Sequel to We Put the Bullets Back In.

Bruce is determined not to waste the gift that Talia has allowed.

This child is his son.

But this child is not Damian.

He is, but he isn't. Bruce will never let blood stain the innocent hands the clutch at his cape, and the boy will never grow up to be the Damian that they had lost. He might never take up art or the violin. The training stops immediately so he will never be proficient at swordplay, and Bruce will die before another of his son's ever becomes a soldier.

Becomes a hero.

So he offers the boy a new name … any name … anything that hasn't been carved into stone out back.

It isn't fair, of course, but Bruce needs this. Dick needs this—his oldest never comes around now, can barely stand to look at the small figure in photographs or on vid screens.

A new name for a new life—a charmed life with the guardians of Gotham for protectors.

The rest of the clan gets involved in the choosing thereof. Tim has lists, and Steph makes some truly awful puns while Jason lobbies for a few favorites. Babs is carefully considerate of what Damian might have wanted, combing the untouched bookshelves in the shrine-like bedroom. Alfred rejects Bruce's half-hearted suggestion of Thomas, and Cass just wrinkles her forehead over the whole thing.

The toddler chooses his own name in the end.

He pulls the name "Christopher Robin" from a movie that Steph brings over, and because the child is Damian at heart, he pronounces it exactly like that—as if it's all one word. It's an enormous name for one so small. The last two syllables unsettle Bruce who uses "Christopher" alone. Alfred, Babs, and Jason follow his lead, but Tim calls the child exactly what the boy chose and Steph does the same because she thinks it's adorable.

Bruce has never been able to control his middle children.

Christopher is Damian and he isn't. He has the same tyrannical assumptions, but with a few months of dedicated effort, the toddler will fling himself into Steph's arms for hugs. Christopher will shamelessly use Jason as a personal jungle gym, and the boy will help Alfred with the too-serious expression on his face as if the placement of the silverware is of grave importance. Christopher will even take his books to Tim with the imperial command: "Read, Timothy. Read to me now."

Timothy. Jason. Stephanie. Cassandra. Barbara. Alfred.

Daddy.

The first time, Christopher barely whispers it. Bruce is reading in the study while Christopher plays nearby, and the boy cautiously tests it out, looking down at his toys when Bruce turns toward him in surprise. It gets bolder with every use until Christopher will demand "Daddy" from across the mansion.

Bruce will look at the child clinging to his cape, cuddled in Tim's lap for story-time, wearing an over-sized apron at Alfred's side, and even wrapped in a gleeful hug from Stephanie. He will look at that child and think how this should have been Damian's life the first time, but Bruce will not dishonor his dead son's memory by pretending that he's fixing anything. The child in their arms does not make the child in the grave disappear.

Christopher is part of Damian, and they cherish him for it.

But Christopher is not Damian, not the ten year old who battled evil and won on a nightly basis. He is not the boy who struggled to show or accept affection, and he will never be the boy who could see eye-to-eye with the Red Hood, but followed Dick Grayson regardless.

They're coming to accept that, to stop looking for Damian's attitude in Christopher's words or his fighting grace in childish movement.

If Bruce could have both boys, he'd take that option in a heartbeat … but after half a year, he could never trade one for the other.

So this is contentment … if only they could have Dick home again.

He sends a gift on the random day that Bruce has assigned to be Christopher's birthday—not the day he was pulled from the pit, and not Damian's birth or death day. Bruce chooses a date without meaning, and on that day a package of the original Pooh books arrives from his eldest to commemorate the occasion.

For Christopher Robin Wayne, with regards—Tigger.

Jason laughs like Dick has never made a funnier pun, and immediately starts to assign character identities to the other heroes. Bruce is declared Eeyore, and Tim is assigned the worried Rabbit. Cass is given the title of Kanga while Stephanie eagerly accepts the title of Roo. Babs and Alfred agree magnanimously to share the title of Owl and whenever Colin stops in, he becomes Piglet. Jason takes the hero of the piece upon himself with some commentary on teddy bears with "a head full of fluff."

All of a sudden, there are skits ranging across the manor as they act out scenes from Christopher's new books with some allowances made for the absent Tigger. Somehow the ominous title sounds less threatening when bellowed across the mansion by Jason as the giggling toddler hides under Bruce's desk chair.

But Bruce makes a promise to himself—one that he knows Dick will keep when the younger man once again inherits the cowl—that Christopher will never wear the Robin red. The boy is not Damian, but Bruce and Dick can both see the boy they loved in his features.

It is never easy, but they continue forward.

It's another four months before Bruce finds his eldest in the toddler's room, soothing a pit dream with hugs and kisses. Then when Christopher starts to settle, Dick begins telling stories of Damian—things that Bruce had never known and Christopher would never experience.

In stories, Robin will forever fly.

"Yesterday, I was with your father. He was only a little further away from me than you are now. I went to sleep, and when I awoke the next day, I learned that, overnight, twelve years had passed. And instead of the only man I ever loved, there stood a girl with his eyes. My heart is not cold. It's broken."

- Selene; Underworld: Awakening