Chapter Summery: The following morning Bruce is awoken earlier than normal and has breakfast with Dick, Jason, Tim, and Damian.

Disclaimer: I don't own Batman or anything else I might happen to mention in this piece of fanfiction.


Chapter 1. The First Morning

Bruce's POV


I was woken up earlier than normal that next morning by a sudden weight on top of my chest. Did I go out on patrol and get knocked out? I was confused till I recalled last nights events.

"Why are you waking me up early, Dickie?" I asked the child using the nickname I had used when he was younger. He got off of me when I spoke.

"Alfred sent me up to wake you up! It's breakfast time!" Dick exclaimed to me. How can he be so cheerful so early? I wondered to myself knowing that I would never figure out the answer since I had wondered that question for several years.

Breakfast time. Huh, it still seems early for that though. I looked down at my watch and it said it was 7am, that was way too early to be up when none of them had school and I wasn't going in to work today.

"Daddy, what's wrong?" Dick asked as he noticed my confusion at the early time.

"Nothing Dickie, it is just earlier than usual." I told him " It's okay." I added so he wouldn't worry.

"Daddy what do you mean earlier than normal? This is when you get waken up." Dick asked his voice displaying confusion over my words.

"It's nothing, I must have gotten less sleep than normal." I replied to calm down his nerves.

"That makes sense, I'll be heading back down now!" Dick stated all of the confusion and concern leaving his voice.

Dick went downstairs right after telling me that.

I decided that I wouldn't be able to get anymore precious sleep. So I went and got dressed to get the day started.

-Line Break-

As I reached the dining room I saw that everyone else was already there. It appeared that Alfred was waiting to for me to get down to serve breakfast. At least it looked like that.

"I told you I woke Daddy up!" I heard Dick exclaim as he waved his arm to point to me. He was saying this to his brothers as I walked across the room to the table where they were sitting.

"You were right Richard, but you have to agree it is hard to wake Father up." Damian replied to Dick. Probably defending himself for not believeing Dick.

Tim seemed to be staying out of the argument but having an thought on the matter. "Tim what are you thinking?"

"Why do they think that you wake up as easily as we do when we normally will have several more hours of sleep." Tim inquired.

"Good point, Timmy! Sorry Daddy." Dick said while Damian said, "Logical Timothy."

"It is okay Dickie." I comforted him, he seemed scared after Tim's idea that he had done something wrong.

Jason had his back turned towards us during all of this like he was angry about something, he probably was but what? "Jason is something wrong?" I inquired.

"Nothing Dad, just nothing." He replied clearly hiding something from me but what was he hiding.

It was then that Alfred walked into the room to serve breakfast. Which today was blueberry and strawberry pancakes. "Good morning, Masters." Alfred said as he placed the breakfasts out.

I thought about what I had to do today while the boys talked about themselves while eating their breakfasts.

I didn't have work for Wayne Enterprises for the day as I had expected the mission to last a couple of days longer than it had and had cleared my schedule. No, cases as Batman other than what happened to the boys.

I considered going down to the cave for a few hours to try and figure out who had done this and how they did this.

I caught a look from Alfred when I cleared my throat to get their attention to say I was going to the cave. The look said they are worried about you spend time with them, they are children.

"What do you want to do today?" I asked them not knowing what they would want to do. Dick, Jason and Tim's eyes lite with excitement and confusion while Damian's lite with anger and annoyance.

"Father, are we not going to train, so that one day we can help you?" Damian asked confused, that is probably what he thought the plan was for the day.

"No, we are just taking a break for a few days." I told him so that I would have a couple days before I was training 4 6 year old's to fight when I had zero idea on how well they could.

"How about we go swimming!?" Dick asked me excitedly. It was something he clearly wanted to do. The pool was currently up so it seemed manageable as long as we had the right equipment.

"That seems manageable, what about you?" I said finishing the statement pointing at Jason and Tim.

"Nothing at all." Was Jason's reply. What was wrong that he wasn't talking about? Why would he at that age not have something that he wanted to do? Was the behavior unhealthy? Probably not unhealthy but needs to be addressed.

"I'd like to do some reading?" Tim asked shyly towards me. He was nervous to ask something of me. Why?

"That sounds great how, we can start doing all that in an hour." I told them I needed time to drink enough coffee to stay awake the whole day with being awake early.

I knew not much would be done today but when I thought about the day I would get to spend with my children it didn't seem so bad.