The Birds Who Smile, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl
Chapter 18.3 (rough draft 2)
Bruce sighed and stepped over to the bathroom. "Looks like it's just the four of us tonight. Jack, are you going to take a bath or a shower?"
Jack pointed at the shower and started tossing off his clothes.
"Put them in the hamper, Jack." Bruce started running water in the bath, then got clean towels and pajamas ready. When the tub was full, he shut off the water and reached for Peter's shirt.
The child jerked away from him.
"Boys, get undressed and get in the bath."
They stared at him with wide eyes and didn't move. Bruce stared back, slowly realizing that this was the first time he was expecting them to get naked in the same room as him without another adult present. 'God DAMN him to the lowest circle of HELL-!' Then he had to remind himself that they could read his body language and he needed to calm down. "Would you like to take a shower instead of a bath?" he asked, gesturing at the splashing sounds Jack was making. Unlike in the master suite, the ordinary shower stalls were thickly translucent, so all they could see of Jack's body was a faint blob.
"Ha ha," John said, "ha ha ha ha-"
Bruce stepped out of the bathroom and to the side of the doorframe so he was out of their sight. "I won't touch you," he called. "Take a bath and then put on your pajamas."
It was exasperating, being trapped outside the bathroom and unable to correct them when he sneaked glances in and found Peter sitting in the tub fully-dressed, merrily playing with the bath toys, and John taking his clothes off but then just lying unmoving in the tub, staring up at the ceiling.
Unexpectedly, Jack came to his rescue. The little boy finished his shower, came out and pulled a towel around himself, then caught sight of his brothers and started shrilly scolding them. Peter shout-twittered back; John didn't bother replying. Jack started to stomp over to them, but he couldn't keep his hold on the towel, which fell to the floor. He wrapped his arms around himself and started to shiver, crying tearlessly.
"Jack, come here," Bruce called.
The little boy immediately ramped up his whimpering and shuffled out to Bruce, gazing with his most pathetic puppy eyes.
"You don't have to persuade me, I want to warm you up." Bruce took the risk of crossing his upper body over the threshold so he could retrieve the towel. He wrapped it around the little boy and then fetched another pair of pajamas, since the one he'd originally prepared was out of reach on the counter by the sink.
Once Jack was dried and dressed, he was back to his energetic, bossy self. He galloped over to the tub. "Bbad [caw]!"
"Nno!" Peter shouted back.
Jack grabbed a bar of soap and started rubbing it on Peter's hair (Bruce facepalmed, but didn't dare interfere). Peter fought back. Jack determinedly climbed into the tub, pajamas and all, and struggled with him. John curled up so he wouldn't get stomped on, but otherwise ignored them.
"Jack, soap is for bodies! Shampoo is for hair!" Bruce called hopelessly.
A minute later, Peter and Jack were both crying and rubbing at their stinging eyes. John had his hands clamped over his ears and was rocking a little.
'Screw it!' Bruce entered the bathroom again and turned on the water, pulling down the handheld shower head so he could rinse the soap out of the children's eyes. They blinked rapidly, Jack looking relieved and Peter subdued, though they still kept trying to rub at their red-rimmed eyes. "No, don't do that. It will feel better in a minute if you don't touch it." Bruce sighed deeply, then fetched more towels and clothes.
Jack got out of the tub as soon as he was called and allowed himself to be stripped of the soaking wet pajamas and helped into the pajamas that had originally been set out for him. Comfortable and warm again, he beamed up at his father, who awkwardly smiled back before turning to Peter. "Peter, your clothes are drenched. You cannot leave the bathroom like that, or you will make a mess and feel very cold. Either you will take your wet clothes off, or I will take them off."
Peter glared at him, but then looked taken aback when Bruce held out a big fluffy towel ready to wrap the child in. "You can have this as soon as you get rid of the wet clothes." The boy considered, but did not move until Bruce tried putting another towel on the stand beside the tub, and a third towel on the stool near the other side of the tub. He held the first towel open again.
Peter, his eyes fixed on the second towel, carefully pulled his clothes off. Then he dove for the third towel. He staggered on the wet floor, struggling frantically to unfold the thick material, and looked surprised when Bruce draped the first towel over him. He clutched at both towels and stared as Bruce considerately ignored him in favor of tending to the last bird.
"Come on, Johnny, let's get you dressed."
The boy resisted faintly, but didn't struggle as he was lifted out of the tub and wrapped in a large towel. He looked around in a daze as Bruce started drying his hair with a smaller towel.
"[chirp-chirp] okay?" Jack asked.
"He tie me hurt me, bad laugh..."
Jack cocked his head. Daddy hadn't done anything like that at all. "No. Warm feathers."
"Warm," John whispered, staring down at himself as underwear was tugged up his legs.
"Stand up ~~ John."
Obedience resulted in the little garment being gently pulled to cover the parts of him that most wanted protection. Pajama pants were presented, held low to the ground in silent instruction. He lifted one foot, then the other. The waistband came to rest above his hips, the skin of his legs now softly covered, too. A moment later, a scrunched-up shirt paused expectantly in front of him. Slowly, he dropped the towel and held out his arms. The shirt descended, big but gentle hands threading his arms through the sleeves and guiding his head through the neck hole and smoothing the fabric down over his chest and back. ...Warm and dry.
"~~ brush your teeth, boys."
Master's voice was still calm and friendly. This was such a very, very, very long game of his, and [chirp-chirp] was so tired of it. Not the game itself, but the end of it; he was so tired waiting for the horrible end of the game to come. Master had been so gentle for so long, [chirp-chirp] couldn't even imagine how much the end would hurt. ...Maybe this was the last game ever, and the end would be Master finally killing them.
For now, though, the game was still going, and it was one of the games that didn't hurt to play, so [chirp-chirp] scrubbed the bristly stick over his teeth and followed his flockmates to their nest and listened to Master's deep voice rolling words words words words words.
He was so tired, and the little traitor baby had stopped protecting their flock at nights. "You guard first," [chirp-chirp] told [caw], then lay down and closed his eyes and escaped the world for a while, wishing Grandpa was still in his dreams to talk to rather than being awake and a friend of Master. 'Seatbelts tomorrow,' he thought miserably. The end might not come there, because sometimes Master liked to end games when [chirp-chirp] didn't expect it. But sometimes he ended them exactly where it did make sense, and it would make sense for this game to finally end when he was trapped in that box with the ties and buckles.
[chirp-chirp] woke up still thinking about it. It was dark and quiet. Master and [warble] were asleep, [caw] was bored. "I do not want to do morning-tying," [chirp-chirp] said, mournfully and very quietly.
"I hate morning-tying!" [caw] agreed. But his body added "complaining/annoyance" instead of "fear," which worried [chirp-chirp]. [caw] was good and kept his distance from Master, and he continued to be so brave and fight, but he didn't think Master was playing a game with them. He thought that [warble]'s stupid fake 'Daddy' was protecting them from Master, and they only had to keep fighting for just-in-case.
But even if [caw] thought Daddy was real, he was still being safe, so it was all right for now. They just had to stay safe until the end, and [chirp-chirp] would have to be very alert and quick to make sure his flockmates escaped whatever the worst of the end would be. Maybe if Master was busy killing [chirp-chirp], [caw] and [warble] could find a way to die quick and a little hurt instead of slow and a lot hurt.
[chirp-chirp] hated this game so, so, so, so, SO, SO MUCH. He wanted the collar and the hitting and the bad meat and the Laughing again (with the head cloudiness, of course, because he felt sick and dead and hurt when he could think while those things happened); that was what made sense. All this fake gentle calm gentle, Master making him pretend to be a human boy, eating real food, all the pretend 'I love you's, remembering Mamma and Papà when they were dead and would never come back, all the so many WORDS he was learning and the so much pretending, it was going to kill him before Master finished the game and killed him.
"We can run away," [caw] was giggling.
"What?" [chirp-chirp] said sharply. He and [warble] knew that Master always, always caught them and punished them if they ran, but [caw] still thought he could escape someday if he was very clever and fast. That was why, before this game started, Master never let [caw] off the leash, unless he was teaching him 'escape is impossible' lessons that [caw] refused to learn.
"If we run away before morning-tying, Bat cannot do morning-tying to us."
[chirp-chirp] thought about this. [caw] was an idiot, Master would find them if they ran because he always did, but if all of them ran from morning-tying at the same time, maybe Master would finally get angry enough to end the game. "...Yes."
"Yes?!"
"Yes. Good."
"I have a good plan~!"
"Good plan if he chase me, bad plan if he chase you."
"He will chase you, he loves you best."
[chirp-chirp] shuddered. This was true. At least, it was true of That Master, but This Master loved [warble] best. [chirp-chirp] knew he should be pretending 'I love you' to Master much, much more, but it was so hard to do it without the head cloudiness. [chirp-chirp] would have to make sure Master chased him instead of [warble], and they would have to tell their youngest flockmate the plan before Master woke up.
o.o.o.o.o
When Bruce awakened, the kids' behavior started making him suspicious. Peter was crouched very still by the door, watching him intently. All three of the boys were watching him intently, for that matter, though John and Jack didn't look as much like hunting dogs as their brother did.
"Seatbelts?"
"Later. Not now."
"Seatbelts later?"
"Yes."
John wandered away to look at a book, but his hunched shoulders and tense muscles belied the neutral expression on his face. After a moment, Jack started following Bruce around, but he was being more artful about it than usual.
"Daddy brush teeth?"
"Yes," Bruce mumbled through the toothpaste.
Then, a couple of minutes later, "Daddy comb hair?"
"Yes." Something was definitely up; Jack could see perfectly well what he was doing.
"Daddy put on pants?"
"Yes, you can see that I'm getting dressed."
"Daddy put on shirt?"
"YES, Jack. We'll go to your room to get you brushed and dressed, too. Just give me a minute."
When he came out of the bathroom, John was prowling restlessly; Peter looked like he hadn't moved. Jack scampered over to his brothers, then there was a tussle and a sudden explosion of urgent birdsong. Bruce, thinking at first that the older boys were attacking Jack again, rushed to rescue him, but John and Peter backed off immediately, and Jack didn't look upset or hurt.
"Jack, are you all right?" Bruce asked urgently anyway.
"Aalll wwigh't," Jack assured him, tilting his head fetchingly. He was definitely buttering up Bruce for something.
"What are you boys up to?"
"Ggoo'd bboys," Jack said, a little too quickly, as John echoed "We good" with his hands.
"...I hope so." Bruce opened the door, hoping that whatever the kids were planning wouldn't be too much of a problem.
TBC