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The day Batman left, expectations hung as heavy as the tension was thick.
Some watched on, convinced the shadowy hero would change his mind - forgoing the mission at hand to remain by his new husband’s side. Most expected Nightwing to weep as the ship took off, begging Bruce to stay - even if Batman was beyond hearing range.
No such reaction occurred, of course. Not when Bruce and Dick knew just how crucial this mission would be to stop an interplanetary massacre. If Tim’s pouting the night before hadn’t convinced either older hero that staying was the best option, the bubble of emotion in their parting moments wouldn’t, either.
“Don’t worry, Wing,” Clark said softly, resting his hand on Nightwing’s shoulder.
There was a growing sense of melancholy as they gazed towards the stars. A sting of regret ricocheted from the vast, beautiful array of colours and lights that Bruce had drifted into mere minutes prior. Regret which had Dick scolding himself quickly, for the tiniest jolts of selfishness stung. Not that anyone could blame Dick for feeling hard done by. His husband of not even six months was currently heading a Galaxy away - putting his life at risk in the process.
At face value, Bruce was leaving him with a city to protect, a company to watch over (with the help of Lucius), and a son to look after. But there was so much more at stake than that. Gotham was a kingdom more than a city. An expansive empire run by two sets of royalty - Batman and Nightwing and the two Grayson-Waynes. With such dual power, leaving Dick in charge meant passing him responsibility and danger. Vultures would sweep into the city in an instant, aiming to steal the throne by Dick’s side any way they could. Luckily, Batman’s only temporary leave would ward most off. For now.
“He’ll be fine. Two months will pass quicker than you know it,” Superman offered but paused upon sensing the nineteen-year-old’s unease. “We’re all here to help you with Gotham, and J’onn will pretend to be Bruce whenever he needs to. We’re your family, Dick. Plus, you’re always welcome at the farm if you, Alfred, and Tim need a break.”
Nightwing turned his head to smile at Clark, although it looked strained. “Thanks, Kal. I’ll keep that in mind. I’m sure Alfie would love to see Ma and Pa again soon.”
Superman pulled the younger hero into a one-armed hug, Dick’s head resting on his shoulder as they stared into the vast solar system. Even in the company of a man he considered something between a brother and an uncle, Dick couldn’t help but feel a cold, clawing sense of loneliness. It took all of Dick’s willpower to remind himself that two months was nothing compared to the future they’d have together. Decades, if they were lucky. Years of not.
Clark didn’t acknowledge the singular, silent tear that ran down Dick’s cheek, nor the three words he whimpered softly; self-assuring and heartfelt.
“Just two months.”
The other heroes were avoiding him.
Dick could tell by their awkward shuffles and tense shoulders. Nobody would look at him, their vision trained elsewhere, even when speaking directly to the acrobat. But it was better than the pitying glances and whispered condolences he now received from those closest to him.
They were acting as if Batman was dead. As if Bruce wasn’t ever going to return. As if… As if he was a widow.
And so, he sought an escape. The presence of someone he’d spent many a cold Gotham night fighting both alongside and with. A good friend, a fiery ex, and a capable ally.
But it appeared like she wouldn’t be much of an escape at all.
“No,” Dick refused, shaking his head. He tore a set of printed, detailed plans to shreds, using a fair bit more force than strictly necessary.
“It’s just an example, Boy Blunder,” Oracle huffed, holding out a small desk trashcan for the paper fragments.
Nightwing fought the urge to react furiously, sucking in a deep breath. “He isn’t gone. This isn’t necessary.”
“You can’t keep playing both Batman and Nightwing,” Barbara countered, pulling up a digital copy of the plan on her closest computer screen. “This way, Batman will continue to live on, but Nightwing won’t die, either.”
Gotham’s heroes had changed a lot lately. Oracle was a recent development, and Tim’s version of Robin had only hit the streets weeks before Bruce left. Dick was running himself ragged, switching between two suits and personas, and it wasn’t fooling anyone anymore. People were beginning to suspect that Batman was gone and were acting out because of it. Sure, the city still had Batwoman, but they were down a Bat and up to their necks in crime. Not to mention that with every passing day, hope in the Bat symbol was diminishing.
If something didn’t change soon, things would go south quickly.
Barbara Gordon’s solution was simple - combine Nightwing and Batman’s suits into one. Then Dick could continue to be Nightwing, just with a modified cowl on his head and a blue bat symbol on his chest. Gotham would call him Batman, but the world would know Nightwing’s name.
Dick hated the idea.
“No. That’s my final decision. No.”
Babs sighed, wheeling around to face her dear friend. “It’s been six months, Dick. I’ve done the math. I know the statistics. If he hasn’t returned yet, it’s likely that he won’t ever.”
Something inside Dick broke. He was used to this argument from Wally, Kori, and Clark. From the scattering of Justice League members who had decided to send fruit baskets as condolence packages. Even from Lucius, who had begun shifting assets into his name between reassuring the board that Bruce was just having a midlife crisis (the current story being that he’d joined a cult, which was only vaguely hinted at by the media). Not from Babs.
“You think I don’t know that?” Dick hissed, angry tears streaming down his cheeks. “That the days don’t drag on and on with every added minute he’s away? He’s not dead, Babs. Bruce Wayne wouldn’t die like this. It’s not his destiny.”
Barbara didn’t speak, watching as he bubbled with emotion. Anger, fear, despair, disbelief… He fell apart before her eyes, cracking and crumbling like the prospect of Bruce’s death was an earthquake tearing through his very soul.
Five minutes later, he was sobbing into her lap, unable to halt the choked sobs and glistening tears. Barbara ran her fingers through his hair, staring off into the distance as her heart ached over his suffering.
“I can’t stop hoping, Babs,” he whispered hoarsely through hearty weeps. “If I don’t, then who will?”
She considered his words silently, brushing a strand of hair out of his eyes. Perhaps faith in the Bat symbol wasn’t the only thing the people needed. Maybe, just maybe, it was faith in Bruce, too.
Everything changed upon the one-year mark. It was as if a switch had been flicked, an alarm set off. From the League, there were whispers of a funeral. From others, a gleam of interest twinkled in their eyes. Rumours swirled, tales spread, and news contorted like a muffled game of telephone.
And so, in a matter of hours, the vultures were upon them.
Dick stood within Wayne Manor’s entrance hall, face blank and hands clenching, then loosening, in a tense, repetitive pattern. Tim and Kate sat silently and patiently on a low step of the nearby staircase. All three Bats watched as Alfred paced back and forth, his morning newspaper abandoned on the room’s vintage side table.
It, like every magazine and paper accessible, featured the story of the summer on its front cover. Bruce Wayne had officially been declared missing.
However, unluckily for the Bats, most of the associated articles mentioned Batman, too. Questioning why the hero hadn’t found Gotham’s prince yet, and whether Batman himself was also missing in action.
But Alfred’s focus wasn’t on the stories. Instead, it was on the serge of reporters and suitors flooding the front porch.
Lights flashed from the arch of fortified, explosion-proof glass circling their front door as cameras captured the flower-clutching and present-holding hopefuls darkening their doorstep. Dick twisted the wedding band on his finger, mouth going dry as the knocking and shouts persisted. People he barely knew were here to ‘lessen the pain’, as one man said in a falsely sad Twitter post, tagging Dick and Tim to share his condolences while showing off the bouquet he’d brought. Meaning that everyone from his old classmates to random socialites he met at a gala years prior were using Bruce’s newly reported disappearance as a chance to be the next Brucie Wayne.
“I’ll call Commissioner Gordon,” Tim sighed, resting his head on Kate’s shoulder as he pulled out his phone.
Kate clenched her fists in contained fury, watching as her cousin’s death was overlooked for the prospect of a paycheck. The same suitors weren’t so lucky an hour later, when Kate could no longer contain her anger, snapped a thick, wooden ‘MARRY ME’ sign in half with a single punch, and screamed at the crowd to leave. They ignored her, putting themselves at significant risk of broken limbs, at which point Commissioner Gordon stepped in. He, alongside half the police station, knew that Kate Kane was not one to mess with.
Alfred, on the other hand, turned the sprinklers on a few hours into the mess. In his defence, it was after an extended argument with self-righteous reporters, lust-sick fools, and speaking with the police, which led nowhere. And yet, even jabbing spritzes of water didn’t work. Though some did flee, the other hundred people refused to budge.
It was nearing midnight when the last photographer was escorted off the property, the police having slowly waned the crowd’s numbers upon nightfall. Dick watched from the driveway as her car lights faded into the distance, signalling what should have been the end of a disgustingly long day.
He felt dirty from the attention, yet ignored one in the same. His begs for them to leave were dismissed, but his looks and power drew in lewd gazes and patronising ‘of course he’s not dead’s from the reporters, who ate up the scene greedily. People were taking advantage of what they thought was his husband’s death, and he could do nothing to stop them. It made him feel weak, useless, and infuriated.
But no more angry than he was to see the one and only Deathstroke step from the garden’s shadows.
“Slade,” Dick greeted, crossing his arms with a displeased frown and a severe amount of internal screaming. “What are you doing here?”
He knew the answer already. Slade wasn’t subtle with his attraction, and, unluckily for the mercenary, Dick had been off the market since he’d been allowed on it. First Barbara, Wally, and Koriand’r, then Roy, prior to finally getting together with Bruce. Bruce was his last. Last ever, if Dick had it his way.
Slade, however, wasn’t here to say his condolences. He displayed no falsities of pity or mourning.
“The old Bat’s gone, huh?” He said, looking around at the darkness-flooded front garden, as if searching for a not-so-missing Bruce.
“You’re older than he is,” replied Dick, lips tightening as his shoulders tensed. “And no, B isn’t gone. He’s on an extended mission.”
“One that he should have come back from a long time ago,” Slade snarked, continuing as Dick narrowed his eyes angrily. “I overheard Rose talking about it with that pseudo-daughter of yours, Raven. A year is a lot longer than two months….”
Nightwing shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about this, Slade. What do you want?”
“A chance - a date. One evening. Nothing more if you don’t want it.”
“I can’t. I won’t,” Dick refused, snapping backwards physically. The mere thought churned his stomach - though his disgust didn’t come from the idea of dating the mercenary in a general sense. He’d toyed with the prospect many times years prior. But right now, dating anyone felt like it would be a betrayal of trust. “Bruce isn’t dead, and I will wait for him to return, no matter how long it may take.”
Slade hummed, eying Dick’s expressions. He could see the bubbling of fury and despair beneath the surface as the acrobat spoke. The pure emotion radiating from the young man revealed that he had no chance. “Tell me, is this loyalty or stupidity?”
It wasn’t said with malice. Slade seemed generally intrigued. Dick portrayed himself as an optimist, sure, but he was a realist when it mattered. And now, realistically, Bruce wasn’t coming back. So, was Dick’s certainty out of pure devotion or an inability to believe what was clear? Slade wasn’t sure.
Dick responded with a bite of his own, lips curling up angrily. “If it’s stupid to remain faithful and true to the man I love, I’m the biggest fool there is.”
Deathstroke considered his words slowly, then nodded, the faintest hint of a smile spreading across his face. “I’ve always loved your heart, kid. You’re passionate, and changing that would be changing who you are. When you decide that enough is enough, you know where to find me.”
“Goodnight, Slade,” Dick said emptily, his fury draining away as he turned from the mercenary. He walked up the series of stairs to the front door, not awaiting a response.
Slade watched him disappear into the manor, then turned his gaze to the property’s nighttime city view. He left with a quiet utterance, which no one was around to hear. “If Bruce Wayne really is still alive, I hope he comes back soon. That kid’s falling apart without him.”
Unlike the first anniversary, Alfred was prepared for the stream of suitors who arrived exactly two years after Bruce disappeared.
A custom canon sat upon the balcony overlooking the manor’s front entrance, alongside several buckets of curdled milk. Thanks to a nearby supermarket’s miscalculation of sell-by dates, Alfred had an extensive supply of ammunition on hand.
As Alfred lost his professional facade, cackling as the suitors fled for their clothes’ lives, Dick watched from his window with a smile, sipping a cup of ‘tea’ (anyone who knew him knew it was definitely not tea, but a mug of cereal). As Dick snickered at those who simply shrugged off the concoction until it landed within their purposefully open mouths, Tim scoffed from a few feet away.
He sat on Dick’s bedroom floor with a very large, colourful box in his hands. Shrugging, he tipped a series of puzzle pieces out onto the room’s wooden floorboards, then dusted off his hands dramatically.
“10,000 pieces, no backsies, a whole weekend of entertainment!” Tim declared, gesturing to the large pile of cardboard.
Dick took one look at their weekend plans and winced. “Want to go skateboarding instead?”
Tim’s edge-piece finding effort was abandoned in seconds. “Heck, yes!”
By the fourth year, Bruce Wayne was but a whisper falling from people’s lips. But, like most interesting True Crime stories, his name was plastered across tv specials and documentaries on most streaming platforms. Each one detailed the ‘what may have happened’s of Bruce’s disappearance, all the while speculating on why officials refused to declare him dead.
In those four years, a lot had changed in the lives of those residing within Wayne Manor. First came Jason’s return, which was a messy ordeal, but the frosty barrier between him and his family was melting more every day. Around the same time, Stephanie began ingraining herself in the household’s status quo. First as Tim’s girlfriend, then as his purely platonic bestie (and Dick’s self-proclaimed disaster daughter).
Then came Damian Wayne (now known as Damian Grayson Wayne al Ghul). At first, Damian hadn’t appreciated the presence of any of his siblings, but after becoming rather taken with the Batfamily’s current head (Dick), his grumbles of superiority were saved for arguments only. Cass soon followed in her arrival, taking up the number one spot on Damian’s siblings’ rank. Even after she began dating Stephanie (who was tied last with Tim), Damian didn’t dock her rating.
Speaking of Tim, he was now 16, going under the moniker of Red Robin, and dating Superboy of all people. Dick couldn’t be more pleased. The garden’s statue of Bruce, however, somehow seemed to get even more grumpy whenever Kon turned up at the manor. Alfred wasn’t overly happy with the match, either. Though, that was purely because the farm boy wouldn’t stop tracking mud through his freshly mopped hallways. Otherwise, he was glad that someone else was forcing Tim to get sunlight and sleep.
And Dick… Dick was now 23. He had an ever-growing collection of children, and Gotham had a rotating team of heroes to keep the streets safe. But his time without Bruce wasn’t easy. He still answered every knock, hoping that it would be Bruce. He went on every space mission, just encase he found Batman in another world, unable to remember his life back home. And he hadn’t moved on, no matter how many people pushed him to do so.
Instead, he had grown into someone incredible in his own right. Gotham loved him, as both Richard Grayson-Wayne and Nightwing. Where he once ruled as a king, he was now seen as a god - a deity set on making his people as safe and protected as life would allow. Heroes looked up to him, much like they did Superman. He had friends everywhere, from every stage in life. Villains, heroes, civilians, and those somewhere in between...
And one such friend would be in so much trouble - as soon as Dick found out about his meddling, that is.
“There isn’t a reservation under Constantine?” Dick asked, getting a head shake from the apologetic maitre d’. “Grayson-Wayne, perhaps?”
Humming, the maitre d’ checked their reservation book once more before going to speak. However, they didn’t get a chance, for someone else beat them to it.
“Dick,” a familiar voice called, catching his attention from across the room. Dick pivoted in his spot, gaze settling on the voice’s owner. Sat by the restaurant’s large lobster tank was a woman he knew very well.
He turned back to the maitre d’, nodding gratefully. “That must be my table. Thanks for your help.”
Crossing the room quickly, Dick greeted the woman with a smile but was more than a little miffed. “Zatanna?”
The magician nodded, gesturing towards the seat across from her as Nightwing came to a stop. “In the flesh!”
He took his seat slowly, frowning as he noted that the table was only designed for two. He had a bad feeling about this but didn’t want to jump to any conclusions.
“What are you doing here? I thought I was meeting with John,” asked Dick, looking around for the man in question.
John Constantine was an ex-lover of Dick’s (though their time together was brief and never a true relationship) and a morally ambiguous bother (as Jason liked to put it). But, unlike the other Bats, Dick rather liked Constantine. He found him soothing, which many heroes thought was remarkably odd considering that John was, well, John.
So, when John had demanded that Dick meet him at a restaurant in Bludhaven without any further information (besides a date and time), Dick had shrugged it off. It’s not like this hadn’t happened before. The only difference was that this time John hadn’t shown up…
Zatanna visibly blanched, lips pressing together harshly. “You didn’t… He said….”
Dick frowned, his eyebrows creasing together. “He said what?”
She breathed, a single hand rising to cover her eyes in a motion of complete embarrassment. “He made it seem like you were ready to get back into the dating pool and wanted to ask me out.”
“…Z, I’m sorry, but I can’t-,” he began, face scrunching up apologetically.
She reached out to grab his hand, silencing him quickly. “Hey, no - this isn’t your fault, don’t apologise. I will, however, be making John pay.”
“You and I both,” Dick laughed, relaxing ever so slightly. “How are you, Z? It’s been a while.”
“Oh, you know… highs and lows,” Zatanna replied. “How are you? I heard you’ve inherited Batman’s stray-collecting addiction.”
She spoke teasingly, causing Dick to shake his head with a chuckle. “We’ve been okay… I’ve been okay. Well, I’d be better if people stopped setting me up on random dates.”
Zatanna cringed softly. “Geez, am I not the first?”
“The first this week, maybe,” Nightwing joked. They shared a laugh, breaking up some of the awkwardness that hung heavy in the air. Dick reached for his cup of water as the magician traced a circle on the paper menu, humming absentmindedly.
“You know, It’d be a pity to let good food go unordered and uneaten…,” Zatanna pointed out wistfully.
“You’re absolutely right,” Dick replied, reaching for his own menu. “But this time, let’s go about it like friends.”
Zatanna’s smile was radiant. “Brilliant!”
Many thought that Duke Thomas was the Wayne family’s first ‘good’ kid. They were undoubtedly incorrect, but, in their defence, he was the only one that hadn’t yet been arrested for one thing or another. Damian for his growing collection of Gotham Zoo animals, Steph and Cass for starting a riot in Target, Tim for throwing his coffee at someone getting a little too handsy with Dick, and Jason for, well, being Jason.
What these people didn’t know was that Duke was a writer at heart. Thus, he had a nose for drama and just loved to watch a good fire burn. And right now, an explosion was occurring right before his eyes.
“He’s been gone for more than seven years!” Thomas Wayne Jnr exclaimed, standing at their door with a bouquet of blue and white flowers in one hand and a Talon costume in the other. The outfit looked a fair bit more latex-ey and revealing than Dick remembered the others being, and his responding glare assured Owlman that he was unimpressed with the change.
“So? What makes you think anything has changed between now and the last time you tried this, Thomas?” Dick snarled back.
Duke watched from the sidelines, taking brief notes on their twisting expressions and diverging emotional presentations. Owlman was annoyed, discontent from being rejected yet again, and a little hurt. Nightwing was furious, exasperated, and more than a little tired.
Owlman scowled in response. “I thought you’d have grown out of it.”
“…you were here last week.”
Thomas Jnr only grumbled in reply, which got an eye roll from Dick. In seconds, the front door was slammed in his suitor’s face, and Dick turned to look at Duke.
“If you turn this drama into a cheesy romance novel, I swear to Donna that I will disown you,” Dick said jokingly, getting a snicker from the younger hero.
Half a second later, Jason and Stephanie rounded into the room. Both had heard the rather aggressive slam and wanted to get a good seat for the drama. But, devastatingly for the pair, they’d already missed the start.
“Who was at the door?” Spoiler asked, looking around for any packages or signs of guests. It wouldn’t be the first time a Bat beefed with the mailman.
“Owlman.”
Jason groaned. “Ah fuck, not again. Do I need to grab the spray bottle?”
Duke leaned back to peer through the front door’s surrounding glass arch. “Yeah, he’s grabbing a guita- no! Not the banjo!”
Dick let out a noise of pure distress. “I’m going to go nap; wake me when he’s done serenading our porch.”
The three younger Bats nodded, saluting him in sync. “Aye, aye, Captain!”
When Nightwing awoke to an open wedding ring box held an inch or two in front of his eyes, his responding sigh was loud enough to wake the dead.
“No.”
Penguin frowned, then pouted at the hero he had dangling from his bar’s ceiling. “But-”
“No.”
“It’s been nine years!”
“Yeah.”
“So… you’ll marry me?”
“NO.”
There were voices yelling from downstairs. Even two stories up and half the manor away, they awoke Dick, their shouts echoing into his tightly drawn bedroom. Well, his and Bruce’s bedroom.
Dick sat up with a groan, looking over at his alarm clock. 11:30am, which was pretty late for some. However, Dick hadn’t gotten to bed until nearly 7am after a horribly long night of crime fighting. Unluckily for whoever was making such a ruckus, a tired Dick was scarier than all the Gotham villains combined.
Slipping a robe over his PJs, Dick hurried out of the room and down the extensive hallway, all the while huffing in annoyance. Stopping on the main bifurcated staircase’s landing, Nightwing froze. Slowly, the other Bats piled onto the two split staircase arms behind him.
There, on the tiles below, stood a swarm of concerned heroes who soon fell silent. These heroes parted, letting the man who had caught Dick’s gaze slip through.
“B,” Dick whispered.
Bruce smiled back - something Batman certainly wasn’t known for. “Chum.”
Bruce looked older and worn, but no one was more handsome in Dick’s eyes. Bruce’s black hair now had grey streaks, and the faintest silver lines shimmered softly against his skin. However, his eyes were the same shade of grey-blue, and his stoic expression hadn’t changed in the decade they’d been apart - Dick could still read his every emotion.
Nightwing was in his husband’s arms in a matter of seconds, head nuzzled into his neck and grip tight. Bruce hugged back just as strongly, before leaning back to stare down at his husband’s face.
“You look just as beautiful as the day I left,” Batman whispered, raising his hand to crease Dick’s cheek with his thumb.
A single tear fell from the acrobat’s right eye. “And you…. You look so tired, B. What happened to you? Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
“It’s a long story,” Bruce replied. “I… I was captured and held captive for years. Once I was freed, I led a revolution to stop militaristic rule. I won’t lie and say I wasn’t hurt in the process, but I’m here now. I’m back, Dick. I struggled to say it before I left, but I love you. I love you, and I have never stopped loving you.”
“I love you, too,” Dick said before pulling back with a smile. “And I’ve got a surprise for you.”
He waved the younger Bats downstairs, pausing momentarily to allow Alfred a chance to embrace his pseudo-son. The butler tried to hide his tears behind formalities. Still, it was clear to everyone that the relief he felt was becoming overwhelming.
“What did I tell you when you were a lad? You know which incident I’m thinking of,” Alfred said randomly, eyes boring into his son.
It was a test designed to make sure that this was Bruce. A quick check before the kids (well, they were not kids any longer) were allowed to meet the man they’d been told about through stories of grandeur. Their missing second father.
Alfred and Dick knew this was Bruce. They could feel it in their chests. But they were Bats at heart, and Bats always put safety first. So Alfred cleared his mind - not that any mind reader had gotten past his mental shields in the past (which was a wonder to many) - and awaited a reply.
Bruce thought momentarily, then chortled. “‘It’s your father’s watch, don’t you lose it now.’ The day I punched Elliot for speaking badly of my mother.”
He took his father’s watch everywhere as a good luck charm, including the mission that had been his reckoning. Reaching into his pocket, Bruce pulled out a watch. It had a broken clock face and torn, shredded straps. “It got a little damaged, but I never lost it.”
Dick smiled, laughing through happy tears as Alfred stepped aside, having taken the broken watch carefully. “B, meet Cassandra and Stephanie. Cass is our adopted daughter, and Steph is her fiancé.”
“Daughters,” Bruce mumbled, voice a little breathless. “I always wanted a daughter. Now I have two.”
“Howdy, B-man,” Steph said as Cass waved silently. “Just so you know, I totalled some of your cars.”
Dick’s eyes widened, laughing nervously and Cass facepalmed. “Just three, and I’ve had them fixed.”
“Four,” Spoiler corrected. “I had a bit of an accident a few hours back. Oh! And I painted the Batcomputer purple.”
Bruce frowned, looking towards his husband with extreme concern. “Purple?”
Nightwing didn’t respond, shifting his attention to Signal. “This is Duke, our second youngest son.”
Duke smiled awkwardly, holding out his hand, unsure what else to do. “Uh, hi. I’m Duke Thomas.”
“Nice to meet you,” Bruce said, shaking Duke’s hand gently. The teen noted the deep scars crisscrossing Batman’s palm but didn’t point them out. It seemed that Bruce had had a very long decade.
Watching the interaction with internalised glee, Dick gently nudged Damian closer. “And this is Damian. He’s our youngest, but yours biologically, B. Talia had him before we married.”
Turning his gaze towards Damian, Bruce froze. “He has her eyes… He’s mine? Ours?”
Robin stared back at his father, frowning deeply. “I thought you’d be taller. Tati, please tell me Father has shrunk.”
A couple of the watching heroes snickered, getting a glare from all of the present Bats. Bruce’s non-familial welcoming party scattered back to the Batcave near-instantly, where the Zeta-Tubes awaited.
“Damian,” Dick hissed warningly before quickly trying to shift Bruce’s attention yet again. “B, these are-”
“Tim,” Bruce cut his husband off, holding out his arms.
Red Robin quickly swooped into Batman’s embrace, taking advantage of the exceptionally rare opportunity. Bruce wasn’t a hugger, but ten years apart indeed called for a deviation from the norms. Plus, it gave Tim a chance to whisper his ‘I miss you’s and warn him about the skate park he built inside Wayne Tower.
Soon enough, Tim pulled away, leaving only one present family member to greet Bruce.
“Jason,” Batman croaked, no introduction necessary.
It didn’t matter that Jason was now a mammoth of a man, nor that his hair had gained a streak of white. It didn’t matter that his long-dead, smiley little street kid was now dressed like a leather-clad ruler of Gotham’s underworld. This was his child, his son, and a parent could always tell.
“Sup, old man,” Jason said, rubbing his foot on the tiled floor awkwardly. “You gave us quite a scare.”
“How are you alive?” Bruce asked.
Jason shrugged. “I woke up in my coffin, clawed myself to the surface, and then Talia found me. Blah, blah, blah. End of story. We’ll swap traumatic return tales after you tell Dick that he was being extreme in not taking another partner while you were gone.”
The newly returned hero turned to his husband, surprised. “You didn’t find someone else? Not even a lover?”
“A relationship is built on openness, loyalty, and trust. We didn’t have time to discuss whether taking on lovers or flings when we’re apart would be something necessary. So, I couldn’t bare the thought of making that choice without you,” Dick explained seriously, then smiled. “Besides, I trusted you would come back to us eventually, and here you are!”
“I didn’t take on a lover, either,” Bruce admitted. “Of all the people I met, no one was quite like you. No one was even comparable.”
Dick awed softly, then tackled his husband into a passionate kiss. This caused a series of childish 'eww’s to echo from their kids, all of whom were in their late teens or twenties.
“Ugh, I know you missed each other, but please keep your PDA to a minimum in our presence,” Jason groaned, then gaged. “Yuck, parents kissing.”
Nightwing and Batman parted, sending the group of younger Bats and Alfred apologetic looks. Alfred took this brief pause of silence as an opportunity to change the topic slightly. “This calls for a party! How shall we celebrate Master Bruce’s return?”
“Whoop! Heck yeah, let’s go out for celebratory pizza!” Steph suggested, pulling a shiny pair of car keys out of her pocket. “I’ll drive!”
“NO.”