Happily Ever After
He watches the boy sleep.
It's been three days since the rescue. Three days since the joker, since the films, the battle. 3 days and 3 weeks for the boy though.
Bruce watches him sleep, face smooth and untroubled, and wonders idly if the dose was too strong. It had to be done though, no help for it, his small body needed to rest from all the screaming, and retching, and struggling.
Bruce doesn't know what's going to happen next, but for now, it's enough that the boy is here, and the boy is safe now. He sleeps in the chair next to the bed.
The sedatives wear off before dawn, like expected. Bruce is aware before the boy even opens his eyes.
The sight of the boy could break Bruce's heart if he were a weaker man. It almost breaks his heart as it is. There's a quality to his skin now, like paper, a grayish hue so faint it could be your imagination, tinting his otherwise far too pale face. Blue eyes too wide, set too deep after 3 weeks of malnutrition. Harsher without his normal black locks, the buzz cut looks too severe on him, but still, it had to be done. He looks like a cancer patient, like someone preparing to die, not a boy who was just rescued from death.
He wakes up. Bruce watches him wake up, and he watches Bruce watch him. He knows he was drugged, but he doesn't say anything.
Things are different now. Dick moved back in, but he didn't bring Nightwing with him. The five of them live at the manor now, Bruce, Tim, Dick, Barbara and Alfred. There hasn't been a family living in the manor since Bruce's parents died, and lately, no one even feels like it's just an act anymore.
They always eat dinner together, like a family should, even Alfred sits down with them now.
Bruce and Alfred pretend that Barbara has her own room, but everyone knows she spends most nights with Dick, and that's ok too, because she still tucks Tim in every night.
And Tim is doing better. He laughs sometimes, and he doesn't even wince. Yesterday Tim and Dick played doubles tennis against Barbara and Bruce. The boys won 4 out of 7, but it was a close call. It was the first time Bruce could remember the court being used in years. He remembered his parents playing tennis. For lunch Alfred brought them a picnic of roast beef and potato salad, they made Alfred sit and eat with them, even though he insisted he had better things to do.
Tomorrow Tim goes back to school, and Bruce isn't sure who's more nervous, him or the boy.
Despite the anxiety, it goes well. Bruce goes with Alfred when they pick him up together. Barbara had tutored him well; he was actually ahead of the class.
Wednesday nights are game night now; Alfred has purchased all the latest board games, but everyone still prefers the classics. Bruce always beats them at monopoly, but no one beats Tim at that silly hungry hippo game. And should Batman spy the signal on a Wednesday? He calls Superman.
Tim has begun to spar with Dick sometimes, but always in the manor, never in the cave, and no one says the word "Robin". In the cave Batman has built a case for the second Robin costume. Tim has also taken a renewed interest in gymnastics, and Barbara coaches him, almost every day.
In fact, Tim made the honor society in school, and now he's on the debate team, and the gymnastic team. Sometimes he doesn't come home after class, sometimes he goes over a friend's house instead. Sometimes a pretty girl named Stephanie Brown comes home with him after school. But he still eats at home most nights, with the rest the family. And he never misses Wednesday game night.
Today is Tim's 17th birthday, and they spent the week in Barbados. Tim chases Pretty girls, and Bruce got sunburned. And Batgirl thought that Batman with sunburn was the funniest thing she ever imagined. They rented a sailboat, and Bruce caught a marlin. Tim and Dick perfected their surfing technique, and they all swam endlessly in the ocean. Tim told Bruce the names of all the sea creatures, sometimes he had to look it up. For dinner they go to a seaside shack, just the 5 of them, just family. When they get home there will be a giant party for his friends and classmates, but tonight it's just them.
No one is surprised when Dick and Barbara announce the engagement; Tim is the best man at the wedding. While they go on honeymoon, Bruce, Tim and Alfred go to Paris on their own vacation.
Tim graduates top of his class, a star athletic, he could have gone to his choice of schools, but he goes to Gotham University, which he privately admits to Barbara has something to do with the girl named Stephanie Brown.
Barbara and Dick have twin boys, whom they raise them in the Manor. It is big enough for all of them after all. And maybe they raise the kids with an unusual emphasis on gymnastics and martial arts, and maybe the kids are a bit over privileged, but they have they always know they are loved. Bruce loves being a grandpa.
Tim graduates top of his class, in business law. As a graduation gift Bruce gives him a sub company of Waynetech, specializing in the development of communication software. He names it Drake industries.
Tim eventually marries his high school sweet heart, Stephanie Brown, and they have one daughter, whom he names Robin.
Robin is 7 years old when Alfred dies of a stroke, surrounded by his family. Shortly after his death, Bruce takes down the painting of his parents in the parlor, and replaces it with a family portrait done shortly before Alfred's death; it's what he feels his parents would have wanted. He feels that if they were watching, they would be pleased, to see a manor full of life, children and laughter.
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Batman dies, and Bruce grows older. Whenever he wonders if he made the right choice, he just needs to look at Robin, and her smile, her wide eyes, brimming with intelligence and her shy laughter. He knows that he could never save them all, but once upon a time he saved a little boy from the clutches of a monster, and that has made all the difference.
Once upon a time, an orphaned boy was adopted by a lonely night and they all lived happily ever after.