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Normally, Bruce would be in the study whenever he’s taking care of paperwork, but sometimes, a change of scenery is good, so he was stationed on one of the desks at the library. It was a quiet day. He’s pretty sure the only people in the manor at the moment was him and Damian as the others either don’t actively live there, or if they were supposed to be in the manor, they were out doing their own thing at the moment.
As if on cue, the library’s double doors opened, making Bruce raise his head. “Father,” Damian acknowledged him as he passed by. He walked towards one of the shelves, pausing momentarily with his arms crossed, scanning the books. Bruce could hear a faint ‘hmm’ from the boy, and it would have seem that he had found what he was looking for when he reached for a book from one of the higher shelves.
Bruce couldn’t help but think, ‘Huh.’ Normally, Damian would use a steps-tool to reach books from said shelf, but just now, he grabbed the book with no help whatsoever, not even standing on the tips of his toes.
Now don’t get him wrong, Bruce knows that his son is a growing boy around the age when puberty would start acting up, so a growth spurt isn’t unusual. He even knows how tall Damian is, it’s just that sometimes, looking at numbers isn’t quite the same thing as seeing the real thing. Has it really been long? It doesn’t feel like it, and yet evidence of the time that has passed stood in front of him.
Damian then turned his head to look at Bruce, “What?” he asked, sensing the eyes on him.
Bruce let out an audible hum, before standing up from his desk. He walked over to Damian, stopping right in front of him. He smiled, realizing that the boy was already chest level. Then, with a small raise of an eyebrow, Bruce brought a hand to Damian’s head, flattening his hair slightly. ‘Nearing chest level’ he corrected, before shifting the gesture to a hair ruffle.
Damian let out a squawk, swatting Bruce’s hand away and fixing his hair. “I just did my hair,” he complained.
“Maybe we should find you a new hairstyle,” Bruce muttered, nodding to himself.
“Uhh, no, I am quite satisfied with my hair the way it is, Father,” Damian said.
Bruce nodded to himself, ignoring what Damian had just said, as he eyed his son, “We could trim it? It looks pretty long.”
“I don’t need a haircut,” Damian insisted, “My hair is fine the way it is. Perfect even.”
But Bruce wasn’t budging. The hair at the present adds too much height. Damian’s only going to be small for so long, so Bruce wouldn’t mind trying to delay it, even for just a bit.
“Maybe slicked back,” he suggested.
A glare, “Absolutely not.”
Bruce was walking along the halls of the manor when he hears faint music playing. He quietly approached the room at the end of the hall, music getting louder as he reached the slightly open door. From the small crack, he could see Cass bent backwards towards the door, her eyes closed as she kept her form. But of course, Cass being Cass, immediately noticed his presence, and opened her eyes sending him an upside down smile, before pulling herself right-side up.
“Come watch,” she gestured for Bruce to come in, to which Bruce happily obliged. He made his way to a chair and watched as Cass reset the music before taking her place in the middle of the room. Once the music started, so did she.
Bruce watched as she went through her choreography with careful grace—movements light and polished. Bruce allowed his lips to form a small smile as he watched Cass dance, with every motion filled with passion. Very different from when she first started.
Back then, her actions were unsure and her form unsteady. With her training, she has already overcome a few things that beginners struggle with like flexibility and balance, but still the act of expressing herself through dance held a lot of pressure back in the day, but she loved dancing and she dedicated time to be able to perfect her methods, and it was surely paying off.
Bruce wasn’t sure when exactly the transition happened. When exactly did Cass being shaky on her toes became the Cass now who was turning with full intent. Bruce couldn’t pinpoint it if he tried. The young girl back then is now an elegant woman. When did that happen?
Too engaged with his thoughts, Bruce didn’t even realize that the music had stopped, and Cass had finished her performance until a hand cupped his cheek. He blinked at Cass who had crouched down, with her head tilted at him, a small frown on her lips, and eyebrows slightly scrunched. “Sad?” she asked.
Bruce hummed, “Nostalgic,” he corrected before raising a hand, reaching for the back of Cass’s head, lightly pulling her closer, before planting a kiss on her forehead.
Cass giggled as Bruce pulled back, before she planted her own kiss on Bruce’s cheek. She then stood up and walked over to reset the music once more. The room was once again filled with melodies and Cass looked back to where Bruce was sitting.
“Come on,” she said.
Bruce’s head tilted slightly in question. Cass giggled even more before she hopped over to where he sat and started pulling on his arm. “Dance with me!”
Bruce laughed, “You know I don’t dance, Cassandra,” he said, but allowed the girl to drag him into the middle of the room.
Cass rolled her eyes, “That is a lie and you know it.” She slipped her hand from Bruce’s arm to his hand and raised them up, as high as she could, on the tips of her toes, and made a circular motion with it, making Bruce chuckle as he ducked down and spun.
Cass grinned, her laugh getting carried around the room along with the music as father and daughter danced the night away.
Bruce was sitting by the computer as bats screeched in the background. The cave was quiet tonight. Mostly because his children were out patrolling really early to avoid getting dragged into attending the gala that was going to take place upstairs in a couple of hours. All of them were out claiming that they suddenly had leads to their cases, despite complaining about there being no leads just the night before.
All of them except one anyway.
“Bruce, are you coming up or am I telling everyone that Brucie Wayne can't attend the gala that he himself is hosting because he accidentally shit himself because he was too busy admiring his large amounts of money to take care of his diarrhea ‘cause he forgot to check the expiration date of the milk and didn’t even notice the slowly forming clumps when he drank it?”
It was a very specific excuse that Tim always used against him, because even if Brucie was a ditz, he just can’t bring himself to not care because that is too damaging to his image of himself. He’d embarrassed himself plenty of times, but he was still a grown man and he’d rather it not be the first thing that comes to people’s mind when they hear his name apart from ‘rich guy’, is ‘guy who shit his pants’.
Bruce sighed, “I’ll be up in a moment,” he said.
Tim reached the main area of the cave. “C’mon, if I have to suffer through this, you have to suffer too,” he said. As the gala was being held by Bruce under Wayne Enterprises, Tim, as a major figure of the company, is also required to attend.
Bruce spun his chair around and was met by Tim who had his arms crossed, already in his suit. Bruce couldn’t help but notice the way his slacks were in that awkward length where it was starting to get short, but it was still long enough, and you really like this specific pair so you don’t want to get rid of it yet. His suit jacket was the same. Not enough for normal people to notice, but in a room of socialites that will nitpick on every little thing? If it weren’t for the bulkiness of the watch he was wearing, the length would be very noticable.
It was an odd thing. Compared to Bruce, Dick, and Jason, Tim was much smaller. Cass was nearly the same height as him, and even if he was still a child, Damian was growing taller and is likely to surpass Tim when he gets to his full height. Even with all the muscle gained from training, Tim was still lean and relatively short. His Robin or Red Robin uniforms rarely needed to be replaced for size issues, usually it’s for being ruined while out or for upgrades. So seeing his clothes look a bit small for him made it more obvious that Tim was in fact still growing.
Bruce stood up and walked over, making Tim raise an eyebrow at him as he reached forward. Tim dropped his crossed arms when Bruce started adjusting the collar of his shirt. The hands then swept at his hair, fixing some stray strands, before sliding down to cup Tim’s cheek, a soft smile on Bruce’s lips, “We should go buy you more suits,” he comments.
Tim rolled his eyes, leaning into the hand, “That insinuates that I have to go to more galas to be able to wear them.” Bruce huffed, pulling his hand back. He gave Tim another once over before turning back around. “Hey!” Tim exclaimed, immediately blocking his path back to the computer. “Hey, no! We’re going upstairs, now.” Tim spun Bruce around and started pushing him towards the stairs.
“But the case—”
“Nope! That’s enough case files for you, up we go!” Tim said as he continued to push at Bruce’s back, with Bruce deciding not to fight it and letting his son drag him to the cave’s exit. “We just have to get this gala over with, then we can do something more relaxing, yeah?”
“Like buying you more suits?” Bruce asked.
“What is with you and my suit today?” Tim questioned with a shake of his head, but ultimately sighed and nodded, “Yeah, sure, we’ll go make a day of it,” Tim smiled.
It was vehicle maintenance day. It was these days that the thought of ‘what is too much vehicles?’ crosses Bruce’s mind. It wasn’t a particularly hard task, especially since he’s used to it, but it is pretty time consuming. He climbed down the steps to the cave and headed to where the vehicles were being kept only to pause.
Jason was in the cave tonight.
Not as a rare occurrence as before, but still rare enough that Bruce has to stop on his tracks. Jason won’t come to the cave unless he is called in as backup, or if absolutely necessary. Apparently, a condition that fit that criteria was whenever his bike would need some fixing up. If he was being forced to—for the record, no one was really forcing him—come every now and then, he might as well take advantage of the resources available to him.
That brings Bruce to the scene in front of him. The bike looked mostly alright, apart from its missing wheels, which Bruce assumes is the issue this time ‘round. Jason doesn’t seem to realize that he had arrived as he had not acknowledged him once. Instead, he continued to work in silence.
Bruce watched as Jason walked over to where they kept spare wheels before grabbing his pick. Jason holding wheels immediately thrusted Bruce back into a memory. A small boy doing pretty much the same. Holding wheels that he was being asked to put back into the Batmobile after he had nearly successfully stolen them. However, there was a striking difference between now and then.
While little 12 year old Jason rolled the wheels one by one to where he needed to place them in, this Jason was carrying two tires at once. One tucked under his arm, the other over his shoulder. Bruce watched as Jason readjusted his grip before he turned around, stiffening slightly as he saw Bruce by the entrance.
“Holy shit, will you stop doing that?” Jason exclaimed, before walking back to his bike, dropping the wheels next to it.
“Jason,” Bruce started, still eyeing his boy’s figure. “I didn’t know you were coming.”
“Yeah? Would’ve loved to have kept it that way,” Jason muttered. Nothing but silence followed as Bruce continued to watch him work. “Okay, again, would you stop that? It’s starting to get annoying,” Jason complained.
Bruce raised an eyebrow, “Stop what?”
“The staring and the analyzing?” Jason gave him a look, “I thought we were past the ‘Jason, you’re alive?!’ phase?” He stood up to his full height, crossing his arms as he did so. Bruce held back a flinch at the mention of his death.
He continued to stare at Jason, who in turn stared back. Jason’s eyes were practically levelled to his. A bitter feeling sank into Bruce’s stomach. Jason was taken from him when the boy was barely to his chest, and he came back nearly the same height as him. His arms were bigger, shoulders wider. Jason was the second biggest in the family, and yet Bruce didn’t even see it happen.
He took in a deep breath before his thoughts started spiraling. What matters is that Jason is here again. Even if he is much bigger and much taller. He’s still Bruce’s son, and nothing will change that. He might not have seen him grow up, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t still growing.
Bruce stepped forward, and immediately, Jason sent him a skeptical look. “It’s nothing,” he said, reaching over. Surprisingly, Jason didn’t back away. He lightly gripped his arm, turning him around to face the bike again. With the lack of protests from the younger, Bruce allowed himself to wrap an arm behind Jason, settling on his shoulders. “Now, what seems to be the issue?”
Jason eyed him skeptically, “There is no issue. Can’t a guy just want to change tires?” Bruce hummed, releasing his hold on Jason, as he reached for one of the wheels.
“No,” Jason said in a warning tone. “Hey, get your hands away from my bike! I mean it, old man!” he exclaimed. “C’mon, don’t you have a submarine to check on?!”
Bruce is once again hosting another gala. It wasn't for anything in particular, mostly for publicity. For some reason, it seems like Gotham media has gotten tired of the everyday chaos of crimes, and instead decided to turn to the rumor mill once again. This time, they’ve been pestering Dick all over at Bludhaven as to why he barely comes home. If the reason why he moved cities is because he and Bruce hated each other, or if Bruce did something to him while he was living in the Manor. Rumors that Bruce had taken care of before, but had somehow resurfaced.
Normally, he’d start suing, but the rumors have only been that. Rumors. Taking legal action at this stage would only bring more attention to it. Instead, they've decided to host a small gala in order to show people that Dick had no problems with his time at the Manor nor does he have issues with Bruce. And who better to spread the word than the very gossipy Gotham elite.
So, here was Bruce talking to a couple as he watched Dick swinging on a chandelier just behind them. He was absentmindedly nodding to the couple’s words, but was mostly listening to what Dick was saying.
“Of course not, I’m a trained professional,” Dick said, explaining to one of the guests as to why he wasn’t about to fall off any second now. “I’ve done this since I was a little kid.” There was a murmur of agreement from people who have indeed watched Dick do the same chandelier trick when he was younger. “Besides,” Dick started.
Something about his tone made Bruce perk up. He had a feeling about this. Not particularly a good or a bad feeling. Just…a feeling. He watched his son intently.
“If ever I do somehow manage to slip, I know Bruce will catch me,” Dick said, a mischievous smirk gracing his lips. “Watch!”
Bruce knew he was up to something.
He immediately placed his glass on a nearby table, and held his arms out as Dick swung towards him, letting go of the chandelier as he did so. Bruce has caught Dick in more complicated situations before, so this was relatively easy. His outstretched arms were quickly filled by his son who was laughing at the gasps the crowd had let out when he did his little stunt.
“Chum, how many times have I told you to stop climbing the chandeliers,” Bruce lightly reprimanded as he cradled Dick, shifting slightly to have a better hold of him. For a moment, it made Bruce freeze. It wasn’t that Dick was too heavy or he was uncomfortable with how he was carrying him. It was just that he was carrying Dick in both his arms.
Bruce remembers a time when Dick was so small that he could easily carry him around in a single arm. He knows, because Bruce carried Dick around a lot when he was younger, and that’s not even counting their time as Batman and Robin. Dick is very affectionate, once they get past all the rough feelings and emotions at the beginning. And one of his favorite ways of showing said affection is clinging onto him.
Dick would be sitting on his shoulders as he worked in his study rambling about his day. Sometimes, he’d even hang upside down, despite the many times Bruce had told him off, not wanting him to slip and fall on his head. Often Bruce would carry a tired Dick up to his room and tuck him in, whether he was faking being asleep or not, Bruce keeps to himself. One time, he even had to carry him around while they were out because he had just gotten new shoes and there were puddles everywhere—not that the cleanliness of said shoes lasted much longer anyway.
“You good, B?” Bruce was snapped out of his thought by Dick who shifted in his hold. Instinctively, Bruce tightened his hold onto the boy, not wanting to let go. “B?” Dick looked up at him.
“You are on timeout,” Bruce declared.
“What?!” Dick exclaimed.
Bruce shook his head, feigning disappointment, “I’ve told you many times before, son. No chandelier swinging. Come on then.” He started walking away from the crowd, despite Dick’s protests of, “I am 26! You can’t put me on timeout!” and “I can walk! I’m not a child!”
He isn’t. But Bruce would still like to keep Dick in his arms for a bit longer.