to leave for an extended period of time. Alfred kept it clean, and it had been ready, these days. She opened the door and let him take it in first; the blackout curtains drawn tight even in the afternoon, a white noise machine on the nightstand, a very specific set of blankets on the bed, and absolutely no fragrances.

The whole room was a comfort that let her drop her shoulders the moment she stepped in. This was the place she went to when the manor felt too large around her, when the word was loud and bright and painful. Thomas himself had only been here a handful of times. This room was hers.

And now, she was sharing it with Bruce. She had given him her body and soul, everything she could give was his. She would give up her whole life for him. Showing him this room, in contrast, was the easiest thing she had ever done.

"This is where I sleep when daddy's away," she said. "It's a different room, different everything." She flicked the curtain, showed him the dark it made even with the sun outside. "No light comes in. And this—" she turned the white noise machine on, the static-hush of it filling the space between them "— this is so the house doesn't sound so big and empty."

Bruce stood very still in the doorway, observing it before deciding it was safe, and taking a few steps inside.

"The blankets are soft," she continued, knowing something like that would be important to Bruce. "They'll feel good against your skin, I picked them myself."

She watched as he dared run a finger through the comforter, rocking on his toes at the feeling.

"We can sleep here. Together," Martha said. "And there's a bathroom just there. It's blue, the shade you like. We've never used it before, so it won't feel like it's supposed to be Daddy's bathroom."

"This is like a secret passage," Bruce said, voice soft.

"Exactly."

He walked the length of the room, touching the curtains, the dresser, the white noise machine, as if making sure he could really be okay here. Martha let him. She knew, because she was the same, that a tour wasn't finished until he said it was.

"Can we draw it?" he asked finally, already halfway back toward the hall, toward his crayons, before she'd even answered.

They sat together on the floor of the seating room, the good paper out, and Martha talked him through it while he drew. The paper was soon filled with a drawing of the room at the end of the hall, the curtains as thick black scribbles. The white noise machine was a small gray circle with lines coming off it that Martha understood to mean sound, because Bruce was always thorough with his drawings, good at every single thing he did.

Bruce frowned at his own work, adding three more lines in quick strokes surrounding that gray circle that was supposed to be the white noise machine. "It was louder in real life."

Martha bit back a laugh — not at him, never at him. It was just the delight at the specificity, the seriousness he brought to a drawing of a white noise machine, as though others might misunderstand the volume if he didn't portray it correctly. She reached over and smoothed a stray line of gray marker off his cheek with her thumb, and he let her, barely noticing, already moving to the next hing.

He drew the blue bathroom then, and after a moment's thought, drew himself and Martha both in the bed, two circles for heads close together.

"That's us," he said, unnecessarily. Martha wondered if he knew just how much she understood him.

"It's perfect," Martha said.

He looked up at her then, checking her face for confirmation that what he'd made was good, still a bit unsure of his own judgment of things — and when she smiled at him, he bounced in place, quick and pleased, which turned into just swaying side to side. He'd had Ace wedged under his arm the whole time, awkwardly, the small stuffed animal getting in the way of the paper. Even then, Martha had said nothing about it, because she understood that Bruce needed little Ace now more than ever.

They hung his drawing on the door of the new room that night, at exactly Bruce's eye level. After a moment, they decided to move Bruce's calendar there too, the one Thomas had colored in with him before he left. Each day of his dad's absence was a colored in, counting down toward a date circled twice in red. Now the calendar and the drawing hung side by side, one telling Bruce how much longer, the other telling him where and how he'd live through this.

That night, despite all their preparations, was not perfect.

Ace was installed at the foot of the bed, turned to face the door, per instructions Bruce delivered in a serious voice."You watch the door," Bruce told him, stroking his ear. "I'll watch Mommy."

"And who will watch you, Bruce?" she asked, amused at her son's seriousness.

"I don't need anyone to watch me," he stated, face solemn. "I'm a big boy."

Martha kissed the top of his head before he could see her smile. He didn't have to know that she'd be the one watching over him, always.

That night, Bruce did end up crying, out of the overwhelming feeling of things being wrong — but he did not yell, which Martha counted as a win. She might have cried too, for herself, for her son and how she couldn't keep him in a bubble where nothing ever happened to him, and nothing ever upset him. He fell asleep within the hour, in the new room, in the specific dark, with Martha's arm heavy across him and the white noise filling the space around them.

By the seventh night, it wasn't strange anymore. Bruce had even allowed himself to move a few of his stuffed animals there, and of course, Ace kept guard by the foot of the bed, just as Thomas had asked him to. Bruce was also calmer at dinnertime, allowing his dog plushie to occupy the space that was meant for his daddy.

Some nights, they didn't fall asleep right away. Bruce would burrow in against her side, Ace tucked between them while Bruce fell asleep. He needed his plushie more now, so he had tasked Martha to move him to the foot of the bed only when he was already asleep, so the little dog could do his job. Instead of a story, they'd talk, Bruce telling her all he knew about the new dinosaur he had seen in one of the books Thomas bought for him. Sometimes, the dark seemed to make it easier for him to say things he wouldn't have said with the lights on.

"Do you miss daddy?" he asked one night, almost like he was checking if his own missing of Thomas was normal and okay.

"Every day," Martha said. "A little less on the days we do something fun together, though."

He hummed, and she felt his little feet move against the sheets again and again. She understood. The sheets had a really nice texture. "Is today a fun day?"

"Today you told me forty-two facts about the argentinosaurus," she said, "and I only asked for one. So it was very fun."

"Why would you count them individually," Bruce grumbled, already finding fault in her way of categorizing the sharing of dinosaur facts. "I told you the story about how they discovered it, and then its environment, and its diet, and I made a drawing of it."

"And it all summed up to forty-two new things for me to learn." She tugged Bruce closer to her, inhaling the scent of his coconut shampoo.

"It was forty-three," he corrected, wiggling against her.

She huffed out a laugh, not bothered at all by her son's need to be right. She carded her fingers slowly through his hair, through the little curl that never sat flat, and he let her, eyes already going heavy, Ace's ear caught in his fist loosely.

"I like it here," he said, so quietly she almost missed it, half into the pillow.

"I like it too," Martha said, surprised by the fact that she didn't feel like Bruce's presence here changed the place that was supposed to be hers only. "We'll keep it, even when daddy gets here, okay?"

He didn't answer. He was already asleep, still holding Ace, the other hand loose against her ribs. Martha watched him in the dark, traced the slope of his nose with her eyes, the way his dark eyelashes rested in his chubby cheeks, and how his eyebrows were the exact same shape as Thomas's. After, before she fell asleep, she gently pried Ace from Bruce's loose hand, and placed him by the foot of the bed, facing the door so he could watch over her the way Bruce wanted.

By the tenth night, both Martha and Bruce had something for themselves, something that worked, something that resembled a routine too closely. Which was exactly the problem when Bruce's calendar reminded them that today was the day that Thomas would return.

For breakfast, Bruce had his usual eggs, since Martha hadn't pushed for any food exploration while they dealt with Thomas being away. Thankfully, today was Saturday, so they would have the whole day to navigate this together. Ace sat propped against the sugar bowl, facing Bruce's plate, because, as Bruce had explained the night before, a guard couldn't do his job from the floor.

"Does he want eggs too?" Martha asked, sliding a single forkful onto the edge of Bruce's plate, as an offering.

Bruce swallowed and made a face. "No, he doesn't eat. He's a plushie, mommy," he said, completely exasperated with her. It was fantastic. "But he likes to watch."

"Oh, of course," Martha said, nodding solemnly.

Ace kept watching, and Bruce, satisfied that this had been settled correctly, went back to his eggs.

"Daddy's trip ends today, honey," Martha said. "After lunch, he will walk through the front door. You can say hi, or you can keep playing, " she went on, when Bruce gave no indication of wanting to say something. Words had been difficult for him these days, especially if the topic related to his dad being away. "We can even take some quiet time together after he gets here, so we can get used to him again."

Bruce said nothing, still eating as if Martha hadn't said anything. But she knew he had understood, and was just thinking through what it all meant.

After breakfast, they quietly reset everything that had changed with Thomas gone. The hardest part was having to take all of Bruce's stuffed animals back to his room, not because they had had to make several trips, but because it felt, to Martha, like an erasure of what they had built together.

"Bruce," she said, kneeling in front of him. "Your daddy is coming home today, but that doesn't mean we can't come back here if he is home," she explained, and Bruce hummed, signaling that he was listening, even if he didn't look at her. "Whenever you need me, we can come here together."

He surprised her by throwing himself at her, hugging her with all the strength in his skinny arms. She held him to her chest just as tightly, pressing a kiss into his hair, silently thanking whoever had to be thanked for the time they had spent together.

They spent the rest of the day lazily watching movies they had watched many times before, just resting, preparing for what would undoubtedly be a very tiring day for them both.

She heard the car in the drive before Bruce did, and watched him hear it a moment later — his shoulders came up to his ears, stilling for a moment before he swayed a little in place, allowing the movement to get him through the difficult feelings his dad's return brought.

Thomas came through the door already talking, voice warm as always, dropping his coat somewhere it didn't belong and calling for both of them by name. Martha herself had a swirl of something sputter in her chest, excitement and perhaps fear, conflicting sensations that Bruce could be dealing with himself. Watching his son move closer to her, and further away from Thomas's arriving figure, she understood it was simply too much at once for him. Not wrong, not unwelcome, because he had spent many days crying for his daddy. It was just sudden, all that noise and movement and a change in the atmosphere that might have been imperceptible for anyone else, but she noticed, which meant Bruce noticed, too.

Bruce pressed close to Martha's side, still focused on sorting his many drawings by a system that she couldn't decipher, and Thomas didn't push. He crouched to Bruce's height, said something low and soft that Martha didn't quite catch, and let Bruce answer only with a tiny sound, a melody that the three of them understood to be a greeting.

When he stood up, he came to Martha, pressing a lingering kiss to her lips that still, after all these years, made her heartbeat speed up.

"We just need a moment," Martha told him, and earned herself another kiss and a soft smile.

"Take your time," he said, and fully meant it.

Martha listened to him walk upstairs, and then he was talking to Alfred, two faraway murmurs that helped her slowly understand that her husband was really back home. She imagined Thomas would shower, getting rid of the smell of outside, and change into clothes that would feel right against her skin when he finally hugged her. She opened her book again and pretended to keep reading for Bruce's sake, when in reality she watching him, because he was the most interesting thing in the world to her. He settled onto the floor by her feet with his markers again, tipping the box out in a spill of color across the rug, and began to draw what must have been an ankylosaurus, and… Was that Thomas on the back of it? She turned to her book, deciding that she's look only when Bruce finished.

For a while, the only sounds were the scratch of marker on paper and the occasional turn of a page. Martha kept her foot close enough that Bruce could lean his shoulder against her ankle whenever he wanted to, which he did every few minutes, briefly, as if he was checking this much hadn't changed. She watched Bruce, completely absorbed into his drawing, stifling her giggle at how he drew Thomas's mustache.

It must have been an hour, maybe more. Long enough that the light through the window had gone from white to orange.

"Done." Bruce held up the drawing, unmistakably an ankylosaurus, plates colored in shades of orange and red, with his dad sitting on top of it, Bruce beside him.

"Is that daddy?" she asked, even if she already knew.

He nodded. "And me."

"Are you gonna give it to him?"

He shrugged, looking away. Martha hoped he did.

"It's wonderful."

They put on the same movie they had watched the day before, Bruce finally loose against her side, stroking Ace's fur again and again. Thomas came down somewhere in the middle of it, and said nothing when he sat beside Bruce, far away that he wasn't touching him. The movie passed, and Martha smiled every time she became aware of Bruce scooting closer to his dad, so slowly no one could have pinpointed when each movement happened.

By the time the credits rolled, Bruce was fully in Thomas's lap, cuddled up into his chest. There was an easiness to how he held his body now, like relief of the danger having fully passed.

"Hey," Thomas murmured, rocking him slightly, one hand cradling the back of his head. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."

Martha watched from the other side of the couch, her own eyes stinging. Then, with a smile, she noticed Ace, laying down in the seat beside her, no longer clutched between Bruce's hands, or placed somewhere so he could guard them. Thomas was here, and the plushie's job was done.

iii. outside

The errand had come up at breakfast. It had been planned for two weeks, now, ever since Alfred had mentioned something about a new shop downtown, one that had model cars for collectors — truly not for children, but they all knew it would excite Bruce to no end.

Today it was a Sunday, and tomorrow Bruce had no school, thanks to the teachers having a conference out of town. So it was the perfect day for their little excursion, since it would allow a full day for Bruce to decompress after the new experience.

"Let Bruce pick anything he wants," Thomas didn't look up from his paper, voice light. "He has better taste than either of you."

"I have excellent taste," Alfred said, mildly offended, and Thomas grinned at him over the top of the paper before turning to Martha.

"You two go," he said. "I've got calls all morning anyway, making sure insurance pays — I'd only slow you down."

Bruce, who had been quietly transferring all the raisins out of his oatmeal and onto the rim of his bowl in a neat, evenly spaced row, paused at that. Then, he moved his seat a bit closer to Thomas, his shoulder touching his dad's arm, as if to comfort him from the fact that he wouldn't get to see the shop.

But now that the shop had been mentioned, Bruce kept on squirming, restless, and after a mere few bites of his raisin-free oatmeal, he stood up, the anticipation boiling over.

Thomas caught Martha's eye across the table, and she saw the amusement in his eyes — here we go. A Bruce that was interested in something was a Bruce that knew no bounds. Then, he reached over to steal one discarded raisin off Bruce's plate as a toll for letting him leave the table so quickly, smirking at his son's disgusted expression.

"Bring me a full report," Thomas called after him. "I want to know everything they have."

"Okay," Bruce called back, already at the stairs, gone to find his shoes.

Martha lingered a moment longer at the table, sighing when she saw Bruce's almost full plate. The oatmeal was a fairly recent addition, after all, with varied levels of success each breakfast. She guessed anticipation drawing Bruce away from the last part of his breakfast was something that could be overlooked on a special day like this. Thomas reached over to squeeze her hand once before letting her go too, just checking on her like they always did before one of them left the house.

"Call if there's trouble." He was quiet, casual, taking Bruce's particularity in stride as always. He knew as well as she did that some outings were good, while some outings cost them the rest of the day, and there was no way of controlling the outcome.

"I will." Martha kissed him quickly, and went to find her own shoes.

The shop was smaller than Martha imagined, tucked between a shoe repair place and an empty storefront in the mall. She stood in front of it for a moment after Alfred had dropped them off, a restless Bruce holding her hand — and she truly did not see how monumental this could be for her son. She knew nothing of cars, nothing more than the few things she managed to pick up from Thomas's and Bruce's long winded conversations, and truth be told, she could hardly think of anything more boring.

Bruce had been fine before, narrating the whole drive, telling Alfred a fact a minute about anything that crossed his mind. When they walked in, he had been fine too, holding the door for her even if it was a little too heavy for him, proud nonetheless of the manners Alfred had drilled into him. Martha could have melted when she saw Bruce, stepping into the store, a bit unsure, hands close to his chest but still moving.

The owner of the store had tried to talk to them, help them find what they were looking for, without much luck. After all, Martha understood nothing of what the old woman had to say about their models, and Bruce… Bruce had difficulty talking to strangers as is, but here, when they looked to him, he seemed already engrossed in what Martha would later learn was a 1930s roadster in dark green, with doors that actually opened, and headlights that somehow worked, too.

He was up on his toes, even if he did that very rarely, now, and his hands had been freed from his grip close to his chest and were now moving by his sides, a sound escaping him that was pure delight and too loud for the small shop, a man two shelves over turning to look, startled.

"Look," he said, "look, Mommy, look," already reaching, and Martha crouched down to look with him, because it was really a beautiful little car.

She let herself be delighted right along with him for a moment, before the part of her that was always half a step ahead of him started paying attention to the rest of the room again. There was music playing, and truly, their fluorescent lighting was atrocious. There was a man talking to what must have been the owner's son, the both of them loud in the way only men allowed themselves to be, and there was also a woman's perfume permeating the whole tiny store.

While she prayed that Bruce could continue to ignore this collection of small things (that really, were not small at all), she listened to him explain to her why that particular model had caught his attention, and why he liked that particular car. At once, there was something crawling up Martha's throat, something like inadequacy; maybe Thomas should have come, and not her, since this, cars, was something they shared, and she couldn't get it. She didn't want Bruce to feel ignored, or like his interests were something others merely tolerated — but she didn't even know what to ask him to encourage his excitement.

Thankfully, for a little while, it stayed good, and Bruce didn't even notice when his thorough explanations of every model that caught his eye drew the attention of the owner, and then his son, and then the loud man that had been previously talking to him.

It should have stayed simple. But of course, it didn't. The excitement that had lit Bruce up like a struck match kept burning past the point his body could hold it steady. Martha noticed the moment he began having trouble connecting words together, his hands moving less controlled. She saw him wince when the music in the background changed to something with the high sounds of a flute, and then he was blinking rapidly, which let her know he noticed the quick flickering of the light bulbs. Then came the quiet — he stopped talking altogether, pressing himself close to her and grabbing her hand in an iron grip.

Martha felt the dampness of sweat starting between their palms and gently worked her sleeve down over her wrist before he could notice it too. She knew that particular feeling layered on top of everything else could be the thing that turned a hard moment into an unbearable one. If she was honest with herself, she wouldn't have tolerated the feeling either, not today, not with her own nerves still frayed from noticing all she'd had to notice to keep her son safe.

She understood the feeling, perhaps better than he knew. It was too much light, too much sound, and too many smells in one place. Simply too much for a small body that had no room to process any of it. Martha saw the exact moment the good feeling curdled into something too big to stay good, his free hand flapping faster, a small sound climbing in his throat that wasn't delight anymore.

"Okay." She moved between him and the rest of the store, shielding him with her body. "Okay, I've got you. Let's go outside."

He didn't answer with words. Words were already gone, which was fine, because she would never force him to do something that was virtually impossible in these kinds of moments. They walked fast for the door, Martha steering him past the register with an apologetic look for the owner, who had most likely thought they were about to spend money in her store. They reached a quiet part of the mall, near the bathrooms, hidden from view, where the air flowed better and mercifully, they were alone.

They sat together on the ground, Bruce fully on her lap, clinging to her with both arms, face pressed into her neck. It might have been embarrassing for him in any other moment, but his whole body was still shaking with the aftershock of having felt too much, too fast.

After a while, Bruce brought his hand up between them, and curled it into a claw, making sure Martha saw. She squeezed him tighter when she realized what he meant with his little gesture.

"It was scary." She presses a kiss into his hair, holding him steady.

Then, he mimed scribbling on a paper, which made her pause and think. It took her all of two seconds to remember what Thomas had said to Bruce in the morning. Report, he was trying to say.

"Don't worry about that, honey. I'll deal with that, okay? You can leave it to me."

He simply nodded, which said a lot about his level of exhaustion. He usually never deferred to someone else to do the things important to him, because no one did it right, but he allowed it right now.

When he sighed, Martha knew it meant he was beginning to calm down, so she brought her free hand up between them, where only Bruce could see it, and acted as if her pointer and middle finger were walking, but very, very slowly. Small steps.

Bruce watched her hand instead of her face. It was always easier for him, to watch the movement of hands than decipher the nuances of a face, or words and tone, which was why Martha had developed this secret language of signs and gestures between them. After a moment, his own hand made the sign back, clumsier, his fine motor control not yet fully caught up to it. Small steps. Agreement, or maybe relief that she would not push for him to be something different that what he was.

They sat like that for a while, just breathing together, looking at the few people that passed near them. Martha then tapped at her chest with two fingers, the sign for I'm here, and swallowed back her tears when Bruce echoed it. It always went both ways between them, it always had.

After a while, he slid off her lap to sit on his own, and his breathing had evened out, his shoulders looser, although not fully relaxed.

"Do you want to go home?" Martha judged it safe to speak again, low and soft, only for Bruce. "Or do you want to try again, just for a minute, so we can buy your car?"

Bruce considered it, the fear of going back in visibly at war with how badly he still wanted that particular green roadster to belong to him.

He flicked his hand outwards once, quick. Leave.

Martha nodded and began to stand up. Then, after a moment, he shook his head instead, and pointed back toward the shop door, some new determination on his little features.

She nodded. "We'll go in, get the car, and go straight back out." She helped him up, dusting off non-existent dirt off of his clothes. "No looking at anything else. In and out, a stealth mission."

That got the corner of his mouth to move, the first smile since he had first seen that car.

They went back in together, Martha's hands over Bruce's ears, him in front of her, while he giggled at his mother's silliness. Her sleeves were still carefully over her palms. They were out again in under two minutes, the green roadster in a box Bruce held carefully in front of him the whole way home, held up every so often to catch the light through the car window, headlights flashing silver each time the sun found them.

Thomas was in his office when they came in, phone still pressed to his ear, murmuring one second to whoever was on the other end so he could greet his family properly. He hung up the moment he saw Bruce's face, that pale, tired look that nonetheless held a bit of happiness.

He didn't ask what happened. He'd learned that the moment for being useful had already passed, and often, answering the question added more heaviness for Bruce. Instead, he crouched, and waited for their son to come to him. Bruce looked at Thomas's open hands for a moment, still holding tight to Martha's sleeve with the other, before letting go of her and going to his dad instead, tucking himself into his arms.

"Rough one?" Thomas asked, quiet, into the top of his head, and Martha watched as Bruce only shrugged.

Over Bruce's head, Thomas found Martha's eyes, and she shrugged too — not bad, just big. Thomas nodded, understanding the difference. Bruce moved first, pulling back enough to hold up the box, still gripped tight close to his chest.

Thomas gasped when he saw it, which made Bruce wiggle against him in happiness. "You found the boat-tail." He shifted Bruce to one side, still holding him, and took the box with both hands, Bruce between his arms. "The green one— Tiny, we talked about this exact model, from the book, remember?"

"I remembered," Bruce's voice was small, but pleased at being right about something, at having done the thing they'd planned together weeks ago over a book spread open on the living room coffee table.

"You did," Thomas looked almost as joyful as Bruce had looked in the shop.

Martha understood nothing of it — to her it was just a tiny car, but watching Thomas and Bruce share something like this was its own kind of wonderful.

"We are absolutely going to the garage this weekend. We need to see this next to the real thing." Thomas tugged Bruce closer, and he nodded so hard his whole body moved with it, hands flapping in delight.

Leaning on the doorway, Martha felt the last of the store's panic finally drain out her. She watched as her husband and her son gushed over a toy car in a cardboard box, already deep in a conversation with words in it she couldn't even begin to comprehend — and it didn't matter, because Bruce was bouncing on his toes, the happiness too big for him to hold it in.

When Bruce looked at her, she told him it had been a good choice even without knowing why.

"It's the best one!" Bruce answered, and she simply smiled at him.

That night, Thomas had begun Bruce's bedtime routine as soon the noticed their son had to blinking longer and longer. It was earlier than usual, but that was to be expected after a big day like this one. After, with Bruce already asleep, he found Martha in the kitchen and wrapped his arms around her from behind while she finished her cup of tea, chin hooking over her shoulder.

"Hi," he murmured. "How was it?"

"Bad, and good," Martha said, leaning back into him. "He loved that car so much it knocked him over. We had to leave, and then go back in."

"That sounds like a good day wearing a bad day's coat," Thomas said, and she chuckled. She liked him so much.

"I felt useless in there," she admitted, gaze locked in his shoulder. "I had no words for him, maybe if you had been there—"

Thomas turned her gently by the shoulder until she was facing him. "It shouldn't have been anyone but you." He kissed her slowly, reverently. "You understood him, and that's what he needed today."

She let herself believe him, happy with the knowledge that after all, Bruce was asleep upstairs, safe and sound. And Martha was so, so proud of him.

iv. friends

Bruce had started first grade a few weeks ago, and it had been… something, to say the least.

First, it was the uniform. Martha had known it wouldn't work from the moment she first touched it — the fabric was somehow scratchy and too soft at the same time, and way too breathable for a boy like Bruce, who got cold really easily. The texture of it had made her cringe, recoiling as soon as her fingertips came into contact with it. But she didn't want Bruce to miss out on things just because of her own oddity, so she allowed him to try it on. Maybe everything would be fine, and she would have worried for nothing.

That was very much not the case.

Bruce got dressed on his own in a tiny bathroom in a big room in the school, where they kept all the unnecessarily complicated sizes — and that was why it had been imperative for Bruce to try the garments on, instead of them just picking the size he usually wore.

When he came out, Bruce looked uncomfortable, tense in a way that instantly alarmed Martha.

"I don't—" Bruce squirmed, rocking on his heels. "I feel bad."

"What is it, baby?" She knelt beside him, careful not to touch him yet in case that made it all worse.

"I don't know," he whined, tugging at his sleeves. He wasn't looking at her. "I don't know, I don't know."

"Is it the uniform, Bruce?" she asked.

He didn't answer.

It didn't matter, since she knew it already. She watched as Thomas quickly got up, helping Bruce back into the bathroom and out of the uniform before the tears gathering in their son's eyes could fall. She listened to Thomas's voice, muffled by the door between them.

"It's okay, tiny," he said. Martha could imagine him the way he'd be rocking Bruce in his arms, one hand on the back of his head with the pressure he already knew his son tolerated. "You don't have to wear that, don't worry."

They came back out holding hands, Bruce's face red and blotchy, but not crying — and she hated herself a little for putting her son in this position, for making him try on something she already knew would be painful against his skin.

"It's not gonna work," Thomas announced, and left it at that.

"Um— Mister Wayne—" the school staff said, a bit flustered. "He has to—"

Martha glared at her, shutting her up. "He won't wear that horrible fabric of yours."

She looked at Bruce beside Thomas, trying very hard to pretend he was completely fine, cool and uninterested in what was going on around him. Not wanting to become a stereotype of a rich asshole, she sighed, and spoke. "Sorry. He will wear the uniform."

Meanwhile, Thomas squeezed Bruce's hand, and Martha managed to catch some of his whisper. You did so good telling us you felt bad.

"We'll take the size he tried on," she announced, because she had seen enough to know that the size was correct, and it was the texture that was the issue.

Alfred would surely be able to copy the pattern from the original, and make a new uniform with a fabric that didn't hurt Bruce's skin.

He did, of course. Martha involved herself in the process as much as he allowed, from the buying of fabrics to the stitching on the inside of the pants — she would not allow her son to be at a disadvantage only because the feeling of tag in his shirt didn't allow him to think. And three days later, Bruce had a uniform identical in every visible way to the one every other child at his school wore, but unique to him in every way that mattered. Both Martha and Alfred agreed to never mention what it had cost them in sleep (mostly Alfred, if Martha was honest with herself). Bruce didn't thank Alfred for it directly, although he did hug him around the middle for a long moment on the first morning before school.

After that, the uniform stopped being the thing Martha worried about. Something else took its place, the way it always did with Bruce.And it was worse, because she could never know for certain — was the school a harsh environment for him, or was he simply the normal amount of tired? Was he making friends, did the other kids like him, could everyone see the wonderful little man her son was?

So when the invitation to Dana Lan's birthday arrived a few weeks later, Martha allowed herself a tiny private moment of triumph at the tangible proof that Bruce was just a normal six-year-old that got invited to his friends' birthday parties. Then, without being asked, Alfred had set aside a soft set of shirt and pants for Bruce, something worn-in, but still appropriate for a birthday, making him look like the most handsome little boy that had ever existed, in Martha's opinion.

Dana Lan's sixth birthday party took over the whole back garden of the Lan house, a rented bounce castle sagging cheerfully at one end and a folding table full of cupcakes at the other. Within the first five minutes, Martha had already procured herself a spot with a clear line of sight to Bruce, trying not to look like she was watching him too closely. Just as close as one would watch their child in one of these things. She was being completely normal. Maybe she could have hid a tiny microphone in his clothes? Just so she could know if everyone was being nice to him.

Bruce had arrived tense, playing with the ribbon in the gift they had brought for little Dana — a tiny Lego playhouse, since Bruce had said she liked those kinds of things. It let Martha know that he was paying a good amount of attention to his classmates, which certainly meant that he had had no issue making friends.

He had visibly brightened the moment he spotted Harvey Dent already crouched by the fence examining something in the grass — a beetle, it turned out. Martha kind of wanted to see it, too, but she'd never embarrass Bruce like that, so she stayed put in her designated spot. She just watched them, while Thomas brought her food and talked to the other parents at their table. All the other children ran around, yelling and throwing each other off the tallest part of the bounce castle and into the foam pit at the bottom — while Bruce and Harvey ignored the games and the music and the general churn of a party.

It was Harvey who eventually stood and tugged Bruce toward the group forming for some kind of game, an arm slung around his shoulders in the way boys their age did when they wanted to seem cool. Martha watched Bruce go along, watched him take in the size of the group, the noise of it, the speed at which the rules were apparently being negotiated by four different children at once. And she recognized the pinched expression on his face, that same one he made whenever someone put one of his toy cars back in the wrong spot.

It was fascinating, the way in which Harvey seemed to notice too, but still pushed Bruce a little, and in the end, he relented. For a while, Bruce played, even did his part when he was chosen as the base for a little tower of children they did — because even at six years old, Martha's boy was strong and dependable, and apparently his classmates noticed too.

Before the game had ended (as Martha understood it, because children's games could certainly be indecipherable to an adult), he simply walked away, sitting on a tire swing under a tree, and swinging back and forth lightly. He looked peaceful, unworried. After a while, Harvey saw him, and peeled off from the group with him. Before long, they were following what Martha could only assume was a path of ants, like the game and the other children hadn't even happened. It was just a simple redirection, just a kid settling back down in the grass beside his friend like there was nowhere else he'd rather have ended up.

Martha felt something crawling up her throat watching it, and knew at once this would take a few days for her to comprehend and be able to name. Thomas was most certainly aware of what she was doing, and he'd ask, eventually. For now, there was mainly gratitude towards Harvey. She'd met adults who couldn't manage what that boy had just done.

She kept watching, still half-smiling, more focused on the feeling of Thomas's hand on her thigh, always present but letting her process things at her own pace. Then, she caught the tail end of a conversation two people were having just behind her, and she fully tuned in, thinking that maybe she could allow herself now to join in on the adult interactions.

"—only here because of the Dent boy, I think. I heard Dana specifically asked her mother if the Wayne boy could come too, she's so sweet, bless her," the woman laughed, apologetic, trying to soften words that, as Martha begun to understand, were anything but nice.

The man hummed, as if remembering something. "Oh, yeah, my daughter says that he's kind of— I mean, there are days he doesn't say anything, apparently, so the other kids don't really know what to make of him."

The woman said something Martha didn't catch, low, which made the man laugh, and then they were moving, taking their conversation elsewhere as if they hadn't dropped a bucket of ice water straight over Martha's head.

When she caught her breath again, she locked eyes with Thomas, who returned her gaze with eyes full of something that resembled rage, sitting very still, jaw clenched. Martha didn't know what her own expression looked like. They said nothing, because there was nothing to say. She simply placed her hand on top of his, no matter how cold she was, and they sat there, food untouched, watching Bruce and Harvey move around the edges of the party, happy in their own little bubble.

Slowly, she let it land, the fact that Bruce was only here because of a favor extended sideways through Harvey, and a kind little girl's insistence. She imagined many more party invitations arriving inside Bruce's backpack alongside his notebooks and the tiny mesh bag he had for his little dog plushie that followed him everywhere — and thought of how many would come with that unspoken conditional — just to be nice.

She was distantly aware of the need to cry building behind her eyes, but mostly, she felt some sort of combination of anger and grief and even humiliation coursing through her. She only clutched Thomas's hand tighter in hers, the both of them just sitting with this… this injustice that had nowhere to go, because those people were already gone, and neither Martha nor her husband had had the chance to look at who they were. Most importantly, the moment to say something seemed so far away, now.

Across the garden, Bruce laughed at something Harvey said, and it was a real laugh, that beautiful sound she always chased because it was rare. Thomas moved closer to her then, as if telling her to focus on that sight instead, which she did.

Worse still was the moment the gifts were opened — Dana had teared into the little Lego playhouse Bruce had picked for her, and shrieked with real delight the moment she recognized what it was, launching herself at Bruce in a hug he hadn't been expecting. Martha had to tear her gaze away from them, lest she cry at how Bruce's arms came up to hold Dana clumsily, but still warm as he always was.

That night, after Bruce's bath, but before his full nighttime routine with Thomas, Martha sat on the edge of Bruce's bed while he arranged his multitude of stuffed animals in the particular manner that mattered to him.

"Did you have fun today?" she asked, careful to keep it light, an ordinary question rather than the loaded one underneath it.

"Harvey found a stag beetle," Bruce said, which was, for him, a full and complete answer. "It had really big mandibles. The biggest I've ever seen." He paused, seemingly thinking something over. "Harvey says there are bigger beetles in his house, but he couldn't prove it."

"That sounds like the best part of the party."

"It was." He held up a stuffed tortoise, measuring it against the horse in his other hand, before deciding the horse was bigger. He arranged them both by size near his pillow.

"And how about when you played with the other kids?"

Bruce grunted. "They didn't follow the rules."

"You didn't want to play?"

"No." There was no hesitation in it, no apology either.

"So why did you?"

"Harvey wanted me to," he answered, and continued his work.

Martha watched him for a while, gathering the courage for the question she'd been carrying since the garden.

"Honey." She waited until he glanced up, his gaze around her collarbone, as close as eye contact usually got, which was good enough for her. "Do you wish you had more friends? Besides Harvey?"

She saw him twitch to go back to his plushies, and Martha silently chided herself in her mind — surely he didn't understand why she was asking this, why it was important, what he needed to answer—

"No," he said, finally. "I like Harvey."

"You're sure?"

"Yes," Bruce said matter-of-fact, going back to his plushie-sorting. This time, he picked a feathered velociraptor, running his fingers through it a few times.

"And, um, why do you like Harvey?" she pressed, distantly aware that she might be sounding desperate for any information of her son's apparently small social life.

"He listens. He doesn't get bored when I talk about things. And he knows cool stuff about bugs, and wild animals." He shrugged, like what he was saying was obvious.

Martha allowed his words to act as a balm for the still raw wound that birthday party had become to her. Was she perhaps placing on him her own fears for what his life could end up being? She sighed, reaching to tuck back a stray curl of his. As if two people's awful gossip could change the truth that he was sweet, and smart, and above all, good and kind.

"You know, I only had one friend too, when I was your age," she said. "Did I ever tell you that?"

Bruce looked up at that, swaying side to side a bit. "No."

"Really. Her name was Mary. Everyone else thought I was strange." She smiled, an old, easy memory surfacing. "But I didn't mind, because I had her."

"Okay," he murmured, and she wasn't mad at all at his fumbling of the typical rules of conversation.

"I made more friends eventually, more than I ever expected to, actually. But Mary was enough for a long time." She reached out, smoothed a non-existent wrinkle in his pajamas, and he let her, absorbed now in a rabbit's positioning. "I want you to know, Bruce, someday you might have more people who see you the way Harvey does. Or you might just have him, for a long time, and one really good friend might be all you need. Both are fine. Both are good lives."

Bruce was quiet for a moment, processing, fiddling with the rabbit's ears.

"Harvey's my favorite," he said finally, in that monotone way of his.

Perhaps Martha could cry about this later. Actually talk about it with Thomas, bitch about the conversation they had overheard, and weigh the pros and cons of seriously investigating who those people had been. At the moment, the reality remained the same — her son had only one friend, his classmates thought he was weird, and, apparently, he was completely fine with both of those things.

"Then you're a very lucky boy." Martha cleared a path on his forehead for her to leave a kiss there, and relished in the small sound he made. "I'm happy you have him."

Finally, he placed the rabbit down, exactly where it belonged.

v. calm

The fundraiser had run long, and Martha had run out of steam merely thirty minutes in. There had been one man wearing an awful cologne that almost smelled purely of ethyl alcohol, mixed with something that might have been trying to be a woodsy aroma. Then, that stray tag in her dress — a rookie mistake, really. All of that mixed with the warm weather, and the terrible sound system that made the bass pop in a way that made her bones shake, and not even Thomas's steady presence could help her.

By the time Alfred pulled up to pick them up, she had no energy to arrange her face into the easy expression she should be seen with. Alfred just took one look at her, at the way she leaned against Thomas, and didn't ask.

"Master Bruce is still awake," he announced, which brought forth an unexpected relief.

When they arrived, Martha quickly changed, removed her makeup, and then sat on the edge of her bed, lamp turned off, having asked Thomas for half an hour alone to lay in the dark and recover from the past six hours. She wasn't being unreasonable — it was barely seven pm, so he had plenty of time to putter about elsewhere while she built herself into a human being again.

After a few minutes, Martha heard a quiet shuffle of small feet coming towards her door, and truly, she had been expecting him. Bruce pushed the door open, and then stopped in the doorway, Ace hanging by one paw from his fist, dragged along anywhere Bruce went. She waved him inside, and murmured for him to close the door behind him, which he did.

He didn't ask if she was alright, perhaps because he didn't notice a difference, or perhaps because he did, and didn't need any words for it. He simply climbed onto the bed, slowly, as quietly as he could manage.

"Hi, mommy," he murmured

"Hi, baby."

Kneeling beside her, he sat Ace down on Thomas's pillow, positioning him carefully.

"He'll watch the door," Bruce whispered, caressing the plushie's ear before letting him go. "I'll watch you."

Then he lay down fully on top of her — chest to chest, his ear pressed just under her collarbone. Martha exhaled. Bruce's pajamas were soft against her, and he smelled of toothpaste and the coconut shampoo Thomas used for him. He didn't move again for a while. She could feel his heartbeat through both their shirts if she concentrated, faster than hers, strong and even, the rhythm holding up the most important person of her life.

"I didn't bring more plushies." His breath tickled the sensitive skin of her collarbone. She was very, very grateful for how successfully he was moderating the volume of his voice in this dark, quiet space where they both lay. "I thought maybe they could help, but I just brought Ace."

Martha pressed her hand against his back, feeling the quicker rise and fall of his chest. She visualized the way his small lungs filled with air, and then deflated, over and over again, and was endeared by the mental image of his tiny organs working hard to keep him alive.

"Ace is enough, honey," she murmured. "Thank you."

He made a small sound, low, caught in his throat, and it sounded closer to a whine because his voice was still high-pitched with youth. Martha recognized the cadence of it, though — it seemed to try to be the same humming Thomas did whenever he helped Bruce calm down, or when he held her through a lazy day. Martha loved that Bruce did it. Maybe he meant the same thing Thomas meant, maybe he didn't, and the not knowing was another small wonder of Bruce's for her to discover.

He stayed, unmoving, quiet, perfectly how she needed him, his weight rebuilding her completely in ways he couldn't even understand. Martha didn't know how he knew this, how he had thought of coming here to lay on top of his mother, bringing his dog plushie that for him, chased away every scary thing lurking in the shadows. But she didn't question it, just held him closer to her, closer until his breathing became slower, and she felt the occasional fluttering of his eyelashes against her skin.

Martha did not move him. She lay there still in her earrings, in the dark, and allowed herself to close her eyes, just a moment, just until Thomas came to carry Bruce back into his room. Ace kept watch from the pillow beside them, facing the door, exactly as he'd been told to.

vi. race

It all started with a small, innocent request.

Martha was curled into the corner of the couch, a blanket half-arranged over her legs, bored out of her mind but too comfortable to move to do anything about it. At her feet, Bruce lay on his stomach by her feet, building a tower of dominoes, while Thomas read in the armchair with one leg thrown over the arm of it.

"Bruce, honey, could you run up and grab my book? Nightstand, my side."

Bruce looked up at her, nodding quickly. Then he looked, very deliberately, across the room at Thomas, who had perked up at the request, his finger between the pages of his book as if he really were to continue reading.

The staring contest between them continued, and Martha watched it happen, not understanding what it meant. Then, Thomas's eyebrows went up, slow and delighted, and a smirk split his face.

"Oh, no," Thomas sing-songed, carefully placing a bookmark in between the pages of his book. "Oh, you didn't."

Bruce was already moving, at first stealthily, like a cat, and changing his tune when Thomas finally stood, dramatically stretching his back. Bruce hit the stairs at a dead sprint, socked feet skidding dangerously on the third step, and Thomas was after him a beat later, laughing. He took the stairs two at a time, making the whole staircase creak, and Martha could hear Bruce's answering shriek that turned into a laugh even from her place. There was a yelp that was definitely Bruce, and a much louder yelp that was definitely Thomas pretending to have been ambushed, and then Bruce's laugh, high and delighted, carrying all the way down the stairs.

"Don't break anything!" Martha called, trying to sound stern even through her amusement.

She sat there smiling at the ceiling, tracking the chaos by sound alone — a door, the creaking of a bed when a small body was thrown onto it and then the sound of the whole frame moving a bit when Thomas pretended to fall on top of Bruce while doing an exaggerated villain-laugh. Then, more laughter, and the patter of running feet, and a hitch in Thomas's voice that meant he'd cornered Bruce somewhere and was about to lose on purpose.

By the time Bruce came down the stairs, Martha had stood up and was waiting for him by the entrance to the sitting room. He was faster than before, mainly because he had decided to slide down the stairs railing, and Martha's heart leaped in her chest, despite the fact that Thomas was there, tickling Bruce as a cover-up for how he was actually holding him up so he could slide down safely.

She locked eyes with her husband, and he ticked her head towards the sitting room, letting her know that her designated spot for the game was still at the couch. She quickly got there and sat back down, in time to see Bruce run to her, book clutched against his chest, Thomas closing in behind him.

"Got it!" Bruce announced, breathless, and all but threw the book into Martha's lap before Thomas's arms closed around him from behind, scooping him clean off his feet.

"This can't be!" Thomas yelled, as Bruce shrieked with laughter and kicked uselessly at the air. "Not fair, you had a head start—"

"I won," Bruce got out, between gasping breaths of laughter, "I won, I won—"

"It was foul play!" Thomas loudly announced, and then, he tipped forward and all but threw Bruce onto the couch cushion beside Martha. Her yell of surprise became a burst of laughter when she heard Bruce's own breathy giggles.

Thomas landed on his knees on the floor in front of Bruce, and dropped his torso on top of their son. They landed together in a heap of limbs and pillows while Bruce shrieked again, twisting to try to get purchase enough to shove his dad off.

Martha, by now, was laughing too hard to pretend she wasn't enjoying this as much as they were.

"My blanket's fallen off," she said theatrically, once she'd gotten enough air back to speak. "If only there was someone brave enough to bring me another one…"

The both of them stilled for half a second. Then, Bruce was scrambling up and over the arm of the couch, and Thomas was right behind him, and the whole race began again — up the stairs, a muffled thump that might have been Bruce tripping, but was followed by laughter and more playful battle cries.

This time they came down together, Bruce upside down, half-riding on Thomas's back, squirming to get off. They fought over one corner of a throw blanket, and when Thomas set Bruce down on the carpet again, they played a rushed game of tug of war that Thomas pretended to lose only sometimes. Bruce ended up sprawled on the floor with effort, laughing too hard to maintain his grip.

When someone finally placed the blanket on her lap, Martha deliberately turned away, not looking at them, and announced, "That was a tie."

It got her twin outraged protests from both of them at once, and she grinned, shrugging exaggeratedly at them.

They roughhoused right there on the carpet in front of her, apparently seeking to settle the tie with a physical match. Bruce only got spun and thrown and turned around, his shrieks of laughter filling the sitting room. When Martha focused on them again, after a while, Thomas was flat on his back on the rug, Bruce sitting triumphantly on his stomach like he'd conquered a mountain, both of them out of breath. Beside her, on the arm of the couch, Ace watched the foolishness with his glassy, beady eyes.

"Water, please" Martha said into the lull, pretending to be innocent. "I'm parched, all this laughing."

"You're diabolical," Thomas told her, already rolling Bruce off him and onto the rug with a flourish that made it seem like he had thrown their son, though he held the back of Bruce's head the whole time. Then, they were both up and gone again, feet pounding toward the kitchen this time instead of the stairs.

Martha heard the clink of a glass, the tap running, and Bruce's voice rising in protest, but his tone was still delighted. When they reappeared, Thomas held the glass of water high over his head, arm fully extended. The water sloshed dangerously close to the rim, while Bruce jumped for it beside Thomas, again and again, laughing too hard to actually reach. He never got anywhere near it — which was rather the entire point, because Thomas was making sure that the one part of this game involving an actual glass stayed well above their son's head the whole way.

"This is embarrassing for you, tiny," Thomas shook his head, a mock expression of empathy, holding the glass even higher as Bruce made one more valiant, hopeless leap for it.

"You're cheating!" Bruce declared, attempting to climb up his dad's body.

Thomas simply held him away by the back of his shirt, laughing when Bruce yelled.

"It's called being tall," Thomas said, and finally, presented the glass to Martha himself, bowing slightly at the waist. "My lady."

"Traitor," Bruce told him through the big smile on his face. Then, he flopped face-first onto the couch cushion beside Martha, chest heaving.

She took a sip of the water and watched as Thomas picked Bruce up like a sack of potatoes once more, all so he could sit down beside her. After a bit of breathless laughter and squirming, he placed their son on his lap, properly this time. Bruce leaned into Thomas's chest, breathing heavily, while Thomas sprawled completely onto the couch, his head resting on Martha's shoulder.

"What do you want next?" Bruce asked after a moment, already ready to run again.

"Nothing," Martha set the glass down, and squeezed one of his calves. "I have everything I want right here."

At that, Bruce threw himself back down against his dad's chest, getting an oof out of him.

Thomas scooted closer to her then, Bruce and all. She placed her cheek on top of his hair, finding his hand on hers. They stayed that way until Bruce got tired of their stillness and slid off his dad's lap, back to his now-destroyed tower of dominoes, patient, as he always was with things he saw as needing order. He began again, setting each tile upright one at a time without once looking back towards his parents, sure of himself and his abilities to make a new dominoes path.

Martha felt the kiss Thomas pressed to her shoulder, and neither of them moved to join Bruce on the floor. He didn't need them for this part. He would set the whole line himself, tile by careful tile. When it was finished he would tip the first one anyway, on purpose, just to watch the rest go down in a long unstoppable wave. Then, he'd start again.

They watched him do it. Martha was sure they could go on watching him do anything, never bored, always proud of their son's greatness.