The Birds Who Smile, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl
Chapter 9.5 (rough draft 2)
At the end of patrol, Damian looked tired but satisfied. Bruce had rather enjoyed his return to the field as well, but was now anxious to see his youngest children. He didn't want to leave Damian too hastily, for fear of giving the impression that he was only spending time with him out of obligation, so Bruce tried not to hurry too much through cleanup and reports. He paid attention to Damian's casual conversation and accompanied him upstairs.
Only when the boy headed toward the kitchen for a snack before bed did Bruce bid him good night (or good morning, rather) and head for the family's personal wing. He paused briefly to check on Stephanie, who was asleep in her designated room with the Bat Baby Monitor on the bedside table. Then Bruce moved on to his own room.
Jack was the one currently on 'guard duty,' looking at Robert Munsch's Love You Forever with the book light he'd been given. He looked up when Bruce entered, but didn't seem alarmed.
"Hello," Bruce signed. "Hands only, no mouths. Your brothers are sleeping."
"Time for breakfast?"
"Not yet. I want to sleep a little first."
"Where you went?"
"I went to play with D-a-m-i-a-n."
"Teach me," Jack said, not recognizing the signs for individual letters.
"I can't yet." Bruce pulled up a picture of Damian on his phone, then signed slowly, "D-a-m-i."
Jack looked down at his own hands in dismay.
Bruce waved to regain his attention and went on, "You can make an easier name for him that's just for signing."
"Bossy," Jack said at once. "Him Bossy."
Bruce resisted the urge to chuckle. "I went to play with Bossy. Now I am tired and will sleep."
"I read book."
"Good. Did you like playing with S-t-e-p-h-a-n-i-e?" He pulled up another photo to accompany the name.
"Loud Shiny," Jack named her. "Fun and scary."
"Loud Shiny scared you?"
Jack scrunched his fingers at Bruce.
"I don't understand."
"Colors. Sticky, blood. Fight Brother likes it, me and Protect Brother scared."
Bruce was concerned now. "Blood?"
"Sticky."
Bruce got up and moved over to the bathroom, wanting to examine Jack for injuries. "Come here."
Jack looked at Bruce, then at his sleeping brothers. "No."
Bruce moved a lamp to the far side of the desk and switched it on. "Come here," he tried again.
"Don't hurt me."
"I will not."
Jack crept hesitantly over to Bruce, who made sure to move slowly and gently as he checked the boy under the lamp. As far as he could tell, there was nothing physically amiss. "Did Loud Shiny hurt you?"
"No."
"Did someone else hurt you?"
"No."
"Loud Shiny scared you?"
"Yes." Jack made that strange gesture again with his fingers.
Bruce studied them carefully under the lamp, and found a trace of green lacquer. "She put nail polish on you?"
It was not a sign the boys would know, but whether it was clear enough to be self-explanatory or Stephanie had taught them, Jack apparently understood. "Yes. Nail polish is bad?"
Bruce wasn't quite sure how to answer that under the circumstances ('She put NAIL POLISH on them?'), but settled for, "No. If an adult is with you, it's safe. It is dangerous if you use it by yourself, but if an adult is with you, it's safe."
Jack seemed to ponder this for a while. "Me and Protect Brother scared; Fight Brother not scared. Fight Brother knows."
Assuming that 'Fight Brother' was Peter, Bruce moved back to the nest for a better look, careful not to get too close. He'd learned from experience that the boys did not like him to invade their bed. Jack was tense as he watched.
Peter had marks on his face. The light wasn't good enough to identify them, so Bruce backed away again and demanded of Jack, "Is Fight Brother hurt?"
"No."
"What is on his face?"
"Nail polish."
Bruce suppressed a sigh. "Is Protect Brother hurt?"
"No. Shiny fingernails."
"..." Bruce looked again, this time at John. The boy's left hand looked normal in the dim light. His right was tucked under his cheek, but the two nails peeking out looked darker than they should be. "...Does he like it?"
"Maybe."
"What else did you and Loud Shiny play?"
"Jump cookie. Glue."
'Cookies? Glue? Stephanie, what have you been doingwith my boys?' Bruce thought in exasperation. "Glue?" he asked visibly.
Jack pointed, and for the first time, Bruce paid closer attention to the posters near the nest. Jack brought one of them under the lamp to show him. "Proud. I make this good."
"Very good," Bruce affirmed automatically, but his attention was on the photographs. "...Let me see your cell phone."
"My cell phone. I keep it."
"I won't take it. I will only look."
Jack reluctantly produced his phone, holding onto it but allowing Bruce to access the touchscreen. Bruce soon found the photographs Jack had apparently been taking for who knew how long without anyone noticing. The sound effects were off, since Bruce made that the default for all his personal phones, and the child either didn't know how to or didn't want to enable them again.
"...These are good. Interesting." He paused at one of the photographs of himself. He wasn't sure how to feel about the evidence that at least one of the boys left the nest during the night long enough to climb on his bed and get so close to him as he slept unaware.
Jack, apparently picking up on his unease, pulled the phone away and held it protectively against his chest.
"It's all right. Your photos are good." He studied the other collages under the lamp as well, intrigued by the indirect glimpse into his youngest children's minds.
John awakened with a wail, causing Peter to stir. Jack hurried to them, held a soft conversation in bird language, then cuddled with John to comfort him from the nightmare and soon fell asleep. Peter relaxed as well, having never quite reached consciousness.
John watched Bruce.
"Are you sad or scared?" Bruce asked.
"...Breakfast?"
"Not yet. I will sleep first. I went to play with Bossy," he showed a picture of Damian to explain whom he meant,"but now I'm tired."
"Tired," John signed, and looked it, even though he'd just woken up. "Tie us, hurt us, scare us?"
"No seatbelts today." He wanted to change the subject to a more pleasant topic. "Did you have fun with Loud Shiny?" he asked, showing a picture of Stephanie.
"...Blue fingernails, shiny. Smell worse than blood. Good."
"Your poster." Bruce tapped the collage to explain the new sign. "I like it. It's good."
"...Fun."
"I'm glad." Bruce felt like he was about to collapse from exhaustion. "I will sleep now."
"Good night," John said dutifully.
Bruce crawled into bed and instantly fell asleep. He woke up a couple of hours later to find all three boys awake, jumping around like they were playing hopscotch. They fell still and warily clustered together when he sat up. "Good morning," he told them.
"Sssea-tuhbbe-tuh?"
"Seatbelt! Bad!"
"Seatbelts tomorrow, not today," he said patiently, and tried to continue being patient when they asked him over and and over again all morning.
Stephanie appeared about halfway through breakfast, yawning. "Mmmmmorning~ everyone!" She planted a kiss on the side of a half-asleep Tim's head, then bestowed more kisses on the children. She smiled a little apprehensively at Bruce. "We had fun last night!"
"So I hear," he said dryly.
"The rest of the nail polish will come off... It was a lot worse yesterday."
'How bad was it yesterday?!' "The collages were a good idea," was what he said out loud.
"Thanks! They were fun. I didn't know where to put them, though! How come the kids don't have their own room?!"
"I- They'll get their own room, I just don't quite trust them to pass the night on their own yet." He thought about it as he put a spoonful of eggs on Peter's plate. "I suppose we could give it a try soon, though. And you're right, they need their own space, whether they're sleeping in it or not." His room had been getting cluttered lately with the children's clothes, toys, books, and now the posters.
Stephanie thanked Alfred for the chair he pulled out for her and helped herself to some toast and jam. "Good. Go have a normal grown-up's night out soon, I want to babysit again without missing patrol."
After breakfast, Bruce paid Stephanie and walked her out to her car with the boys, who all hugged her goodbye without prompting. Then, since they were all outside with Titus anyway, they took a walk around the grounds. Bruce matched the little ones' pace, allowing them to frolic and explore mostly at will (he did have to stop Peter from poking at an ant hill). Now that he was watching for it, he noticed when Jack would occasionally slip out his phone, snap a photo, then squirrel the device away again as if it was a secret.
"Jack, would you like me to take a picture of all three of you together?" The little boy didn't have any photos of himself, other than isolated body parts.
Jack eyed him consideringly. Finally he shook his head, but did consent to take a picture of the rest of them. Peter hung onto Titus and playfully bared his teeth; Bruce tried not to look awkward; John flung out his arms and smiled a sunshiney, fangy smile as he tipped into an almost 90-degree sideways angle. Jack lowered the phone to look at the resulting photo and chirred in satisfaction.
When they returned to the house, Bruce led the children to what had, merely an hour before, simply been a guest bedroom. Alfred was in the closet, hanging the boys' clothes on organized racks. The curtains were open, and a little pile of name labels was on the desk, waiting for Alfred to affix them to the various storage compartments that had been assigned to each child.
"Boys," Bruce said, "this is your new room."
They looked around at it, then at him, their expressions inscrutable.
"You might still sleep in my room for the time being, I'm not sure yet; but during the daytime, if you want to be alone or feel upset or want to take a nap, you can come to this room and rest, because it's yours. Let me know if you truly do want a room of your own, I just assumed that you'd like to start out sharing between the three of you." When they still showed no reaction, either positive or negative, Bruce continued a little awkwardly, "Let's move the rest of your belongings."
The children grew more animated as they helped Bruce and Alfred carry things and saw that places were made for each item. Toys went into the toyboxes; books went on the bookshelf; toiletries went in the bathroom; the collages they had made with Stephanie were hung on the walls. Bruce got them to choose their favorite pictures from Jack's phone and printed them onto proper photographic paper, which Alfred then framed and put on display.
As the children saw the room become more and more their own, their excitement grew until they were running around, exclaiming in a mixture of languages and demanding that Bruce or Alfred make whatever adjustments they couldn't make themselves. John was the one who discovered how fun the bed was to jump on, which Bruce hastily put a stop to.
He cast about for a distraction. "Look, here are the art supplies. Why don't you draw some pictures? We can put those on display, too." As the boys were busily coloring, Bruce's phone chimed softly with a notification. A few minutes later, when he noticed the visitor peering around the door jamb, he got the children's attention and pointed.
They all froze, staring at the newcomer like he was a ghost. He smiled and said quietly, "Hey, baby birds." Then he laughed and stepped into the room to catch John, who flung himself into Dick's arms and clung like an infant bat.
Jack grabbed a bunch of books and slammed them to the ground a few feet away. He sat down with his back to Dick and PICKED UP the book on top, wrenched it open, and LOOKED at the page, starting to babble a loud, not-quite-intelligible stream of sound as if he was reading aloud, making it quite clear that he had better things to do than deign to notice Dick.
Peter, meanwhile, was raging. "YOU! Bad you, I hate it!" he screamed in a wild hodgepodge of languages. "I am SO ANGRY you left us for SO LONG you bad Dick I hate you so sad and angry you WENT AWAY! You do not go away, that is a bad thing, I am SO MAD AT YOU!" Then he plopped down by the books and joined in with Jack's Deeply Offended Cat impression.
Dick looked at the boys who were so pointedly ignoring him. "I am being punished," he remarked. With one arm still around John, he reached into his bag for the gift he'd brought the boys from Blüdhaven.
Peter and Jack jerked their heads up when delicate orbs began drifting past them. They stared, mesmerized. Jack twitched as he stopped himself from impulsively reaching out.
Peter was the one who caved first. He shrieked in delight when the orb he caught disappeared in a silent, damp burst. Then he was up, chasing bubbles like a puppy seeing his first squirrel. Jack held out a little longer, knowing he was being bribed, but finally gave in and stood up, spreading his arms with his eyes full of wonder. Not all the bubbles popped immediately on contact; some gently came to rest on his hair, looking like a crown on a fairy prince.
Dick paused. "Johnny, look at the bubbles," he murmured. The boy refused to take his face out of Dick's shirt, and now the younger two were complaining at the lack of bubble replenishment, so Dick went back to dipping the wand into the solution.
Alfred had left to start preparing lunch. Bruce sat at the desk, discreetly filming. Peter and Jack looked so happy, it nearly brought tears to his eyes. 'I want them to smile like this all the time. I don't want them to ever be afraid or in pain again.' He knew it wasn't possible, but it seemed so unfair that they had already experienced more than a lifetime's worth of pain and fear when they were still so young. 'I'm going to do a better job with them than I did with the others. I will never make them feel belittled or unloved.'
John finally turned his head a little to peek out at the bubbles. He watched his younger brothers playing with them for a long time. At last, still clinging to Dick with one hand, he reached out the other, and a bubble came to rest on his palm for a moment before vanishing with a silent pop. "Aren't they pretty, Johnny?" The boy cooed in response.
Dick finally called an end to the game and screwed the lid back on. "We can play with them again later. How've you kiddos been? What's up with the face paint, and the nail sparklies?" he laughed, gently inspecting John's fingers. "Looks like you guys had fun while I was gone."
"DO NOT LEAVE!"
"Aww, Peter. I promise I'll play with you lots today and tomorrow, all right?" He pointed at the wall. "Did you make that?"
"...Yysss," Peter hedged.
"It's awesome, buddy!"
"Stephanie's idea," Bruce spoke up. "She took care of the boys last night while I was out with Damian."
"You guys did fantastic! Heh, you have good taste, Johnny. Making posters, talking better, you've even got your own room now; you guys are growing~!" They looked better physically, as well, than when Dick had seen them last. With the exception of his fangs, hair color, and scars, Jack now looked like any other healthy six-year-old. Peter was the same, though, like John, with ears that had refused to round out any further and retained an elfin shape. John, although more fair-skinned than his counterpart, was at least back in the natural range of human pigmentation. The movement and postures of all three children were more human and less birdlike than before.
Dick traced the domino scars on John's face. "I wonder if this'll make Nightwing easier to recognize when he grows up and looks more like me."
"We'll have a skin restoration procedure done before it gets to that point. First, though, I need to get them used to...being safe in public," Bruce said, not wanting to set off the children by explicitly mentioning seatbelts, "so that they can leave the manor when necessary."
"They've never left the manor?"
"Just once, and it...did not go well. We're working on it."
By now, the children had all clustered around Dick and were hugging him tightly. He absently patted shoulders and ruffled hair as he talked to Bruce, but then Peter let out a choked sob, and Dick looked down to find that all three of his smallest brothers were crying. "Oh...I'm here, I'm here, baby birds...ssshhh, everything's okay..."
Then Bruce embraced him, arms encircling both him and the children he held. "I missed you, too," Bruce whispered.
"Dang it, now you're making me cry!"
TBC