The Birds Who Smile, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl

SRD: Uh...idk how to tastefully label this... Physical aftermath of John letting his guard down

A/N: Did I say I'd post a new scene every week? I meant I'd post a new scene whenever the heck I feel like it.

*first night after "Mended"

xXx

Bruce jerked awake when he sensed an intent gaze. His youngest child, who'd been standing over him and staring, scrambled back. "Jack?"

"Daddy?" the little boy asked anxiously.

"What is it, Jack? What's wrong?"

"Jjohnnny ssad."

Bruce was immediately on high alert and hurried to get out of bed. Jack nervously skipped even farther away, then trotted after him when Bruce strode down the hall to the children's room.

The overhead light and bedside lamps were all still off, but the multiple night lights glowed enough for Bruce to see John, sitting up but curled tightly into himself with his arms around his folded up legs, and Peter, standing over his brother and twittering in an encouraging way. As soon as Bruce entered, John hid his face against his knees and Peter ran to hide under the desk.

"John, what's wrong? What hap-?" Although the boy did not move or speak, Bruce was now close enough to detect the smell. "...Johnny," he said softly, "it's okay. You're not in trouble." There was no response except that John started to tremble a little.

"Daddy mad?" Jack asked anxiously. "Angry? Bad boy?"

"No. There was just a little accident, but it's okay. Nobody is angry and nobody is in trouble. We'll just clean it up and then you boys can go back to sleep." Although he wasn't at all angry with John for wetting the bed, he had to hide how disturbed he was that it had happened. 'If it's not one thing, it's another...' Just when the boy finally seemed to be getting better, here was yet another cause for concern, though Bruce had no idea why incontinence was suddenly a problem now when it hadn't been before. Shouldn't John be less stressed out now that he knew the truth? ...Or did anxiety strike deeper than before, now that he'd finally let his guard down?

He meant to ask the younger boys, but forgot when John, at the words 'clean up,' suddenly jumped out of bed and started yanking his clothes off, sobbing hard by the time he curled up in the bathtub with his arms over his head.

"John, it's all right," Bruce said in a pained voice, following him in. "You're safe. Do you want a bath, or do you just want to rinse off?"

There was no response, and Jack soon came in holding Elephant. "Daddy, Jjohnnny ssad!"

"Thank you, Jack, but Elephant will not like it if we let her get wet. Here, these are better," he said, pulling the tiger and bear bath toys out of the plastic basket that was suction-cupped to the wall. When he put them into John's hands, the boy stopped crying and clutched them hard, staring at them. Jack watched intently at Bruce's side, and Peter from the doorway, as Bruce started to run the bath.

"Daddy," Jack insisted, "I ccean!"

"Yes, I know, you don't have to take a bath again."

"Jjohnny ggoo'd bboy?"

"Yes."

Jack relaxed and started to pet John's hair, twittering at him soothingly.

After a long moment, John clutched the bath toys to his chest so he could use one hand to sign shakily, "Scared, bad dream, scared."

"I'm very sorry that you had a bad dream, Johnny."

"Batman Laugh kill brothers hurt kill me."

"It was just a dream. It's not true, it didn't happen. The Man Who Laughs is dead, you are safe here and we all love you."

John finally looked directly at him. "...B?"

"What is it, Johnny?"

For a long time, John seemed to want to say something, but didn't express it. The way he was lying down meant that Bruce couldn't let the tub fill very high, so he turned the water off. It was quiet for a while, until Jack got bored and wandered out of the bathroom. John finally signed, "You love me?"

"Very much, Johnny. I love you very much.

"Protect me."

"I would do anything to keep you safe, Johnny."

John finally relaxed a little and shivered. "Cold."

As Bruce was pulling a towel out of the cabinet, he heard "Poker Face" starting to play in the bedroom. He hastily wrapped John in the towel and carried him to an armchair, then went to check Jack's phone.

"MMAI! MMAI!"

"I'll give it back in a minute," Bruce said, holding the flailing child back with one hand as he raised the phone high with the other. Thankfully, the six-year-old wasn't watching the official music video; someone seemed to have filled a folder on the phone with videos of Jack's favorite songs paired with child-safe pictures. The resulting thumbnails were easier for the boy to distinguish between than text filenames, and Bruce wondered which of his older children had thought to do that for their little brother. "Here."

Jack snatched his phone back as soon as it was offered and crawled to a corner of the bed, hunching protectively over his treasure.

Bruce rubbed at his face and looked around. The older boys were still watching him, John curled up in a towel nest and Peter crouched over him. "All right, John, come here, I need to show you something. Peter, you may come also if you want. Oh, and let me get Elephant."

Peter dashed back when Bruce approached and crowed, angrily helpless. John trembled when Bruce touched him but compliantly got to his feet and followed, clutching the towel tightly around him and Elephant under his arm.

"Look, Johnny," Bruce said gently. "I'm putting some pairs of underwear for you here in this drawer, and I'll tell Alfred to get some pull-ups you can wear at night; they'll be in the drawer, too. And we'll put something on the mattress, so nothing will get damaged if it happens again. If it does, if you wake up and it's wet and smells bad, don't worry. It's okay, no one will be angry. You can call for me, or Dick or Alfred or whoever you want. Or if you don't want help, you can come in here and change into a fresh pull-up and throw the old one away, and go right back to sleep. All right? Or if you just want someone to come comfort you, you can call us for that, too. Someone will sit with you, or read to you or sing to you or whatever you like." He paused. "Do you understand?"

"...You are angry. Not angry...?"

"Not angry," Bruce said firmly. "I am not angry at all. If you wake up wet again, we will help you. John? What happens if you wake up wet again?"

"...Help, clean."

"Yes, that's right. Good boy."

The bedsheets still smelled and needed to be changed. Bruce got John dressed and loaded him into a wagon along with Jack, who was now wholly absorbed in his phone. Peter didn't want to get into the wagon and it was too heavy for him to pull easily, but he did follow at a distance as Bruce went down the hall with the wagon handle in one hand and a laundry bag slung over his other shoulder. Peter did not like being trapped in the elevator with Bruce, but he was also unwilling to lose sight of his brothers, so he hunched as far away as he could get, clutching a fork. Jack apparently wasn't the only one adept at palming potential weapons during mealtimes.

"I'm going to have to have Alfred start counting the silverware every meal as if it's the *?th century*, aren't I," Bruce remarked dryly.

Peter raced out of the elevator as soon as it came to a stop and resumed stalking his father from a safe distance away. The other boys were fine in the wagon, which Bruce pulled all the way to the laundry room. Then he filled the washing machine with the bedsheets, read all the directions on the appliance and on the box of detergent carefully, and held his breath when he finally started the cycle, hoping he hadn't done anything horrendously wrong.

He felt a little triumphant as he faced his sons again. Jack was still doing his best impression of a phone-obsessed millennial; John was curled up, gazing him out of the very corner of his eye. "Next mission: find fresh sheets," Bruce said. "And a tarp." The tarp was easy enough; he fetched one from the garage as the boys waited in the hall just past the mud room.

Bedding was harder. He tried the first linen closet he came to, but the sheets he found ended up not fitting the children's bed. As it turned out, there were actually spare sheets stored on a high shelf in the boys' closet, though when Bruce pulled down a set and started unfolding the fitted one, Jack piped up, "No, Daddy, I ddon' wwan't dat one!"

"Jack, John is tired and needs to go to sleep. We need to put sheets on the bed so he can get some rest."

"Bbu't I wwan't wwobots!"

Bruce squinted, trying to puzzle out the word. "...Robots?"

"Yes! Teach me!"

"This is 'robot,' " Bruce said, signing the new word.

"Robot robot robot!"

Bruce looked and was a little surprised to indeed find a set of sheets with robot designs. This time it was Peter who objected.

"I want dog!"

"Oh for the love of-" He rubbed at his face in exasperation. "Look, John is the one who needed the sheets changed, so John gets to pick, all right?" He turned to the oldest boy. "Johnny, which set of sheets do you want? Jack wants the robot sheets and Peter wants the dog sheets, but I want to know which sheets you want."

"...Blue."

"Blue sheets?" Bruce went yet again to the closet. He didn't know if John had meant the dark Nightwing-themed sheets or the eggshell blue set, so he pulled down both. John pointed to the brighter color, and relaxed a little when Bruce unfolded the sheets and struggled to apply them to the mattress over the tarp. "Stop whining, Jack; you'll get a turn to pick the sheets later." He frowned at how loudly the tarp was crinkling as he fought with the bedding. Would the boys be able to sleep with that thing crackling in their ears at every move? 'I'll ask Alfred in the morning if he has something better to replace it with...'

The bed ended up with two corners of the fitted sheet reasonably hooked over them, the third painfully stretched, and fourth with a tear in the seam from when Bruce had unsuccessfully tried to force it over the last corner. He guilty piled some books on it to weigh it down. "That is...the best I can do..." He took a deep breath and turned to the birds. Jack was asleep already, curled up in John's discarded towel with his still-bandaged*?* thumb in his mouth. Bruce moved him to the bed and then called to the older kids, "All right, boys, time to sleep."

*john makes bruce sing except they still won't all sleep in the same room as b without a guard, blaaahhh...

*alfred's like "seriously bruce" and replaces the friggin' tarp with a plastic mattress cover. they get some pull-ups and it happens a couple more times (second time is very mild), but john takes care of it himself (only sign it even happened is that they find the soiled pull-ups in the trash the next morning) and it soon clears up on its own (i mean he probably still has nightmares but the bedwetting stops)