Chapter 13

"Who's ever played Scattergories before?" Harley asked brightly as she and Jason passed paper and pens around the room.

The BatFamily was gathered in one of the cozier living rooms in the mansion with coffee or water and slices of Damian's cake to eat while they played. Truthfully, the texture seemed just fine to Bruce, and he somewhat suspected that Alfred was trying to raise Damian up to the level of a Great British Bake-Off champion, but as long as Alfred wasn't stressing his son out about it, Bruce figured he'd let him teach his way. Hell, maybe Damian would become a chef when he grew up instead of a vigilante. One could always hope.

As Bruce glanced around the room, he saw that no one had raised a hand in answer to Harley's question. Harley sighed a little bit. "Why am I not surprised?" she grumbled mildly to Jason, who only grinned at her.

"All right," Harley said, taking a seat on one of the sofas next to Jason, "there's... " she counted quickly, "eight of us, so make eight columns and eight rows on your paper," she instructed. "So the goal with Scattergories is to come up with a word that no one else comes up with. If someone else thinks of it, too, neither one of you gets a point. So you have to be creative," she told them.

Damian's eyes sharpened at the thought of competition and Bruce watched him grow more alert and hyper-focused in his seat next to Alfred. "What are the prizes for winning?" Damian asked Harley.

"The joy of victory," Harley said easily, prompting groans from all three children.

"That's so lame," Stephanie said.

"Not everything in life is about competing to get a prize," Harley said with a frown. "It's important to enjoy fun for the sake of fun."

"But fun is so much better with prizes," Tim argued logically.

"We will try harder," Damian added, looking indeed like he was ready to crush and destroy everyone in the room. Harley sighed in frustration but Bruce, recalling something, jumped up.

"I have prizes," he said, leaving the room. The family looked at each other.

"Bruce has prizes…?" Tim asked skeptically. Damian looked eager.

"Perhaps some new weapons from Lucius?" he suggested, making Tim sit up straighter.

"Oh!" he said. "That would be great." The three children dissolved into a discussion over what new tech Bruce might possibly be bringing up from the BatCave as Harley groaned, leaning into Jason and looking across the room to Bane for support after glancing at Alfred who gave her a wry smile.

"Baaaane," she whined. "This is supposed to be about enjoying a game together. Not a giant mega-competition to win fancy prizes," she complained as Jason cuddled her in comfort.

"Eh, you must start with where they are at, Harley," Bane said encouragingly. "At least we are all gathered together about to play the game, yes?"

"I suppose," she grumbled.

"Trust me, babe," said Jason, "all of us being in the same room together is a small miracle. Hell, playing a game is a miracle. Just see what happens, it might turn out good," he said, kissing her head.

"Fine," she muttered, but she couldn't help smiling as Jason peppered her hair with little kisses in a blatant attempt to cheer her up.

"This family does respond well to competition," Alfred commented. "The children already seem much more enthusiastic," he noted and Harley sighed.

"Prizes," Bruce announced, coming back into the room with his hands full. He dropped the small packets onto the coffee table and the kids crawled forward eagerly to see…

"Are these… friendship bracelets?" Stephanie said suspiciously.

"Not just bracelets," Bruce smirked at her. "Necklaces. Keychains. And not just for friends, Steph, for BFF's," Bruce said significantly. Steph looked at him in horror and groaned loudly.

"You never should have taught him that word," Tim said sadly to Stephanie, who was still moaning as she picked through the different two-halves-of-a-whole charms, ranging from hearts to aliens to teddy bears to … too many disgustingly cute objects to name.

"Bruuuuce," she whined. "You're such a dad." Jason noticed that Bruce seemed quite pleased, rather than offended, by Steph's comment and he felt a tiny piece of longing in his heart for the happier days when Bruce was his dad, before Robin.

Things were so good back then, he thought to himself for a minute, and he sighed. At least he and Bruce were starting to patch things up now, but… Jason missed that short year of his life when he didn't have to do anything for Bruce except be a kid. At least Bruce was starting to try harder with these new kids, though, Jason thought. Dad jokes at dinner and Dad prizes for game night… the old man wasn't doing half bad tonight in being a semi-normal parent.

"Well," Harley said, recapturing the moment, "this is fine. The winner can get first pick and we'll go in order of points."

"We're not going to wear them," Tim pointed out.

"You will wear them," Bruce smirked, "all week. Or you won't patrol with Bane when he comes home." The kids groaned some more but Harley got a pleased smile on her face.

"Kind of evil," she said. "I like it, Bats, good call." A shade of Brooklyn was seeping through her voice and Bruce glanced at her suspiciously, getting treated to a huge wink and a toothy grin in return.

"So let's get started," Harley said. "Everybody's gonna pick a letter for words to start with, so you might wanna pick somethin' hard, but if it's too crazy it'll be hard for you, too, so be careful. Let's go around the room and write these down to the left of your rows. Jay, you start," she told him.

"J," Jason said with a wink to his wife.

"Good letter," Harley murmured back flirtatiously. "Alfred, you next," she ordered. They went around the room filling up the left side of their chart with letters until everyone had picked one.

"Now," Harley said, "we each get to pick a category, we'll do one at a time. And we all have one minute to come up with one word in that category for each letter. But you gotta try to make it different from everybody else's word, no point if it matches someone's. And at the end of the game, the one with the most points gets to pick the least awful bracelet!" she finished with enthusiasm.

"May I pick the first category?" Damian asked eagerly.

"Uh, sure!" Harley said, a little surprised that he was already so into it. "Bruce, you gonna keep time?" He nodded and set the timer on his phone. "All right, what's the category, Damian?" Harley asked him.

"Weapons with a blade!" Damian announced.

Harley's jaw dropped a tiny bit but Bruce had already said "Go!" and pens were scribbling across papers. Even Jason was writing furiously. Harley glanced at Alfred and he shook his head good-naturedly at her. She sighed and shrugged and started trying to come up with a blade weapon that started with the letter J.

The categories only got more vigilante specific as the rest of the family took turns choosing topics, but Alfred made up some points on his round with cooking spices (Bane did awfully well in that round, though, and Jason was a close third) and Harley kicked everyone's butts on psychiatric medicines. Jason surprised everyone by choosing classic American authors pre-1900 as his category, but Bane did equally as well as he did and Bruce wasn't far behind.

"We should play more rounds," Steph said when they finished, causing Jason to nudge Harley's side and give her a grin.

"I think the kiddies had fun," he said to her.

"We still need to meditate tonight," Bane said, prompting groans and "Bane, do we have to?" from the three Batlings.

Even Bruce looked like he was tempted to suggest forgoing meditation in favor of Scattergories but after he glanced over at Bane, he looked back at the kids and said, "Bane is right, we need to meditate and then Steph and Tim need to get to bed. Tomorrow's a school day. But," he added, "first we have prizes!" Harley laughed and clapped her hands in glee.

"Add up your points!" she ordered. The winner, unsurprisingly, was Bane. He shrugged modestly.

"I am the smartest man on the planet, they tell me," he grinned.

"Let's see," Bruce thought, "you need two prizes because you have two BFF's. Right?" he asked Bane. "Harley and Damian."

"And you, Bruce," Steph said, her eyes gleaming. Bruce suddenly looked a little self-conscious.

"We're not really BFF's," he said to Steph. "I told you, that's me and Alfred. Bane is… my NF."

"NF?" Tim asked even though Steph was trying, too slow, to clap a hand over his mouth to keep him from encouraging Bruce in his dad-antics.

"New Friend," Bruce said, looking very pleased with himself. Steph groaned like she was dying.

"NFHF," Bane corrected, eyes twinkling. Bruce looked at him. "New Friend Hopefully Forever," Bane said with a little grin. His eyes locked with Bruce's for a second and suddenly got so intense that Bruce felt a little off-kilter.

"NFHF," Bruce repeated, breaking eye contact and feeling oddly flushed. "But unfortunately, we don't have a bracelet for that, so Bane still gets to pick two."

After careful consideration of his options, Bane chose the split smiley face for him and Harley, carefully separating the halves and placing one bracelet on her outstretched wrist. "I dub thee BFF," he proclaimed solemnly, causing her to giggle. He repeated the process with Damian, offering him a teddy bear necklace, which Damian gravely accepted.

"Bane needs a third one," Damian said. "For him and Osito."

"Ah, of course!" Bane said delightedly, selecting a heart to share with his teddy bear friend.

"In second place," Harley announced dramatically… "Jay!"

"What?" Bruce said in mock protest. "You beat me, son?"

"I'm very smart," Jason said calmly as he leaned forward to pick through the charms. "I need two, I guess," he said. "For Harley and Damian." Damian looked inordinately pleased to be included on Jason's BFF list, although he managed to do so without smiling. Jason gifted him with an alien - "Because we're both a little weird," he said - and Harley with a heart, of course.

Bruce did manage to end up in third place, and true to his word, gave a charm to Alfred, although he included his BFF in the selection of the design choice, the two of them finally settling on the clock halves, since punctuality was one of Alfred's best traits. Bruce picked up a heart next and surprised Damian by handing it to him.

"For me, Father?" Damian said, almost glowing.

"Yes," Bruce said, kissing him on the head. Jason felt his eyes misting up a little bit against his will and he clutched Harley's hand tightly while he kept his jaw locked. She cleared her throat before announcing the next winner.

"Fourth place is… Damian!"

"What? - No fair!" Steph and Tim's angry protests filled the room.

"How did you beat me?" Tim asked Damian in a very aggrieved tone of voice.

"I am your superior," Damian said calmly as he and Osito looked through the remaining charms. Damian picked out a second teddy bear one for him and Osito to share.

Tim was still grumbling but a little placated when he came in fifth place, beating Harley, Steph, and Alfred. "All those damn specialty weapons you kids play with," Harley muttered. "A hammer and a gun, that's all I evuh needed," she pouted, making a face. Tim actually grinned at her.

"Now you see the folly of your ways," he said, causing her to laugh a little bit with pleasure. He picked a flower and handed the other half to Steph, who took it from him with a smile.

"I guess the rest of us already got our prizes?" Harley asked, seeing that the winners had already split charms with their BFF's. As they nodded, Tim found one more thing to groan about.

"Damian has the most," he complained. "How is that possible?" he said, looking at Damian's four charms. Bruce bit back a giggle and noticed that Bane was doing the same. Because really, Damian the near-sociopath had the most BFF's in the room?

"As I told you," Damian said, sounding annoyed at having to repeat himself, "I am your superior, Tim Drake. In every way," he added with exceptional self-satisfaction.

"Yes, you are, kiddo!" Jason told him wholeheartedly, ruffling his hair cheerfully while Harley muttered 'Jay….' underneath her breath as Tim frowned. Harley pinched her eyebrows together and poked Jason in the side.

"What?" he muttered to her.

"Be nice to the Replacement," she whispered. Jason sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Not that the Replacement isn't great, too," he added heavily, although he caught Damian's eye and gave him the tiniest of winks. Tim raised his eyebrow.

"Why do you call me the Replacement?" he asked Jason.

"Here we go…" Harley muttered to herself, rubbing her forehead.

"Well," Jason said pointedly, smiling but looking more like a shark than a friendly puppy, "because Pops here replaced me with you."

"I thought you were dead," Bruce said flat out, meeting Jason's eyes with a harder stare than he had managed in the last month. "And I didn't take anyone on for years after you died. So you don't need to give Tim shit about it." And a collective shudder went through the room, because that tone was Bruce at full Batman force. A tone that his family hadn't heard out of him since Jason had first confronted him on the docks.

And Jason actually looked ashamed. "Sorry," he muttered, glancing at Tim, but he meant it. More or less. So Tim nodded back at him. An awkward silence fell in the room.

"Time to meditate," Bane announced cheerfully. "Everyone," he added significantly, looking at Jason.

"Fine," Jason mumbled.

"Perhaps we might take a small restroom break first, Master Bane, and reconvene in five minutes?" Alfred asked him, starting to rise. "For those of us with older bladders."

"Of course," Bane said gently. "We will begin in five minutes," he said, moving to start cleaning up the cake plates and coffee mugs. Bruce got up to help him. Jason tugged Harley out into the hall with him, ostensibly to show her where the nearest bathroom in their giant house was, but more likely to grumble about a few things with her.

Bruce met Tim's eyes as he picked up his dessert plate. "Let me know if he gives you more trouble," Bruce said to him seriously. "That's not his place and you don't deserve it." Tim nodded, feeling both surprised and touched that Bruce not only cared but had rallied himself enough to intervene. "I'll talk to Harley this week," Bruce added and looked over to Bane. "And you'll talk to Jason," he said, and it wasn't a request. Bane nodded.

"Of course," he said gently. "There is much anger covering much hurt there, and it is not healthy for him to direct it at my Batboy." And Tim smiled and Bane smiled back at him and Bruce noticed that Tim stood a little taller this time, when Bane called him Batboy. Huh, he thought, wondering what that was about. Because he distinctly remembered Tim getting upset at the term not that long ago.

Maybe… maybe he would ask Tim about it this week, he thought to himself. He ought to be more involved in the boy's life, Bruce thought guiltily. Because it hadn't just been this past month that Bruce had been absent from his parental role; Bruce couldn't say that he'd ever really taken on much of one with Tim, considering what a mess he'd been when Tim had first convinced him to train him as Robin.

If anything, Tim was the adult more often than not in their early relationship, and… that was a fucked up thing to do to a kid, Bruce suddenly realized. Tim always seemed so competent and so grown and so reliable and self-sufficient that Bruce had forgotten how young he was, sometimes. Because, holy shit, Tim was still in high school and he'd already been training with Bruce for three… four years, even? Fuck, Bruce thought to himself. Well, better late than never, he supposed.

Steph had already shuffled her way out of the room on her crutches to go to the bathroom, but Bruce thought to himself that he needed to get more involved in her life, too. She tended to chat more naturally than Tim did, and about random things, so he felt a bit more connected to her than to Tim, but absent-mindedly listening wasn't really parenting, when it came down to it, Bruce had to admit. He needed to do better for all of his kids.

Dick, too, he suddenly thought with a pang. They still hadn't talked since their huge fight and Bruce didn't really know what to do about that. Because Dick had been so off-the-wall with his hatred towards Jason and yeah, Bruce might have some regrets about how harsh he got with Dick at the end of it, but what the fuck was Dick thinking hating on a kid like Jason who'd been through so much hell? And then literally gotten killed by the Joker? Bruce could not for the life of him get it and he honestly didn't know how he could work things out with Dick if his son didn't stand down on some of his absurd over the top feelings.

Well, let me start with the ones living here, Bruce thought to himself with a sigh. And with Jason and Harley, he mentally added. Maybe Bane would have some insight into Dick, Bruce thought as he followed Bane into the kitchen. Bane certainly seemed full of wisdom on just about every other situation in Bruce's life.

"Can I call you sometimes this week, while you're gone?" Bruce asked Bane as they stacked the dishes in the sink.

"Of course!" Bane said with a surprised but genuinely pleased smile and a warm look in his eyes that made Bruce, for the second time tonight, find his thoughts faltering.

"Thanks," Bruce said, looking down into the sink as he began to rinse the dishes off. Bane opened the dishwasher next to him and reached his hand out to load them in as Bruce finished. "I'm kind of stuck with my oldest son, Dick," he said, "and I thought you might have some ideas."

"Eh, I usually do," Bane observed with a little grin.

"I've noticed," Bruce said, returning it, "and since the pillows aren't speaking to me, yet…" Bane chuckled.

"You never know, Bruce, tonight could be your night," he teased. "Maybe they'll whisper words of wisdom into your ear as you sit and listen."

"Maybe," Bruce said, his eyes starting to twinkle a little bit. "But just in case they have nothing to say… I know that you will."

"Always," Bane said smiling into his eyes. And Bruce didn't know why it seemed a little harder to breathe for a second. Or why he felt a little flushed again as he smiled and looked back down at the dishes.

"You were a good father tonight," Bane said to him as they continued loading the dishwasher together.

"Hm?" Bruce asked him. "With the BFF bracelets? I ordered those last week to tease Steph when she was being too much of a teenager."

"The bracelets, yes," Bane said. "But I was referring to you standing up for young Tim."

"Oh," Bruce said, frowning. "Jason's been through hell, I get that, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let him take it out on Tim." The Bat growl was back and Bane didn't seem to mind. In fact, he seemed impressed.

"Yes," he said. "That was some good parenting, Bruce. Without any outside help, I might add." Bruce glanced at him. "I believe you may give yourself too little credit, my friend," Bane said to him thoughtfully. "This last month has been hard on you, yes, but… there is a strength and a sense of justice inside of you that has not faltered."

"Maybe," Bruce murmured. "There used to be," he said, sighing. "But honestly, Bane? It's been years since I've felt right. Since before Jason died. Everything since then…" Bruce trailed off, looking lost again.

"But now you are finding your way once more," Bane said, shutting the dishwasher and drying his hands on a dishtowel, which he passed to Bruce when he was done. "And the pieces of yourself that used to be, they are not lost. They are waiting inside of you for their rebirth."

"See, this is why I need you around," Bruce said, smiling a little bit more easily again. "To tell me things like this that give me hope that I won't be a fuck-up forever."

"Well, I was not a fuck-up forever, now was I?" Bane asked him, meeting his eyes.

"I… guess you weren't," Bruce said, shocked to realize that he'd almost forgotten how hellish Bane used to be. "That actually is encouraging," he said with a small grin. "If Bane can change for the better, surely Bruce Wayne can."

"Of course he can," said Bane, slinging his arm around Bruce's shoulders as they walked back to the living room to meditate. And Bruce had to stop himself from wrapping his arm around Bane's waist, because that would be weird. Even though he felt strangely compelled to do it. Probably just because Bane was so touchy-feely, Bruce thought to himself. And comforting to have around. It was definitely nothing to worry about, though, that odd impulse.

Although, as the BatFamily closed their eyes and sat on their pillows together in silent meditation, Bruce's thoughts for the next hour kept coming back to the question of why he'd wanted to touch Bane.