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He refused to sleep on his parents’ bed. On the bed that he used to crawl into after nightmares, on the bed where he once woke up sleepy and happy, on the bed that was too desolate with only the sense-memory of warm arms wrapping around him and a low chuckle and an exasperated sigh.
Alfred didn’t say anything when Bruce threw out the old bed in the process of moving into the master bedroom.
He did, however, raise an eyebrow when he saw what Bruce had gotten to replace it.
It was a big bed.
No.
It was a huge bed.
It was a bed that took up three-fourths of an already massive room, and it was so wide that Bruce could curl up in the middle and pretend like he was sleeping on a cloud.
It was soft. It was fluffy. It had beads and coils and a hundred other words that Bruce hadn’t been paying attention to—a luxury bed among luxury beds. It had been obscenely expensive, even before Bruce had ordered the custom silk sheet sets.
It could fit six adults.
Bruce lay in the center and stared up at the ceiling.
This bed was also cold. But no amount of money could change that.
Dick, though. Dick could change that. Dick did change that.
Dick seemed to think that Bruce’s bed was his trampoline. Even after Bruce bought him an actual trampoline, he still delighted in waking Bruce up by jumping on the bed and tumbling all over it, before springing off—ignoring Bruce’s wide eyes and outstretched arms—to complete a flip in midair and land on his feet with a grin.
Dick crawled into the bed every time he had a nightmare, slipping across the sheets and wriggling close to Bruce, and Bruce wrapped him up in his arms and remembered his parents.
Bruce could give Dick the childhood he never had. And he would.
Jason took one look at the bed and asked, nose wrinkled up, how often Bruce invited people over for orgies.
Bruce choked.
Dick, when Bruce told him the story, burst into delighted peals of laughter.
Alfred gave Bruce another raised eyebrow, clearly insinuating that this was all his fault.
Bruce didn’t bring any of his…conquests back to the Manor. Now he had children, an easy excuse whenever any partner asked why they didn’t go back to his place, but even before, he disliked the idea of bringing a stranger into his home. Into his parents’ bedroom. Into his bed.
Bruce’s repeated assertions that no one else slept in the bed clearly didn’t convince Jason, because he never once poked his head through Bruce’s door at night, pale-faced and wavering after a nightmare. He never jumped all over the bed in glee as a white-knuckled Bruce watched in terror.
But then Bruce returned from a Justice League mission that had taken longer than planned, aching, sore, and exhausted, and halted two steps from throwing himself on the bed, because there were two black-haired heads nestled together in the center.
Bruce never dreamt that Dick would ever seek sanctuary with him again—not after Robin, not after their fights, not after Dick made it extremely clear that the only reason he continued to visit the Manor was to see his little brother—but he was curled up on the pillow, eyes closed and cheeks blotchy in the way they always got after he cried.
And Jason was tucked under his chin, one hand curled into Dick’s shirt, another elbow jabbing into Dick’s sternum, face slack in sleep.
For a moment, his heart ached, the brief burst of joy-dread-agony that came with seeing a moment so perfect that he wanted to freeze it. Preserve it forever. Stay here, with his two sons sleeping peacefully, safe and warm and happy.
Unfortunately, the world kept spinning.
Bruce’s bed was cold again.
Tim—well, Bruce had no idea what Tim thought of his bed. Getting the kid to stay in the Manor instead of running back to his mausoleum of a home was an exercise in frustration, even as Alfred slowly snuck books and clothes and games into the ‘guest room’ that Tim used on rare occasions.
Tim wouldn’t even tell Bruce if he had a nightmare, much less seek him out for comfort. Tim didn’t even want to seek Bruce out for a band aid.
Bruce nearly jumped out of his skin when he woke up to the sensation of a heavy, intense gaze. He barely managed to avoid throwing a pillow at the intruder as he shot up, his heart thundering.
The room was pitch black and silent. There was no indication that he wasn’t alone, aside from the near tangible weight of someone staring at him.
The silent regard felt…familiar.
“Cassandra?” Bruce asked hoarsely, still tense.
The beat of silence stretched.
“Go sleep,” a voice piped up from the corner of the bed.
Bruce scrubbed at his face, caught halfway between the instinctive jolt of terror and sleepy exhaustion. “Cass, sweetheart, you don’t need to stay in the corner,” he said quietly, raising the sheets in invitation.
“No,” his daughter said, “Watching. Go sleep.”
It was a little unsettling, but Bruce was too tired to argue.
It took him a further five occurrences before he realized that Cass merely liked watching them sleep, and he only figured that one out when he caught her in Tim’s room, perched on the bedframe and staring at her little brother with a fierce intensity.
As habits went…well. Bruce couldn’t really judge.
Stephanie Brown shouldn’t have even been in a place to offer commentary on his bedroom, but Tim had given her a tour of the Manor one day, and Bruce came back to Steph’s horrified fascination as she crawled over his bed with a measuring tape.
Dick was wheezing on the floor, curled up and clutching his ribs. Cass was perched on the headboard, watching with a small smile. Tim was noting down the measurements, calculator in hand, his face impassive.
“Bruce,” Steph turned towards him, eyes wide, “You can fit six hundred and fifty bats on this bed.”
Tim cracked a smile. Bruce was fairly certain that Dick cracked a rib.
“Soo many bats, B’uce,” Steph slurred, flailing her arms wide on the bed, “So many.”
Bruce caught one arm gently, and tucked it back underneath the covers. “I believe you,” Bruce murmured, pulling the covers up.
“Was gonna try—try to prove it,” Steph said, sighing softly when he tucked a pillow under her head.
“I know,” he said, “You already told me.” Bruce had tried to keep her talking, anything to divert her attention away from the broken leg as he waited for the Batmobile, and it had resulted in a swear-laden diatribe about his bed.
“Hmm,” Steph mumbled, and exhaled in a rush as Bruce ruffled her hair before easing back. “Nooo,” she groaned as Bruce pulled back, making grabby hands at him, “Don’t goooo.”
“Steph?” Bruce asked, bemused, as he allowed her to catch one of his hands and drag it back to her head.
“Don’t stop,” Steph murmured.
Bruce slowly ran his fingers through her hair, and Steph relaxed completely, sinking deeper into the bed.
He kept up his gentle stroking, settling into a more comfortable position on the bed as he waited for Steph’s breathing to ease to the deeper, slower cadence of sleep. Cass crept in near the end, watching Bruce’s hand with an intent gaze as he lightly massaged Steph’s scalp.
When he was certain she was sleeping, he moved to extricate himself, only to be halted by his elder daughter.
“No,” Cass said firmly, “Stay. Will wake up.”
Bruce opened his mouth to protest—he was tired, he had to fill out a report on what happened that night, he needed to find the gang members that had escaped when he’d stayed with Spoiler—and then caught sight of Steph’s sleeping face.
He folded like a deck of cards.
“Alright,” Bruce said softly, “I’ll stay.”
Bruce was listening when Dick gave Damian a tour of the Manor, leading the silent assassin child through the house as he chirped out cheerful asides about each room.
“And this is Bruce’s room!” Dick threw open the door with a flourish, “And his ridiculously large bed! If you ever have a bad night, you can come here and snuggle with Bruce. Guaranteed to keep the nightmares away.”
Damian’s face split into a sneer, but Dick didn’t seem to notice.
Bruce exhaled heavily.
Eight-year-old Bruce Wayne had thought nothing of going to his parents’ room and diving under the covers if he had a nightmare. His children, however, seemed determined to make the simple act as complicated as possible.
Dick still sometimes came by after a nightmare, but only if he and Bruce were on speaking terms, or if their fight had progressed to the point of screaming, but nothing in between. The degree of camaraderie between them and the severity of the nightmare also affected how close Dick was willing to be, with options landing anywhere in the range of ‘choking the life out of Bruce’ to ‘starfished on the opposite end of the bed’.
Jason didn’t come by. Ever. Bruce supposed it was fairly presumptuous to think that Jason would come to him to soothe his nightmares when Jason could barely tolerate his presence awake, but it still ached. The thought that his second son had never trusted him enough to let down his guard was a festering sore in Bruce’s heart, and one of the few that had nothing to do with Jason’s death and resurrection.
Cass never got into the bed, always perched on the edge of the frame, always watching. Sometimes him, sometimes another one of her siblings—he’d heard enough of their grumbling about waking up to find her staring at them to know that she liked to rotate it out. He didn’t know what she saw in their body language while they were asleep, but she seemed to find it peaceful.
Tim didn’t take the initiative to come on his own—Bruce had only seen him stumbling after Dick with bleary eyes as his eldest tugged him into the room. He didn’t know how many times were Dick’s nightmares and need to bundle all his family into one room, and how many times were Tim’s bad dreams that Dick sensed and tried to help.
Steph was a curious case, because she was simultaneously bold and shy—jumping onto his bed and plastering to his side as she asked for a head massage, or hunched over in the kitchen, eyes haunted, because she didn’t want to intrude. It took a long while for Bruce to figure out that her post-patrol jabs were her way of judging his mood and receptiveness.
Damian seemed to think that nightmares were a sign of weakness, and refused to admit he’d ever had one. He also disdained the very idea of snuggling, and his glower reached fierce proportions whenever any of his siblings chose to sneak into Bruce’s room.
Still, they came—in ones and twos. On one rare occasion, Bruce woke, his fingers still laced through blonde hair, to Dick nestled into his side with Tim on the other side of him, and Cass’s steady gaze on them all.
It was the warmth he’d missed for years—the steady embrace of family.
A traitorous part of Bruce pointed out that it wasn’t enough.
And then came Darkseid, came the time stream, came weeks and weeks of being stuck away from home, came nights of shivering on any remotely flat surface he could find, wishing for his soft bed and his children and his family.
This is what comes of being too greedy, a dark part of his mind hissed, because he knew that, because he’d learned this lesson the hard away, you’ll lose everything you have.
Bruce came back.
But he didn’t have his parents’ bed to climb into after a nightmare.
Bruce stayed in the Cave after patrol, working on a case that had stalled, rather than go back to an empty bed and close his eyes and be back there—alone and lost and leaving clues, forced to put all his faith in his friends and family—and wake up to a room that was just as cold.
Cass was finishing some things up in Hong Kong, Steph hadn’t moved back from the Clocktower, Jason didn’t seem too happy that he was back, Dick made a strange face whenever he saw him, Damian clearly didn’t know what to do with him, and Tim had never come to him on his own.
He might’ve taken more time in the Cave than he’d planned—it was nearly six in the morning when Bruce was jolted away from the Batcomputer by the insistent beeping of his phone. He paused to rub his gritty eyes as he unlocked the phone and stared at the steady stream of messages.
It was from Damian. Damian, whose last text to Bruce was three weeks ago—a confirmation that he’d reached Dick’s apartment.
‘Where are you?’
‘Richard is demanding you come to your room.’
‘Now.’
Bruce didn’t register that he was running until he burst through the grandfather clock, his heart racing. He couldn’t imagine what was so bad that Damian was texting him—he didn’t want to imagine—but his mind threw up images of Dick, shuddering in the throes of a bad nightmare, and Bruce nearly skidded in his rush to get to his bedroom.
Three of his children were on his bed—Tim was crying, bundled into Dick’s arms as the older boy tried desperately to soothe him, and Damian was on his other side, awkwardly patting Tim’s shoulder.
“Shh, Tim, he’s alive, I promise that he’s alive, you found him, it’s okay—”
“D—don’t, Dick, please—”
“He’s alive, baby bird,” Dick said softly, rubbing Tim’s back, “I swear it.” His gaze snapped to Bruce, who was frozen in the doorway, and waved him over. “See, Timmy, he’s right here.”
Bruce climbed up on top of the bed as Tim slowly poked his head up, his eyes filled with frantic hope—Tim made a small, distressed sound when he caught sight of Bruce, and Bruce had his arms full of a sobbing child a second later.
“You—you weren’t here,” Tim stuttered and Bruce wrapped his arms tightly around his third son. “I—I woke up and you—you weren’t in your room and—and the bed was cold—”
“I’m sorry, Tim,” Bruce said softly, leaning back so that Dick could press against Tim’s other side. “I’m so sorry, but I’m here now. You found me. I’m okay.”
Tim shuddered and burrowed further as Bruce held him close, sweeping Tim’s hair out of his face. Dick hummed a soothing tune as he rubbed circles on Tim’s shoulder, and Damian watched on Dick’s other side, still and silent.
“You weren’t here,” Tim shuddered, his words a near-wail, and Bruce buried his face in his son’s hair.
“I’m so sorry for leaving you,” Bruce said, quiet and solemn, raising his head to meet Dick’s shining eyes and Damian’s silent stare. “All of you. I am so, so sorry. I missed you all so much.”
Tim made a small, choked sound and clung tighter—Bruce managed to extricate the blankets out from under them, and Dick helped him tug it all the way up. To Bruce’s surprise, Damian joined them, still peering over Dick’s shoulder, his gaze flicking from Tim to Bruce.
“I missed you so much,” Bruce said softly, squeezing his eyes shut.
After that, Bruce made sure that he went straight up to bed after patrol—three nights out of seven, Tim would show up, anxious and watery-eyed, and Bruce would hold him close until Tim was reassured that Bruce was alive and back home.
It changed the dynamics of the unspoken game the children played—even Dick hadn’t slept in Bruce’s bed so frequently, and Tim’s nightmares affected all of the others. Dick would usually show up a few minutes after Tim, his expression warring between concern and guilt, and Cass appeared to watch over them, her face pensive. Steph switched from assessing his mood to assessing Tim’s mood before she showed up, and even Damian sometimes crawled in, though only if there was another sibling to act as a buffer.
Bruce gently extricated himself—only Tim tonight, and he’d come in later, nearly at six, but Bruce had a meeting at nine that he had to go to. He gently unpeeled Tim’s fingers from his shirt, and quickly replaced it with the Batman plushie that sat on his nightstand for whenever Bruce had to leave before Tim woke up. The plushie was a reminder that Bruce had come back, so that Tim wouldn’t panic upon waking up to see him gone.
He swept the bangs out of Tim’s face and pressed a kiss to his forehead before he left to go get ready.
Bruce came back at three, choosing to complete the rest of his work at home, and he went up to check on Tim before he got started.
He froze in the doorway—Tim was still sleeping, but the Batman plushie was back on the nightstand. Instead, his second son had taken its place, stretched across the bed as Tim curled into his side, his head on Jason’s arm as the other one was slung across his back.
Bruce had no idea why Jason was here—in the Manor, in his bed, cuddling Tim—and he didn’t dare wake him up to ask.
He crept out of his room on silent feet and gently closed the door.
Bruce checked in again around six—he had a sneaking suspicion that Tim had put off sleeping for a couple days before crashing hard, and he didn’t want to wake him up unless absolutely necessary.
The pile of children had grown.
Steph was coiled around Tim’s other side, apparently fast asleep, and Dick was contorted next to Jason, his head pillowed on Jason’s stomach and his legs stretching to the side of the bed.
Bruce carefully adjusted the blanket so that it covered all of them.
Bruce leaned against the doorframe, unable to conceal his smile even if he wanted to. Damian had burrowed in between Dick and Jason, and Cass had moved from her customary perch on the bedframe to a pillow behind Tim, watching over all her siblings as she played with Steph’s hair.
One set of blue eyes cracked open blearily, trapped in place by a mess of limbs and blankets.
“Bruce?” Tim croaked out, sleepily confused.
“Go back to sleep,” Bruce hummed—he had to climb up on the bed to press a kiss to Tim’s forehead and watch as his son relaxed. He repeated the gesture for Steph, and Cass obligingly ducked her head so that Bruce could press a kiss to her crown. He decided to press his luck, and lightly ruffled Jason’s hair, even though he was fairly certain that Jason wasn’t still asleep. He rounded the other side of bed to kiss Dick’s cheek and Damian’s hair, making sure that there was a blanket covering each of his kids before he retreated.
It didn’t matter that he wasn’t sleeping in the bed, because his heart was so full it felt like it could burst.
Bruce woke up, tired and sore, exhaustion weighting down his limbs, and let out a slow breath. Sometimes patrol ended with no incidents, and sometimes it ended with Bruce being thrown through a window and hitting the ground hard enough to bruise almost everything.
Someone’s soft breaths ruffled the folds of his shirt. There were fingers twined in his hair. That wasn’t exhaustion weighting down his limbs, and warmth pressed around him on all sides.
Bruce cracked his eyes open—Steph was next to him, cheek pressed to his hair, and Damian was pressed between her and him, his head pillowed on Bruce’s stomach. Tim was on his other side, hugging Bruce’s arm, and Jason was coiled next to him, an arm slung over Tim and across Bruce’s chest.
Cass was slumped sideways above them, her breaths ruffling Steph’s hair and her stomach pressing against Jason’s head. Dick was presumably the weight on Bruce’s legs—all he could make out was a head of black hair and a steady heartbeat pulsing against his knee.
The reason Bruce had bought the bed was because he flipped through the catalog to the most expensive option. Because buying a huge bed that needed custom sheets seemed like a Brucie thing to do. Because the bed filled the room and changed its perception enough that the master bedroom no longer looked like his parents’ room.
And watching his children all curled up around him, sleeping peacefully, Bruce was very thankful for it.