Summer

The thing about Stephanie was that she demanded attention wherever she went. Grocery stores, sidewalks, WE cafeterias... You name it, she had stamped her shrill voice over it. Which was a good thing, Bruce mused, when one wanted to find her. Girl had never heard of volume control in her life.

But this demand for attention apparently went out the window when illness was concerned.

It had taken three days for either Bruce or Alfred to notice that she wasn't out and about in her usual way, and her pale, sweaty face hadn't boded well.

"One would think," said Alfred, looking circumspectly at the thermometer, "that you would have the good sense not to catch the flu in the summertime."

"What can I say," Stephanie croaked, "all the cool kids were doing it."

"Is that so?"

She nodded, fiddling her thumbs atop her comforter. "Randi Kluge was throwing up the other day," she told him. "We thought she was just on her period, but turns out her mom had been to Peru and went through the JFK Airport." She wrinkled her nose. "Which, is, you know. Gross."

"Indubitably." Alfred handed over two pills and a glass of water. Steph chucked them back, swallowing them dry, then sheepishly drank the water when Alfred raised a brow.

Worse than the initial silence was the fact that she was a good patient. This was terrible, for every time she followed Alfred's instruction the man would tilt his head just so and cast such a look at Bruce as if to say "At least that's one less fool in the family."

Bruce, who felt like a rebellious adolescent under that mustache-clad smirk, excused himself to go on patrol.

Which worked for one night. Alfred appeared at the top of the stairs, explaining in even tones that, while he was sure that Master Bruce no doubt appreciated his efforts, tomorrow was grocery shopping day and Alfred really couldn't be spared from the task. Thus it was deemed that Bruce would keep an eye on Stephanie, for as long as was required.

Bruce didn't...mind, exactly. But the last time he had been with a sick kid, in the manor, was with—

That didn't matter, he told himself sternly. He gripped his fists, digging his fingers into his palms. He was staying present. He had a sick kid and he was staying present.

He gazed at the hall wall outside his study, newly painted blue. The designer had described it as "Sea Wind" and Bruce had believed her. Or rather, Alfred had believed her. Bruce was still drowning in a sea of his own at the time, and when he broke water he found several places in his home different and unrecognizable. He couldn't bring himself to be upset with Alfred over it. He knew the man was trying to help, trying to snap him out of the black fugue that he willingly swallowed every night and then bathed in every day. Alfred had never grieved the same way Bruce did; when Mr. and Mrs. Wayne had died he spent hours cleaning the house, almost as if he cleansed the rooms of dust that he could reverse time and find the two of them laughing in a corner or behind a curtain.

Two feet pattered across the carpet, and Bruce was brought back to his reality.

Stephanie stood, arms crossed, face unimpressed. "You can go," she told him, unraveling her hair from twin braids. "I know Alfred told you to stay but I'm fine. I haven't thrown up once today and my fever is fading. I'll be better by tomorrow."

Bruce stuck his tongue on the side of his cheek and nodded, knowing that if he spoke she would take whatever he said the wrong way. She huffed, walking over to the chair opposite him. Her red nightshirt dwarfed her, and he felt his eyebrows draw together at the team number. He didn't even know she liked football. Number 9 was...Chris Campbell?

For Lord's sake—

He sat back, disgruntled. He didn't keep up but even he knew that Campbell fumbled every game. He told her so, and was rewarded by a vicious defense.

"—and it's not as if Jones and Hernandez can catch, so it's not his fault!" she finished, face flushed. She drew her knees up to her chin, feet tucked beneath the red fabric so that she looked like an angry, square crab. "Go away, I don't want to talk to you anymore."

"This is my study," he rebutted.

"But I'm your daughter," she said. "That means you have to share. It's my turn to have it."

Bruce opened his mouth to reply, then cut himself off when he felt the spreading warmth in his chest. It wasn't often that Stephanie acknowledged the fact that she was his; in fact, this would be one of the first times she had in a non-negative fashion since coming to live with him.

"How are you feeling?" he asked after a moment.

"Well enough to bite someone, infect them all up, like a werewolf." She lifted her chin. "Aoowoooooo."

"Ah."

She pouted. "I'm bored," she told him, legs shooting out, socks wiggling off her feet. "I want to do something."

"Alfred said you have to rest."

"I am resting. I have been resting. If I get anymore rest, my body will think that that's its new state and just die."

Bruce leaned back on the sofa, crossing his ankles and rolling back his shoulders. "Pick up your socks, then," he ordered, rogue objects white against the wood floor.

"No."

He closed his eyes.

"Bruce," she whined. "I'm bored."

He sighed, opening his eyes. "Then read something," he suggested.

"Ew." She wrinkled her nose. "You know I don't read."

"Then start."

"I read all the books I needed to when I was eleven," she said, nose in the air. "If I read anymore it will just be greedy."

"So you know everything you need to know?"

She nodded. "Exactly. I read practically the entire children's section at the library, and then I moved on. How-to manuals were my favorite."

He didn't reply.

"There's something nice about being treated like you're an absolute idiot by a book," she concluded. "Because the book won't come back around and remind you what you didn't know before it, like people do. The book doesn't know. Books don't know anything but what they know, so I know way more than a book does."

"I see."

"I know about drain pipes, kite flying, how to make a bomb," she said cheerfully. "Entomology, divorce, the U.S. mailing system...never got around to the historical non-fiction section, but who even cares about history."

"Your history grades might," he said, comfortably settling further into the sofa. He could see the frown she was sending him in the corner of her eye.

"I make good grades."

"I've seen your records."

"Just because I'm not like—" she cut herself off. The study was silent for several moments. "And anyways," she began again, "the only reason for that C in fourth grade wasn't because of anything academic, it was because I punched Willie Nilsson in the throat."

That got his attention. "What?"

"He tried to punch Jia first!" she shrieked defensively. "They only got mad because he could barely speak for a couple of days. I didn't mean to hit him that hard," she admitted, looking ashamed. "I just didn't want him to hit anyone else."

He opened his mouth to tell her that he once hospitalized a kid in high school, but closed it with a click. He hadn't told any of his kids that. Not that he was hiding it, per se, just that it had never...come up. Dick and Jason had gotten into their fair share of fights, yet he had never felt the need to comfort them for the act of fighting in of itself.

"Did you learn that from a book?" he asked instead.

"I actually saw it on the news," she told him. "Dad was featured so he recorded it, but there was a segment afterwards with Riddler, and Batman punched him in the throat so he couldn't talk. I paid close attention," she said assuringly, "I practiced it on my mom's old Walker doll. I can do all sorts of things."

"I believe you."

She wrinkled her nose at his patronizing, scrunching up her toes on her sock and flinging it at him. It flopped through the air like a disappointed cloud. Bruce ignored her when she tried the other sock. She laughed when it hit his desk, and then the laugh turned into a cough.

"Do you need water?" he asked, almost hesitantly. She shook her head, swallowing her wheezes. She cleared her throat.

"I can read palms, you know," she told him, grinning under her bangs.

Bruce raised his eyebrows in acknowledgement, but did not look at her.

"Well?"

"Well what," he said sleepily, gazing into the empty grate.

"Well," she said impatiently, "let me see your hand!"

He closed his eyes and did not respond. Several moments went by. A large sigh was heard from the corner. Bruce let a small smile pass his lips.

Two small hands suddenly grasped his, pushing back his fingers with a crack.

"Hm," he grunted.

"This is your heart line," she said, tracing the first line just below his fingers. "It has to do with your relationships. Hmmmm," she peered closer. "Definitely some trauma there."

Bruce conceded to this, tipping his head.

"Have you ever loved anyone?" she asked suddenly, not looking up. He could tell that this was not an unpremeditated question.

"Yes," he said truthfully. "I've loved many people."

"Hah! You've been a slut. Knew it."

Bruce went to pinch her cheek, but she moved as far as she could out of his reach. "I love Alfred, and Dick, and you, and—"

"Jason," she muttered, trying to sound reticent and failing.

Bruce's chest shuddered. "Yes," he said after a moment, trying to sound calm but failing. "Yes, I love Jason."

"I'm pretty sure I love Kevin the intern," she said.

"I'm pretty sure Kevin the intern is twenty-two," he retorted.

"Age is just a number, Bruce," she said breezily.

Bruce made a move as to take his hand away, but she held on as tight as she could.

"No, no wait," she said in slight exertion. "This is—this—BRUCE! Let me have it!" Bruce obliged with a dry chuckle. "Thank you. This is your head line." She pointed to the line below the heart line. "It has to do with your intellectual pursuits, but also your life lessons. Huh." She peered closer at it. "There's some breaks in the line. You've got some trauma there too. The life line," she paused, looking up at him, "is the life line."

"Eloquent," said Bruce.

"Shut up. Some people like to say it's about independence or whatever, but that's bullshit. It's the life line. Yours is really long," she commented, tracing it with her finger. "It goes all the way down to your wrist. You'll probably die in your sleep."

I won't, Bruce didn't say. I'm lucky to be alive right now. I'm lucky to be looking at you. If I had had my way, I wouldn't be. Alfred would have had to bury me. He will have to bury me. That's why he can hardly bear look at me sometimes.

"And look! You have an Apollo line. Not many people have those."

He looked at where she pointed. "I think that's a scar," he told her honestly.

"It still counts."

"It doesn't."

"Hey, who read the how-to manual at eleven?" she demanded. "Did you give fortunes under the slide at recess?"

"No, I do it under the conference table at board meetings."

She gave a bark of laughter. Then she snorted and coughed, which turned into several bursts of coughing. Her wheezing filled the air and Bruce sat stock-still, perched on the edge of his seat. It was just a cough. She was fine. She was fine, it was just a cough. It was just a— smoke. Smoke in the air and the wheezing and he was limp, he was limp, his boy wasn't—

"Gah!"

He snapped back into the present. His mouth was dry.

"I'm going to shove a paperweight down my throat," Stephanie complained, rubbing her neck.

He swallowed.

"What does an Apollo line do?" he asked, grounding himself on her face, intent on making her frown disappear.

She smiled, brightening up the room. "It has to do with fame and glory," she said proudly. Then she deflated. "Figures you would have one. I don't."

"You would like fame and glory?" he asked. His hand gripped hers, now.

"I would like attention," she corrected him, drawing away. "Fame and glory are close enough."

He gave a disbelieving huff. "Not worth it," he told her.

"Maybe not to you," she shot back. "You just don't know what it's like not to have it." She flopped against the back of the couch, head lolling. "I'm booooored," she announced to the room, heedless of her volume.

"Hello, b—" Bruce suddenly stood, not finishing his sentence. He perused the bookshelf, withdrawing a book and tossing it in her lap. "Here."

"'DOS for Dummies'?" she read off the title, nose wrinkling.

"Do you know about computers?"

"No, but—"

"Have at it," he instructed, sitting down at his desk.

She opened her mouth to protest, glanced down at the book, closed it, then settled down to read it. Her legs wiggled out to a stretch and there was, surprisingly, silence. Bruce felt his eyebrows draw up, almost astonished that that had actually worked.

How-to manuals. Who would have thought?

Now he knew what to do when he had to bring her to the office. The interns would probably be disappointed that she wouldn't serenade them with pop songs transposed into poor Spanish any longer (goodbye, Kevin), but at least he could go about his day without worrying where she was. His lips quirked. Though he did have to admit, it was pretty funny to find the doodles she had been faxing to Lex Luthor's direct office. He had scolded her, of course; Stephanie was the type of child who would judge her actions on whether or not she would get a laugh, not from her conscience. Not that she didn't have one, mind. He had found her sulking not a half an hour later, and she at once demanded that he be kind to the secretary and not blame her for the doodles, especially not the "dog shit one." When he questioned just which one that was, she buttoned her lips, unwilling to speak further.

Bruce let a soft chuckle pass his lips. For as insistent as she was that she was well and truly grown up, it was endearing to see how childhood still had its grip on her. She was like Dick, in that way. All his eldest had to do was move his head a particular way or wrinkle his brow, and suddenly he was eight again. Dick, if he could hear his thoughts, would hotly protest, but he didn't understand how when you have children you always see them as children. That was, Bruce supposed, flipping a page, his problem. He always saw his children as children, always wished to sweep in and take care of every scraped knee. Otherwise he would leave them to their own devices and judgements, and see how well that—

Smoke.

He clenched his fists.

Blinking slowly, controlled, he looked up and surveyed the room. Same as always. Same as always, save for the ottoman Jay used to sit on. After he—Bruce couldn't—

He blinked.

He should paint "Sea Wind" on the walls.

...It was quiet. Opening his mouth to inquire over Stephanie's thoughts on the subject, he found a reason for the silence. She had fallen asleep, book tucked beneath her chin, hair a rat's nest above her.

Bored indeed.

Bruce stood, walking over cautiously. When she didn't stir he withdrew the book and set it on a side table. Her hand was hanging off the sofa, and he knelt beside her, taking her small hand in his. He held back a snort. Palm-reading. He had no doubt that, while in the Gotham public school system, she had found multiple ways to enhance her education. He musingly looked over her hand. Heart line, head line, life line. The last one was rather short and faint. And she was right: she didn't have an Apollo line. He snorted. He hadn't bothered to tell her that it was all bullshit; he had before and she always harangued him about believing in nothing, unlike her, who believed in everything and was a "Lutheran and a Buddhist and everything in between all mixed into one."

He set down her hand and slid his own beneath her knees and back, hauling her up.

Oh.

He looked down at her, face full with youth and repose. This was the first time he had held her properly since they met. She was so ornery most of the time, so cleverly disengaging. She claimed to be a people person and yet avoided him like the plague. Well, most of the time.

He cradled her body, so much tinier than he realized, to his chest. She had sought him out tonight, had wanted to spend time with him. Had even tried to show him something new, share something with him. And he had repaid her with enforced reading. He grunted, heading out of the study and up the stairs. He was always messing up. Whether it be with his children or others, relationships escaped him. It seemed that just when he learned the language they were speaking, they switched to something else and he was always parsing through with gaps of vocabulary and fumbling speeches.

The stairs creaked on the last step. He never had fixed that. Everyone in the household just avoided the middle part of that step and stuck to the edges. Except Stephanie. It seemed that she not only made noise wherever she went, but it was her intention to do so. 'Look at me,' she seemed to say every waking moment. 'Look what I can do, look at me!'

She shifted in his arms. Bruce paused.

Girls are a little different, he realized, gazing down at her and pulling her closer. She wasn't going to get much bigger than this. Whereas with the boys he knew that the time in which they were small was short and constantly drawing to a close, that wasn't the case with Stephanie. For all her great-grandma-Laura-Elizabeth-Wayne looks, she took after her mother, and the gene pool wasn't looking too favorable on height.

He shouldered her bedroom door open, taking note of the purple lavalamp stationed on her desk. He slid her onto her bed, one hand awkwardly holding back the comforter until she was settled. Did she need to take medicine? He searched his brain for Alfred's instructions, going through every word, then minutely shook his head. She took care of herself very well in sickness, she wasn't like Dick or Ja—

He brushed her golden hair out of her face, lavalamp illuminating one side. He had told her that he loved her earlier, and that was true. Even with her "dog shit" doodles.

Bruce exhaled a laugh. He took her hand, small and light and would be forever so. He looked down at her palm. Heart line, head line, life line. Silly girl.

He pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead, then stood and left her to her rest. Once he made it to the door, he looked back at her. He smiled.

Silly girl.

Summer, two years later

Her hand was cold. Her hand was cold. Her hand was cold.

He could feel himself gazing down at her in horror. Nightwing was shouting, voice slamming like cymbals in his ear. But Bruce couldn't hear.

Her hand was cold.

"I can read palms you know," she told him, grinning under her bangs.

Her hair was matted with blood. Her eyes were swollen and closed. Her face—

"MOVE!"

Figures in white swam in his vision. Hands grasped him round the shoulders, the same voice saying a word over and over.

"B?" came the small voice from the study. Dickie's little head poked out from around the corner. His face was still stained with tears, cheeks thick with childhood and loss. "B?"

"B? B? Come on!"

Dick. Dickie.

"Nightw..."

"There you are," Nightwing said tersely. "Don't lose it. Don't you dare lose it again, B. They're going to try to save her. Don't lose it."

He shook his head. He tried to step out of Nightwing's hold, but his grip tightened.

"Don't look," the man instructed. "B, I swear to God, don't look."

She's mine, Bruce opened his mouth to explain. I've only had her for a small time and I have to take her home. I can carry her. She's mine.

But Dick was filling up his vision, sweaty black hair fuzzing up his brain until that's all he can see. "Don't look," he said firmly. His fingers dug into him. "Don't look, B. Don't look."

And, God forgive him, he doesn't.