(A/N)- More domestic RobStar Flying Graysons family because I said so.
RobStar Week 2022, Day 7 - Generations
"Hey Starshine," Nightwing said, coming over to stand behind his daughter where she sat at the kitchen table, adjusting his gauntlet. "What are you working on?"
"Class project!" Mar'i said eagerly, straightening in her chair and turning her homework around for him to see it. "We're making family trees!"
He leaned over the table to look at the paper. The yellow ceiling light cast a bright circle on the paper. In the center Mar'i had glued small pictures, printed from the extensive photo files on their family computer no doubt, connected by bright red marker lines and scribbled labels identifying each member. It was still half-finished—his whole side of the tree had yet to be filled in beyond a placeholder for Bruce—but it looked neat and tidy and simple to understand.
"See?" Mar'i said excitedly, pointing out his and Kory's pictures, and tracing the lines that branched down to her and Jake. "There's you, and mommy, and Jake!"
"Not bad," he complimented, patting the girl on her back. "Coming along really well."
She beamed. "Yeah. Mom's side was pretty easy." Her red marker tip moved back up to Kory and now followed the tree up her line. "There's Grandma and Grandpa, and Auntie Blackfire, and Uncle Wildfire." She paused a moment, giving a sulky pout. "But mommy says I have to call them 'Koma' and 'Ryan' on my homework."
Nightwing chuckled, leaning back and cracking his wrist. "Well your mom's right," he said. "Your aunt and uncle do technically have secret identities to keep."
Kory walked by the table at that moment, passing them, a sleepy pajama-clad Jake slumped on her shoulder. She paid him a grateful smile, as she carried the little boy on her hip. Nightwing's heart warmed at the sight, Jake's squished cheek and droopy legs looking absolutely precious.
"Are you getting ready to head out?" Kory asked him, tucking her hand behind Jake's head.
He nodded. "In about another fifteen minutes or so."
"Mar'i requested assistance filling out your side of the tree," she told him. She turned. "I will put Jake to bed and be back down shortly," she promised.
She headed towards the stairs.
Nightwing pulled out a chair, the legs squealing on the floor, and sat himself down next to his daughter. "What do you need help with, babygirl?" he asked.
Mar'i's face scrunched up. "I... don't know where to put Alfred," she confessed.
"Hmm," Nightwing considered, pressing pensive knuckles into his lips. That was a bit of a conundrum. He wasn't Bruce's father, though he often took on a fatherly role. Perhaps an uncle? "What does your assignment say?"
"Um..." Mar'i shuffled through her stack of pictures until she found her homework sheet. "It just says to draw your family tree."
Nightwing tapped her paper. "Put him down as an uncle or godfather," he suggested. Spotting something on Kory's side of the tree he added, "Like you did with Galfore."
Mar'i's red pen scratched a notation next to Bruce's portrait, then she flicked through her pictures until she found a good one of Alfred and grabbed up a pair of scissors. Nightwing watched her carefully cutting an oval around Alfred's face and head.
"Any other questions?" he asked.
"I don't know how many people to put on your side," she admitted, ducking her eyes with a sheepish look.
He chuckled. "Yeah, there's a lot of them." He leaned forward, resting his arms on the table. "How about we limit it to just your aunts and uncles?"
Mar'i nodded, accepting the logic, and drew her paper back towards her to scribble out the names—Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Damian Wayne, Babs Gordon.
She added Cassie and Cass off to the side and then set about drawing all the connecting lines. Nightwing watched with fascination, mentally adding and continuing the family tree in his head. His parents. Galfore's wife and children. Thomas and Martha Wayne. Raven. Beast Boy. Cyborg. The branches grew and split, growing ever-larger, until his mental picture was much bigger than what could fill his daughter's little sheet.
He marveled a little, to himself. For a short terrible time he'd had no family, after the only one he'd ever known were killed, and now he had so many connections, so many people in his life.
Kory's soft steps came back down the stairs. She came up behind Mar'i's chair and looked over her daughter's shoulder, then clapped her hands.
"Oh it looks wonderful, Mar'i!" she praised.
Their daughter beamed, a radiant smile. "Help me find some good pictures!" she requested eagerly, brushing dust off her family tree and capping her marker.
Mother and father both sorted through the stack of printed papers with their daughter, pausing to admire and laugh over some, gaze at others wistfully.
"Oh!" Mar'i said, when they had finished picking out the portraits. "Almost forgot."
She grabbed up her marker again and wrote at the top in tall capital letters, very neatly.
"I. Love. My. Family," she sounded out as she wrote each word.
Kory's eyes glittered at him as she smiled at him overtop Mar'i's head. Nightwing grinned back.
"Me too, kiddo," he said. "Me too."
(A/N)- See y'all next year!