The Birds Who Smile, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl

Chapter 10.1 (rough draft 2)

Damian woke up at about 1:00 in the afternoon and ate 'breakfast' while reading some Justice League reports he technically wasn't supposed to have access to. Then he went outside to run through some exercises, at which point he discovered that his eldest brother had returned to the manor. "Richard!"

"Dami~!"

"How come no one told me you were here?!"

"You were sleeping! Don't I get a hug?"

Damian wanted to complain at him some more, but chances were that the longer he held off on greeting his brother, the more certain it was that the not-Robin creatures would steal Richard's attention away. So, with great dignity, Damian hopped over the terrace wall, walked into Dick's outspread arms, and allowed himself to be embraced.

"Mmmm, good to see you, kiddo. I hear you're Batman now!"

"Yes, and we could really use Nightwing's help here."

"Yeah, but Blüdhaven really needs help, too, especially now that it's full of desperate Gothamites, and it doesn't have any other Bats. Just me." Peter came up and tugged on Dick's shirt. "What's up, bud?" The boy set a live caterpillar in his hand. The creature reared up for a moment in confusion, then started inching along Dick's thumb. "Aww, thanks!"

"Why are you thanking him for a larva?" Damian asked in exasperation.

"Because he thinks it's interesting enough to share with someone he likes, and I'm the one he chose to share it with, so it's like saying 'I love you.'"

"You'd interpret the most trivial gesture as 'I love you' if you could."

Now John was trying to get Dick's attention. "You need something, Johnny?"

"I love you!"

"Ooh, way to be direct! I love you, too!"

Damian facepalmed, trying to ignore the way Small Drake was hiding in the bushes, thinking he was being stealthy as he photographed the group of them.

"Did you come out here for something in particular, Dami?" Dick asked, taking pity on him.

"I was going to practice my kata, but I suppose I'll have to do it indoors now."

"You don't have to. This is your backyard, too."

"No, I mean the children become violent when they witness violence. They attacked Thomas yesterday when he was sparring with Father."

Dick looked at the boys. Peter wasn't paying attention, since he'd taken the caterpillar back and was now watching it make its way across his fingers, but John cringed away from Dick and said, "Bad me. Ha ha ha ha ha."

"...Show me what you're working on," Dick finally said to Damian, "but go slow enough that the kids won't get triggered."

"What's the point of that?!"

"Reprogramming, hopefully. Ease them into it so they don't register it as combat until they're able to consciously control it. You're the best one to teach them."

Damian was taken aback. "N...No, I'm not."

Dick smiled. "You're their big brother, aren't you? They'll learn from you whether you teach them on purpose or not."

Damian shifted uncomfortably. "They don't like me, though. And I don't like them."

"You're still brothers, whether you like each other or not." Dick turned to John. "Johnny, do you like Damian?"

"Bossy."

Damian scowled.

"Yeah, he can be," Dick chuckled. "He's nice, though, behind the bossy."

And John, to Damian's surprise, signed, "Yes."

"See?"

John looked at Damian. "Teach me."

Damian fidgeted, trying not to look at Dick, who had lit up with barely contained squee. "Fine. Fine. I'll teach you, but no backtalk or shirking!"

John smiled. "Bossy~"

o.o.o.o.o

When Bruce came in search of his sons, he immediately halted and backed out of sight again, not wanting his presence to ruin their bonding. He watched, a little awed, as Damian led Dick and their youngest brothers through a kata, so slowly and gracefully that it looked more like a dance than martial arts. 'We might even be able to teach them to fight like human beings someday.' Bruce caught himself. 'To defend themselves. Not fight.' He had enough soldiers in his 'child army,' as Jason called it.

He watched for longer than he'd meant to, then crept away again to leave them to it. When he tried again later, Duke had joined them, and Dick was teaching them all how to sing in ASL, an old pastime of his from when Dick had been practicing to master the language as a teenager.

To Bruce inside the house, the music from Dick's phone was nothing more than a faint pulse of sound, but his sons' hands, faces, and bodies were bursting with expression: "[*censored because FFN is stupid*]...!"

Bruce retreated again. His boys were happy, and he wanted them to stay that way for as long as possible, so the best thing for him to do was keep out of it.

At one point, he heard them come back into the house to play and watch a movie or something, but he was in his office working on WE business and didn't actually see the boys until dinner. Bruce got the Robins' attention before they could start requesting morsels. "John, Peter, Jack, we're going to try something different tonight." Alfred had been very patient, but his hints over the past couple of days had been getting less subtle, and honestly, the children's lack of table manners had been bothering Bruce as well.

The Robins looked at him apprehensively.

"This time, you don't have to ask for your food, you can have as much as you want whenever you want."

They shifted warily, and Peter hissed.

"However, you are not allowed to use your hands to pick up food. You have to use utensils like the rest of us do."

Damian snorted in amusement, and Duke muttered "Oh boy" as if he could already see a disaster playing out in his mind's eye.

Bruce didn't quite trust the children with sharp things yet, but Alfred had produced some soft baby utensils that would be safe for them to use instead. The boys stared at their empty plates and the alien objects resting beside them. "...Please give me carrots," John signed tentatively. His younger brothers watched to see what would happen.

Bruce picked up the serving bowl of roasted carrots and scooped out as much as he would have if any of his older children had asked. "Is that enough, or do you want more?"

John stared with wide eyes and didn't answer.

Bruce set the bowl down. "Now you can eat it, but do not use your hands. Use your utensils."

"..." John's fingers crept toward the orange bounty on his plate.

"No hands."

The fingers retreated.

"Johnny," Dick called softly, and scooped up a bite of food with his spoon slowly enough that the children could see how he did it.

John finally picked up his spoon and slid it under the mass of carrots, but he couldn't keep his hold, and the spoon dropped from his grasp.

"Try it with two hands," Tim suggested, demonstrating.

John wrapped both sets of fingers around the handle of his spoon and dug the head into the carrots. When he lifted, the carrots tumbled out, so when the tried the second time, he didn't dare raise the spoon again. Instead, he dragged it across the plate, lowering his head in concentration, and pushed the food into his mouth like a bulldozer bringing a load to its destination. Damian snickered; Duke kicked him.

Bruce tried working with the children hand over hand, accompanied by copious encouragement and praise from Dick, until they were able to get food into their mouths without touching it. It was still slow, painful-looking, messy, and frustrating, even when Jack got the idea to use both of his utensils at once.

After Peter's first failed attempt, he threw the spoon across the table and reached directly for a chunk of fish; Bruce pulled the plate away before he could grasp it. Peter shrieked angrily and reared up to grab it back; Bruce immediately stood and loomed over him. For a minute, they faced off like two wolves challenging each other for dominance. Then Peter slowly sank back into his chair, growling sulkily. Bruce gave him a new utensil and slid his plate back in front of him.

They kept at it for a little longer, until John looked like he was about to cry, Peter like he was about to throw a tantrum, and Jack like he was about to just give up and go hungry. "Bruce," Dick murmured.

"One more minute," Bruce said. "Try for one more minute, boys, and then we can go back to asking and hands like we did before."

At the sight of the timer, John sniffled and rallied, making one last brave attempt. Peter practically attacked his food as if he thought that increasing his efforts would make the seconds pass faster. Jack slo-o-o-o-owly fiddled with his spoon, making a show of trying again but obviously stalling for time until he wouldn't have to anymore.

The instant the timer hit zero, all three boys flung their utensils away and demanded hotly, "PLEASE GIVE ME MASHED POTATOES / FISH / GREEN BEANS!" "GGEE BBEE PPEES!" Jack added, too fed up to even try to enunciate.

"One at a time, boys."

o.o.o.o.o

The rest of the family's bathrooms weren't as ridiculously huge as the one in the master suite, but they were still large enough for two men and three children to move around in without feeling too crowded. Bruce and Dick worked together to fill the bathtub with warm water and direct the boys to put their dirty clothes in the laundry hamper rather than just tossing them on the floor. "I feel like a hypocrite," Dick chuckled, "but at least at my apartment, I'm the one who has to pick them up again and wash them."

Bruce was trying to convince Peter to take a shower rather than a bath. "You can't go around with nail polish on your face forever, Peter. Either you let me scrub it off now, or you get in the-" Dick's grinning and gesturing had gotten too distracting. "What?"

Then he registered it, the impatient little voice calling again, "Ddaddy!" He turned to find Jack on the other side of the bathroom, leaning out of the shower door and waving his shirt at Bruce. "Ddaddy, ccome hhere."

Bruce obeyed in a daze. No one had ever deliberately and unironically called him 'Daddy' before. He tried to pull himself together as Jack piled dirty clothes into his arms. "Jack...you're going to take a shower instead of a bath?"

Apparently the boy preferred it in general, not just for privacy when females were present. "Yyess." Naked now, he reached up and made grabby hands.

"Ask with words."

"Please give me water."

After dumping Jack's clothes into the hamper, Bruce unhooked the showerhead and handed it to the child, who knew now to start by turning it away from him. Bruce turned on the water, then decided to teach the boy how to adjust the temperature himself. "Look, Jack. This direction makes the water more hot, this direction makes it more cold. I'll mark it for you later. If you take this handle and pull it, just a little bit at a time..."

Once Jack had the hang of it, Bruce left him to finish bathing by himself. He turned to the bathtub, where the older children were play-fighting with bath toys and reluctantly making progress on washing themselves every time Dick prompted. "Peter," Bruce said, "you can stay in there until Jack's finished, but then you'll need to get out and move to the shower." Since Dick was occupying the chair, Bruce lowered the toilet seat lid and sat on top of it, then cautiously let himself bask. 'Daddy.'

Dick grinned at him again. "I am so happy right now, you have no idea."

"John, no splashing," Bruce called evasively.

"They're so much better than they were last time I was here," Dick went on. He patted Bruce's shoulder. "I'm really proud of you, Dad."

"Hn."

o.o.o.o.o

Bruce had decided to see how the boys handled sleeping by themselves in their own room, so once they were ready for bed, he took the Bat Baby Monitor and left, knowing they'd want their favorite brother to be the one to tuck them in. He turned out the overhead light, leaving the room illuminated only by a lamp beside the bed.

In addition to the bubbles, Dick had brought another gift for the children from Blüdhaven. "Hey guys, I know that bats aren't your favorite thing in the world, but Stellaluna's a cute bat, see?" John touched the big round eyes of the young bat on the book's cover. "And this book even has three baby birds in it, too! And an evil owl, and interspecies adoption. This is, like, the story of my life."

He cleared his throat and started to read. "[*censored because FFN is stupid*]..."

When he had finished the book, which took a while because the children interrupted with more outbursts, questions, and exclamations of surprise or anger or approval than they did with other books, they begged him to read it again, and this time nestled quietly against him to listen. He reached the end again, picked up Peter Pan to read a few pages from, then turned off the lamp and started to sing.

Peter immediately leaped out of bed and ran to a far corner, where he hunkered down with his ears covered, but John and Jack closed their eyes and snuggled even closer, clutching stuffed animals. Since they didn't seem bothered by their brother's retreat, Dick uncertainly resumed singing. "...[*censored because FFN is stupid*]..."

When they were asleep, he extricated himself and made his way over to where Peter was sulkily curled up with his hands still over his ears.

"What's wrong?" Dick signed.

"Do not sing!"

"I won't. I stopped. Are you mad at me?"

Peter looked over at the bed. "Brothers safe?"

"Yes. You sleep, too."

"You guard?"

Dick couldn't break the boy's trust by saying he would and then slipping away once Peter was asleep. "...For a little while. Then I will leave - I have work to do."

Peter frowned. "You leave, bad you. I guard. Sing daytime, not nighttime."

Dick led him over to the bed and tried to tuck him in, but Peter stayed upright.

"You're safe," Dick assured him. "No one will hurt you if you sleep."

"Protect Brother sleep, Trick Brother sleep. I guard."

Dick looked sad. "Good night. I love you."

"Yes. Good."

Dick kissed him and left.

TBC