meet the robins

by drakefeathers

Summary:

sad little orphan bruce travels to the future and meets the family he’ll have one day :) too bad he can’t stay forever :(

 There’s a strange boy in his father’s study.

Bruce hasn’t set foot in the room since that night in the alley. It hurts too much, knowing when he opens the door he won’t find his father working at the big oak desk. Even Alfred avoids going in there except to dust.

But Bruce heard noises. Alfred is out running errands, so he’s alone in the huge, creaky house and the only one here to deal with what he thought was a burglar. It’s not, unless burglars come in the form of boys near his age in weird costumes. 

The boy's eyes are hidden behind a mask and he’s wearing a cape. The bright colours he’s wearing seem out of place in the grey, dusty room. Bruce lingers in the doorway and lowers the baseball bat he’s holding, but doesn’t drop his guard completely. 

The boy whirls around abruptly, somehow sensing him there even though he’s being completely silent. He hasn’t even been breathing.

Bruce almost takes a step back as a reflex. He forces himself to take a step forward instead. This is his house. 

“Who are you?” Bruce demands, raising his baseball bat again as a threat. Trying his hardest not to tremble. He’s not scared. He won’t be scared, never again. “What are you doing here?”

The boy’s eyes narrow in the mask. He’s muttering angrily under his breath.

There’s a device in his gloved hands. Some kind of machine that he’s focusing on instead of paying attention to Bruce, pressing buttons and shaking it and slamming it against his palm trying to make it work. 

Bruce jabs the bat in the boy’s direction like it’s a sword. “I’m talking to you! Answer me!”

"Stay back," he says sternly, without looking over. 

Who does he think he is, giving orders? This isn’t his house. He’s breaking and entering. He’s a criminal. Only a criminal would need to wear a mask like that.

Or Gray Ghost, one small part of Bruce whispers. A hero.

 "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm leaving in under a minute, as soon as—" He pauses at tinkering with the machine to scowl at Bruce and shove him backwards sharply. "I said stay back. This is dangerous."

"Who are you?" Bruce asks again. The strangely-dressed boy, he… He looks familiar and Bruce can’t place it, he doesn’t know how or why and it’s making him uneasy. 

There’s no answer from the boy, who keeps his mouth stubbornly shut. Keeps his eyes fixed on the screen of the device.

"Who are you?" Bruce shouts, stepping forward and crowding the boy into a corner, trapping him.

The boy’s mask hides it, but Bruce gets the impression that he’s rolling his eyes. "Don't make me—"

"Make you what?" Bruce challenges.

He finds out a heartbeat later when he’s pinned to the floor, his face pressed against the expensive rug and his bat tossed out of reach across the room. Pain shoots up his shoulder when he tries to fight his way free, and the boy just twists his arm more and more until he stops moving.

“Stay. Down,” the boy says in a cold growl, pressing the heel of his boot threateningly against the back of Bruce’s neck as a final warning before walking away.

Bruce won’t.

Face burning in shame and anger, he scrambles up off the floor and dashes out into the hallway after the boy just in time to see the tail of his bright yellow cape disappearing around the corner. 

Right as Bruce thinks he’s about to catch up, he’s knocked off his feet by a burst of swirling light that seems to steal the world from around him, leaving only blackness.

 

—

 

Time-travel is disorienting, as Damian has discovered with his experiments this afternoon. He’s done four jumps through time and they all left him dizzy and shaking, with headaches and blurred vision that took a while to fade. He thinks he’s getting used to it—it’s not nearly as bad as it was the first time.

Damian recovers first. Bruce doesn’t get a chance to recover, because the first thing Damian does is knock the eight-year-old version of his father unconscious with a nerve strike.

He catches Bruce before he hits the ground and drags him over to the big chair in front of the dark computer monitors. It would be rude to let his father lie on a cold, rocky floor covered in bat excrement.

Damian sighs. “Grayson is going to be furious,” he mutters to himself. He’ll probably be grounded from patrol indefinitely. Given hours and hours of chores and the most boring training exercises. Forced to suffer through a long lecture about the importance of trust and communication and obeying orders.

He didn’t mean for this to happen. Bringing a young version of his father back to this time was entirely an accident. If only the idiot had listened to him and kept his distance, this wouldn’t have happened.

Damian didn’t even mean to visit his father as a child. It’s the current version of his father he was searching for. The Justice League has been having zero success bringing his father back to the present, and Damian was sick of everyone excluding him from the mission. He wanted to be involved. He wanted to do one better and prove he’s superior to Drake, superior to everyone, by rescuing his father himself with some confiscated time travel technology kept locked up in the storage vaults of the cave along with all the other villainous weapons that were kept for study and souvenirs. 

Breaking in was simple, but his first attempt with the machine took him to a wild, snowy patch of forest where the manor would one day be built. He tried another jump through time and had to hide upstairs during a dinner party hosted by his great-great-grandparents, judging by the attire of that era. The third time he was in the study back when the grandfather clock was just a clock and his father was still a child.

The machine is faulty, clearly. He had only programmed it to send him back in time one year, as a test-run. Thankfully he managed to adjust it and make it work properly long enough to send him back home. He only missed his target return time by four hours… which unfortunately means that he’s late for patrol and Grayson is doubtless scouring the city searching for him. Another reason for the man to be angry.

And the thing is useless now. Completely burnt out, not responding when he presses any of the buttons. He can’t send his father back.

The creaking and scraping of stone and machinery echoes from far down one of the tunnels. A hidden entrance opening. Damian can hear an engine growling, growing closer and closer.

He hopes it’s Brown, here to train before patrol or grab some equipment. This is her base of operations now, after all.

If it is her, he can probably arrange things so she takes part of the blame.

But, no, the engine sound is all wrong for a motorcycle. It has to be Grayson. Damian worked on the Batmobile’s engine. He knows it when he hears it.

“Damian! What are you doing here?” Dick shouts as soon as he’s out of the car, slamming the door behind him. He’s wearing the Batman uniform with the cowl yanked down, his stricken face showing just how upset he is. “No one had any idea where you were, and you didn’t answer when we tried calling you. You have to answer your communicator, I’ve told you that. We thought you might have been kidnapped, or—”

He stops dead, face draining of colour when his eyes fall on Bruce Wayne, age eight, lying slumped and small and unconscious in the huge chair that doesn’t belong to him quite yet.

The look of shock on Grayson’s face is entertaining beyond words. Commenting on it would surely only serve to worsen Damian’s punishment. He smirks and hopes Grayson doesn’t notice.

 

—

 

“This is bad, Damian,” Dick says sternly during the drive back to the bunker. Damian’s sulking angrily in the seat beside him and the young Bruce is strapped into the backseat, still unconscious. “I can’t believe this is actually— It’s really bad. Did you stop to think how this might affect the timeline? Our timeline? Bruce not being where he’s supposed to be could have a huge effect on history as we know it.” Without Batman, Gotham might not still be standing. Damian wouldn’t be born. Dick doesn’t want to imagine what could have happened to himself, or the others… “Reality could start unraveling. It could create a paradox—”

“Ridiculous. You have clearly watched too much television,” Damian says disparagingly. “None of that will happen.”

“Are you a big expert on the space-time continuum now?”

“More than you are. Believe me, everything will remain intact. According to my father’s files the Justice League has meddled with time plenty,” Damian argues. “And I haven’t noticed reality crumbling around us. It’s because I’m right, so stop with your science-fiction nonsense.”

Dick wishes he could believe that, but he can’t help but think that maybe they’ve just been lucky so far. And he knows there have been a few close calls.

He hates time travel.

“Speaking of the League, you should have let them focus on bringing Bruce back, like I told you. It’s their mission. You went behind my back. You’re in a lot of trouble, Robin.”

Damian doesn’t look too fazed. Of course he isn’t. He’s not sorry he did it, just sorry he got caught. “Bringing him here wasn’t my intention, just so you’re aware. I’m not an idiot.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t, but—“ 

There’s a small groan and some rustling from the backseat as Bruce starts waking up. Dick glances back worriedly.

“Wha— Where— Where am I?” The young Bruce asks groggily. His eyes goes wide in fear when he sees Dick—Batman—and he frantically tries to unlatch the seatbelt trapping him. “Who are you?”

“Calm down, Bruce,” Dick tells him firmly. “Stay—“

“Let me out of here!” Bruce shouts. His hands scrabble against the door, searching for a handle or a lock and finding nothing.

“Do you want me to knock him out again?” asks Damian, cracking his knuckles.

“No, Damian. It’s fine. We’re here.” Dick pulls the Batmobile to a stop on its parking pad in the bunker.

When Dick opens the passenger side door, it fully hits him just how young this Bruce cowering away from him is. This isn't the Bruce he knows, this isn't a Bruce he has ever known. This is a boy with eyes full of fear and sadness that he hasn’t yet learned how to temper into strength. A boy still frightened of bats.

“Stay away from me!"

“Listen, Bruce, it’s okay. See?” Dick pulls down his cowl and smiles reassuringly. “Don’t be afraid.“

But it’s too late for that. He’s already spooked the boy so much just by wearing this costume that it’ll take a miracle to gain his trust.

“I’m not— I’m not afraid of you.” Bruce lifts his chin defiantly, but his voice wavers. Dick steps back, holding the door open, and Bruce scrambles out of the car. He seizes the opportunity, taking off at a run before Dick can stop him.

He doesn’t make it far. Damian tackles him to the floor near the computer monitors. Dick has to yank the two wrestling boys apart before one of them—before Bruce—gets hurt. 

“Enough,” Dick says. “Damian, you don’t have to be so rough with him.”

Damian gives a tt, smoothing his rumpled uniform. "If anything, I was going easy on him."

Dick tries to check if Bruce is hurt, but he flinches and turns away, crossing his arms as if to protect himself.

The elevator dings and they all look over to see Alfred step out. For a moment he stands there, staring in quiet shock at the boy he helped raise into a man.

“Master Bruce, is that really you?” He sets his tea tray down with shaking hands. Dick called him on the drive over to brief him on the situation, but this isn’t something easily prepared for.

“Alfred? What--"

Alfred drops to his knees in front of Bruce and pulls the boy into a tight hug that seems to startle him as much as anything else has tonight.

“My greatest regret is not having done that long ago," says Alfred sadly, as he lets go.

Bruce stares at the butler in confusion, brow furrowed. “Alfred, you’re so… old. Why are you so old?” he blurts out. Frowning, he looks over his shoulder at Dick and Damian. “Who are they? And why are they dressed like that?” He grabs onto Alfred's sleeve, leaning closer to the only person here familiar to him. His voice is small. “I don’t know what’s happening." 

Alfred pats him on the head comfortingly. “Please sit down, Master Bruce. Take a few deep breaths and have a cup of tea. We’ll explain everything.”

Bruce obeys Alfred wordlessly, too overcome with shock to do anything else. They sit him down on the computer chair with a steaming teacup in his hands. Dick leaves to change out of his uniform and returns once Bruce has had a few minutes to calm down.

“My name’s Dick Grayson," he tells Bruce, hoping for a good second impression. He extends a hand for Bruce to shake tentatively. "I’m— I’m your friend, and I’m not going to hurt you. None of us are.” He shoots a stern look at Damian, who rolls his eyes.

“Master Bruce, could you please tell us the date?" asks Alfred. "The last one you remember.”

He does, and it confirms exactly what Dick feared. They don't simply have a young, scared Bruce on their hands.... They have a young, scared Bruce still reeling from the fresh pain of his parents' deaths.

Bruce notices the worried glance shared by Dick and Alfred. “What?”

Dick sighs. 

“I know it sounds impossible, but… Bruce, you’re more than thirty years in the future.”

 

—

 

“Where is he?” Tim asks as soon as he jumps off his bike, pulling off his helmet.

“Sleeping," says Dick. 

“After what he’s just been through? Time travel? I find that hard to believe.”

“Alfred may have put something in his tea to calm him down," Dick admits. "He wasn’t dealing with this well, he needs the rest. And we need the time to figure out what we’re going to do about this.”

“When you said he was young…" Tim bites his lip. He looks worried to ask. "How young are we talking?”

“Eight.”

“Is he from—“

“After," Dick says hollowly. "About two months after his parents died.”

Tim winces. "Not good. Really not good. Is he... okay?"

"Hard to tell. From what Alfred remembers, he barely slept back then, sometimes he wouldn’t eat, and he refused to talk about what happened in the alley.”

“Doesn’t sound too different from our Bruce," Tim mutters. “What a great mess for Damian to get us in, like we weren't busy enough already."

Dick pretends he didn’t hear that last part. “Alfred also said Bruce used to pull some dangerous stunts at this age.”

“Dangerous? Like what?”

“Like climbing up onto the manor roof.”

Tim doesn't look very surprised. Neither was Dick when he heard. “Guess we’ll have to keep a close eye on him.”

Dick leads him over to the tool-scattered worktable. "Here's the device. Barbara's running tests on the residual energy readings to check whether it really was time travel and not something else. You can take a look at it if you're interested, but it's pretty much fried. I don't even know how Damian got it to work in the first place. He's lucky it wasn't a one-way trip."

"I've learned that Damian can get a lot done if he really puts his mind to it," Tim says wryly, picking up the small machine and weighing it in his hand. "Where did this thing even come from? I've never seen it before."

"Files say it's been locked up in the weapons vault for years, it was originally kept on the Watchtower after the Justice League confiscated it from an illegal lab supplying villains. Apparently it's never worked until now."

"And what would Bruce want with a broken time travel device?"

"To study it," Dick suggests, shrugging. "It's interesting tech, and dangerous--maybe he didn't want it to get in the wrong hands."

Tim levels Dick with a no-nonsense look. "Dick."

"Tim," Dick counters, just as firmly. "If Bruce wanted to use it, he would have done it and we wouldn't even be here right now to have this conversation. I mean, Damian managed to figure out how to fix it. So could Bruce. But he knew better than to mess with that kind of thing."

"He kept it around, though. Meaning he never threw away the possibility."

"Yeah."

Tim places the device carefully down on the table. "I think it's safe to say salvaging this piece of junk is out of the question. We'll have to come up with a different way to get Bruce back where he belongs before the time stream starts crashing around our ears."

 

—

 

Bruce wakes up thinking last night was a dream. 

But then why isn't he home? 

He’s in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar room, in a city he doesn't recognize. He stands in front of the huge window and looks down at the streets and buildings below. It's far busier than Gotham, Bruce has never seen so many people and cars before. Everything is sleek metal and glass, shimmering in the sunlight--it reminds him of that issue when Gray Ghost travelled to--

And then he remembers what the man told him the night before. The future.

Bruce backs away from the window, feeling dizzy all of a sudden.

The hallway is empty when he slips out of his bedroom, and the smell of Alfred's pancakes is wafting through the air. Bruce's stomach is rumbling--he loves Alfred's pancakes. But he's too nervous to head towards the kitchen. He doesn't even know where it is. He doesn't know where he is. This isn't his home.

A door creaks open behind Bruce. Without thinking about it, he quickly hides in the nearby linen closet.

Through the slats on the door Bruce watches that boy from last night--the mean boy--walk by. He's wearing gym clothes and drinking from a water bottle. 

"I know you're there," the boy mutters annoyedly as he passes, without glancing over. 

Bruce doesn't come out until he's gone. And then, before he can hide again, another bedroom door opens and another boy, one Bruce hasn't seen before, steps out. He's older, a teenager, in rumpled pajama pants and a shirt with an odd red symbol that looks like an S.

He blinks sleepily, and then his face breaks out into a huge grin.

"Hi, Bruce," he says, kneeling down to Bruce's level. He seems... nice, but Bruce is still wary. "My name's Tim. We didn't get to meet yesterday. How are you doing?"

Bruce doesn't answer that. "Where am I?” he asks suspiciously.

"You remember what everyone told you before? That this is the future?” Tim asks, and Bruce nods. "Cool. Well, right now we're in Wayne Tower. Everything probably looks different than you remember, right?” Bruce nods again. "Yeah, a lot has changed. C'mon, we can talk about this over breakfast, and I promise I'll answer all your questions. Let's hurry before Alfred's pancakes get cold—they’re my favourite, what about you?"

Bruce hesitates, wonders whether Tim is actually nice or just trying to be nice. but then his stomach rumbles to remind him how hungry he is and how good pancakes sound right now.

The other boy, the mean one, is sitting at the breakfast table reading a huge newspaper and ignoring both of them. Bruce spots the date on the front of the paper, and— it’s true. It's the same as what they said. This is the future. He gets a twisty feeling in his stomach that he can't tell whether is fear or excitement, but he knows he's not as scared about the idea as he was before.

"Where's Alfred?" he asks when Tim sets down a plate of pancakes in front of him. Breakfast is all cooked and still warm but Alfred is nowhere to be seen.

"Out. An urgent errand requires his attention." The mean boy turns the page with a loud rustling of paper. “That vile woman’s talking about you again, Drake.”

Tim looks over from the coffeemaker. “Vicki Vale?”

“She’s prying too deep—it’s putting the rest of us in jeopardy. If you’re not going to put a stop to this, then I will. Permanently.”

Tim rolls his eyes as he pours himself a mug of coffee and dumps in an amount of sugar that Bruce knows Alfred would find appalling. “I can deal with it on my own, Damian. But thanks for the concern.”

“What’s ‘the Batman’?” Bruce asks, pointing at the headline plastered on the front page of the paper. Tim and Damian stare at him in surprise, then glance at each other, and Bruce fidgets with the feeling he's said something wrong. “You said you would answer my questions,” he reminds Tim stubbornly.

Tim stifles a yawn. “I will, I will. Just… give me a minute. I need coffee, first.” He takes a long sip from his mug.

Bruce picks at his pancakes, but now he's hungry for something other than breakfast. There's so much to know, so much to find out. The future... He wonders whether everyone has jet packs yet, and teleporters, and robot pets...

“Would you like the funny pages, Drake?” Damian asks.

“Not today," Tim says flatly, throwing a glare his way. The way they treat each other, Bruce thinks they could be brothers.

“Can I have them?” asks Bruce. And, again, the disbelief that flashes across Tim and Damian's faces before they can hide it makes him feel like he's said the wrong thing. Slowly, Damian takes out the sheet of comics and passes it over the table.

“Here, Father.”

“What did you call me?" Stunned, Bruce drops his fork with a clatter. He looks over at Tim and points at Damian. “What did he call me?”

Tim is frowning at Damian. "I thought you and Dick explained everything to him last night."

"Not everything. Grayson felt it would be too much to take in at once." Damian swigs the last of his orange juice, then folds up the newspaper and leaves it on the table as he stands to leave, throwing back one last smirk from the doorway. "Perhaps you could fill him in on the rest."

“Yeah, I’m going to need another cup of this.” Tim pours himself another cup of coffee, so full to the brim it's nearly spilling over. "Damian is your son in the future," he tells Bruce. "Real pleasant kid, as you saw."

"Oh." Bruce blinks in surprise. He hadn't even thought-- It's just so weird. Damian is older than him. He looks at Tim, and now he wonders... "Are you--?"

"Also your son?" Tim finishes for him. "Kind of. It's complicated. You were my mentor for a long time, and you adopted me after my father died."

"Your parents are dead, too?" Bruce asks quietly.

"Yeah. So are Dick's. You were there the night his parents died and decided to take him in because you didn't want him to deal with it alone, like you had to at your age. You've helped us through a lot, Bruce."

Tim smiles at Bruce, and Bruce thinks he should smile back but it seems so unfair. He's alone, just like Tim said. He doesn't have anyone to help him, to understand. He only has dreams about it--about a tall, shadowed figure protecting him and his parents from the man in the alleyway, giving him courage on dark, lonely nights... It's an idea he's clung to, like an imaginary friend.

But maybe not so imaginary, not anymore. Now that he thinks about it, he's pretty sure he's seen it for real.

"Dick is-- He was the man wearing the scary costume last night?" Bruce asks. "And the mask? Why was he dressed like that? It wasn't Halloween. It's April, the newspaper said so."

Tim grimaces down at his coffee. For a long moment he doesn't say anything and it seems like he isn't going to. He has to, he promised. Bruce is about to open his mouth and remind him indignantly about that, but then Tim sighs and answers.

"He's... We're heroes. Superheroes. All of us, and you. You're Batman. You're the one who trained us. At night we fight crime and help protect the people of the city so that nobody else has to lose their parents."

"Heroes," Bruce whispers to himself, awed.

“Like— Like... Green Lantern," Tim comes up with after some thought. "There was a Green Lantern in your time, right? The first one, Alan Scott."

"I'm like Green Lantern?"

"Well, we don't have any superpowers like the Lanterns, we can't fly or anything, but..."

"Then am I like the Gray Ghost?" Bruce asks eagerly.

Tim looks confused for a second, but then... "Yes. Definitely. A lot like the Gray Ghost," he says. 

Bruce stands up decisively and starts to walk out of the kitchen. Tim nearly knocks over his chair scrambling after him. He stands in the doorway, blocking Bruce’s way. 

“Whoa, wait a sec. Where are you going?"

"You have to take me to him. I want to meet me, right now!"

Tim shakes his head, herding Bruce back to the table. "You can't, Bruce. I'm sorry. He's... away right now. Dick's been taking over for him as Batman. We're not sure when he'll be back, but it could be a while. Weeks. We're hoping to have you back home by then."

"But I don't..."

Bruce is interrupted by a loudly yawning man dragging his feet into the kitchen. It looks like the man in the scary costume, Dick, but his bedhead is so wild it's hard to tell.

"Look who's finally awake," Tim mutters so quietly that Bruce just barely makes it out.

Dick grins cheerfully at the both of them as he heaps pancakes onto a plate. Bruce doesn't know if he trusts that smile, it seems forced. "Hey, good morning. How's it going, Bruce? We didn't expect you to be awake so early."

"Why not?"

"Oh. Well, you know, with the time travel... it's very..." The rest is incomprehensible around the forkful of pancakes he shovels into his mouth. He chases it down with a huge gulp of milk. Bruce misses the guilty glance he shares with Tim. "Anyway, looks like you and Tim are getting along pretty well, that's good. I want to apologize again about last night, Bruce. I wasn't trying to scare you. I was wearing that because--"

"I just explained it to him," Tim says.

Dick looks relieved. "Really? Great. Thanks, Tim. Since that's out of the way, I was thinking you and I could head over to the manor after breakfast," he tells Bruce as he drowns his pancakes in more syrup. "There's something you really need to see." 

 

—

 

“That’s not my house,” Bruce says. He squints at it suspiciously through the window as the car rolls down the long manor driveway.

“There was a bad earthquake a couple years back,” Dick explains. “The house was… it was practically destroyed. A few parts of it were salvaged, but most of it was rebuilt from scratch.”

“Oh,” Bruce says flatly. He had actually seemed happy, relieved to come visit the manor, but now he’s sulking as he watches Dick struggle with the many locks on the front door.

Dick understands, he absolutely does. The kid’s far, far from where he belongs, and the one thing he thought would be familiar, his home, ends up being as strange and different as everything else. Doesn’t help that the house is so dark and dusty and cold from months of sitting empty when Dick finally manages to let them inside. It's spooky enough that Dick shivers a little. 

"Is it... abandoned?" asks Bruce, looking around apprehensively at the drawn curtains, at all the furniture and paintings draped in sheets. "Why?"

"It's just a temporary thing while our Bruce is gone. I wanted to stay in the city, closer to the action." Dick pulls a flashlight out of his jacket pocket, clicks it on and hands it to Bruce. The electricity is disconnected in the house and even though it’s daylight outside, it’s gloomy in here with all the curtains closed. "Here. Can I put you in charge of this?"

Bruce flashes the light into all the darkest corners as they walk, tense like he’s ready for something to jump out at him. It probably would’ve been easier to take the back entrance to the cave, driving through one of the tunnels in the car instead of through this empty mansion that creaks like it's haunted, but it has to be this way. It means more this way.

"Do you want to hear about how you and I met?" Dick asks to keep the boy's mind off what could be lurking in the shadows.

"Tim told me I took you in after your parents died."

"Yeah, but that's not the whole story. I grew up in the circus. Me and my parents had a trapeze act, and we were really, really good. One of the best acts in the world. A lot of the time we performed without a safety net. It was dangerous, but we were careful and we’d practiced our routines a thousand times before. I thought nothing would ever go wrong.” 

Dick sighs heavily. Even after all these years, it's not an easy story to tell.

“And then during one performance, in Gotham, it did. A bad man tampered with our trapeze lines because the owner of the circus didn’t pay him enough ‘protection money’, as he called it. My parents fell… and it was the worst day of my life.”

Bruce's hand grabs Dick's and squeezes. Startled, Dick looks down to see wide, worried eyes looking up at him, from a boy living trapped in that part of the story who can't see a way out.

“And then what?” Bruce whispers. Dick is ready to fake a smile, even a small one, but finds he doesn't need to fake it at all.

“You were there in the audience that night, and you saw everything. You saw yourself in what happened to me, and you brought me into your home so I wouldn’t be alone... I wasn’t happy, though," Dick admits. "Not at first. You were busy all the time, I hardly saw you, and all I could think about was how my parents’ murderer never got what he deserved.”

They're in the study now, one of the rooms Bruce made sure was kept exactly the same in the rebuilding. The grandfather clock is tolling noon, but it's so dark in the room it could be midnight. Dick rearranges the hands on the clock and steps back.

“Then one night, you showed me this.”

Bruce gasps sharply as the clock moves aside and reveals the entrance to the Batcave, two fireman's poles disappearing into the darkness below.

"What's down there?" Bruce is leaning so far forwards as he peers down that Dick has to put a hand on his shoulder to make sure he doesn't take a tumble.

"The cave. Your base of operations. It's where you trained me to be a hero."

“Cave? There’s a whole cave underneath the house? How big?”

Dick smiles. “You’ll find out," he says. "I should warn you... There are bats down there. They've never bothered us, though. They'll be sleeping right now, and they mostly stay in their own part of the cave."

Bruce is silent, frozen, looking down at the dark passage with newfound apprehension.

"Is that okay?" Dick asks gently.

Bruce narrows his eyes and squares his shoulders, a steeling gesture Dick has seen him do countless times as an adult. "Y-Yes. It's okay. I'm not scared."

"Okay." Dick reaches out and grabs the fireman's pole, showing Bruce the right way to hold it. "Grip it tight enough that you don't fall too fast, but not so tight you don't go anywhere at all. And have some fun with it!"

Giving the boy one more encouraging smile, Dick jumps forward and lets himself fall down, down until the walls turn to grey stone and the air turns cold. They could have taken the stairs, or the elevator, but in Dick's opinion there is no better way to get to the cave than this pure adrenaline rush of a sliding freefall. None as fun, anyway.

He lands at the bottom with ease, and waits. Waits, neck craned to look up the passage, and begins to worry. Bruce should have been down by now.

And then he hears the laughter. Breathless laughter and the whooshing air as Bruce slides down to the bottom. His hair is tousled and cheeks are red and his dismount wasn't all that bad, considering it's his first time. Dick was expecting to have to catch him so he wouldn't go splat, but he's a natural.

It's the first time Dick has seen this Bruce smile. The first time he's smiled since he got here, maybe the first time he's smiled in weeks.

"Can we do it again?" Bruce asks.

"Later, I promise. We're already keeping Barbara waiting."

Bruce follows reluctantly, but that reluctance only lasts until they walk forward and he sees where he is. His jaw falls open, and hangs there.

Dick grins as he remembers his first time in the cave. It's changed a lot since then, definitely gotten a lot bigger, but it's always been a sight to behold. It's a whole different world down here--the first time felt like stepping through the looking glass.

"Has this always been here?" Bruce leans over the railing, his eyes going even wider when he looks down and sees that it keeps going, level after level. "Where did all this come from?"

"The cave's always been here, yeah. It's had a few expansions over the years, and been renovated to make it more homey, but it's pretty much the same as it was when you first discovered it, Bruce."

"I find this?"

"I think you already did, by accident."

"I did..." he says, realization dawning. He can't stop looking up as they walk, stopping to marvel over the huge stalactites dripping from the ceiling—he doesn't even seem nervous about the roosting bats, excitement's gotten the better of him—and then the rushing waterfall, the dark river winding around the very bottom of the cave, and— "Is that a submarine?"

"Come on, Bruce!" Dick calls from up by the computers. The boy's lagging behind, distracted by the gleaming cars parked on the level below, different models of the Batmobile through the ages. "Come meet Babs!"

"He's a kid in a room full of giant toys, what do you expect?" says Barbara. "Give him another minute."

"They're not toys—" Dick begins, but Barbara looks pointedly at the giant dinosaur, quirking an amused smile. "Okay, maybe they are, a little..."

Along with the cars and the dinosaur there's the plane, the helicopter, all the bikes. The giant penny. Everything that Dick couldn't fit into the bunker and had to leave behind—and too bad, because he really wanted to bring old Rex with him...

He starts to think Barbara was more than a 'little' right about the toys.

Bruce finally makes his way up the stairs towards them, but stops again to look at the row of costumes displayed in glass cases. For a moment Dick is worried Bruce will ask about Jason's case—he doesn't want to have to explain that, he doesn't think he'd be able to—but the boy walks straight past it smiling. It doesn't mean anything to him. He's more interested in the Batman one.

"Is this mine?"

"Yes," says Dick, moving to stand beside him. "This is... an old costume of yours."

"I'm actually that tall when I grow up?" Bruce presses his hand against the glass. "I'm even taller than my dad." He looks up at Dick. "This is all real? I actually get to keep the promise I made to my parents? I promised them I'd get rid of all the crime, but I— I couldn't figure out how. Until now."

"You've worked really hard your whole life to keep that promise." He worked and he suffered in ways this Bruce wouldn't be able to imagine, ways he's better off not knowing yet. "You've definitely made your parents proud."

"Tim said that future me is away right now, but... can't you call him and get him to come back to Gotham? I have to meet him. That's the whole reason I'm here, isn't it? That's what's supposed to happen."

"No, Bruce. You being here is only an accident. There's no reason for it," says Barbara gently, wheeling over to them. "And as for our Bruce, he isn't just away. He's... Well, for nearly a year we thought he was dead, but it turns out he's been displaced in time. A bit like you are now. And, based on some problems our search party's been having since you showed up, we're worried that having you here is making the timestream more unstable, and making it harder to find him. Maybe impossible. We need to send you home as soon as possible."

Bruce's face falls. "I... don't get to meet him?"

"No, probably not."

"I thought... He was supposed to help me. Like he helped you." He frowns at Dick accusingly. His lip wobbles and his voice shakes. "It's-- It's not fair."

Dick kneels down beside him, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Hey, it's okay--" 

Bruce shrugs the hand away. He doesn't look like he's going to cry anymore. His eyes are cold as steel. Familiar. "No, it's not," he says flatly, with a grim sort of acceptance. "My parents are dead. And I don't have anyone."

"Bruce, that's not true," says Barbara. "You do have people on your side. You do. You will. Believe me." She cups Bruce's chin in her hand, lifting it up so he'll look at her. "You have Alfred, and in the future you'll have all of us."

"And I'll get to be a crimefighter."

Dick and Barbara exchange a perturbed glance. But neither of them are exactly surprised. Bruce at age eight is still Bruce. 

"Yes, of course," Barbara assures him.

 

— 

 

"I apologize for not being there when you awoke, Master Bruce," says Alfred, adjusting the rearview mirror as they wait at a red light. "I had to pay a visit to Dr Thompkins to make special arrangements for this appointment."

"Why do I have to get a check-up?" Bruce asks.

"Simply a precaution we take following strange events like this. Your trip through time doesn't seem to involve any complications, however it is always better to be safe than sorry."

Bruce looks out the side window gloomily. Something about this doesn't sit right with him, he can't shake the feeling that none of them are ever telling him the whole truth. But he can't not trust Alfred.

The light changes, and the car starts moving again. For a split second Bruce thinks he sees a man in the shadowy alleyway they drive past—a man in a dark coat, face hidden under the brim of his hat and hands hidden in his pockets—and his breath catches in fright. He blinks, and once he's opened his eyes again the alleyway is gone, far behind them. He doesn't get a second look to check if he's seeing things.

"I thought perhaps we might pay a visit to Dr Thompkins tomorrow, as well," suggests Alfred. "Or she could come visit us, if you prefer, but I thought it might be nice to get out of the house for a while."

"What?" Bruce asks, panicked. "Why, am I sick?"

"No, no. Nothing like that. Simply a social visit. She has been a dear friend of yours for many years--I do believe you've already met her."

"What's her name?"

"Dr Leslie Thompkins."

"She was..." Bruce swallows, his throat suddenly dry. "She was there, that night..."

"Yes. You've told me she was a great comfort to you after that... horrible experience. And she was a close acquaintance with both your parents. She also happens to be a very good listener, I thought the two of you could have a nice chat."

Bruce does end up talking to her, if only because Alfred seems to want him to. She's a nice older lady, a lot older than he remembers. She asks a lot of boring questions, and Bruce is reminded of all those parties where his parents' friends would ask him endlessly about school and his friends and hobbies and only pretend to pay attention. She nods a lot when he answers and unlike those adults Bruce is pretty sure she’s actually listening to him. Which is nice. She writes things down sometimes. Which is... weird.

"We can talk more tomorrow, if that's all right with you,” she tells him before they say goodbye. Bruce just shrugs because he isn’t sure how to say no. He knows Alfred wants him to talk to her again… and it really wasn’t that bad.

 

—

 

“What’s the matter, Master Bruce?” Alfred parts a row of women’s coats to find Bruce sitting underneath, sulking with his arms crossed.

Bruce lets Alfred pull him up by the arms and dust him off. “I hate clothes shopping.”

“I’ve become very aware of that after several decades in your service,” says Alfred. “I’m afraid this is necessary, however. You may be with us several days, perhaps even a week or two, and Master Damian’s clothes are too big for you.” Bruce keeps his arms tightly crossed. His frown doesn't budge. Alfred sighs, leading him over to the footwear department. “We just need to find you some socks and shoes. A few minutes more and then we can leave.”

“I can tell something other than the shopping is bothering you, Master Bruce,” says Alfred as he kneels and laces up the first pair of shoes. 

It’s been many years since Bruce was small enough to let Alfred tie his shoes. At eight he was already becoming resentful, complaining and rolling his eyes. But the Bruce sitting in front of him doesn’t so much as grumble. He gazes off into empty air, lost in his thoughts.

“You can tell me what’s on your mind,” Alfred tells him. “I’m always here for you.”

”Everything here is so different," Bruce says quietly, staring down at his feet. “The hospital my dad worked at… We drove by it on the way here but it wasn’t there anymore. There's a different building where it used to be."

“I’m afraid the building, like the manor, didn’t survive the earthquake. But I’m happy to say it was evacuated quickly enough that no one was hurt. Afterwards you built a new hospital to replace it, an even better one, and dedicated it to your parents.”

Bruce’s eyes go wide. “Really?”

“Indeed. We can go visit it later, if you’d like.”

Bruce nods hesitantly. “Alfred… All those people, like Dick and Tim they— they know me but I don’t know them. They say that I’m a superhero and that they’re my family, and— and I’m not sure if any of this is… is…” His voice falters, and he shakes his head in frustration. “Is it real, Alfred? It all seems too good to be true.”

“Now, if this were all some wild waking dream where you’re a superhero and such, would it be likely to include anything as mundane as shoe shopping?” asks Alfred as he boxes the shoes back up.

“Probably not,” Bruce admits. He cracks a small smile, and to Alfred it feels like a great victory. “If it was you’d let me get those cool shoes with the little wheels on the back.”

Alfred smiles back. “Then I suppose you have your answer.”

 

—

 

Alfred is baking cookies for a lot more people now. Bruce is almost jealous. He almost misses when Alfred only made cookies especially for him, when teatime was just the two of them.

But it’s not as bad as he thought. Dick and Damian had to eat in a hurry and dash to a meeting with someone named Fox, so that just leaves him and Alfred and Tim. 

Bruce doesn’t mind Tim too much. He’s sitting over on his own side of the table, eating cookies as he works on something that involves a big stack of files and the smallest, thinnest portable computer Bruce has ever seen. Bruce expected Alfred to scold Tim for working at the table, but he hasn’t even raised an eyebrow. Apparently he’s gotten used to this.

Curious, Bruce scoots his chair over a little bit to get a better look at some of the papers. It doesn’t go unnoticed.

“These are crime scene reports,” explains Tim, patting the files. “They, uh, get pretty technical, so they probably won’t make much sense to you. I could go through them with you if you want, but… to be honest, they’re not very exciting.”

“Why are you reading them?”

“I think there’s a pattern in this string of robberies over the past couple weeks, and I’m trying to uncover what that is.”

“So you can figure out who the robber is?”

Tim nods. “Yeah, exactly.” He turns his computer so Bruce can see. “Look, I’ve got some of the info typed in this program and I can do some really neat stuff with it…”

He starts tapping at buttons rapidly and all Bruce can do is watch the screen with big eyes and ask how is he doing that? How does that work?

Tim tries to explain, but every answer he gives only makes Bruce want to know a dozen other things. At one point he trails off, grinning goofily to himself. “Wow. I don’t think this is ever going to get old.”

“What?” asks Bruce.

“Being able to impress you so easily.”

Bruce doesn’t understand what Tim means by that. He nibbles on a cookie contemplatively and glances over at Alfred—for a second he could swear the man is hiding a smile behind his teacup But with Alfred it’s impossible to know for sure.

"What am I like?” Bruce asks Tim. “The future me? Besides being a crimefighter.”

"Huh. That's tough to explain.” Tim rubs at his neck thoughtfully. “I guess there's more than one answer to that, depending on who you ask. I mean, there’s you when you’re Batman and when you’re with us, and then there’s the you that attends parties and talks to reporters. The second one’s just an act though, a mask. That’s what you’ve always said.”

“An act?”

“To protect your secret identity. You act shallow and clumsy to the public. During parties you… you… pretend to be very, um, silly and get in all kinds of accidents so that nobody will think you could possibly be Batman.”

“Such as when he showed up to his own birthday party wearing his pyjamas,” Alfred supplies.

Tim grins. “Yes! Or when Bruce ‘accidentally’ bumped into a waiter and that tabloid reporter who wouldn’t leave Dick alone got showered with an entire tray of shrimp.”

“And let’s not forget the time both he and his date fell into the fountain at Miss Vreeland’s engagement party.”

Bruce laughs. Tim and Alfred look at him strangely. “That’s really funny,” he says. He’s getting tired of feeling the need to explain himself every time he laughs.

“Haha, yeah. But like I said, it’s just an act,” says Tim. “The real you, the one we know, is the complete opposite. You’re really stubborn. Determined. You’ve been working hard since you were… your age, pretty much, studying and later traveling the world to train and become Batman. You work too hard, most of the time.”

“All of the time, I fear,” corrects Alfred. He stands and begins collecting their empty plates and teacups. “It’s a fight simply getting you to sleep more than a couple of hours each day.”

“What else?” asks Bruce.

Tim immediately looks over to Alfred as though begging for help, but the man is already through the door and into the kitchen with the dishes. Tim lets out a long breath through his teeth. 

“Well… you can be pretty harsh. Strict. And tough to work with, because you assume you know what’s best for everyone,” he admits. Bruce frowns at that, a bit upset. Tim puts his hand over Bruce’s on the table and continues kindly. “But I always knew that no matter what, I could always count on you, solid as a rock. I always knew you’d be there if I needed you.”

“Until I wasn’t. Right?” Bruce points out, hesitantly. He used to think things like that about his parents, too. Before they were gone.

“I guess that’s part of the reason I knew you couldn’t actually be dead,” Tim says after a moment, offering a faint, forced smile. “You know, you’re a lot more like our Bruce than I thought you’d be at your age. But you’re also a lot different than I expected. It’s weird. I don’t know what I was expecting, to be honest… But, I’m really glad we got this chance to meet.”

“Me, too.” Bruce smiles back. “This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I’m never going to forget a single second of it.”

He becomes so engrossed in the computer screen again that he doesn’t notice the regretful cringe on Tim’s face, or the way Tim withdraws his hand guiltily.

 

—

 

Steph has mixed feelings about the baby Batman they've been stuck with.

She's got plenty of reasons to be annoyed--even angry--with Bruce, after the ways he's treated her and some of the ways he's treated Tim. But this kid is just so... sad, and polite, and kinda sweet. Cute. Difficult to reconcile with the man who fired her and locked her out of the cave without a second chance.

In the bunker, spinning idly in the big computer chair and waiting for a chemical analysis to finish, Steph watches as the little Bruce watches Damian train.

It's clear on his face that he's impressed. And no wonder, Damian is pretty impressive. Steph has no problem admitting that. He's scary impressive. But Bruce watches him break a wooden practice dummy with a flying jump kick like a kid who's seeing a magic trick done for the first time.

"Damian?" he pipes up when the other boy stops for a water break.

"What do you want, Father?"

"Can you stop calling me that?" Bruce wrinkles his nose. "It's... weird."

Damian just lets out a tt, then drops his towel and water bottle on the floor and goes back to his training. With a wooden staff, this time.

"I was wondering if you could teach me how to fight?" Bruce asks, loud enough to be heard over the loud, merciless thwacks of the staff against the poor practice dummies.

Damian doesn't even stop to consider it. "No."

"Why not?"

"Because you're horrible at it."

"That's why I want to learn!" Bruce says indignantly.

"It would be a waste of my time."

"Damian, don't be a little bully.” Steph turns in her chair, crossing her arms. "Play nice with your dad, or I'll tell Tim what you did to his breakfast last Tuesday when nobody was looking.”

"Fine," Damian spits out. He tosses his staff aside. “Let’s get this over with,” he tells Bruce. “I don’t have all day.”

Bruce’s face lights up. He kicks off his shoes and hurries onto the training mats, excited like he’s just been picked first for a team in gym class.

Satisfied, Steph goes back to her chemical analysis. Even though she’s never dealt with a kid as difficult as Damian, she has plenty of babysitting experience under her belt. It’s sure coming in handy.

That satisfaction is short-lived. About a minute later a loud cry of pain has her jumping out of her seat. 

"What did you do?” she snaps at Damian, crouching down next to the shaking, crying boy kneeling on the ground and clutching his face.

"I thought he would block it.” Damian says. He doesn’t try to help, instead standing back and looking uncomfortable, and he doesn’t offer any apologies. "I was blocking harder punches when I was five."

"He isn't good at fighting yet, Damian! You knew that!"

“Yes. That's why I used the easiest possible punch to block,” he says defensively. He looks confused more than anything. Maybe he doesn’t understand that Bruce not being good at fighting means Bruce can’t fight at all. Maybe he doesn’t actually know how to pull his punches.

"Bruce... Bruce, let me see you, okay?” Steph asks gently, coaxing his hands away from his face. She winces. "Yeah, you're bleeding. Crap. C'mon, let's go sit down over here and I'll check you out."

She sits him down on a cot in the med-bay and opens a first-aid kit. The blood is coming from a split lip—not the worst she’s ever seen, not even close—and from his nose, which doesn’t seem to be broken, though Alfred will probably insist on an x-ray later to make sure. For now she just grabs him a towel wrapped around an icepack to hold against his face until the bleeding stops.

Damian tries his hardest not to show it, but he’s obviously concerned. He stands silently nearby, watching Steph take care of Bruce, and doesn’t turn to leave until Bruce stops crying.

“Wait!” Bruce calls out, sliding down off the cot. “We’re not done yet! You said you’d teach me how to fight, but you haven’t taught me anything yet.”

Damian stops. His smile is sharp and doesn’t look entirely friendly to Steph, but it’s still a smile. It’s a start. “Of course I have. The first thing you need to learn is how to take a punch.”

Steph throws her arms in the air and leaves Bruce to his fate, it’s his own fault. These two kids are a disaster in the making. 

 

—

 

None of them were sure if Bruce would want to go visit his parents’ graves. They didn’t even want to ask and push the subject, waiting for Bruce to bring it up on his own. 

Dick and Bruce walk together down the tree-lined path through the manor grounds. Bruce is struggling to carry a bouquet of roses nearly as large as him and almost stumbles a few times. But Dick knows better than to offer to carry the flowers for him—the answer's going to be a big stubborn no.

Bruce hesitates in front of the imposing gravestones, taking in a deep, shuddering breath before dropping to his knees, and places the flowers down carefully. He runs his hand over the worn, weathered names carved in the stone.

When he stands up again, the knees of his pants all muddy, his head is hanging. He sniffles quietly.

Dick feels a lump growing in his throat. He remembers being exactly where Bruce stands. He remembers the roles being reversed--so many times he was the boy crying in front of the cold graves while Bruce stood behind him.

He places a gentle hand on Bruce's shoulder, like Bruce used to do for him. And then, like Bruce never did--too nervous, probably, too uncertain--he kneels down, putting his arm around the boy's shoulders and holding him close. Bruce takes the cue to turn into the hug, pressing his tear-stained face against Dick's chest. 

"I'm so sorry, Bruce. I know how much it hurts," Dick murmurs, patting him on the back comfortingly. "It's okay, let it all out."

He actually wishes Bruce would cry more. Give in to his grief with loud, messy sobs. He might feel better, after. It might help. But Bruce, as restrained as ever, barely makes a noise and in a minute he's pulling away from Dick, wiping his eyes on his sleeve and not saying a word until they're back in the car, driving away from the manor.

“Do I ever find who killed them?” Bruce asks quietly once they're past the gates.

Dick slows the car to a stop. He has been dreading this. 

He turns around to look at Bruce in the backseat. “No. You don’t. But… I think that’s something you manage to make peace with, in time. Even though it doesn't feel possible right now.” 

Dick really believes that. If Bruce hadn't made peace with it in his own way, his mission would be nothing but a manhunt. It's never been as small as that. It's been about the whole city, about finding justice for those who suffer like they did. 

But it's still not fair. Dick thinks about how it helped, knowing the man who killed his parents was brought to justice. This boy is never going to find the same closure.

“After my parents died you told me that the hurt never really went away, but you promised that it got better," Dick says. "And you were right. It does. I’m promising you.”

 

—

 

“Alfred’s been looking for you,” says Tim as he sits down next to Bruce on the floor. “He went to check on you but you weren’t in bed. Trouble falling asleep?" 

Bruce is hugging his knees tightly to his chest, staring at the dark, sprawling city through the big penthouse windows in front of him. 

It's a bit of a dizzying view this close to the glass, even for Tim. If he tilts his head a certain way he might actually believe he's about to plummet off the edge. A weird place to sit. But Bruce doesn't seem nervous at all.

"I'm not tired," Bruce insists, even as he has to stifle a yawn. Alfred put him to bed hours ago, before Tim and the others even suited up for patrol, and Tim's got a feeling Bruce has been sitting here nearly as long.

"I know you're probably dealing with some kind of time-travel jet lag right now, but it's been a long day. You need to get some rest eventually. You'll feel better."

"I don't want to go to bed," Bruce mumbles into his knees stubbornly.

"Is it bad dreams?" Tim asks. Bruce doesn't say anything, just curls in on himself more and tightens his arms around his knees. "I've been there, Bruce. If you want to talk about it..."

"No," he says firmly. He narrows his eyes at Tim. "Why are you still awake?"

Tim gives a tight-lipped smile. "Like I said. Bad dreams; I've been there."

Bruce nods uncertainly and goes back to staring listlessly out the window. Tim sits with him in silence.

"You... You said you were going to send me back home,” Bruce says eventually, tiptoeing around the words like it’s something he’s been worried about bringing up. “What if… you can't? What if I'm stuck here?"

"Stuck here?" repeats Tim, eyebrows raised. He doesn’t know where this is coming from all of a sudden. "Don't worry about that. It's taking some time, but we aren't giving up, not even close. We're looking at a couple different options right now, trying to figure out which one will work the best. Sorting out the details, that sort of thing. Really, you don't have to worry." He laughs quietly to himself. "Weird as it sounds, this situation isn't exactly unheard of."

"But what if?" Bruce asks again, enough urgency in his voice to make Tim blink in alarm. Of course, this is Bruce. He has to know everything, he doesn’t feel safe with unknowns. Never at ease with being in the dark… except in the literal sense. 

Tim puts some thought into it. ”Then... Then you'll stay with us, here in the future. It'd take some adjusting, and some serious planning, but I think we'd work it out. We would have to come up with a new identity for you... Maybe Damian's cousin. Or my cousin or Alfred's nephew, if we want to keep you further out of the spotlight." He gives Bruce a reassuring smile. "That's probably not something we'll have to think about, though. Definitely not right now. But it wouldn't be so bad, would it? Being stuck here with us?"

He isn't given an answer. Bruce is… brooding. Tim doesn’t think he’s ever seen an eight-year-old brood like that. Like Batman does. It’s kind of cute.

“C’mon, Bruce, you should really get back to bed,” urges Tim, standing up and offering a hand to help Bruce off the floor. “At least try to get a little sleep. I promise tomorrow I’ll take you to do something fun.”

“Can you teach me to drive a car?” Bruce asks as he takes Tim’s hand.

“What?” Tim blurts out, confused. “No. You’re way too—“

“Damian can drive. He said he’s been driving since he was as old as me. I want to learn, too.”

“Yeah, well… That’s Damian. I’m not letting you behind the wheel of a car. I was thinking we’d go to the zoo, or a baseball game or something.”

“I guess that sounds okay,” says Bruce, shrugging. Any enthusiasm he had has deflated and there’s a hint of an unhappy pout to his mouth. So that’s where Damian gets it from.

 

--

 

"You've all been lying to me.”

Everyone at the breakfast table freezes, staring at Bruce in shock.

"Master Bruce,” Alfred admonishes, wiping up the milk Bruce spilled on the table when he knocked over his glass in his outburst. “What on earth are you talking about?”

"You lied. You said-- You said I couldn't meet myself, because he's gone and you don't know where he is—but you lied.” He points at the front page of the newspaper’s business section that Dick just handed to Tim. The big headline is about Bruce Wayne’s latest charity donation, complete with a picture of the CEO himself smiling and hanging over a giant cheque. “He’s been here all along.”

Dick swears under his breath as he looks at the article. Tim and Alfred cringe. Damian looks amused.

“Bruce— Bruce, just listen for a sec, okay?” Dick pleads when Bruce opens his mouth to accuse them again. “I swear, this is not what you think. It’s… It’s…”

“Quite difficult to explain,” supplies Alfred.

“That’s an understatement,” Tim says around a mouthful of eggs.

Dick holds up the page with the article. “This isn’t really Bruce Wayne. His name is Hush.”

“What kind of name is that?” Bruce asks.

“One fit for a delusional maniac,” says Damian snidely. “He—“

“Damian,” Dick says, a hint of something like warning in his voice. He makes eye contact with the others, and Bruce knows it means something. He’s tired of feeling left out. “He’s a bad guy,” Dick tells him. “The kind we fight against. He figured out Batman’s identity and surgically changed his face to yours as part of a vendetta. We caught him a while back and we’ve been using him to make people think you’re still around, so nobody will start asking questions.”

“He changed his face?” asks Bruce, grimacing. “I don’t get it.”

“Batman makes a lot of enemies, and they go to any lengths to hurt him. All of us,” explains Tim. “It’s a tough job. Dangerous.”

He says it in a hollow voice that makes Bruce feel cold. That's not something he really thought of, when he thought about being a hero. It sounds scary. He knew there would be bad people with guns and maybe others with big devious plots to take over the world like in the Gray Ghost show but he never considered bad people who would do things like change their faces into his as revenge.

“I know how unbelievable it sounds, Bruce, but we’re telling you the truth. This man is not Bruce Wayne.” Dick leans in towards Bruce, eyes serious, and asks softly, “Do you trust us?”

Bruce hesitates, but he nods yes. He does.

 

--

 

Bruce hears a lot of things he's probably not supposed to.

It’s not like he’s trying to eavesdrop—well, maybe his curiosity does get the better of him sometimes—but, for a bunch of secret super-spy ninja detective heroes, the others aren’t very good at having discreet conversations between themselves at home. 

"I'm just saying,” Bruce overhears Steph complaining as he walks past Tim’s bedroom. The door is slightly ajar and he pauses to listen, even though he feels guilty. He’s just too curious. “I’ve spent all this time thinking out a whole speech for when he comes back, to let him know exactly how things are going to be from now on, and parts of it weren't especially nice... But how am I supposed to be appropriately outraged if all I'm going to be able to see when I look at him is that little kid with the big sad eyes? It's just not fair."

Later he’s in the kitchen trying to sneak a cookie before dinner when Alfred and Tim walk in and he has to duck behind the counter to avoid getting caught.

“I’m worried about him, Alfred. I don’t think he’s gotten a good night’s sleep since he got here,” Tim is saying. There’s a rustling of paper and plastic—it sounds like they’re unpacking groceries. “He was just… sitting there, all alone in the dark. In the middle of the night. Is that normal? I mean, I know it’s pretty normal for our Bruce, but… Was he really like that, back then? Was it that bad?”

Alfred sighs sadly. “I’m afraid so. He learned how to cope, as time went on… At least, I believed he did. Now I know he only learned how to hide what he was feeling. In the beginning I had him meet with specialists to address his nightmares, but he had difficulty trusting any of them enough to open up during the appointments. The only doctor he felt slightly comfortable was Dr Thompkins, but even so there was plenty he kept to himself."

“And it’s not like there’s much we can do to help him here, in the meantime, is there? There’s no point if we’re just going to…” Tim trails off, and lets out a frustrated noise. “I just feel really bad that he still feels so alone while he's here with us. Especially at night while we're all busy. Nights... Nights can be really long, when you're alone. I was thinking that since we can't get him to sleep, maybe we should find something to keep him busy so he doesn't brood alone in the dark. I'm going to talk to Barbara about it."

Bruce only manages to sneak away because Alfred notices a bloodstain on Tim’s sleeve and insists they go down to the cave immediately so he can fix up those stitches properly, scolding Tim for keeping the injury hidden from him.

It’s pretty funny hearing Alfred scold someone else.

At dinner that night, Bruce is picking at his broccoli and half-listening to Dick and Damian's conversation when he perks up at the mention of a familiar name. 

“I know him,” he says, looking up at Dick. “Tommy Elliot. He’s my friend.”

Dick's eyes go wide. A flash of panic crosses his face before he hides it. “What?”

“You just said his name.”

Dick and Damian exchange a careful glance. "No, I don't think so," says Dick calmly. "What was that name again?" Bruce repeats it, and Dick shakes his head. "Sorry, no. We were talking about someone else. You must've misheard me."

Frowning, Bruce goes back to his broccoli. He's sure he heard that right. There's no point asking about Tommy, because he knows they're not going to tell him anything. He's losing count of the secrets they keep from him.

He accidentally walks in on a conversation between Dick and Barbara in the basement bunker while he's looking for Damian—they’re playing hide-and-seek, after Bruce spent hours convincing the other boy. Damian takes it too seriously, though, and it's no fun at all because Bruce can never find him. He cheats, too. He's not allowed to move between hiding places but Bruce knows he does it all the time.

"Definitely not how Bruce would do it, but it looks like magic's our best bet," Dick is telling Barbara through the big computer screen while Bruce shrinks back against the uniform cases to hide--he knows he's not supposed to be down here. They don't like him being in the bunker without supervision. "We've gotten confirmation the parts of the time stream concerning our Bruces are in too much flux for us to get a fix on kid Bruce's original position with our more scientific methods. I've already talked to Zatanna, she said it'll take a week and a bit before she can do the spell. New moons work best for this sort of thing, apparently."

"Have you spoken to Bruce about any of this?” asks Barbara.

"Not yet. I'm going to, of course—he deserves to know what's going on. Why?"

“Just… something Tim told me. Apparently Bruce has been asking what will become of him if we can’t send him back where he belongs.”

"That's not going to happen,” Dick says immediately. “This will work. We can't have two Bruces at the same time, and we can't... It'll work," he insists, like he can't bear to believe anything else.

Bruce waits until Dick turns off the computer and heads over to the bunker's garage before he ventures from his hiding place to make the stealthy dash back to the elevator.

(He doesn't end up finding Damian. He actually gives up on trying, but Damian doesn't seem to realize that. Dick gets annoyed when it's past time for patrol and Damian still won't show himself.)

Bruce thinks about what he's heard and wonders, not for the first time, if it would be so bad to stay. Everything here is unfamiliar, everyone is strange and hides things from him but he gets to hang out with superheroes and he's a hero here, too, and most importantly he doesn't feel alone. While he's here his parents deaths seem far away, way back decades in the past where he left them.

He really wouldn't mind staying here forever.

 

—

 

Tim told Bruce to come find one of them the next time he has a nightmare. To talk to somebody, anybody, instead of staying up all night alone. But there was a prison breakout of some dangerous criminals tonight, and that has everyone busy rounding them up. The penthouse is quiet and dark. The bunker in the basement of the tower is only going to be empty. 

Alfred is sleeping, getting a couple hours of rest before the others get home and he has to patch up all their cuts and bruises. Bruce doesn’t want to go wake him up. Alfred needs his rest—he’s so old here. He’s slower, grayer, more frail. It scares Bruce. Alfred is all he has left. He doesn’t want to think about losing him someday.

With nothing else to do, he wanders the penthouse aimlessly. He is feeling sleepy—he had a busy day today, first visiting Leslie, and then Tim snuck him into the Wayne Industries labs to see all the cool projects and later Dick took him and Damian to an arcade where they all almost got kicked out because Damian angrily ripped the joystick off a game machine after he lost.

Bruce curls up on a big armchair near the windows and watches the Batman beacon glow against the night sky. The others say some nights the police leave it on to deter criminals, make them feel watched. Scare them. Bruce wonders if it’s really as easy as turning on a light.

He’s just about nodding off when he hears a thump of something hitting the floor. He turns around to see a young woman standing there, duffel bag by her feet.

She stares at him curiously, cocking her head. Her gaze moves from him to the bat signal in the sky and back.

"You," she says with recognition, smiling. That’s all she says.

She sits down next to him in the armchair—it's really big, enough room for both of them to squeeze together. She wraps her arms around him and holds him. The same way his mother used to. She even rubs her thumb against the back of his neck just like his mom always used to, and he doesn't know how she knows to do that. How she could know that's exactly what he needs right now?

He lets himself close his eyes, feeling safe here with her under the watchful symbol shining in the clouds. When he wakes up it's morning and he's tucked into his bed.

The girl is sitting at the breakfast table. As he walks in she's stealing a piece of bacon from Dick's plate so stealthily that nobody but himself sees it. She meets eyes with Bruce as she pops it into her mouth and makes a shh gesture, finger against lips.

Alfred sets down a plate and a big glass of orange juice in front of Bruce. “Good morning, Master Bruce. This is Miss Cassandra—I don’t believe you’ve had the opportunity to meet her yet,” he says as Bruce stares at her. He almost thought he’d dreamed her up. 

"She's been deep in a mission over in Hong Kong,” says Tim. “So deep that our contact with her's been pretty limited for the past couple weeks, we had no idea if she'd even be home in time to meet you. We just brought her up to speed on our situation here."

"You fight crime, too?” Bruce asks her. She nods. 

She has a very intense gaze. It’s almost unsettling. He has a feeling those eyes of hers never miss a thing.

"Cass does it better than all of us,” Dick says, smiling proudly. Cass smiles back and blows him a kiss. “She started out as Batgirl, and now... Have you picked out a new name, yet?"

"Black Bat.”

“Nice.”

Bruce is about to ask Cass a question, but somehow she knows exactly what he wants to know before he can say a word.

"You adopted me,” she explains. “We’re family.”

Bruce thinks that he sure has adopted a lot of kids.

It makes him happy, knowing he’ll be able to do that one day, when he’s grown up. But he wonders how many more there are that they haven’t told him about.

 

--

 

"You're really good at drawing," Bruce tells Damian. He catches a glimpse of the other boy's open sketchbook while Damian hands him the green pencil he asked to borrow.

Alfred has put a stop to Bruce's fighting lessons ever since Bruce showed up in the kitchen with his mouth dripping blood--the only real damage was a lost baby tooth, but Alfred wouldn't hear any arguments. He won't let them play hide-and-seek anymore, either. Or board games, after Damian lost at Battleship and threw his game board at the wall. But they're still allowed to sit and draw quietly, at least for now. 

If they manage to screw this up they probably won't even be allowed in the same room together. Bruce has a feeling Damian wouldn't mind that too much.

"I don't believe I gave you permission to look," Damian says irritably, covering the page with his arm.

"Sorry," says Bruce, but he can't help sneaking another peek. "Who's that?" He points at the woman sketched in the corner of the page. She has long dark hair and pretty eyes and Bruce knows she has to be a real person. The drawing is so lifelike, like Damian's drawn her a thousand times before.

Bruce can tell he's gone too far. Damian fixes him with a glare so cold that he backs off quickly, ducking his head down over his own picture and quietly filling in the empty parts with his new green pencil.

He doesn't really understand Damian. The boy's not much older than him, only a couple of years, but he acts more like an adult than Dick or Tim or anyone. A really grouchy one, too.

"Am I a good father?" he asks after a while, once he thinks Damian's ready to talk to him again. It's something he's been wondering.

"I wouldn't know," mutters Damian.

"What does that mean?"

"Do you ever stop asking questions?"

"My mom used to say there was nothing wrong with asking lots of questions. That's how you learn," says Bruce, reaching for his yellow crayon. He glances up at Damian curiously. "What was your mom like? It's okay if you're not allowed to tell me who she is," he adds quickly, before his question gets shut down by that excuse. He's sure he isn’t allowed to know. "Is she nice? How come she's not around? She's not..."

"She is... busy," answers Damian stiffly, as he keeps drawing. His pencil strokes become faster and shorter, louder, almost angry. "My mother is a very powerful woman, and her business takes her to other countries for long periods of time."

"My parents were busy a lot, too. I used to get sad when they were gone, but I tried really hard not to be because I knew they were busy helping other people, you know? You probably know."

Damian's pencil stops abruptly. An odd, strained look crosses his face. He changes the subject.

"What are you drawing?" he asks.

Bruce holds up the papers. "Well, this is the Batmobile down in the bunker... I thought it would look better without the red, though. And this is the dinosaur that was in the cave. Also I thought Batman should have one of those cool blimps, like the ones I've seen the police flying at night, so I drew one."

Damian sneers at the drawing. "Pitiful. This would never fly. The shape is all wrong, the body is far too small. And it does require some form of fins for stability." He grabs a sharpened pencil and turns to a new page of his sketchbook. "Here, let me show you."

Bruce spends the next hour pitching ideas for vehicles, tools, buildings--all sorts of things--and watching in amazement as Damian brings them to life on paper. Most of the ideas have Damian grumbling about silliness and impracticality as he grudgingly scratches out the design, but later that evening Bruce hears him convincing Dick of the advantages of adding a high-speed Bat-dozer to their armada.

 

—

 

Steph knows she's got a big problem on her hands when Bruce stomps past her in the hallway, blinking back tears. She's supposed to patrol with Cass tonight, that's the whole reason she even stopped at the penthouse--that and Alfred's mouthwatering pre-patrol sandwiches--but one look at Bruce's face gives her a feeling that'll have to be put on hold.

"Bruce?" Steph grabs him by the shoulder to make him stop and kneels down in front of him. She thinks about yelling for Alfred. ”Hey, what's wrong? Shouldn't you be asleep?"

“The news… It was on the TV. I was watching and— and—"

Steph cringes. Gotham news. Yeah, this is going to be bad. He really shouldn’t be watching that—why didn’t Alfred turn on parental controls?

“There was a family. They were missing and the police just found them and they were already…” He stops, swallows. Unable to say it. His hands are clenched into angry fists at his sides. “I thought I was supposed to have stopped crime?” he yells, eyes brimming with furious tears. He points at Steph accusingly. “That’s what all of you said. But people are still getting hurt and… What’s even the point? I haven’t done anything!”

There’s a lot Steph could say right now. She could reassure him until she’s hoarse, and he might even believe her, but the truth is that the case he’s so upset about has cut her deep, too. It was one she helped out with—just earlier that week Barbara found her a lead to follow, but it didn’t pan out. She could use some reassuring of her own.

She stands up and tells Bruce, “Come on, we’re heading out.”

Bruce tilts his head in confusion. “Out?”

“Yeah, outside. Quick—go grab a warm coat, black or dark. It’s chilly outside.”

Alfred is probably going to blow a gasket when he finds out that not only did Steph sneak tiny Bruce out of the tower, she snuck him out on the back of her motorcycle. Even if he does, she won't regret it for a second. She thought Bruce was nervous at first, the way his fingers are digging in at her waist, but then she realizes it's excitement. She can feel him laughing.

The kid deserves to have some fun now and then.

Bruce is already in a better mood. He takes off his helmet when Steph parks in an alleyway and underneath he's smiling, his cheeks flushed red. "I like your motorcycle," he tells Steph, a little breathlessly. "I've never ridden on one before."

"Thanks," she says. Then she remembers the hard time Bruce always gave her about the Batmobile and... she can't resist. "Maybe I'll even let you drive it on the way home."

"Are you serious?"

"No. Of course not." Steph tries not to laugh at his pout. She knows she's awful. "Sorry, kiddo, you're not quite big enough to handle it." She shoots her grapple straight up and wraps an arm around him. "Now hold on tight."

They perch up on the rooftop. Bruce is shivering a little despite his warm coat--the wind is awfully chilly up here--so Steph pulls him closer and drapes her cape around him. She takes out her binoculars and peers at the apartment building across the street.

"What--" Bruce starts to ask, but Steph shushes him and motions him to lower his voice. There are people walking down on the street below. "What are we doing here?" he whispers.

She hands him the binoculars. "Here, have a look. Seventh floor, second window from the left. What do you see?"

"It's a family."

"Yeah. Don't they look happy?" she asks. Bruce nods slowly. "What if I told you that a while back those two adorable kids went missing? They were kidnapped, no ransom demands, nothing, and the poor parents were terrified they'd never see them again. That was back when I was the Robin to your Batman, and we tracked the kids down and brought them back home safe and sound. Just another night's work." Steph smiles to herself. Just the memory makes the night air smell a little sweeter. She comes here when she's feeling the most beaten-down and discouraged, to remind herself what's really important. "Do you still think there's no point? That it's not worth it?"

Bruce lowers the binoculars, uncertainty in his eyes. "B-But those people, on the news--"

"I know." Steph squeezes his shoulder. "Believe me, I know. We've saved so many people, more than you can imagine, but we still can't save everyone. I'm not sure if we'll ever be able to. But that's exactly why we keep trying. We never stop, because even if we can save just one more, it's all worth it."

"I made a promise to my parents that I would get rid of crime in this city. All of it."

"Bruce, that might not be..." Possible. It might not be possible. It's a pretty tall order, all the crime. They can make things so much better for the people living here, and they do, but a completely crime-free Gotham doesn't seem like something they'll see anytime soon, not in this lifetime. She can't bear to tell Bruce that, though. "You've already done so much, you have no idea. More than one person could ever be expected—"

But he won't listen. "I promised, and I-- I haven't kept it. I've failed."

"And, what?" asks Steph, shrugging. "Does that mean you're just going to give up?"

 "No," he says immediately. Then his eyes narrow in determination and he murmurs to himself, "Never."

She interrupts his solemn revelation by tousling his hair. "Didn't think so."

A siren passing a couple blocks over puts Steph on edge for a few seconds. It's just one, heading away from them, and her comm hasn't buzzed. Nothing she can help with. Thankfully--she can't exactly deal with an emergency with an untrained baby Batman tagging along. Though he would probably love that.

The kid seems to read her mind. "What's next? Are you going to show me how you fight crime? Can we go stop some bad guys?"

Steph bursts out laughing so loud she has to clap a hand over her mouth in embarrassment. "No. Oh my god, no. Nice try. I'm taking you straight home--I'm gonna be in enough trouble as it is." He looks so downhearted that Steph sighs. "But... I guess we can hang out up here for a few more minutes, if you want."

Bruce smiles. Steph wishes he would do that more often, for his own sake.

"So you used to be a Robin? Like Damian is?" he asks, watching his legs dangle down over the edge of the rooftop. The street below is dark and quiet except for a few cars and some people heading in and out of the 24-hour convenience store on the corner, but from here they can see the orange glow of downtown lighting up the sky in front of them.

"Yeah, right up until you fired me."

"Oh. Why?"

"Because I saved your life," she mutters, a bit more bitterly than she intended. "I mean, I disobeyed orders to do it, but it was still a jerk move."

"I'm sorry," Bruce says. And he does look like he means it. "Um. Thank you for saving my life."

Steph grins and pinches his cheek. He scowls. Now that's more like the Bruce she's used to. "You know, I've been waiting a long time to hear that from you."

 

—

 

There are some angry faces and crossed arms waiting for them when they get back to the tower. Steph frowns and crosses her arms right back. 

Bruce knows they're mad because Steph took him out into the city at night, but he doesn't hear much of the argument because Alfred immediately whisks him to the elevator and up to bed. 

The last thing he hears before the elevator doors close is Steph, sounding like she's this close to yelling, telling Dick exasperatedly, "What's the point of giving the kid a bedtime if there's no way he'll be able to sleep?"

He has no idea how long they argue for, or who wins, or if he should apologize to Dick or Tim or Alfred for sneaking out. Nobody talks about it after and he doesn't want to bring it up.

The next night right before his Alfred-designated bedtime, just as he's about to change into his pajamas, Dick knocks on his door.

"Hey. Getting ready for bed?"

Bruce nods.

"You tired at all?"

He shrugs. "A little bit."

"But do you think you'll be able to sleep tonight?"

Bruce shakes his head.

Dick sighs, sticking his hands in his pockets and leaning heavily against the doorframe. "We've been worried about you for a while. You haven't been sleeping, and all of us feel horrible for being so busy and leaving you alone all night. I'm really sorry, Bruce—I've been where you are, I know how tough nights can be, especially when you feel completely alone. We talked about it, and thought it might help if you had something to do, so... Do you want to hang out with Barbara while we're on patrol tonight? She's got a lot of work to do, but maybe you could give her a hand with some of the simpler stuff, if you want. Sound okay?"

Bruce can't say yes fast enough.

Barbara has more high-tech computers than Bruce has ever seen, including those times his dad showed him the Wayne Industries labs. Those computers were way, way bigger but these are cooler and better because they're from the future and he's actually allowed to touch some of the buttons.

He gets his own spinny chair off to the side and a headset that lets him hear what Dick and Steph and Damian and everyone is saying into their communicators.

"There are ten surveillance feeds on here," says Barbara, pointing at the big shiny screen in front of him. "I need you to keep an eye on them and describe out loud to me, as best you can, anybody who enters the frame. Got it?"

Bruce nods as seriously as possible. He knows this is an important matter. "Yes. Got it."

He's not sure why Barbara's eyes twinkle and she bites her lip like she's trying hard not to laugh.

The job isn't as exciting as Bruce first thought. Maybe one person shows up on the videos every half hour. He likes being there while Barbara works, though. He listens to her answer questions and tell people what to do, and he keeps glancing over at her computer screens but he doesn't understand anything on them. 

Barbara makes coffee for herself and hot chocolate for him that he sips while he listens to Steph and Damian bickering over their communicators. Those two make Barbara roll her eyes a lot. She mutters remarks to Bruce that make him smile and sometimes laugh. 

More than anything Bruce wants to be outside with the others, patrolling the city. He wants to fly between rooftops like them and stop people with guns. He wants to be brave enough to be out there in those dark alleyways every night without fear. 

But he likes being here, too. He's helping. He finally gets to see their mission with his own eyes, all the good things they do, and he's a part of it.

Bruce is describing a woman entering one of the buildings they're surveilling when he notices something odd.

"I think she's the same lady from before," he tells Barbara, squinting at the screen. "She went in the same door twice."

"Are you sure?" she asks, already typing rapidly to pause the video, rewind, and compare. "They had different clothes, different hair. And you said you couldn't see either of their faces."

"They both had the same hand all bandaged up. Look." Bruce points at the bandages poking out of two different jacket sleeves. "I think she changed into a disguise and came back."

Barbara nods. "You're right. Good job, Bruce. Great catch." She pats him on the shoulder, smiling. "Keep it up and you'll be a top-notch detective one day."

Bruce beams proudly.

 

--

 

"Come on, when am I not careful?"

That's the last thing Barbara hears from Dick before a burst of gunfire and a deafening screech of interference cuts off his communicator. He and Tim were responding to a security breach at an R&D lab that's been a high-risk target for villains--it was just a matter of time before someone attempted to steal the prototype tech being developed inside. And the boys obviously found trouble.

There's no answer from either of their comms, and hacking into the lab's security camera feed is useless. All she gets is static. Other than alerting Cass to head that way once she gets the chance, there isn't anything Barbara can do but wait.

She takes a deep breath and sits back. That's when she remembers that Bruce has been here the whole time, listening and staring at her with wide, terrified eyes.

"They're fine. This happens all the time," Barbara assures him. He nods but he doesn't look very convinced. Not surprising--she can't even convince herself right now. "Are you scared?"

"N-No. I'm not."

"Neither am I," Barbara lies.

It's five tense, worry-filled minutes later that she hears from Dick again, through the Batmobile's communication system. 

"Sorry 'bout that," he says sheepishly. "There were a few... explosions. It sounds worse than it was. Some machinery in the lab was tampered with, it went haywire and the electromagnetic interference must've fried the comms. We're both fine. Didn't mean to worry you."

"I wasn't worried. You scared Bruce, though. Shame on you."

"I wasn't scared!" Bruce exclaims indignantly. Dick chuckles.

"Other than those machines, nobody in the lab was hurt. We stopped the would-be murdering thieves and now we're just waiting for the cops to show so we can let them deal with the rest. Batman out."

Bruce is grinning from ear-to-ear. "They did it! They stopped the bad guys!"

"Of course," says Barbara. "Was there ever any doubt?"

A pretty average night for Barbara is excitement after excitement for Bruce. He watches in awe as Steph takes down three guys twice her size, as Damian swings down from the top floor of a burning building with its trapped tenant, as Cass train-surfs to catch up to a kidnapper's car.

During the quieter hours before dawn Bruce yawns more and more until he finally dozes off curled up in his chair. It's been a long night of enforcing justice, he's all tuckered out.

Barbara finds a blanket and drapes it over him. As she takes off his headset and smoothes his hair back tenderly he stirs a little, peering at her with sleep-fogged eyes, still half dreaming.

“Mom…?” he murmurs. 

Barbara pulls her hand back like she's been shocked. His eyes close again as he snuggles into the blanket, falling back asleep.

Her heart breaks a little for him. She hopes he's having a good dream.

"Sleep well, Bruce."

 

—

 

Bruce starts to really feel at home after that.

He falls into a routine. He’s a part of things now. He spends most of his nights helping Barbara. She tells him lots of stories about himself and the other heroes in Gotham—he can't believe there are so many. 

Cass does a way better job teaching him how to fight than Damian ever did. She offered when she found Bruce in the bunker trying to train with a punching bag but just hurting his fists. When he does something right she pats him on the head, and sometimes she sneaks him extra cookies from the kitchen, which astounds him. It’s impossible to take extra without Alfred noticing—he knows, he’s tried.

And after days of begging, Dick finally lets Bruce ride in the Batmobile. It flies. It’s exactly what he expected from the future.

Bruce is so happy that he doesn't notice how worried and strained everyone else is getting. He doesn't realize that they might just be keeping him busy so they can finish getting everything ready to send him home.

 

--

 

Tap tap.

Bruce turns around. There’s no pigeon tapping from the other side of the glass balcony door like he expected, there’s a woman.

A woman wearing all black leather with goggles and cat ears. A while ago he might’ve been nervous about strangers in odd costumes but lately it’s something he’s gotten used to. Besides, he recognizes her—he saw her on Barbara’s computer screens. She’s a friend.

She gives Bruce a little wave.

He slides open the door. “Hello.”

She tilts her head and stares at him like she’s seeing a ghost. “Bruce?”

“Yes?”

“I knew it,” she says, more to herself than him. “I knew the others were keeping a big secret. They were being so tight-lipped about it, nobody outside the family knew. But then Dick let something slip last night and I just had to see it for myself. See you.”

“Do I know you?” he asks curiously. “When I’m grown up, I mean.”

“Yes. Yes, you do. My name’s Selina.”

“Hi, Selina.” Bruce sticks out his hand. She hesitates, but reaches out and shakes it, smiling in amusement. “How did you get up here?” he asks. “Can you fly?”

“No, ‘fraid not.”

Bruce frowns. Crosses his arms. “There’s no way you climbed all the way up here.”

She pats him on the head, like someone would pet a cat. He doesn’t like that. “You don’t have any idea yet what people are capable of, especially me. And yourself.” Looking as though she’s been struck by a thought, she glances up at the sky and then back at Bruce. Her eyes are glimmering mischievously. “Are you scared of heights?” she asks him.

“No.” Not anymore. 

“Then what do you say to a trip up to the top of the tower?”

“The top?” Bruce asks incredulously. “Like the roof? But I don’t know how to get up there.”

“Right. You’re not quite ready for scaling towers. I was thinking you could take the elevator and the access stairs and I’ll meet you up there.”

Bruce is about to point out the penthouse’s elevator door needs a code that Alfred won’t let him know. He managed to figure out the code to the secret bunker express elevator by peeking when the others typed it in, but he doesn’t know the code to the regular one. He isn’t allowed to use it without asking and he knows what the answer to a trip onto the roof will be. But Selina leans forward and whispers a number combination into his ear and his eyes widen. Oh.

“Don’t get caught,” is the last thing she tells him before she leaps up and starts climbing the rest of the tower like it’s a jungle gym. Bruce cranes his neck and stares in awe, mouth hanging open. Now he believes her.

Bruce does almost get caught on his way to the elevator. He’s at the keypad pressing the numbers she told him to when the laundry room door down the hallway opens and Alfred walks out carrying a big basket of folded laundry. Bruce has to duck behind a potted plant to hide—it’s a close call.

He takes the elevator to its highest stop, and as he’s climbing up the access stairs he starts wondering if this is a good idea, sneaking behind Alfred’s back and heading up to the roof. He’s gotten into plenty of trouble for this kind of thing before.

But all that doubt flies out of him, along with his breath, as soon as he opens the door—unlocked, he suspects, just for him.

The view is— He thought it was great from the penthouse windows, but this is a whole other world. 

The wind is strong, threatening to push him back and forth. He thinks about how he’s seen the others jump and swing through the open air and he’s jealous—he wishes that could be him. He knows this is the closest he’ll get for now, and it feels right.

 “You made it. I knew you would—you never could resist a dare,” Selina calls from above Bruce. She’s hanging off the side of the tower’s tall spire, and he looks up just in time to see her leap down, landing next to him effortlessly. “Pretty nice, huh? This was always one of our favourite spots to sit and take a break. Not that you ever take many of those. I guess that just made it more special.”

Bruce is giddy. “I never want to go back down!” he proclaims to the open sky.

“And I thought I had danger in my blood as a kid,” Selina muses. Pulling down her cat-eared hood to let the wind toss around her hair, she stares out at the city wistfully. The look in her eyes is faraway. Even more distant than the skyline on the other side of the river. “I’ve missed this. It’s been too long.”

She sounds sad. Bruce remembers what Barbara told him, that everyone here had thought the future him died.

“I’m sorry,” slips out of his mouth, even though he knows it wasn’t his fault. He doesn’t know what else to say.

“For what?”

Bruce shrugs awkwardly. “Were you— Are you and I good friends?”

Selina opens her mouth to answer, then pauses. “Yes,” she says finally. “Very good friends.” She chews her lip. “We’re… very close.”

Bruce squints at her suspiciously. He is sure there’s something she’s holding back from him, but he can’t— Unless…

He blushes before he can even ask. “Wait… Are you…”

“You’re adorable,” says Selina, patting his cheek fondly. “Let’s get you back inside before anyone notices you’re missing. You won’t be the only one who gets in trouble for this." 

“Do I have to?”

 

—

 

The three of them pile into the elevator, still snickering about how they managed to dodge the paparazzi. Tim and Cass decided to sneak Bruce out incognito to lunch at their favourite greasy pizza place, and while they were leaving they had a close call with the cameras. But it was all worth it to see Bruce ordering off the kid’s menu—Tim’s going to treasure that memory forever.

Tim pulls off his sunglasses and hood and grins at Cass as she does the same. Now that they’re in the executive elevator, they’re safe. Home free. Or so they think.

Just before the doors completely close, they stop. And open again.

It’s not a crowd of paparazzi. It’s Commissioner Gordon. Tim can’t say for sure whether this is better.

Jim blinks, looking as surprised as they are. He nods. “Hello there,” he says as he steps into the elevator.

“Good afternoon, Commissioner Gordon,” Tim says cordially, standing up straighter and trying to exude the phony business-savvy attitude he’s been working on since he started getting involved in the company. Even though he’s dressed like a slob in old ratty jeans and a hoodie that belonged to Dick years ago. “What brings you to our offices?”

“I’m supposed to meet Mr Grayson on the executive floor about those plans for the forensic lab your company is so interested in building for us.”

“Oh, right. The lab was my idea, originally, but I ended up with too much on my plate and asked him to take over. I’m sure it’ll be an immensely helpful asset to the GCPD.”

“I’m sure,” the Commissioner says. He doesn’t look particularly enthusiastic. Just tired. He takes off his glasses to rub at the bridge of his nose, then puts them back on and peers down at Bruce. “And who is this? I don’t think we’ve met.” He reaches to shake Bruce’s hand. “Hi, I’m Jim Gordon.”

“Hello—“ Bruce begins, before Tim cuts in, placing his hands on the boy’s shoulders.

 “This is my cousin…” Tim winces inwardly, trying and failing to remember the cover they established for Bruce. Dick and Steph have been giving him new fake names every outing, just for fun. “Bart. He’s from out of town. He’s staying with us here in Gotham while his parents are away on a trip.”

Tim and Cass share a worried glance. They’ve both heard about what happened in that alley after the gunshots, about how Bruce and the Commissioner met for the first time as the traumatized boy and one of the first officers on the scene. 

And now they’re trapped in an elevator with those two. All Tim can do is grit his teeth and hope beyond hope that they don’t recognize each other.

But then Bruce’s eyes light up as he looks at the Commissioner and Tim braces himself. Here it comes.

“You’re Barbara’s father,” Bruce says. 

Not what Tim expected. He feels like he can breathe again.

Jim looks surprised. “You know my daughter?”

“We all had… brunch, on the weekend,” says Cass. She tilts her head and gives Bruce a meaningful look. He nods in understanding.

Bruce gives a big smile and plays along. “Barbara makes the best waffles,” he tells Jim, sounding every bit the normal eight-year-old boy. 

It’s a bit astounding to Tim how good Bruce is at lying, even at that age. But he did grow up learning how to hide things from Alfred.

Jim seems to buy it. He smiles back. “That she certainly does.” The elevator slows and dings, and he steps off. “Good to see all of you. And nice to meet you… Bart.”

Tim sighs and sags in relief once the doors close. Cass pats him on the back.

 

—

 

“I’ve drawn your bath, Master Bruce, and I’ve laid out your clothes for your visit with Miss Barbara this evening.”

Bruce eyes the carefully folded clothes on the bed critically. “Thanks. But actually… I really want to wear the shirt Cass got me.” He pulls it out of a shopping bag shoved in a wardrobe drawer. “Look!” Beaming, he holds it up to show Alfred.

Alfred does look, with sadness, at the Bat symbol emblazoned on the shirt and the smiling boy who has no idea how much pain comes with wearing it.

Not that he doesn’t know pain, he’s familiar with it in ways other children his age could never understand, but he can’t know what’s yet to come. The countless brushes with death, the unending injuries and sleepless nights, the future losses that will cut as deeply as the one that set him on this path.

Alfred sighs and places his hands, heavy with the weight of his regret, on Bruce’s shoulders.

“Master Bruce, for a long time now I’ve been wanting to apologize. After what happened to your parents, I wasn’t there for you the way you needed. There must have been more I could have done to help you. Perhaps if I had, you could have had an easier life.”

"What are you talking about? This is everything I want."

Bruce doesn’t understand why Alfred’s face crumples in dismay.

 

—

 

Alfred tries so hard to drag Bruce to bed once he’s brought him home from Barbara’s. “It’s appallingly late—you should at least be in bed before the sun rises,” and “I know you’re tired, Master Bruce. You kept dozing off in the car,” are things Bruce hears over and over every night.

But he won’t go to bed—he can’t miss his favourite part of the day. If he hides his yawns well enough he can convince Alfred to let him go down to the bunker and wait for everyone else as they return from patrol, like he used to wait for his parents to come home after their long days of helping the unfortunate and saving lives.

His family here has the same kind of jobs. They help people, too. They save lives every day.

They come home tired, wincing and complaining about sore muscles as they peel off their armour and bandage up little scrapes. Tim always tousles Bruce’s hair on his way to the lockers. Dick smiles at Bruce every time he gets out of the Batmobile and pulls down his cowl—a fond, welcoming smile that makes Bruce feel like he’s wanted here. 

If Steph is around, no matter how exhausted she is, she’ll crack jokes and do silly impressions—Bruce is probably most familiar with his future self from her gravel-voiced impersonations of him—anything just to get a laugh or two out of Bruce. Even Damian is in a good mood after patrol. Less prickly. One night he even lets Bruce try on his mask and cape. 

As Alfred passes out the bedtime snack of milk and cookies Cass always pulls Bruce over to sit in the big computer chair with her. The big chair is the most coveted seat during snack time and she always snags it, without fail. She puts her arm around him and everyone is laughing and bickering and Bruce closes his eyes, sighing in contentment. Happy in a way he thought he never would be again.

 

—

 

Bruce doesn’t mean to eavesdrop, he really doesn’t. He’s done with that. But he’s on his way to breakfast, even though it’s almost noon—he’s finally gotten used to the weird schedule everyone keeps here, now it’s his schedule too—when he notices his shoelace is untied. 

He stops just outside the kitchen to kneel down and tie it, and that’s when he hears the whole conversation.

He hears Barbara’s voice first. She must be visiting.

“We have a problem.”

“I was about to say the same thing,” Tim replies tiredly. “Zatanna’s going to be ready to send Bruce home tonight. And there’s no way he’ll want to go back.” He sighs. “We’ve really screwed this up.”

“What were we supposed to do? Treat him badly? Be mean to him?” asks Dick, frustrated. “It’s not like we could stand by and let him be miserable for the past couple weeks just so it would be easier to send him back. That’s wrong. He’s just a kid.”

“By sending him back we’re sentencing him to be miserable for years.” 

“Bruce, he… He got through it okay,” says Dick. He doesn’t sound like he’s even convincing himself.

“I know,” says Tim. “I know we’ve talked about this before, and we don’t have any other option, but I just…”

“You didn’t think it would be this hard,” Cass finishes for him.

“Neither did I,” Barbara says sympathetically. “We all wish we could help him somehow. We all wish it could be possible to keep him here with us. But it’s not. We don’t have a choice—the only way to keep our timeline intact is to send him back and erase all his memories of this.”

Bruce can’t stay quiet any longer. He steps forward through the doorway, fists clenched at his sides. He’s never been more betrayed in his life.

It’s a breakfast scene he’s seen before. Dick, Tim, Cass, with Barbara visiting and Alfred pouring them all coffee. Damian’s not there, probably in the bunker training already. Tim’s wearing a suit and tie while Dick’s still in his pyjamas and Cass is still wearing most of her costume from the night before. 

The only difference is that no one is talking, no one is laughing or bickering. They’re all silent, somber, staring at him with guilt painted across their faces. They know he’s heard everything.

“Y-You’re going to erase my memories?” he exclaims, outraged. “Why?”

“I’m afraid you know too much about the future, Master Bruce,” Alfred explains gently.

“But you kept so many secrets. You wouldn’t let me know things. I thought that was because…”

“We kept secret what we thought might upset you, while you were here,” says Tim, his voice quiet and wracked with guilt. “We knew from the beginning we’d have to wipe your memories. You can’t remember any of this… or any of us—it’ll completely change the timeline.”

“What if I could change it and make it better?” asks Bruce hopefully. “You could— You could tell me even more. You can tell me exactly what to do, and I’ll be able to fix things. Anything you want.”

“We thought about that,” admits Barbara, “but it’s… It’s just too risky. We can’t gamble with reality like that.”

Bruce looks to each of them in turn desperately, but they’re all wearing the same resigned expression. “I won’t remember you?”

“No,” says Tim.

“I won’t remember that I get to be a hero.”

Alfred shakes his head sadly.

“You’re going to erase my memories and send me back.” Bruce is quiet for a moment, thinking. Then he crosses his arms, having made a decision. ”I’m not going back."

Dick stands up abruptly. "What? But, Bruce—“ 

"I'm not. I won't go.” he says stubbornly. "You can't send me back there. I don't want to be alone again, I want to be here, with all of you. I'm happy here."

“If you don’t go back, we won’t be able to settle the timestream and locate our Bruce.”

“Why do you want him back?” Bruce demands. “Why do you like him so much better than me? Tim said he was mean.”

They all glance over at Tim unhappily. He makes some helpless gesture with his hands and looks up at the ceiling like he’s pleading for something heavy to fall down on top of him and end his misery.

“It’s not about who we like more,” Cass tells Bruce.

“We’re talking about the possibility of everything we know ceasing to exist,” says Dick, kneeling in front of Bruce and placing his hands on the boy’s shoulders. “There’s no telling what could happen to us, or the city, or even the universe if you’re not in the past where you belong. You’ll be saving our world, Bruce.”

Bruce shrugs his hands off angrily and backs away from him. "I won't go back! You don't know what it was like—nobody understands me there! I belong here, not back then.” His throat grows tight and his eyes burn with the need to cry, but he won’t. Not in front of them. Not in front of anyone. ”You can't send me back. Please don't send me back."

“Master Bruce…” Alfred says, dismayed, stepping towards him.

“I’m not going.” Bruce levels them all with one last glare, cold and hard as ice, before he turns on his heel and stomps away.

 

--

 

“Bruce is missing."

Dick, flipping through the news channels, nearly drops the remote. He looks up at Alfred, aghast. “What? But— He’s not in his room?” 

He’s been sulking in there for most of the afternoon, ignoring all their attempts at knocking on his door and reasoning with him and coaxing him out with Alfred’s treats. They decided over an hour ago to give him his distance and let him cool down. Even as a kid, Bruce is more stubborn than all of them combined.

And, apparently, sneakier than they ever expected.

“You sure he’s not just hiding?” asks Cass. She drops her head down between her legs to check under the sofa they’re sitting on.

“I am, without a doubt,” Alfred says, wringing his hands. “I checked the elevator logs. I believe he’s left the building.”

“How could he even—“ Dick sighs and rakes back his hair in frustration. “Right. This is Bruce. Of course he figured out the passcode. But why would he run away? Where would he even go?”

“Where, indeed,” says Alfred gravely, eyes lowered in guilt. He turns and walks out of the room.

“Don’t worry, Alfred,” Dick calls out, following after him. “I’m suiting up as fast as I can. I’ll put out a call and get everyone searching. We’ll find him before anything happens.”

Alfred turns away from the open hallway closet with his jacket draped over his arm, car keys in hand. “We will have everyone searching, Master Dick. That includes myself, as well.”

 

—

 

It doesn’t take long for Bruce to become lost. He’s never been out in the city without his parents or Alfred before, and this isn’t even his city anymore. The only familiar thing is the Wayne Enterprises tower he’s walking away from.

When he turns back and sees that it’s gone, disappeared into the skyline, that’s when he realizes how alone and adrift he is. 

But he trudges on. So what if he’s lost? As long as they can’t find him for a few hours, it doesn’t matter.

Bruce walks until the sun sets and shadows spill out of the alleyways, until his feet hurt and his stomach grumbles unhappily. His heart starts to beat faster as he realizes the streets he’s walking down are really dark, and growing darker. the windows facing the road have no light to offer— they’re empty and black or boarded up, abandoned. the streetlights that actually work are weak and flickering.

This isn’t what he expected from the future.

The hair on the back of his neck prickles with the feeling that he shouldn’t be here, this isn’t a safe place. He remembers what Dick told him before—he never caught the man who killed his parents. He’s still out there.

Wherever he looks he sees the shadows move, forming a tall man with his face hidden by the brim of his hat, the glint of metal in his hand. And then—

The sound of gunshots explode in his ears, as loud as they were that night, but they don’t stop. Bruce doesn’t know if it’s real or in his head. He cries out and stumbles, falling onto his hands and knees, head spinning as he gasps for breath.

He lands in a shallow puddle of rainwater. When he lifts his dripping hands all he can see is glistening red. All he can see around him is the blood and the pearls rolling across the cobblestones.

He tries to shout, to scream, but no sound comes out.

 

—

 

Jason’s got a midnight meeting with some scumbags that he’s already running late for, thanks to those punks he had to sort out in the alleyway, but he can’t just walk past the crying boy in front of him. Partly because the kid’s sitting in the middle of the sidewalk and blocking his way.

He’s kneeling down on the dirty pavement with his face hidden in his hands, whimpering and shivering like he’s freezing out here on this hot, muggy night. He doesn’t look like he’s from around here. Those are some very shiny leather shoes—they must’ve been expensive, just like the sweater he’s wearing. He has to be a rich kid. 

Jason squats on his heels in front of the boy, taking off his helmet and tucking it under his arm.

“You hurt or something?” he asks. On closer glance he doesn’t see any blood. But the boy won’t stop trembling. He’s pale and gasping, almost hyperventilating, like he’s having some kind of panic attack.

Jason lowers his voice. He’s worried that touching the kid might spook him but he takes the chance, placing a hand gently on his back “Hey, it’s okay. Just breathe a bit slower. You’re going to be fine.” 

He thinks it’s working. The boy’s breathing grows quieter, he stops shaking like he’s about to break into pieces. Then he peers between his fingers and sees the gun in Jason’s hand and he whimpers, his eyes going wide in terror.

Jason grimaces at himself. Real smart.

“This?” he says, holding the gun flat in his hands. “This is nothing. I just confiscated it from some teenagers around the corner that stole it and thought it’d be fun to fool around with. Idiots. It doesn’t even have any bullets in it anymore. It’s not going to hurt you, look.” He stands up and takes the lid off the trashcan beside them, dumping the gun inside. And for good measure he pulls out the gun he keeps in his thigh holster—the boy’s eyeing it in fear—and lets him watch as he takes the ammunition out.

“See? It’s just a hunk of metal. Like I said, it’s not going to hurt you. I’m not going to hurt you,” Jason assures him. “Now come on, there’s a nice doctor lady a few blocks away that can—“

The boy finally lifts his head, and seeing his face is like a punch to the gut. He looks so much like that new little snot, Damian, but he’s definitely not. Those are Bruce’s eyes. Jason’s looking at a little kid with eyes as haunted and determined as Batman’s.

“Bruce?”

“Y-Yes?” Bruce takes in Jason’s outfit and his mask and some of the fear leaves his voice. He looks relieved. “Do you know the future me, too? Are you one of the other heroes in the city? You’re dressed kind of like one.”

“Yeah.” Jason says faintly. He rakes his hand through his hair and takes a deep breath. After the initial shock he's not so freaked out. He saw stranger stuff when he was roaming the multiverse, after all.

He doesn't blame Dick and the others for not letting him know about this—he’s not exactly on speaking terms with them right now—but this is not how he would choose to find out.

Jason wonders if this is a permanent thing. He probably shouldn’t find the thought so funny.

He should probably be angry. He’s still angry with Bruce. He’s spent a lot of time planning confrontations for when the man returns—and he will, Jason’s never bought that Batman could just die like that. He’ll be back, sooner than later. But, while Jason’s waiting for that, he can’t take his anger out on a scared, lost little kid. He pulls off his leather jacket and wraps it around the boy’s shoulders, then helps him stand up.

“Which hero are you?” asks Bruce.

“Arsenal,” Jason lies, in case the boy’s been warned about the big, bad Red Hood.

Bruce frowns. “I haven’t heard of you. There’s a lot they didn’t tell me, though.”

“Join the club,” mutters Jason. “What are you doing out here, anyway?” This baby Bruce should be at home with Alfred fussing over him and putting him to bed.

“I’m r-running away,” Bruce says. He’s still shaking so bad he can’t keep his voice from wavering, but his eyes burn with conviction. “They— They have a magic lady that’s going to erase my memories and send me back in time, where I came from, even though I don’t want to. I remember they said the moon has to be a certain way, so if I hide from them until morning they won’t be able to send me back and I can stay here forever.”

Jason rolls his eyes. “Kid, it’s not going to be that easy. If I know them, they’ll find another way.”

“Then I’ll never go back. If they never find me they’ll never be able to send me away.”

“You’d rather live alone on the streets than go back and live in your mansion with Alfred baking you cookies whenever you want? Really?” Jason barks out a harsh laugh. “For once in your life, I don’t think you’ve thought things through.” He taps his chin thoughtfully, struck by an idea. “Although, if you want… maybe you could stick with me. Be my sidekick.”

“Could I?” Bruce asks eagerly.

“No. I was joking. You’re too much of a scaredy-cat for the job.”

“No! I’m not! I’m not a scaredy-cat.”

“Yeah, you are. You’re hiding out here because you’re too scared to face going back to the past. You’re too scared to face your own life. The Bruce I know wouldn’t be scared of that.”

“Then I guess I’m never going to be like him!” Bruce blurts out angrily. He hangs his head, rapidly blinking tears out of his eyes. “I’ll never be brave enough to be a superhero. And I don’t care!”

It’s plain on his face that there’s nothing he cares about more in the world.

Jason slowly shakes his head. “Actually… Sorry, that came out wrong. He probably would be scared, but he would do it anyway because he knew it was the right thing.” He’s always been a stubborn, self-sacrificing jerk like that.

Bruce stares down at his feet, quiet except for his sniffling. “I know I’m supposed to go,” he admits in a whisper, wiping his eyes with his sleeve and looking up at Jason. “They kept telling me that they were getting ready to send me back soon, but I kept hoping that it wouldn't--" He tugs the jacket tighter around himself. Small and forlorn, he reminds Jason of an abandoned puppy. "I... I just don't want to be alone again."

“Yeah, nobody would,” says Jason hollowly. He kicks a discarded can and watches it bounce into the street, just for an excuse to stop looking at Bruce. It’s too weird, looking at him. It nudges at some soft spot Jason forgot he had. “We all go through tough things in our lives, Bruce. You can’t run away from it. You’ll find it back in the past or you’ll find it here. Least if you make the decision to go back you’ll do it knowing what’s waiting for you in the future.”

A shiny black car pulls up beside them. That was fast. It’s only been a couple minutes since Jason hit a button on his wrist to send out a blaring signal Barbara wouldn’t be able to miss over her frequencies.

Alfred steps out, relief spreading across his face as he sees Bruce there. And despite all Bruce’s former anger and fear, his eyes fill with tears and he runs to his guardian without hesitation, wrapping his arms tightly around Alfred’s waist. 

Jason knows Bruce has made up his mind. He’s going to leave behind this exciting future of superheroes and a big, bustling family for a quiet, lonely manor empty except for him and the butler. and Jason feels a tinge of bitterness at the thought that Bruce is never going to understand how lucky he still is to have that.

Alfred hugs Bruce close, patting his hair and saying something into his ear that Jason can’t make out, no doubt something comforting and admonishing at the same time.

Alfred looks up to Jason. He doesn’t smile. “Thank you for finding him,” he says, nodding sincerely. Jason nods back.

“Say hi to younger me when you see him,” Jason tells Bruce, taking back the leather jacket being offered to him.

“What’s your name?” 

“Jason Todd. Remember it.”

“I will,” Bruce promises earnestly over his shoulder as Alfred leads him to the car.

 

—

 

"Hello, Bruce. I'm Zatanna. Nice to see you again."

Bruce shakes her hand, eyes growing wide as he remembers. "Our dads are friends,” he says. “You always come to my birthday parties. You did magic tricks and wouldn't show me how."

“You want me to tell you?” asks Zatanna. Bruce nods. She beckons him to lean in close and whispers in his ear, “They were never tricks. They're real magic, but you won't learn that for a long time.” His brow furrows and he opens his mouth to argue but she shushes him with a finger to his lips. "It's time to send you back home."

Bruce turns to Dick. ”I guess... I’m supposed to say goodbye,” he says reluctantly. He already said his goodbyes to everyone else. There were some tears. Tim was the worst at hiding his.

Dick pulls Bruce into a hug. The boy clings to him. "It's not goodbye. I'll be seeing you soon, Bruce. We all will.” He lets go of Bruce and gives him a serious look. “Got it?” Bruce nods, just as seriously. “Good.”

"I won't forget,” Bruce says with determination, like it’s something he’s suddenly decided. "I won't forget any of you. And I won't ever give up—I'm going to keep my promise to my parents. I'll keep working until everything is just like it is now, or— or better."

Alfred and Dick share a look. "We have no doubt,” says Alfred.

“I don’t have to say goodbye to you, do I, Alfred? You’ll be there.” Even so, Bruce hugs him too. This time it’s Alfred who clings. “I’m glad I’ll still have you.”

“Always, Master Bruce.”

“You might want to sit down,” Zatanna tells Bruce. He sits down on the edge of the bed uncertainly, eyeing her with wariness for what she’s about to do next. “Peels, Ecurb,” 

He’s out like a light. Alfred catches him before he falls over and lays him down carefully on the bed, even tucks him in under the blankets.

"It'll be easier to delve into his mind while he's asleep,” Zatanna explains. “And this way when he returns to his own time it’ll be by waking up in his own bed—all of this will be like a forgotten dream.”

Zatanna brushes his dark hair back and presses her palm against his forehead. Closing her eyes in concentration, she recites her backwards spells as her fingers glow with blue light. 

It doesn’t take long before she opens her eyes again. ”It’s done. The memories are gone."

Zatanna hesitates, watching Bruce silently for a moment. He’s still sleeping soundly, a faint frown at the corners of his mouth. She leans forward to kiss him on the cheek and murmurs something against his skin. The air around him shimmers.

"What did you just do?" asks Dick.

"I didn't feel right taking all those good memories from him and leaving him with nothing. He has so many hard, lonely years ahead of him. So I gave him a little hope that things will get better, that one day he won't feel so alone. Good dreams for his darkest nights."

Bruce is smiling in his sleep when Zatanna speaks the final spell to send him away. It happens so quickly—a swirl of magic and he’s gone, leaving only an empty bed. Alfred makes a small, choked-up noise that he tries to cover by clearing his throat, and Dick reaches over and squeezes his hand.

Their Bruce returns home two days later.

 

—

 

“So you don’t remember anything?” Dick asks, pulling the sheet off a machine in storage and sending up a huge cloud of dust that makes him cough.

Now that Bruce is back he wants the cave returned to exactly as it was before he left. Which means unpacking a lot of the junk Dick and Alfred packed away over a year ago, everything they left in storage after they set the cave up as Stephanie’s base. It also means a lot of dust.

Bruce helps him lift the heavy machine onto a cart so they can wheel it to the elevator. Even with the both of them, it’s a tough job. They should've asked Clark for a favour. “It’s hard to say. It sounds almost familiar, but I can’t recall any of it in detail. Like everything I saw while travelling through time, I can’t tell if what I remember is real or just an impression left by a dream.” Bruce snaps out of his reflections in time to whirl around and catch his youngest son in the act. “Damian, put that down immediately.”

Damian obliges, setting down the weapon that looks ominously like one of Freeze’s old designs, scowling haughtily. “Don’t make us regret swapping the younger version back for you, Father. He didn’t order us around.”

They both pretend they didn’t hear that. Dick turns to Bruce helpfully, leaning against one of the boxes. “Hey, if you want something to jog your memory… I know Cass and Steph took plenty of pictures.”

“Any that would embarrass me if they were leaked onto the Justice League servers?” Bruce asks, one eyebrow raised. Dick’s guilty smile seems to tell him all he needs to know. “I thought so.”

Something sitting in one of the open storage garages catches Dick’s eye. He walks closer to check it out, and frowns. “Did we always have a bat-bulldozer in the cave…?” he wonders aloud, confused. 

He was sure that wasn’t here back when he and Alfred were packing up the cave. Damian, standing nearby, hears him and smirks knowingly before disappearing behind some large machines. Off to root around for more dangerous weapons, most likely.

Bruce sits down on a box and rests his hands on his knees, taking a break. Which is odd. For a moment Dick worries that his journey through time has taken too much out of him, that his age is starting to catch up.

“What was my younger self like?”

Even odder. Dick wondered if Bruce would ask something like that eventually, but he didn’t think he actually would.

Dick thinks for a moment. “Well, he was a curious little guy—he actually asked the same question about you, a lot.” He shrugs. “Don’t you remember what you were like at that age?”

“I just want to make sure I wasn’t too much trouble. Alfred says I used to cause him a lot of grief.”

“Used to?”

Bruce doesn’t laugh. Which is normal. Dick at least expected to get a twitch of a smile for that remark, though, and Bruce’s face is like stone. 

“Tim told me that the boy grew too attached and didn’t want to leave. And that all of you felt guilty for sending him away,” says Bruce. He looks Dick in the eyes solemnly. “I want you to know that none of what happened to him afterwards was because of your actions. It had already happened. You did exactly what I would have done in that situation.”

That’s never been something Dick is sure he wants to hear from Bruce. A lot of times it would only make him feel worse. But for this, it helps. A tiny bit. He’ll take it. 

It’s the closest he, or any of them, will get to being forgiven by that little boy.

There is still one thing that’s bothering Dick, something that’s been worrying him since all of this began. 

“Bruce, why were you keeping a time travel device in the cave?” Dick swallows. His mouth feels dry. But he has to ask, it’s now or never. “Were you… planning on using it?”

Bruce takes a long moment to answer. “I can’t remember,” he says finally. If it was anyone else Dick would scoff, call bullshit, but this is Bruce. Bruce stands and walks forward through the storage room, then stops. Almost like someone trying to retrace their steps. “I know exactly which device you’re talking about. I remember bringing it here after a League mission and locking it away, but I don’t remember what I was thinking at the time. I just knew that it would be important to have around, one day.”

Dick stares, mind reeling trying to process what this means. “Did you… Did you know?”

Bruce doesn’t answer, his brow furrowed. That must be exactly what he’s trying to figure out.

Time travel hurts Dick’s head. And he wasn’t even hurled through a few millennia like Bruce was. “Well, even if it was just an accident,” says Dick, “I’m glad that all this happened—the visit from younger you, I mean, not the ‘you disappearing into the time stream' part. It was nice, getting to meet him. You. Even if there was nothing we could do to help him.”

Bruce turns to look at him. “You don’t think you’ve helped me?”

Damian chooses that moment to come stomping over, stopping in front of them with his arms crossed determinedly. Dick lets out a sigh. Here it comes. He knew Damian wouldn’t be able to let it go.

“Father, first of all I want to make it known that since you refused to eat brussels sprouts as a child, Pennyworth cannot force me to eat them, either.” Damian takes a deep breath, not finished. “And furthermore—“

“Keep talking and I’ll get Zatanna to erase your memories of it, too.”