Disclaimer: I do not own DC or any of their associated characters
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It had not been Dick Grayson's night.
His grapple had jammed twice resulting in two less than gossamer landings. He hadn't hurt himself and probably would have scored a bronze for them if a panel of Olympic judges had been handy but they were far from his personal best.
Then he'd taken a lead pipe to the back because he'd been too busy berating himself in a voice that sounded suspiciously like Bruce's for the equipment failure. His suit had absorbed most of the blow but it hadn't stopped him from stumbling into the goon he'd been facing sending both of them into what would be snow, if it were anywhere else but since it was in Bludhaven, it was slush.
Slush that wasted no time in finding it's way into his suit and settling in for the night. Striking fear wasn't easy when every movement was accompanied by squelching but no one who found his new sound effects funny was conscious enough to laugh about it very long.
When he picked up chatter about the drug ring he'd been trying to bust for months making a drop in Gotham Dick had thought things were finally looking up. But the universe had had other ideas and on top of blowing months of work and giving himself away and not catching the guys; he was now nursing his damaged bike down the back roads that led to the Batmobile's entrance.
Actually he should be so lucky to go down, the road was completely uphill and the way his night was going at any moment his bike would give out and he'd be stuck walking it through the tunnel.
At least time was on his side if nothing else was. It was nearly 5, Bruce should've gotten in and gone to bed an hour ago. Meaning Dick would be free to patch up his bike, raid the armoury and get back to Bludhaven without him ever being the wiser.
They weren't exactly on speaking terms at the moment. Not that, Dick thought bitterly, as the ramp descended from the cliff face, there was anything unusual about that.
The cave was predictably and thankfully deserted. The suit resting in it's case told Dick he was right, Bruce had made it back and turned in. They may not have been talking to each other but Dick still felt a sense of relief seeing his adopted Father had made it through another night.
The same certainly couldn't be said of his bike as the overhead strip lighting revealed the extent of the damage his ill fated car chase had caused. Why did Gotham even still have trolley cars? And more importantly why did they run at 3am? There was no way he was getting this patched up tonight, if at all.
Fantastic.
Alright, Dick told himself, new plan; go upstairs, get some sleep, wait for Bruce to leave for work, beg a lift back to Bludhaven from Alfred, act as though he'd never even been there.
That was the good thing about big houses; people could rattle around in them without ever running into each other.
Couldn't do this in a circus trailer, Dick thought as he ascended the stairs, silent as a shadow. Not that circus trailers were known for their grand staircases or that he had ever needed to sneak.
Sneaking wasn't a skill he'd picked up until he came to Wayne Manor and he was only using it now because he and Bruce had lost the ability to communicate without it turning into a shouting match. Dick wasn't sure where things had gone wrong, they had mended bridges after Tim had taken up the mantle of Robin and for a while things had actually been good. They had been a family again. Now things were almost worse than they had been before and Dick didn't know what to do.
Aside from sneak around what was essentially his childhood home, he thought bitterly and avoid the man who was essentially his Father.
He reached his room and just as silently as he'd made it through the rest of the Manor entered it.
Normally after a long night of patrol he'd get out of his uniform but after losing a battle with a street trolley he couldn't be bothered. Alfred would have to strip the bed to remove all evidence of him ever being there anyway.
So Dick merely kicked his boots off before collapsing.
He only had time to register that his bed felt distinctly more person like than he remembered than an exclamation of
"Great Hera!"
Reached his ears and he found himself thrown against the far wall. His suit once more absorbed most of the impact but he still crumpled to the floor in a dazed heap distantly aware that a baby was crying.
The light flicked on and Dick, trained by the best, took the scene before him in in a glance but failed to make an ounce of sense from it. Bruce stood in the doorway looking thunderous, Wonder Woman floated over his bed, at the foot of which sat a crib. Where the crying emanated from.
"Goddess!" In the blink of an eye Wonder Woman was at Dick's side manoeuvring him to his feet. Being the right way up however did nothing to aid his brain in processing the information his eyes were sending it.
"Hera I'm so sorry"
Hands ghosted across his arms and shoulders as Wonder Woman (Wonder Woman?) checked him over for injuries but Dick could only watch in a daze as Bruce calmly approached the crib and lifted a dark haired baby out of it. And if that alone weren't enough to short circuit his brain, he then began to rock and soothe it.
Dick's gaze was momentarily torn from the scene as Wonder Woman (Wonder Woman!?) took his face between her hands and turned it to the left then to the right to test his neck. The brief time away gave Dick a chance to collect his thoughts, unfortunately he failed to collect them into anything more eloquent than
"What the fuck?"
"Language Master Dick" Alfred scolded from the doorway his timing impeccable as always. Dick savoured that one universal constant for a moment before he was forced to return to reality which had apparently decided it was done making sense.
"Would you like to sit down?" Wonder Woman (Wonder Woman!) offered kindly.
"I hit my head didn't I? That's what this is. That trolley did as big a number on me as my bike and now I'm seeing things" Dick struggled out from her grasp and looked around the room once more, trying through sheer force of will to make it make sense.
"Master Dick I'm afraid you're fully conscious" Alfred said.
"Good one Alfred"
"Diana slap him" Bruce ordered calmly, barely glancing away from the baby he was trying to get back to sleep.
"What!?" Both Dick and the Amazon Princess demanded spinning to face him.
"I'm not going to..." Wonder Woman began while at the same time Dick protested
"That's your solution? To have a meta hit me?"
"I don't know why you're worried, you're seeing things" Bruce told him
"Never mind I'm conscious, you're never this much of an asshole when I hallucinate" Dick scowled.
"Really Master Dick I raised you better than that" Alfred admonished
"What? He is being an asshole! He was going to have Wonder Woman hit me! Because she's here for some reason and sleeping in my bed with a goddamned baby!"
The baby who had almost been lulled was startled back into renewed tears at his outburst and though the glare Bruce sent him could have stripped paint Dick refused to be cowed. How was he the one in the wrong here?
"Your Highness would you care for some tea?" Alfred asked suddenly. Wonder Woman opened her mouth to answer but before she could he had turned to Bruce "And I presume you'll want coffee with your breakfast? I may as well serve it now as it doesn't look as though I'll be returning to my bed any time soon"
Bruce's glare might not have cowed Dick but the guilt Alfred was serving as though it were on a silver platter was something else.
"Bruce explain" Wonder Woman ordered. There was no doubt from her tone and the way she held herself that it was an order. Something in Dick's experience that Bruce gave rather than followed but because tonight just wasn't quite done with surprising him yet, Bruce bought the baby to his shoulder and said
"This is Essie, she's from another dimension. She's staying"
Well that answered one question but raised oh so many more. Wonder Woman seemed to find Bruce's explanation lacking too as she rolled her eyes and continued
"She's our daughter from another dimension"
Dick Grayson had lived an interesting life, even before he'd taken to running around at night in long underwear. But other dimensions were above and beyond his pay grade. He'd go so far as to argue they were beyond Gotham's pay grade. This was, in his several years in the biz opinion, the sort of thing that stopped at Metropolis' city limits. So he felt fully justified in asking
"Where is she staying?"
"Here" Bruce's posture took on a decidedly defensive tilt, reflected in both his tone and the protective way he cradled the once more quiet Essie.
"Here? Here, here?"
"Yes, here here" It was amazing how Bruce could give the impression of rolling his eyes without ever actually doing so.
"In the Manor?"
"Is there another 'here here' you're referring to?"
"I'll go and put the kettle on, shall I?" Alfred announced both loudly and pointedly before either Dick or Bruce could carry on in their current vein.
"We can continue this conversations when it's light" Bruce said, no more immune to Alfred's guilt trips than Dick.
"Great idea, where am I supposed to sleep till then?" A redundant question in a house with bedrooms in the double digits but after the night he'd had Dick couldn't resist the jab.
"You can stay here. Diana get the crib, you're with me" Not waiting to see if he was being obeyed Bruce spun and strode from the room as though he were in cape and cowl rather than pyjamas and a dressing gown.
"Well Master Dick it's nice to have you home again, do enjoy your sleep" Alfred said.
"All two hours of it" Dick quipped.
As he spoke Wonder Woman lifted the crib and braced it against her hip as though it were no more heavy or cumbersome than a plastic laundry basket.
"Sorry about earlier, I hope I didn't hurt you" She said, earnestly apologetic. Dick had met superheroes before, he may not have ventured much beyond Gotham and Bludhaven but he was in the club and it's members had ways of bumping into each other. However none of them had been using one of his adopted Father's t shirts as a nightie. He was about to try and defuse the all encompassing awkwardness of that by saying it was no big deal, what was a wall here or there really? When Bruce's voice sounded from the hallway,
""Let's go Princess"
Wonder Woman once more rolled her eyes
"How do you put up with it?" She asked Alfred as they left the room.
"I'm the one who does his stitches"
"Ah"
In the hallway Essie was once more asleep and realising this Alfred silently shut Dick's door, whispered his good nights and all but tiptoed to bed. Diana took a leaf from his book and rose a few centimetres from the ground to be as quiet as possible on her own journey there. She knew she didn't have to worry about Bruce trailing behind her with Essie, he always moved silently. She began to float towards the stairs but a hand curled around her arm and pulled her back. Diana turned back towards Bruce and raised a questioning eyebrow. He dropped her arm and started down the hall towards his bedroom, motioning for her to follow him. Which she did.
If it wasn't five in the morning Diana might have devoted more energy to looking around Bruce's room. But as it was she merely put the crib down where he directed and held her breath as Essie was lowered into it. Both her and Bruce's face held the same triumphant expression when she didn't awaken. Then, still refusing to speak lest their victory be undone, Bruce gestured to the bed. Any protests Diana could have raised were quickly overridden by the realisation she would have to risk waking Essie to make them.
So she held her tongue and since it was Bruce's bed allowed him to actually get in it, while she settled for the throw blanket. Her last thought before sleep claimed her was this was becoming a trend.
Barely an hour later Diana woke again. Cursing the centuries worth of routine that ensured she couldn't properly sleep in. Bruce seemed to have no such hang ups as he was sprawled out on his side of the bed snoring softly.
Well playboy billionaires could sleep past six but Amazon Princesses had morning prayers and meditation to attend to.
Diana floated from the bed and for the lack of an alter supplicated herself before it as she thanked each of her patron goddesses in turn for their gifts and guidance. Prayers were important and Diana knew the Gods were not to be ignored but she still vastly preferred meditation.
If a stranger were to witness her preforming it they might mistake it for taichi, a trained eye however would see her movements for what they were; slow, performative fighting forms. Muscle memory took over as she blocked invisible opponents, parried non existent swords and thrust imaginary spears allowing her mind to quieten.
It wasn't long however before she realised she had an audience. Watching her intently from the crib, her bright, little eyes tracking every movement was Essie. She had tried to stand in order to see over the rim but since her legs were too weak to bear her weight she clung to the side of the crib and braced herself against the struts as best she could for extra height.
"Clever Little Star" Diana praised her efforts, floating over to scoop her up. Clearly the outcome Essie had been hoping for as her face broke into a smile.
"Perhaps you'd like to meditate with me" Diana suggested falling into the next form as best she could while holding a baby.
"Arms like this" She instructed tugging Essie's into an approximation of how her own should be,
"As though you were drawing a bow. Or perhaps you'd prefer a sword" Essie giggled as her arms were once more repositioned.
"Maybe a spear" More laughter as another pose was struck
"What do you think Little Star? What should we begin your training with?" Diana smiled down at her.
"She's not even out the cradle and you want her to start weapons training" Bruce's voice came from the bed, thick with sleep.
"An Amazon's first weapon is very important" Diana turned to face him.
"Da" Essie strained to be put down and Diana allowed her. She made her way across the bed in the half shuffling, half dragging motion that looked set to be her preferred mode of transport until she got the hang of crawling properly.
J'onn had effectively broken the conditioning that had kept her fearful and reliant on the constant presence of either herself or Bruce and the change was startling. Essie was almost an entirely different person. Bubbly and animated where before she had been withdrawn and cautious.
Her shrewd observance hadn't gone anywhere but it stemmed now not from a need to remain constantly vigilant but curiosity and wonder. She found everything interesting. Something Diana had discovered came with it's own set of challenges as trying to get her fed, bathed and to sleep the previous night had been constantly interrupted by Essie's new found desire to interact with anything that looked potentially fun.
This morning found Diana in a similar situation. No longer quite so preoccupied with either sleep or morning prayers she did her best to discretely survey Bruce's room. It however like almost every part of the Manor revealed next to nothing about the man. The true man.
The furnishing and decor were rich and stately. They whispered of old money but belied a paradox; while everything Diana saw was expensive nothing was of value.
Before yesterday she would have believed that everything Bruce truly cared about was in the cave but her time in the study had proven that incorrect. She hadn't frequented it often during her stay in the Manor. It seemed too close to the cave and staying full time in his house she was eager for Bruce to feel his space had not been totally invaded. So she had kept mostly in Alfred's company or retreated to the 3rd floor library when she needed her own space.
Yesterday however had told her that it wasn't just Batman who kept trophy's; Bruce Wayne displayed them too. An entire wall of his study was dedicated to framed newspapers praising the Wayne Foundations work, plaques and awards given in recognition of donations and successful programs. But though proudly displayed they were pushed aside in favour of what Bruce considered the real prizes. Photos; of children from all over the world smiling in front of hospitals, schools, playgrounds, wells. Of groups of young men and women before the Gotham University campus all holding up certificates with 'Thomas and Martha Wayne Scholarship' printed at the top. Framed letters, some from children thanking Bruce for donations of books and art supplies or sports equipment to their schools and community centres with cheerful colourful drawings showing them using them. Some Diana originally thought from the large unpractised characters were also from children but closer reading revealed them to be from incarcerated men and women who had only just learned to read and write through the in prison literacy programs Bruce was funding.
All of it added more pieces to the collage of the man she thought she knew.
"You coming Princess?" Bruce's voice cut through her thoughts and Diana turned to face him. He was by the door, Essie held to his shoulder. Trying not to appear guilty at having been caught snooping Diana joined them.
She realised as they made their way into the hall and down the stairs that this was her morning routine now. She would awaken, not necessarily in Bruce's room with Bruce but not necessarily emnot/em in Bruce's room with Bruce. Preform her morning prayers and meditation. Take Essie from her crib and go downstairs to breakfast.
The Fates, Diana thought, truly had an odd sense of humour.
With everyone in the Manor asleep, preparing breakfast or on their way to it there was no one to pay attention to the security cameras as they showed a van pulling up to the gates.
It stopped short and a young boy all but tumbled out, a missed step nearly sending him straight into the cast iron 'W'. The cameras, the best money could buy captured the expression of thinly veiled disgust on the man who followed him. Even his eye roll as he made his way around the van and out of view was rendered perfectly in 8 Mega Pixels. He was back moments later with a duffel bag. He handed it to the boy who dropped forward and nearly doubled at the weight. Entirely unconcerned the man re entered the van and it drove off.
The boy stood hunched by the gate his arms shaking with the strain of the bag and it's contents for several minutes. But then he straightened, slung the bag over his shoulder as though it were weightless and using the 'W' as a handhold scaled the gate effortlessly.
Timothy Drake dropped neatly down on the other side and not breaking his stride started up the long, twisting drive in a brisk jog.
"I'm back" He called entering the foyer. No one answered him as it was abandoned.
"Pause for crowd reaction" He muttered shrugging his bag off and kicking it out of the doorway, before wandering through to the main reception room
"Alfred?"
No point in trying to call for Bruce it was only just gone 6:30 he'd still be fast asleep. Tim reached for his phone and like he had done obsessively for the past 12 hours checked his messages. The one saying he was on his way back had definitely gone through. He'd only been away a week, was a welcoming committee really too much to ask?
"Probably at this hour right?' He said to a nearby bust.
Sighing Tim stuck his hands in his pockets and decided to drop by the kitchen and get a bowl of cereal before slinking off to bed. It had been a long and overall sucky flight.
He heard voices as he made it closer. Bruce must have dragged himself out of bed earlier than usual or he hadn't managed to get to it yet; either way Tim announced his return to the fold by bursting through the door with
"Please tell me we have enough to move against the Verano's, sharing a tent with Danny was the worst"
Four pairs of eyes landed on him and it was only by the grace of Bruce's relentless training that Tim was able to catch the door before it could swing back on him without taking his own eyes off what lay before him.
"What the?" Tim's gaze whipped from Bruce, or more importantly the baby he was feeding to
"Diana?" He hadn't seen her since the second Watchtower was built, yet here she was halfway through an omelet and wearing one of Bruce's t shirts.
"I was gone a week!"
He cried as the various puzzle pieces before him refused to make a coherent picture.
"It was supposed to be two, why are you back?" Bruce spoke like he wasn't holding a baby and things were normal.
"Didn't you get my text?" Tim bought his phone out yet again and just to be extra sure checked the message had gone through one more time. It had. "Torrential rain, they didn't want to risk getting flooded out so we evacuated"
"In the dry season?" Bruce queried while Diana asked
"Are you alright?"
The message had gone through, it was even marked as read. Although the phone couldn't really tell if someone had read it, it could only catalogue that it had been in a position to be read. But that didn't add up. Other people might skim their texts without really reading them but Bruce would never and...
"Tim" Bruce said.
"Huh? What?" He snapped out of his thoughts
"Are you alright?" Bruce repeated Diana's question.
"Yeah I guess, it didn't actually flood. We just left in case"
"And did you.." Bruce began
"Yes, I completed profiles on everyone's bodyguards. And I kept the loser act up the whole time. Everyone thinks I'm an asthmatic nerd who's afraid of heights. I even pretended to pass out on the ropes course."
"I was going to ask did you have fun" Bruce said.
"Of course I didn't have fun! I was pretending to be a whiny loser at adventure camp and spying on my classmates' bodyguards' routines and habits!"
"And Danny Verano's?" Bruce asked his casual tone belying just a hint of interest. Tim grinned;
"Get this, scared of bugs"
"I bet he had a fun time in the St Lucian jungle"
"Oh yeah, remember that Farmer Brown guy? His bugs had nothing on these ones"
"Did you go to camp or on a recon mission?" Diana broke in sounding half amused and half exasperated
"Camp" Bruce assured her at the same time Tim said
"Recon"
They turned to eachother with expressions that had they been on any other faces would have been considered confusion. Both Bruce and Tim schooled their features short of that.
"You sent me to camp?" Tim asked.
"You thought you were there to do recon?" Bruce responded.
"Of course I thought that! Why wouldn't I think that? I was sharing a tent with Danny Verano!"
Tim didn't know what to feel, everything in him felt muddled. A week of pretending full time to be a clumsy, whiny scaredy cat while cataloguing the movements of a handful of grown men who took their jobs with varying degrees of seriousness. Believing all the while that Bruce had sent him there for that and the information would be useful. When he had supposed to be enjoying himself? Which how could he when he had to pretend to be a clumsy, whiny scaredy cat? And then the rain that wouldn't stop and even though the actual camp and adventure centre was world class as befitted the students of Gotham Academy the roads leading to it weren't. So they had to drive back to Vieux Fort in the middle of the night before they became impassable. Then milling around the Hewanorra airport carpark in their hired van because nothing on St Lucia was open 24 hours no matter how much money you could throw at it. A concept his classmates just could not grasp. Just as they were incapable of understanding that having the money to charter a private jet was only good so long as there actually was one to charter and they'd have to wait for a flight with enough openings to get back to the United States.
Spending a full day and night in the company of teenagers as they were confronted for the very first time with a problem their Daddy's money couldn't solve was not an experience Tim was overly eager to repeat.
And now he was back and in his absence Diana had returned to Wayne Manor and started sleeping in Bruce's t shirts and they had acquired a baby. Somehow that was less disturbing than the tshirt thing; the baby could've come from anywhere, the t shirt had one origin point. And it gave Tim mental images he really didn't need.
Tim's swirling cacophony of thoughts came to a close as a ham and cheese omelet was laid before him and the salt and pepper placed within his easy reach. He met Alfred's eyes with gratitude.
"Can I have some coffee?" He asked.
"You can have tea, two sugars" Bruce told him, the warning in his voice that any attempts at beverage negotiation would see him relegated to orange juice clear. Tea had caffeine at least and Tim accepted the mug Alfred presented him with.
"So what's with the baby?" He asked after a long, scalding gulp of sweet, sweet caffeine perked him enough to devote actual energy to her. The baby done with her bottle took the opportunity to size him up too. Her bright, strangely familiar blue eyes drank him in and that too was reminiscent of something Tim couldn't quite put his finger on. He blamed the jetlag. He took another mouthful of tea to counter it at the exact moment Bruce chose to say
"Her name is Essie, she's Diana and mines' daughter. From another dimension"
Tim's tea went straight down his windpipe to be promptly coughed and spluttered back up across his omelet and the immediate vicinity.
"Timothy!" Diana was up and rubbing his back while Alfred materialised with a glass of water he couldn't stop coughing long enough to take let alone drink. Essie did not look impressed and Tim wasn't sure he blamed her.
Once he had stopped coughing long enough to drink the glass of water and felt confident in his ability to complete a sentence he started with what he felt was the most pertinent information
"Another dimension? Seriously?"
Bruce nodded and bought Essie to his shoulder.
"That's cool but why is she here?"
"It wasn't safe for her there" Bruce explained.
"So she's staying? Like permanently? You're not just, I dunno, babysitting?" Tim said as another omelet was placed before him to replace his tea drenched one.
"She's staying. Diana too. Alfred would you make a note of this on Leslie's chart?" Bruce held up the empty bottle.
"Can I hold her?" Tim asked. Bruce's attention snapped back to him and he did his best not to slouch under his scrutiny. It didn't do much to abate the dismissive and reluctant tilt in Bruce's posture.
"Bruce let him hold her. She has to get used to other people" Diana said. There was something in her voice that Tim catalogued as a warning but couldn't figure out why it was there.
He'd missed having her around the Manor ever since the new Watchtower had been built. Her presence had put Bruce in a better mood for one thing but even without that Diana was fun. She'd always been happy to help him with his homework and the case work Bruce set as part of his detective training. Not many people could make sitting at a desk in a dank cave memorising blood splatter patterns and what specific trauma wounds looked like enjoyable but Diana had. She also never seemed to mind him prattling on about the specifics of the tech they utilised, which Tim liked. Dick didn't really care how their gadgets worked so long as they did and Bruce wasn't big on chatter so having someone to geek out with had been fun. Even if she hadn't understood half of what he'd said.
Bruce stood and carefully, half reluctantly handed the baby across. Tim took her and settled her in his arms.
"Girl in my old building used to have one like you" He told her, jogging her a bit like he remembered Carina's baby had liked. "Till her Mom got done for dealing out their apartment and Social Services took him. They tried to get me a couple times but I always snuck out the fire escape"
Essie giggled and Tim laughed with her.
"That's right" He cooed, voice soft and high "They never got me because I snuck out the fire escape"
Diana seemed a little taken aback hearing that but if Bruce considered the exchange in any way odd he didn't show it. In fact now that he had free hands he made a start on his previously neglected breakfast. Although Tim knew he and Essie were never fully out of his focus.
"I don't have to give up my room right?" He asked looking up from Essie suddenly.
"No, she'll go in the nursery" Bruce said.
"Oh yeah, right. The nursery. How could I forget about the nursery?" He went back to making fish faces for Essie's amusement.
And she did seem thoroughly amused until a new figure darkened the kitchen doorway and her laughter hitched. Bruce and Diana, by now both well attuned to her moods turned their attention to her.
She remained quiet as Dick entered the room; not scared so much as uncertain, last night had not done much to endear her towards him.
"Well this is cosy" He said taking a spot at the table nook, ignoring the warning glare Bruce shot him.
"Dick!" Tim turned to him brightly. He hadn't been seen in the manor recently. Probably because he and Bruce were at loggerheads again but Tim had missed having him around too. He'd never had a big brother before coming to the Manor and he liked to consider Dick one.
He was officially; Bruce had adopted both of them but Tim understood that considering counted a whole lot more than officiality. After all Shifty Drake had officially been his Father but Tim had never considered him one.
Now he not only had a big brother, he was a big brother. Tim felt a grin stretch across his face.
"Have you met Essie?" He held the baby, his little sister, up to Dick. Across the table a muscle twitched in Bruce's cheek, practically a flinch for him but Tim was undeterred. Robin's were daring. Essie for her part didn't seem to mind her sudden proximity to Dick's face. She was happy to divide her attention between sizing him up and blowing spit bubbles.
"We're acquainted" Dick said.
"Great! You can hold her while I eat breakfast. Diana says she needs to be around more people" Tim thrust the baby into Dick's arms, purposefully ignoring the 'hey wait a minutes' that erupted from him. He then shovelled as much omelet into his mouth as he could and gestured to it to show he couldn't talk when Dick continued protesting.
Bruce made to stand but Diana's hand shot out to hold his down on the table, stilling him and Dick was left holding the baby. He, unlike Tim didn't have any experience at it and before long Essie began to fuss with discomfort. Dick barely even thinking let alone remembering that they weren't really speaking, turned to Bruce for guidance.
"Like this, you need to support her more" Bruce positioned his empty arms correctly and just as he had for countless martial arts and disciplines Dick mimicked his movements exactly. Essie settled and Dick took her in properly for the first time. She definitely got her looks from Wonder Woman but there was something about her demeanour that was undoubtedly all Bruce. It was going to make for interesting times as she got older.
Well, Dick thought, he certainly wouldn't want to miss out on that.
"You know" He told Essie "It's not so bad growing up here. I don't know about Tim but I turned out OK"
"Hey!"
"And your Dad over there" Dick gestured to Bruce "He's a real hard ass but I think you can handle it"
"Touching" Said Bruce dryly.
"Just giving the kid the facts" Dick grinned at him and just like that things were on their way to being OK between them again.
"We can take a look at your bike after breakfast" Bruce offered "Unless you need to be back in Bludhaven"
Dick, having been raised by the man saw the words for what they were, an olive branch. He looked around the table; Tim, a hopeful expression on his face, Wonder Woman wore one too. Alfred hovered behind Bruce having long since abandoned the illusion he wasn't paying attention and the look on his face completed the set. Finally Dick looked down at Essie, she met his eyes and smiled.
"I think I can hang around for a while" He said. It was a good day to start fresh.
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Well that took longer than expected, sorry for the wait on this one guys. Better late than never I hope.
Story notes
Gothamites just really like the 30's OK?: It seems like Gotham has and relies every form of public transport known to man, including some really outdated modes like cable cars and electric trams. It would be a commuters paradise if there weren't rogues hijacking something every other day. Also I know the look Gotham has in the cartoons was a deliberate choice of the production team but I like to believe in universe they just really, really want to be known for their Art Deco architecture and Film Noir vibe instead of their crazy villains and crime.
Trophy hunter: While I might have exaggerated how much space it takes up Bruce does keep a cabinet in his study filled with awards and thanks for his charity work. It's how Tim Drake was able to uncover Batman's identity in the BTAS episode 'Sins of the Father'
Farmer Brown: Because Gotham can never have enough crazies in the episode 'Critters' they get to add a farmer using growth hormones to make huge animals including nightmare inducing person sized praying mantises to the list.
That's all for this time. I'd love to hear what you thought, I accept criticism of my work as long as it's constructive.
Next chapter, the circle continues to widen.
Ari Out