Title: Another Life
Summary: Let us consider the five lives that Bruce and his children never had and never would have; if not for a writer's curious imaginings. Minor pairings. Heavy AU. Requested by Rose Midnight Moonlighht Black.
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, references to various series or franchise materials. I make no money (but do get some pleasure) out of writing this, so do not sue me, please.
Warning: One-shot drabbles, minor slash, crossings of various other fandoms (if you can spot them). AU very much in the play of all. Minor Batman Beyond crossover, but it's just one character so, heh.
Dedication: Who else but Rose Midnight Moonlight Black? Though I would like her to request something other than that with the Batclan, I must admit that she's giving me a run for my money trying to constantly come up with somewhat new ideas. I don't think anyone has ever considered the gun-toting-Bruce in JLU, so hey, fertile ground.
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I too
Have sailed the world and seen its wonders…
-Sweeney Todd.
Red-:-After the Regime-:-JLU Crossover-:-
It was official and finite. The government as managed for the last three-quarters of a century by a madman going by the name of Vandal Savage had ended. America was, for the moment—as with the rest of the world—safe.
Bruce had celebrated the first day of the resolution of freedom with bringing all of the outcasts without a place to go to his family home and setting a high school-like bonfire in the driveway to roast marshmallows over the burning posters and books with anything even considered of Vandal Savage. Bruce had smiled widely when Alfred had been there to greet them—that eye patch he'd had to wear since five years earlier clean and in perfect position—with the manor perfectly clean and a small buffet set out in the dining area.
The Guardian of Gotham now sat in his father's old study, looking at the gun he had carried around for the better part of the last decade—the only one he'd managed to keep with him the whole time he had been fighting—with his hands held together under his chin. He wasn't quite sure what to do with it now that the battle was over and he no longer had to use it. He could give it to the new chief of police; that Gordon fellow could use it for the armory he was starting up for the cops he was only just beginning to hire as there would sooner than later be need of a police force for the renegades that would take this new freedom too far at some point.
The door to the room opened up a silver, gleaming, beautiful light streaming in as if it was condensed of angel hair. Bruce tilted his head up, the permanent bags of exhaustion under his eyes causing more shadows to form along the lines of his cheekbones as the door widened even more and his three youngest sons could be seen, still wearing black as they had for as long as they had been born, except Tallant, whom at least wore a white ribbon to tie up his low ponytail—the same ribbon Damian had gotten for him not long after his tenth birthday and he'd almost killed a man.
"Hey, dad," Terry greeted, head bowing down once at the of the code of respect that Damian had drilled in him since taking him under his wing and watching Alfred, Bruce supposed, "What are you doing in here all by yourself? Tim and Annie are necking like Dick and Babs and we need someone to tell them off. Alfred won't do it, so we thought that you might. Please?"
"Yes, Father, please?" Tallant begged, stepping in beside Terry, both grabbing the head of household's arm, yanking him up and out of his chair. Their equal looks of pleasant youth showing through the tough layers they had built up during the fight against oppression.
"It's gross," Damian chimed in at last, nose crinkled, "Make them stop."
Bruce sighed to suppress a laugh, rolling his eyes.
Damian shut the door once the other two pulled Bruce out and the gun was left alone in the dark.
Blue-:-Before the Winter Frost-:-Elseworlds Crossover-:-
"Jack?"
White skinned and green haired with a half of a chicken salad sandwich stuck in his mouth, The Jester, Gotham's perhaps best vigilante, perhaps not, looked up from working on his bullet impaled driver door of his odd looking car-thing and over to Damian, Terry wrapped up in his blue baby clothes and wiggling in his big—and he was big at over six feet for a seventeen year old, yeesh—brother's arms; Damian with a troubled look. The bruise he'd received from Talon the other evening on the underside of his chin was starting to turn the color of the grayish-blue birds in town that were starting to fly south before October came around to douse them.
Opening his crimson mouth a little wider, the sandwich landed in his least grease and rust covered right hand and he smiled at the teen that his daughter Duela was starting to get used to, the teen Selina had brought to him after Damian had nearly been killed by his twin Tallant by Owlman's orders, "Yes, Dami? Something you need?"
The blue eyed boy struggled to get Terry down off his shoulder and back into his arms, still talking to the man who he trusted by now, (at least, more than he trusted Lex), "I was wondering if you could watch Terry while I run to the market? We're out of diapers and formula and I know if I wait until Selina comes to loan me the car he'll have soiled this one he's wearing and I don't want him getting diaper rash again."
He said it like it was an annoyance, but years of living around his daughter and Selina and Pam had taught him how to catch hold of the tone of voice that gave away that Damian really did care that his brother shouldn't have to suffer any discomfort. Jack didn't show it, taking the sandwich back in his mouth and chewing it whole to avoid smiling, but he was happy the teen took such responsibility in his baby brother's welfare—more than he cared about his own welfare even.
Jack tucked in his oil stained blue button-up shirt and then held out his arms to accept the curious toddler. Damian handed him over gratefully and bolted for the backdoor to the hideout, promising to be quick and to buy Jack some of those chocolate eggs, to replace the ones Terry had gotten into, for a thanks.
Jack did smile that time—without his teeth showing—and looked down at Terry, the little one reaching up to grab the man's nose.
"Got my nose, eh?" The Jester smirked, voice distorted when Terry squeezed his prize.
Yellow-:-Greased Lightning-:-Flash Crossover-:-
"Dami and Irey sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!"
"First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes—"
"The three of you being grounded from patrol if you don't knock that off right now."
Tallant and Terry went perfectly stiff, still leaning on the West's front porch veranda siding, but Jai turned around, the lean muscles of his arms rippling in the motion as he looked at Bruce Wayne standing in the doorway, looking irate and brooding as ever.
"I don't go on patrol with you guys…"
Bruce gave him a glare at a third of its usual strength. Jai snapped his jaw shut and almost took off the end of his tongue.
Damian and Irey had moved down the block to go on their date and the three brunettes on the porch were left with nothing to do as Bruce went back into the West residence as Wally begged for help trying to fix the TV so they could set up for the Super Bowl before the Supers got there.
Tallant flipped his bangs out of his eyes and nudged Jai in the ribs to get his attention, "Would it be too much to ask if I was allowed to forgo your plans to stalk your sister and my sibling so I could help your mother with the cooking before the others get here and gorge on cold popcorn?"
"What?" Jai looked crestfallen, "But you were supposed to come with us and help us harass them at the theater during that stupid chick flick when your brother tries to slip his tongue down my sister's throat!"
Tallant fiddled with his yellow T-shirt (he had never hated a color so much in his life as when his father insisted he wear something normal to an activity that wearing his usual three piece suit to would be seen as awkward) and tried not to let his face contort at the image Jai had presented that would doubtlessly be the fuel for some of his social nightmares. He would not feel guilty, though.
"Your mother is currently being waded down by the chore of feeding a flock of people that will be yelling at a screen of men dressed in tights without the perk of crime fighting all evening. Plus, she has to make extra food for that bottomless pit you call your father. As her guest—and apparently, as Terry is obviously still going with you—"
"Hell, yeah. I bought the supplies and I'm not wasting them."
"It's my polite duty to help her out."
"But-but-but," Jai started, though was cut off as Tallant walked into the house, completely ignoring the speedster. He did, however, call over his shoulder, "Have fun tormenting the slobbering idiots. I'll be here making cookies."
Terry patted the slightly taller boy sympathetically on the shoulder as the sounds of Dick and Tim came through the door, hurting their ears in the process, "What the hell was that? That was a foul! Do over! Do over!"
As Jai picked Terry up bridal style, the Batclan's youngest son caught the tail-end of Jason shouting with Wally, "Yes! Yes! We believed in you all along, you gorgeous bastard!"
And they were off in a speed of blurred and colored lines to go make Damian wish to kill them and make Irey wish she had better control over gushing at how brave and strong Damian was after sessions of their lips and body fluids mixing.
Now they would have their revenge. Insert evil, supervillain laughter.
Black-:-Music of the Night of Some 1800-:-Leroux Crossover-:-
The color that God distained and perhaps would have once regretted making once he realized what misery it brought to the world stained the cloak upon Bruce's shoulders as he walked the grounds of the Gotham cemetery; the black a stark, cruel contrast to the snow falling and settled beneath his feet.
The blue rose with its thorny black stem, decorated with a single red ribbon with frayed and burnt edges, stood gaunt in his cold skinned hand, but the richest man in Gotham, director and owner of the Black Wings Opera House, paid no mind to it at all. Not even to the feel of two of the sharp, needle thin thorns nipping his palm.
He came to the edge of the boneyard.
His massive shadow was pointed in the direction opposite of the grave he came to a rest before, bending down to one knee; his hand not holding the rose coming up to brush away the fuzzy bits of snow clinging to the carved and routed name of his youngest son in sad grey granite. The snow melted on his fingers and his eyes read over the words, 'Terry McGinnis: Beloved Son and a Light In Dark Times. All Will Miss Him.'
If anyone were watching, they would have seen Bruce's lips whisper a silent word to the winds and to the honored dead all around, trees and ivy around the spiked black gates whispering themselves in the wind back at him. It was sad that Bruce didn't want to be there, but it was the way things were since he had become rather alone.
Words gone and unwanted feelings laid asunder on and in his soul like ash from the fire that had swallowed his son up three years ago because of a madman with a chilling voice and ruby lips, Bruce laid the flower atop the granite slab. It tried to roll of once.
Leaving the cemetery, a blaze in his eyes, flame dead in his soul, the gates to the entrance clanged and bellowed out across the open expanse of lifeless land.
Five minutes.
A branch on the far end of the tree that overlooked Terry's grave, small and week with little nutritional value reaching it through the years; broke off from the host body. Attached to it and landing perfectly, were two men that looked quite similar to Bruce, save for their skin of that of the Arabians and less groomed hair. The seemingly older of the two, dressed in Broken Merry-Go-Round Blue and with mottled skin around his right eye that spread out and was deep enough that if someone looked closely they could see his cheekbone—the actual bone, yellowed over the years from healing without skin to cover it—glared up at the tree. He didn't start grinding his teeth, though. He didn't want to spook his twin.
Said twin, hair still covering the side of his face as though in shame and embarrassment—despite having no deformities of his own thereupon his facial flesh—walked over to the grave, his cloak of Typhus Reflective Purple (held color of royalty, despite no longer calling himself part of the family of Al Ghul since Terry's death) folding over the skin pink roses he had paid for when Damian had pulled him forcefully from the confines of his basement of the house Tallant had built to help him grieve.
White-:-Mothers Know Best-:-Gotham City Sirens Crossover-:-
"With respect," Ivy started toward Selina, her own ears pricking backwards over her shoulder at the sound of Harley trying to keep up with the slightly older and more experienced women, having one hell of a hard time; the roots and dirt and nettles under their feet tried to clutch at their ankles and clothing in passing, bright red tree leaves overhanging and seemingly black in the night, "You said that we would get to your spare hideout an hour ago. Don't tell me you've forgotten the way."
The screeching of newly made wooden wheels grating over old metal and warped wood croaked and carried whispers of a drag from the far rear. The hyena's that the women had brought with them on this crazy farce—Harley had not stopped begging for five hours; but it paid off to have them in the end—followed the women, tied and harnessed to a wheel barrow the size of a Chinese rickshaw. Batman was injured and unconscious, so the animals paid no mind to him as they carried him along in a fashion similar to their mistress and her friends carrying a squirming bundle each within their arms.
Selina growled at the head of the line, the blue eyed boy in her arms—"Tea-Ar-Ie" as the markings on his crib had read, but Selina simply decided to go with Terry—that could not be more than ten months old gurgled at her noise, but then went back to cuddling her chest, his tiny feet inside his blue blanket wiggling and settling on the small bulge that had become Selina's stomach with child in the last four months, "We arealmost there. Just up this hill and past the little creek and we'll be at that abandoned farmhouse. Probably still crawling with mice, but it's better than walking all night."
Within Ivy's own arms, the little angel whose name Ivy only had barely been able to read before she'd had to jump out the window to get away from fifteen of Talia Al Ghul's frickin' ninjas—Tallant, a pretty name, the plant lover supposed—wiggled and sighed a warm breath against the annoyed redhead. She smiled down at him as he looked up at her, his amber eyes reflecting her green beautifully—so like Indian botanical hybrids—before he gave a heavy yawn and easily went back to sleep.
They trotted up the hill and looked down into the expanse of woodland that would serve to keep their safety. Down below, there was a small creek, the one Selina had mentioned and it reflected the full, bright white moon above their heads, flowing and waxing like veins in an arm.
The cart the hyenas brought along, Dark Knight still stable and on board, stopped beside Harley, but the hermaphrodites—though these two were males and had everything in order—of the animal world didn't try to get her attention. They seemed, more likely, to be more interested in Batman, considering Harley was too busy trying to deal with the most finicky of the three boys. Damian, as Harley had decided to call him since she couldn't read the marks on the crib (more than a few syllables) before she had to run down the tiered stairs when some fat-ass guard with an axe tried to catch her, had not stopped moving around in his blanket, making mean noises and pulling at her hair, since the women had started walking when their car died in the middle of a city whose name none of them could pronounce. Ivy and Selina had tried to trade off with her—give her a break, for God's sake—but each time they tried, the brat started shrieking.
"Let's just get there so we can wake up Batsy and tell him 'Congrats, you're a daddy' and let him take care of the kids," Harley whined, Damian getting his right arm out again from the folds of his blanket to grab her yellow hair and pulled as hard as he could. She looked over at Batman and bared her teeth.
The feeling was mutual among the Gotham City Sirens, each giving a darker look than the other at the unconscious, unwitting individual in the cart.
They continued onward.