The Birds Who Smile, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl
Chapter 12 - Invasion Alert
[rough draft 2]
Bruce came home in the evening feeling wearier after a day at WE than he did after a day of taking care of three high-maintenance young children.
Speaking of which... Bruce had adopted or sired five kids before the apocalypse, but only Dick had ever come running to greet him at the door with a hug, and even Dick had never genuinely called him 'Daddy' except for a couple of times by accident. Bruce had to take a minute to bask again, standing there in the hall with Jack in his arms. John and Peter were giggling as they peeked at him around the corner, and Bruce found that his weariness had mysteriously evaporated.
Still carrying Jack, he patted the older children's heads as he passed, and they trotted after him into the living room where the others were. Tim looked wonderfully refreshed as he chatted with Duke, who was looking up from his book; Dick and Damian were playing a Batman-themed video game.
"Your coat, sir?"
Bruce greeted his butler and finally put down Jack so he could shrug off his jacket. "Thanks, Alfred."
Jack scampered back to the chess board that was sitting on the coffee table in front of Tim, and eagerly reached to make a move.
"You're teaching him chess?" Bruce asked curiously.
"Pawns only for now, but yeah." Tim sounded proud. "I'll work him up to full games eventually."
"Good." Bruce was proud, too, of both of them. ...Maybe he should let them know that. "I'm...proud of you both."
Tim gave him a strange look. "Um...okay." He sounded like he didn't know how to take the compliment, or perhaps what it was even for, but the blush on his cheeks was probably one of pleasure, so that was good.
Now that the last member of the household was home, dinner was served quickly. The protests at once again being made to eat like civilized people were very loud.
Tim winced. "Peter...don't use those words..."
"Oh, you mean the words you taught him this morning?" Dick teased, elbowing him. Tim covered his eyes in embarrassment.
"Boys," Bruce said sternly. "First off, you are not allowed to say those words, Peter, and you'll lose dessert-" Wait, they had already lost tonight's dessert because of sneaking out of their room for cookies. "That is, I'll take away Dog if you say them again." He gestured threateningly at the stuffed animal in Peter's lap.
"FFFU-!"
"NO DOG."
He grabbed for the toy; Peter clutched it hard. They were at a stalemate for a minute until Peter sank back into his chair and glowered. Bruce let go of the dog.
"Secondly, you will try the utensils for five minutes. After five minutes, if you want to use hands and asking again, you may, but you-" The expression on Jack's face was far too crafty. "No, scratch that; you have to take five bites with the utensils."
"Nno!" Jack yelled.
"Five bites, no matter how long or how quickly it takes. After that is when you can use your hands."
Despite the helpfully wide handles, all three boys still had significant difficulty trying to maneuver the extra, unnatural appendage between them and their food. Peter, wielding two spoons, finished first through sheer determination, gripping so far down that he was almost holding the heads, and not caring how little food made it into his mouth as long as he managed to taste something.
John went slowly, looking furious that he couldn't get it right, stopping to sign at one point, "Dd'kkk me spoon Mama Daddy! I DO! Why I can't now?!"
"You'll...you'll remember, John. When you've had more practice, it will get easier."
Jack procrastinated, playing with his food and not making any serious attempt for a while. "Ttimmuhh?"
"No timer. You have to take five bites without using your hands."
Jack pouted for a minute. Then he lowered his head and directly bit a chunk of food off his plate, making his older siblings laugh.
"Use your spoon, Jack," Bruce snapped.
"No hands!" Jack insisted.
Bruce's personal alert system was the first to sound the alarm. At the look on his face when he checked, the rest of the family whipped out their phones to see if the news was public yet.
"Holy crud."
"Well, we were about due for another one, weren't we?"
Damian jumped up to get his pets safely downstairs. Alfred was fetching the family go bag, and Bruce was trying to calm the frightened children as he herded them toward the nearest entrance to the Batcave. Their anxiety was not at all helped by the sound of the Justice League alarm in Bruce's pocket going off, and then, while they were still descending, a government alarm.
"Mute it all, Bruce," Dick said in exasperation as he held the trembling John and Peter close to his sides. "We already know aliens are invading, we don't have to be reminded of it every ten seconds."
"I'm trying." Bruce himself was tense with fear for his family until all of them were safely in the Batcave and accounted for. He was still worried, of course, but he felt better knowing that his loved ones were ensconced in what he liked to think of as the safest place on Earth.
Except that now they were all suiting up.
"Damian, don't go as Batman," Tim said when he saw Damian climbing into the black uniform.
"I am Batman now!"
"Dami," Dick put in, "it's one thing to annoy Gothamites on a normal night, but alien invasions are genuinely scary stuff for most people. Let's not traumatize them even more this soon after the Batpocalypse, okay?"
Damian sighed deeply, but climbed back out of the black suit and reached for his Robin one instead.
"What are you doing?" Bruce asked them all in dismay.
Tim paused. "I guess you never noticed because you were always en route to join the League by this point, but while you guys are doing your thing in the sky, there's always a ton of work for the B-list heroes on the ground."
Bruce had...known this. Of course he had known, but it was different reading through his family's post-narrowly-averted-catastrophe reports and actually seeing his children preparing to head out into danger, not knowing ahead of time that they'd all reach the end alive and relatively unharmed. "I..."
"Will you be joining the Justice League this time, Father?"
All three of the little Robins were clinging to Bruce fearfully. He didn't know if he'd be able to bring himself to leave them, because he'd never had young, untrained children during an intense global threat before. Dick had been a teenager by the time of the first such event, Damian's upbringing had inured him to threats ordinary children would have found terrifying, and none of Bruce's other kids had come to him as young as the birds were. "I hadn't...thought about it." Which was stupid. There was often a League-worthy event every few months or so, he should have given more thought to what he'd do in exactly this sort of situation.
There was a rush of red wind, and the cave's security system lit up in readiness.
"Bruce!" Barry cried, "We need you up-" He paused, disconcerted, because the children had screamed at the sight of him.
"Flash clear," Bruce called, and the security system lights dimmed again. Now to calm the birds, whose only experience with speedsters was the Red Death. "John, Peter, Jack, this is my friend, Flash. He's my friend, he's very nice."
Barry crouched down, looking a little awed. "These are...these are those kids? Laughs's Robins?"
"My Robins now."
"Nnnoo hhhu'tt," John quavered, unable to sign with his fingers gripping Bruce's shirt.
"Flash will not hurt you."
"Bruce," Dick called from across the cave, "we're heading out." He and his siblings were all in uniform and getting on their bikes. Alfred and Duke were ready by the Batcomputer.
"Damian stays with you at all times," Bruce demanded, knowing he probably wouldn't be able to keep his headstrong Robin in the cave, but desperate that the boy at least have a partner to watch over him.
"Got it."
"I don't need a babysitter!"
"Damian, we have been through this already. You are thirteen, you will have a partner if you choose to go into the field," Bruce said. "Dick, Tim, all of you, be safe."
"Hah! That's a new one. I like it." Then, with a roar of engines, they were off.
Barry had pulled off his cowl and crept closer, now sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the children. "I'm Barry," he said gently, offering his hand. "I promise I won't hurt you." John hesitantly closed his hand around Barry's index finger in brief acknowledgement, then withdrew. "Heh. You guys really like Bruce, huh."
"Bboose Ddaddy," Jack explained, peeking out from behind his father's legs.
Barry looked up at his friend, his face alight. "Bruce!"
"It's not so surprising, since he probably doesn't have many good memories of his original parents," Bruce said defensively. "The other two boys have made it clear that they don't see me as their father."
Barry was undeterred. "Bruuuce! And here I thought you couldn't get any cuter!"
Bruce frowned thunderously.
"I'm so happy to meet you kiddos! I didn't mean to scare you with the super speed. I promise I only use it for good." He blinked, then shot to his feet. "OH YEAH! Bruce! Aliens!"
"I know," Bruce huffed.
"Are you...coming?"
"...I doubt I can come as Batman." Even if he were to change into his suit and leave the cave without the children seeing him in uniform, he still wasn't sure he could bring himself to put on the cowl again.
"Then come as someone else," Barry pleaded. "We need you, Bruce."
He knew they did. "All right. Go; I'll join you as soon as I can."
"Clark and Diana are at ground zero, and the Lanterns and Manhunter are trying to keep us from losing any more ground, but we're gonna need you with Cyborg in the Watchtower."
"Got it."
Barry pulled his cowl back over his face and zipped away.
The problem was that Bruce needed the Batsuit. Mixing and matching was fine for ordinary patrol nights, but when the threat was this serious, he needed his most up-to-date and versatile weapons and technology, not just-in-case spares.
In the changing room, he stared at the Bat insignia and felt sick.
"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha," a small voice muttered from the entryway. John was gripping the edge of the wall as he watched Bruce looking at the black suit.
Bruce marched toward him and the boy fled, scurrying to climb into Duke's lap and hide his face against the teen's neck.
"Keep them away from me," Bruce ordered. "Blindfold them if you have to. They can't see me in the cowl." Peter was clutching Alfred's sleeve; Jack was staring at Bruce like he knew there was something he was supposed to understand but couldn't figure out what it was.
"Hey, guys," Duke said, pulling out his phone, "let's learn about stupid Internet memes."
Back in the changing room, Bruce took hold of his best Batsuit and forced himself to start putting it on. 'I'm just getting dressed for work. It's just a uniform. Robin. Robin. My children, my family, everything that's bright and beautiful and brings me joy...' It worked, barely, until he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He had to throw back the cowl and gulp for air.
Been watching you your whole life carving out your path consuming you poisoning you use you to destroy everything you love use you to destroy everything, everything-
'ROBIN. MY CHILDREN. DICK AND DAMIAN AND TIM AND JASON AND CASS. My little ones, my precious ones depending on me; Alfred and Duke, Barbara and Stephanie, Selina and Clark and Diana, Mother and Father...!' He used their names as a shield. It didn't matter what evil being claimed to have controlled his life from the start; it didn't matter that he had been supposedly built up simply in order to fall as far and hard as possible. All that mattered was this moment, how he could use the good that had come from the Bat to combat what threatened his loved ones. 'If the Bat was meant to be darkness, then I'll take what it gives me and MAKE it become light.'
He picked up a spare Robin badge and fastened it to his chest, on top of the Bat symbol. It looked a little silly, but he didn't care. That was always Robin's role, to keep Batman in check and save him from truly falling into the dark.
"Alfred," he said through the comms, "I'm coming out."
"I'll shield them, sir, though as mesmerized as they are by this 'Nyan Cat' nonsense, I doubt they'd notice, anyway."
TBC