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There is a madman at the door.
Alfred is sure their uninvited guest must classify as such, given the way that they were banging at the mahogany with such unwavering vigor that he isn’t quite sure it can take much more before it gives way altogether.
And they had just reinforced it, too!
Alfred pauses in the hallway, a hairsbreadth from the large double-doors keeping out whoever has deigned it so deeply urgent as to barge their way into the manor at 3am.
He had peeked at the cameras before making his way up from the Batcave, of course, and the sight of a lone man hunched on the porch dripping from the now subsiding rain had not borne an image that struck fear in his heart, surely. But the fact that the man had made it all that way without tripping any of their alarms or boobytraps… now that was cause for concern.
Still. Alfred has run the secondary sweeps. The man was alone. Clearly distressed and likely in need of rescue of some sort. And if this were to be an attempt to break into the manor, well, Master Dick was seconds from making his way up in his civilian clothes and Alfred's favourite shotgun was out of sight but well within reach.
They could risk it.
“What,” he says as the door swings open, “pray tell, is the urgency at this hour?”
The man does not answer, rushing past him and inside, slamming the doors shut behind him. Quite rude. Which Alfred was just about to point out when the sight of the intruder’s face gives him pause.
The scars were the first to draw his attention, thin white lines running across his face. Then the hair, the patch of grey poking out the front unnaturally. The scrunch of the nose, the tilt of his chin, so unfathomably unfamiliar.
The eyes were what truly sealed the deal. A deep blue under the glaze of unshed tears and what felt like a touch of insanity. Alfred followed their erratic movements as they scanned the room, and a thought flashed in his mind that surely could not be any saner than the stranger standing in front of him.
Surely. That was impossible. This tall, broad, nervous wreck of a man could not possibly be the spirited young boy whose name comes to mind.
Surely.
“Hey Alfie,” the familiar stranger says, voice hoarse with emotion or perhaps disuse. Alfred tears his gaze subtly away from those desperate eyes and to the figure of Master Dick frozen mere steps away. The shadows hide his face but Alfred wagers it must be marred by the same shock-horror-disbelief churning inside his own heart. “Been a while.”
No.
“What is the meaning of this?”
His tone betrays him, coming out more devastated than admonishing. He is losing his touch, his mind, he is walking around in some twisted dream that he will wake from shaking and haunted.
“It’s me, Alf,” the ghost says, hands clutched tightly around an oddly-shaped lump under his worn leather jacket. “It’s me .”
“No.”
Master Dick seems to have finally found his voice.
“This isn’t real.”
Only to reiterate what Alfred himself is thinking. After all, if this is a dream as he supposes, Master Dick is but a figment of subconscious mind.
The stranger whirls around just in time to deflect the punch Master Dick throws his way. Perhaps, he considers, this may not be a dream. No part of him wishes to see his boys fight each other.
“Dick, please! ” The stranger begs, shielding himself with one hand while the other still supports whatever he is hiding under his jacket. A bomb? Could this be a tactic to distract them long enough to detonate an explosive, hence taking out whoever was present in the manor at the time? “Listen to me!”
“Who the fuck are you?”
Master Dick shoves the intruder into the wall, hard enough to make a normal man see stars, but the stranger doesn’t seem quite as winded, his arms shooting up to grab at Dick’s fingers that have wrapped tightly around his throat.
Whatever it is the man- boy? -had been clutching onto is dislodged in the struggle, crashing into the carpet with a muffled thud.
Well.
That is certainly not a bomb.
^-^
Dick is having a very bad day even before a toddler tries to bite his ankles off.
His case at the precinct had hit a dead-end weeks ago and even leads he ran as Nightwing fizzled out one after the other. He was already at his rope’s end when he’d entered a warehouse and tripped off a fucking trap that had Tim, of all people, coming to his rescue.
Could he have taken the two dozen heavily armed thugs himself? Debateable. But Tim should still have the fucking decency to let him try. He would rather not be saved by his baby brother who still had a bedtime, thank you very much.
The point being-
Dick was having a bad day when they got the alert that some asshole had managed to make it all the way to the front door undetected and was trying to break the thing down. Alfred had suggested opening the door and politely asking the guy to get lost, a plan that Dick didn’t quite agree with, but had followed anyway. Just felt quicker.
After ordering Tim to maintain cover in the cave, of course.
Which likely meant the boy was probably hunched over in front of the monitor, cackling at the absolute tragedy going down in Dick’s life right there in the entryway.
“AAAAAAAAAAA!” was all he heard as the toddler that seemed to have appeared from under the stranger’s coat- he’d assumed it was a weapon or a bomb because who the fuck expects a murderous baby -lunged at his ankle, teeth digging into the flesh deep enough to draw blood.
He didn’t know kids could bite that hard.
“Motherfucker!”
He is not usually one to swear in front of children. Alas. Special circumstances.
He kicks out in the air. The kid does not dislodge, leaving him no choice but to let go of the imposter to try to pull the toddler away. He is Nightwing, for fuck’s sake, how is he being bested by a baby right now?
“Dami, no!” the intruder yells, and god does he sound like- no, but he couldn’t be. It couldn’t be him. Still, the intruder makes no attempts to run, to hit, to kill, only twisting an arm around the kid and pulling him away. The kid, surprisingly, lets go, blood dripping down his little chin in a scene out of a horror movie. “He’s not hurting me! It’s okay!”
The man, the boy , pulls the kid close, whispering broken Arabic in his ear. The toddler squirms and glares but settles after a moment, burying his face in- fuck. In Jason’s neck. Because this tall, burly almost-man is Jason. Isn’t he?
Dick could never forget those eyes, not when they frequent his nightmares so often still.
“Please just listen,” the memory of his brother begs, on his knees with his back against the wall. Cornered and scared and clutching the child like a lifeline. “It’s me! It’s Jason! Dick you have to believe me , I’m alive!”
“You died.” He doesn’t mean to deny Jason’s claims. He’s merely going over the facts. “We buried you. Your grave is in the backyard.”
“And it’s empty.”
Jason glares daggers at him, the fear giving way to a defiant anger.
If this truly is his little brother, come back to life years after his death, Dick can understand the anger. He may even be able to accept it. If Jason’s grave truly is empty and none of them noticed… Anger is not the only ugly emotion he would understand Jason holding against them.
Against Bruce.
Oh god, they had to tell Bruce.
Would Tim have called him already? Would Batman have abandoned the stakeout to rush home and witness the spectacle that was his dead son, crawled out of his own grave. With a child at his hip no less.
“Who’s the kid?”
Perhaps he should ask the simpler questions first.
“Our brother.”
Nevermind. Back to the undead.
“Tell me something.”
“What?”
“Something only Jason would know, duh.”
The toddler is babbling. Or maybe he’s speaking actual words and Dick just doesn’t understand baby-speak in Arabic. Jason’s lips curl into a soft smile, he buries his chin in the kid’s fluffy hair. In that moment, he almost looks like he did when they lost him.
But not quite.
“You did my homework all wrong.”
Dick’s breath hitches.
“It was the first time you ever came back to the manor after I moved in. You were just grabbing some stuff, avoiding Bruce cause you were still mad at him, and you found me struggling with math homework in the library. You helped me with the worksheet but you got the formula wrong and I got a D. I’d never seen Bruce laugh the way he did when I told him.”
He’s alive. It’s real.
He’s crashing into Jason before he even knows he’s moved, arms wrapping around those broad shoulders- when did he get so big -and pulling his brother tight against his chest. There’s tears streaming down his face and he hears a string of desperate ‘you’re alive’s slip through his lips as he takes it all in.
His brother. Alive. Jason was alive.
“How?”
“The league. They wanted leverage on Bruce. They thought they could turn me against him. But I couldn’t betray you .”
Dick pulls away, just enough to study his brother’s face as he takes in the information. Marks the hint of green in Jason’s once clear blue eyes that he'd thought was a trick of the light before.
“Ra’s took you? He used the Pit?”
“He and Talia wanted to use me. To influence Bruce. They wanted me to hurt him, but they also wanted me to be a bargaining chip. I didn’t understand their plans. I just knew I had to get home. Especially when I found out about Damian.”
Dick looks down at the child.
“Damian?”
His eyes find Jason’s again and he pulls away, ignoring the twinge in his heart as he frees his brother, his brother, from his own death grip to take in the duo.
Jason sits up, holds out the toddler, presenting him to Dick and Alfred like that scene from Lion King.
“Dick, Alfred, meet Damian Al Ghul! He's Bruce’s son. Damian, say hi!”
“Die!” the kid screeches, Dick's blood caking over the tiny chin and all.
“Sorry. We're still working on his vocab, he only knows like three words.”
And one of them is die…
Dick blinks back his horror. Glances at Alfred who seems finally shaken from his surprise enough to step closer.
“This child… is Master Bruce’s son?” Alfred asks, right as Dick screeches, “Bruce had a kid with Talia Al Ghul!?”
“Surprise!”
Jason’s timing is impeccable because there Bruce is, frozen in the hallway staring like he's seen a ghost. Surprise indeed.
^-^
Tim never met Jason when he was alive.
They both went to Gotham Academy but the age difference was just enough that their paths never crossed. He'd always watched the older boy from afar, admiring the second Robin out on the streets and Bruce Wayne’s youngest ward at school.
Jason Todd had always left Tim Drake a little starstruck even before he'd come back from the dead a whole head taller and built like a gym rat. It was like seeing a celebrity from another country pop-up in your hometown! Tim could not stop staring.
Neither could Bruce, but for entirely different reasons.
The Batman was still in uniform, cowl abandoned and gaze trained on Jason and the baby so intensely that it was making even Tim uncomfortable, while Alfred ran two DNA tests.
No one said a word as they waited for confirmation that Bruce's sons had truly come home.
Bruce's sons.
Tim couldn't help but wonder what this would mean for his own standing in this patchwork family.
The adoption paperwork was all signed and ready but would Bruce even file it anymore? Now that Jason had returned he didn't need Tim to be Robin. The manor was big enough for four sons but was Bruce's heart?
It scared him, the possibility that the answer would not be a resounding yes.
The Batcomputer dinged with the results. Everyone stared with bated breaths as the two screens loaded at the same time.
POSITIVE MATCH
Jason was alive. Bruce had a three-year-old blood son with Talia Al Ghul of all people.
Tim may have to move back to the Drake Manor tonight.
“He's really yours,” Dick says, voice tainted with awe and disbelief.
“You thought I was lying?”
“I thought Bruce knew better, given the five million lectures he's given me about using protection and not sleeping with supervillains.”
Bruce made no move to defend himself, instead, finally stepping up to Jason and holding his arms out.
“Can I?”
Tim had never heard Bruce so scared, so unsure of himself.
Jason lets Bruce take the kid. Damian fusses instantly, not too keen on being held by anyone else, but doesn't manage to escape Bruce's arms as they hold him close, cradling him so gingerly as if he was a newborn instead of a very vicious toddler.
Jason had wiped the blood off his face but the hint of red was still clear on his little lips.
“Hello Damian,” Bruce buries his face in that fluffy head of hair, devastated beyond all reason. “I'm your dad. It's so nice to meet you.”
Damian, despite all signs of the on-coming tantrum, settles into the hug. One arm reaches out, grabs Jason by the jacket and pulls him into the huddle as Bruce holds onto his sons like they might disappear any moment.
Would his parents have held him like that, if they were to make a miraculous return? Tim doubts it.
“I'm so glad you are both home.”
And Tim must be so cruel and ugly, deep inside, because he finds he doesn't share in the sentiment.
^-^
For all the huffing and staring and grandstanding of moments before, Bruce clings to Jason once the DNA tests come in. Dick can understand their father's apprehension. Their lives are full of cruelty and violence, so a blessing like this is hard to accept as being real.
Not that it comes without its catch.
“The League might already be here.” Jason twitches, the green deepening in his eyes. Dick had read about Pit Madness in Bruce's files, but this was nothing like he'd imagined it. His brother seemed almost sane. “There’s no way Gotham isn't their first stop on that retrieval tour. They may have let it go if it was just me but… they'd never give up Damian.”
Dick eyes Bruce, who is looking back at him. They reach an understanding. The look in Bruce’s eyes shifts from wonder and sadness to the steely focus of Batman getting into a new case. They reach an unspoken understanding.
Bruce passes baby Damian to Dick, kneeling in front of Jason’s hunched form. Dick takes a moment to be relieved at how well Bruce is handling all this so far. He’d known having Tim around had helped settle Bruce’s more brutish attitudes, but it was only natural to worry that reliving the trauma of Jason’s death would bring out that darker side of him.
This Batman has learned from his losses, has put in the work to be a better father. Bruce, as he is now, may still be far from perfect but he could be the support Jason needs. Any Bruce would fight the League for his sons. But this Bruce had the capacity to fight his son’s anxieties too.
It was a wonder, truly.
“Ahki?”
Damian squirms in his arms, head tilted at an angle that is absolutely not natural as he glares in Jason’s general direction.
“Ahki!”
More squirming and pointing, Dick tightens his grip as Damian attempts another escape. Ahki? He’s pretty sure that means brother, so Damian must understand who Jason is to him. At least the kid doesn’t think he was just kidnapped by a random stranger.
“You want your brother?” He is not going to disrespect his newest baby brother by butchering the child’s native tongue on their first meeting. Better to just hope Damian has grown used to hearing English being around Jason. “He’s talking to our dad right now, buddy.”
Damian whirls his head to glare at him, almost as if he understands and is mad about it.
“Ahki!”
“I’m your brother too, you know! I’m your oldest brother and I bet I’ll be your favourite when I get some ice cream in your hands. Have you ever had ice cream, Dami?”
The kid’s eyes narrow. Dick never knew babies could be so suspicious. But maybe that’s just what happens when a kid is raised by evil assassins.
“There’s a phenomenal tub of cookies and cream in the freezer upstairs you know, I can get it for us.”
Damian smacks him right in the face for his troubles. Apparently, bribery does not work with baby assassins. Or he just has no clue what Dick is saying, though Dick’s finding that harder to believe the longer Damian glares.
God this kid is so cute.
“I do not believe giving ice cream to babies is ideal, Master Grayson.”
“Alfie, it's fine! He clearly doesn’t want it anyway.”
Another smack to the face and Dick has to hold Damian away from his person, just in case the kid starts biting again. Damian harrumphs very cutely, yelling for Jason again. Dick eyes the two-man huddle for a second before making the tactical decision to move away just in case Damian’s tantrum interrupts Jason and Bruce’s heart-to-heart.
Damian probably won’t remember that he was ignored when he’s older anyways. It was fine. Plus, there were other brothers for him to get to know. Dick was not going to let Jason stay in the position of favourite older brother very long. If bribery via delicious frozen treats doesn’t work, then he’ll figure out something else.
In the meantime.
“Anyways, you are a very lucky kid, Damian. Cause you’ve got not one, not even two, but three older brothers! Isn’t that cool! Timmy, come meet your baby brother!”
Tim had been shrinking into himself since the results came out. Dick had noticed right away but his focus had been directed solely at Jason and Bruce so he hadn’t dared budge from his spot until he knew things would be okay with them. Now, though, Bruce had the parenting covered and Dick had an adorable baby to hopefully cure whatever depressive spiral Tim was about to deep dive into.
That boy had a list of insecurities a mile long, it worried Dick.
Tim seems to shake himself out of thought as Dick approaches, arms curling around himself and eyeing Damian nervously.
“Um,” Tim says, turning pale. “Me? You want him to meet me?”
“Tim. You just got promoted from youngest brother to middle child. Don’t look so disheartened.”
“Hello? How is middle child better than the baby? Everyone knows middle children get fucked!”
“Language!”
“It’s the truth! That baby is a usurper!”
Tim said it as a joke but Dick could tell he was genuinely worried about it. Not that he had any reason to be, Bruce adored Tim and there was no way any of this would change Tim’s position as Robin or Bruce’s son.
Bruce did not have a panic attack in Dick’s voicemail about not wanting to screw-up a third kid just days ago for him to turn back on this now.
“The baby-” Dick’s shoving Damian at Tim before he can realise what’s happening. “-is a baby. Shut up and hold your brother. I gotta scan the CCTV footage to see if there’s any signs of the League around town.”
“Isn’t Alfred doing that- ouch!”
Well, at least Dick isn’t the only one to get hit tonight.
“Hey Damian,” He hears Tim whisper behind him, careful to keep his eyes on the Batcomputer so as not to spook his baby brothers. “Guess I’m an older brother now. That’s… kinda really weird, huh?”
Dick smiles, glances again at Bruce whispering to Jason promises to never fail him again.
His brothers were home. Their family was whole again. Whatever else may come, they’d be okay.