Bringing My Children Home
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Disclaimer: I am only borrowing the Bat family to practice my art.
Chapter Eight
Bruce
Tim's sixteenth birthday came at the end of Damian's third week among them. It dawned gray, but by midmorning, the clouds had parted to allow streams of sunlight. Bruce had intentionally cut patrol short the evening before, to be sure they were all rested, and so that he could get up with his alarm before Dick roused them. He succeeded, but though he got to see Dick looked surprised, it was a matter of minutes.
Everyone, but Damian, had planned to be at the breakfast table with Tim, who was usually the earliest riser. The teenager had the happy ability to sleep anywhere. He cat-napped at odd times throughout the day, allowing him to keep a more regular schedule than the others in the family, who usually tried to sleep in instead. Jason and Dick had both learned the hard way that as easily as Tim slept, he was as easily woken.
Upon receiving the first 'happy birthday', Bruce's third son glanced in surprise at the calendar.
"I forgot what day it was!" He exclaimed, then beamed upon the pleasant breakfast set before them. "Wow! Thanks Alfred!"
Damian had made it to the table, simply because the unusual migration to share the breakfast meal had demanded he find out what was going on. He grew very tense upon learning the cause, and would have spent the meal glaring at Tim, but for the fact that Stephanie asked him what a normal breakfast meal for the league was, prompting an immediate, lengthy speech about the benefits of his grandfather's meals. Fortunately for their peace of mind, Jason was not a morning person, so sarcastic wit did not offend the boy.
After breakfast, Bruce and Tim spent an hour together, reviewing Tim's plans to graduate early. It was a good time, since Stephanie and Damian had taken so much of the mentor's time lately. Even though both knew that Damian haunted the surrounding rooms, trying to hear what was going on, it was great to spend time with Tim. Only a brief discussion about his parents' upcoming plans, to return to the states for a small sabbatical, marred the hour.
The rest of the morning was spent as normal, training, researching, inventing. With lunch, however, Dick declared the rest of the afternoon as a Family Time. He dramatically ushered them into their favorite private family room, which he had spent the morning preparing for an afternoon of games, movies, and snacks.
Damian
Father's hand was on Drake's shoulder. Heat crawled up Damian's neck. The gentle, possessive touch seemed to be Father's favorite way to indicate affection. Father had not yet given Damian that touch. Even Brown seemed to expect the caress when near Father.
"I get to be Yoshi!" Drake hollered as Todd held out a childish video game.
"Only today," Todd threatened. "Birthday boy gets to play win or lose; the rest rotate out by the two worst times. Who goes first?"
"I've got a number," Drake sang out.
"Pi!" Brown and Todd shouted together.
"42," Grayson suggested.
"7," Father interjected.
"Infinity," Cain offered.
All eyes turned to Damian, who blinked.
"What are you doing?" He demanded.
"Figuring out who gets to race Mario Kart first. You have to guess what number Tim is thinking. The closest three get to go first."
"Why would you want to play such a silly thing?"
"Playing video games hones your reflexes," Grayson beamed.
"Oh," Damian deflated. He decided to watch, to determine the truth of this statement, so he went to take a seat. All eyes followed him. "What?" He demanded.
"Aren't you going to take your guess?" Brown asked.
Damian blinked several times, before fully understanding that they expected him to play, too. Even Drake was waiting. Having been on the outside of the ridiculous pillow parties, of the series of pranks Todd and Brown had engaged in, even in listening to the comms as they called each other by strange, childish names rather than their set call signs, he had not expected to take part. A desire to try the game, and be the best at it, warred with the desire to despise them.
"Come on Damian! Guess. No one has figured Tim out yet," Todd said.
"16," Damian shot back.
"It was 4," Drake said, beaming at Todd and Brown, who were the closest. Father was the next closest, so these four took up the controllers.
"Good guess, Damian," Grayson commented as the colorful screen began to race by. "I never thought to pick his age."
"It was wrong," Damian pointed out stiffly.
"Not completely. He picked four because that's how old he was when he first met me."
While Brown, Todd, and Grayson would spill every part of their life, Drake rarely mentioned something beyond the current circumstances, and no one else had ever offered a morsel of information about Drake to Damian before. It seemed like it was supposed to be significant, from the way Cain beamed at Grayson. They were setting him a test. He needed to uncover the significance of that age.
Todd and Father lost the race, and had to hand over their controllers to Grayson and Damian. The next few hours, Damian spent learning that video games were not as easy as he believed.
Jason
Alfred had made a feast for Tim's birthday. It was a good thing Patrol was not happening. Jason half believed he had gained ten pounds from the meal, and would not fit in the Phoenix outfit. Sprawled out on the largest of the four couches in their family room, Jason enjoyed being full to the brim, lazily nibbling at a second piece of the magnificent chocolate cake.
Barbara had joined them for dinner, fully considered a member of the family, even if she was rarely there.
With much more respect for his body, Tim was one of the few not ready to drop into a food coma, so he and Barbara were buzzing over Bruce's gift of new camera equipment.
"It's great to be normal once in a while," Cass said happily, from her nest on Dick's feet on the next couch over. Damian was pacing by the window, while Bruce and Stephanie also enjoyed food comas. "Want to do this on my birthday too!"
"Mine's next," Jason taunted.
"Stephanie's is next," Bruce corrected. "Hers is the eleventh, yours is the sixteenth in August."
"After that is it Dick's?" Stephanie asked.
"No. Damian's," Tim interjected, having his camera in hand and taking a few test photos of Jason's mellow state.
"When is Damian's birthday?" Dick asked sleepily.
"September 25th," Tim answered, after pausing to see if Damian wanted to answer.
There was a little noise from where the boy had paused his pacing. He looked angry, but not completely enraged, a look of longing chasing clouds of anger, before the anger again drove off the desire. How strange that the little demon could share that desire for a birthday party. Talia had probably made his birthdays an event to mark when he was to start his next level of training, giving him 'gifts' that were to push him into his role as the assassin son of Batman.
If the little runt would stop his plans against Tim, Jason would want to make sure he got to know all the wonderful parts of a large, loud, sometimes crazy, but never indifferent family. It would be a good next chapter to the saga of the bat family, chasing after the crazy and the horrific, to save their family.
Dick
Carrying Cass up to her room because she had refused to get off him, Dick mused that it had been a good day. Far better than last year's birthday for Tim, when his own parents had given him a concussion and injured his arm. Jason must have had the same thought as he chased Tim into his bedroom with pillows. Stephanie was hanging onto Dick's arm, apparently having decided the two girls would have a sleep over.
Bruce and Damian were walking side by side, with matching serious looks.
"Good night Damian," Bruce said, as the boy turned towards his door. Blue eyes quickly looked at his father, naked hope in them. Bruce ruffled the boy's hair, before heading onto his room. As Dick tried to peel Cass off him, he saw the boy's hand reach up to touch his own hair.
That was all Dick Grayson needed to see. He was not going give up on Damian. Dick was going to fight the League's indoctrination, unwrap the arrogance Talia had built in her son, and make Damian into a true Wayne son, worthy of Robin's cape, when it was time for Tim to move on.
"It will be good for him to have someone in his corner," Cass said softly, as she finally let Dick set her down. "It might be the only way to win him away from the League."
"Just don't let him hurt Tim, if we're talking about Damian," Stephanie called from where she was creating a nest in Cass's sunny yellow bedding.
Tim
"It was my best birthday ever," Tim told Jason as his big brother collapsed across the foot of Tim's large bed, apparently ready to sleep like that. "No one ever gave me a whole day before."
"When I was four, my dad and step mom were in a good place. No crimes, no drugs. We were living in a real house. That year they threw me a real birthday party, with kids, and cake, and streamers, and balloons. I never forgot that day when everything fell apart," Jason said. "Mom, the step one and the only real one I've known, never let my birthday go unnoticed, even after Dad abandoned us. She would be high as a kite, but there was always a gift and a cake."
"She really loved you," Tim said, ignoring the memories of lonely birthdays where he did not receive a phone call or a card. Last birthday had been the first one, since he was four, that had been acknowledged by anyone on the correct day. Jason and Dick were still furious about the events of that day, so Tim never told them just how happy they had made him feel just by making plans on the actual day.
"Yeah," Jason said softly.
Tim laid awake a little longer, thinking of his parents' plans to return to the states in a few months. It would be the first time they came back, since surrendering him to Bruce. The thought was anxious. What if they came back and decided to fight the current arrangement? Bruce had prepared a legal battle for such an event, but it would bring unneeded stress on the family.
With Bruce finally giving Stephanie the attention and training she needed from him, and the presence of Damian, it would not be a good time for his parents to try to wrest back control of him.
Jason had fallen asleep now, but Tim lay awake for a little while longer.
He heard Damian pick his lock and peer in, but the boy did no more than that, believing Tim to be asleep. Thankful for Jason, despite the way the bigger man had claimed most of the lower part of the bed, forcing Tim to lay sideways, Tim heard his door shut with a sense of relief and fell asleep, dreaming of his family around him, playing games and smiling.
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