Chapter Text
Bruce kept expecting to have a toddler waiting at home when he came back from work. He looked forward to having a child hold up their arms with the absolute certainty that he would pick them up and carry them wherever they wanted him to. Sometimes he still got that even with his oldest son who had reached the grand age of eleven, but there was something different when it was a toddler who just wanted to lean their head against his shoulder and have him talk to them. His youngest child, Tim, had started school (despite a lot of tears and wobbling lips) and insisted that he was too big to be picked up anymore.
Alfred, and a few overly concerned friends, had suggested that it was the perfect time to start dating. Bruce disagreed. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to date. He did. It’s just that the few relationships he’d attempted since becoming a father weren’t the most successful.
A year or so after he’d first brought Dick home he had tried to start up a relationship with Selina Kyle. Selina was a petite woman who had already settled into a life of being a crazy cat lady despite being the same age as Bruce. They’d originally met after the death of Bruce’s parents during one of Alfred’s crusades to force him to have ‘healthy relationships with his fellow peers’. It also helped that when he had emerged as Batman for the first time she had quickly followed as Catwoman. Although they were on opposite sides of how Gotham should be treated it added a spark to their relationship that was addicting for Bruce. The romance was a whirlwind but somewhat short-lived when Selina made it known that she wasn’t ready to be a mother. Bruce couldn’t hold it against her and he couldn’t force Dick to be around someone who wasn’t comfortable with him.
Over the years he’d had a few flings, his most notable one being with Harvey Dent. Harvey was a lawyer and one of the most enigmatic people Bruce met during his brief stint at law school. They’d stayed friends but just after bringing Jason home Bruce had taken the chance and sent Harvey a text asking him out. Harvey took him on a blur of dates throughout Gotham and even seemed thrilled with the thought of co-parenting the boys. Harvey was also relatively normal, he wasn’t interested in fighting crime beyond legal means and he wasn’t interested in trying to take over Gotham either. Their relationship came to an end after just five months when he was held at gunpoint in the middle of the night. The robbers stole his wallet and his face when they threw acid at him. Bruce had been devastated when Harvey’s new insecurities led to their break up and it had put him off serious dating ever since. Half a year later he saw the emergence of Two-face on the news and went out to speak to him as The Bat. He hadn’t recognised the man that laughed in his face and he was almost glad when he hung up the cape as it meant he didn’t have to look him in the face again and think about what they’d lost.
There were a few since Harvey that stood out. Dates that had continued past the bedroom for a few weeks before fizzling out. Dangerous women, charming men. None that he would think to introduce to his family.
However much it had persuaded him from dating, however, it had not dissuaded his butler from the idea that he needed to date. Alfred insisted that on his next day off - company mandated and enforced by Lucius - that he go into the city to relax and meet somebody whilst the children were at school. Bruce protested but ultimately agreed when Alfred’s eyebrows were in danger of getting stuck too high up his forehead. He had gotten dressed in his more casual going-out outfit (a charcoal grey turtle neck and black slacks) and opened the front door to walk out to the garages and promptly stopped in the doorway.
There was a carriable black baby bassinet on the regal rose-inspired door mats. Bruce vaguely recognised it from a deluxe baby furniture catalogue that he had skimmed at the dentist the previous year. Bruce leaned down to look at the bassinet curiously when it made a soft whimpering noise.
A small hand poked out of the blankets, it opened and closed a few times as if it were trying to grab onto Bruce. He pulled the blankets aside to reveal a small face. The baby couldn’t be more than a few months old and had a shock of dark hair to match the green bodysuit they wore.
Bruce looked around him carefully, in case whoever dropped the child off was still around, but found no one. He picked up the bassinet in one hand and closed the door with the other as he stepped back into the house.
“Master Bruce? I thought you were leaving – Is that a child?”
Bruce turned sheepishly to face his butler.
“They were outside on the welcome mat.”
“For how long?” Alfred asked, stepping closer to inspect the small child.
“I don’t know,” Bruce answered. “They were there when I opened the door.”
Alfred tutted and lifted the baby out of the carrier gently. Away from the blankets the baby looked peaceful and content. Bruce set down the carrier, intending to take the child from Alfred, when he spotted a few slips of paper underneath where the baby had been. He pulled out the first one and unfolded it.
The paper revealed instructions on how to get a paternity test. Bruce frowned. He knew what that implied but that didn’t mean he appreciated or understood it.
He grabbed the second piece of paper and skimmed it. Then he went back and read it fully. Twice.
The child was named Damian Thomas Al Ghul Wayne. He was four months old and he had a mild allergy to several types of nuts as well as peaches. His mother was a woman called Thalia Al Ghul, the daughter of an assassin. Bruce had met her the year before and had taken her on a few dates, paid for a very nice hotel, and then broken up with her when he realised that she had been ordered to go out with him because someone had figured out that he was the mythic bat of Gotham.
Bruce dropped the paper and desperately searched through the blankets for anything else that was available. He found a passport, a birth certificate, a soft blanket that had a small dog's head in the middle and a paw at each corner. Shakily, Bruce handed the blanket over to the boy - to his son.
“Master Bruce, would you like to hold them?”
“I don’t think I can,” Bruce whispered, staring at the pair.
The man who had raised him, and his son. He had seen the combination so many times but the pairing seemed frail for the first time. Alfred was well in his sixties, his hair had receded and what was left was speckled with grey. Damian was still practically a newborn, small and incapable of defending himself.
“Why not? Is there something that sets this child apart from the rest of your children?”
“No.”
–
Damian had adjusted well to the household and the household had adapted well to him. All four of his siblings adored having a baby in the house, so much so that Bruce was beginning to worry that Damian might never find out what the carpet felt like. Cass liked to poke the boy’s cheeks softly before looking up and signing round happily. Jason found it funny to sneak his school scissors out to cut Damian’s hair obscurely. He got away with it twice before Alfred realised he needed to confiscate the scissors more quickly.
Dick took to Damian the quickest. He’d lift the smaller boy into the air and quietly point out everything around them. It also helped that Dick’s propensity for nicknames had gone on a rampage. Jason had been dubbed ‘little wing’ when he had first come to the manor (“My mama called me her robin, like Robi - my rromani name - and I think if I’m a bird so are you!” Dick proclaimed. Sometimes it hurt Bruce to think about how Dick’s references to his parents weren’t the same as the ones he’d said when he first started living with Bruce but instead were becoming the stories that Bruce had learnt from Dick and the circus.), Cass gained the nickname ‘little bat’ (“It’s cause you don’t talk, and bats don’t talk, but they’re still really cool! And it’s ‘little bat’ because you’re so small. Dad can be ‘big bat’”), Tim was ‘baby bird’ (“Since he’s a baby.” “Am not!” “Dick, don’t tease your little brother.”). Damian had been assigned multiple nicknames much to the others' amusement. He was ‘baby bat’ to make up for the uneven division between bird and bat nicknames. He was ‘little D’ since Dick was ‘big D’. There were a plethora of other nicknames that Dick cycled through as well whenever he picked up his youngest sibling to show him something new.
Dick insisted that all of his siblings (and his Dad, and his Alfred) had to watch his latest gymnastics competition. Generally, Bruce made a point to try and make it to every single one of Dick’s competitions (he couldn’t always make them because of work, or having to look after a sick child instead but he always made it up to Dick by buying him chocolate ice cream), but usually Dick’s younger siblings didn’t go to the competitions. They were quite long for Jason and Tim to sit through without fighting and Cass didn’t like all the loud noises but Dick insisted so they all went.
Bruce sat up high in the bleachers so that he could get a good view of the room, Jason on his left with Alfred on his other side, Cass and Tim on his right using a connect the dots book, Damian was in a baby carrier strapped to his front. Dick had been the one to pick out the colour of the carrier - an electric blue that hurt Bruce’s eyes - and it clashed horrendously with the rest of Bruce’s attire. He’d gotten used to standing out next to his children though. All of them, except for Cass, preferred brighter colours which made Bruce look more pale and Goth-like next to them.
Dick had insisted that his unitard for his competition had to be a combination of Red, green and yellow like his own parents used to wear when doing their aerial stunts. Unfortunately, it was also reminiscent of several superhero costumes that Bruce had seen and sent his heart into palpitations at the idea of his son facing criminals daily as Bruce had once done.
Before long the competition had started and Dick was about to perform on the floor. Carefully, Bruce lifted Damian out of his carrier and set him on his lap so that the baby could watch Dick perform.
Dick’s music started and he began flying across the mats in a series of twists and turns. Jason cheered as Dick landed a somersault and Cass clapped excitedly. Alfred took several pictures and Bruce held Damian up to watch with wide eyes as his oldest brother started doing backward handsprings.
Damian jumped on Bruce’s knee in time with Dick’s landings, clapping his hands and waving desperately at his brother when he finally finished. Bruce whooped loudly along with Jason as Dick beamed up at them proudly.
The next part of Dick’s competition was performing on the rings. He’d told Bruce privately that it was what he was most nervous about because out of everything he was taught in gymnastics it was the closest to aerialist stunts that he got and he didn’t want to disappoint his parents if they were watching. Bruce had reassured him but it took a lot of convincing before Dick declared himself confident enough to perform.
They watched as he stepped onto the mat and the instructor lifted him to hold onto the rings. He hung down for a moment as the instructor stepped away before lifting himself so that the rings were below him. He stayed looking down at himself for a moment before looking up and lifting his legs to be straight out in front of him. He dropped his legs again and settled so that he was swinging below the rings again. He built momentum for a minute until he could do a full loop. He looped around once more before releasing the rings and tucking into himself to do a triple flip before landing.
The entire family cheered as Dick only stumbled slightly before straightening up. As soon as they could, they rushed down the aisles and through the side of the gym where they found Dick putting on his jacket over his unitard. He was tackled by his younger siblings as Bruce ruffled his hair and Damian tried to cling onto him. Dick gratefully took Damian out of Bruce’s arms and cuddled him close as the other boys shouted over each other to get his attention.
Cass wasn’t one to steal attention but she did wave at her older brother excitedly to show her happiness as she stayed beside Bruce and Alfred. With the boys being so loud it took Bruce a moment to realise that were was a man coming up to him. The man looked to be about the same age as Bruce with brown hair and a well-built frame.
“Hello, are you Richard’s father?” The man asked with a distinctly New York accent.
“I am. How can I help you?”
The boys hadn’t noticed the newcomer yet and Tim and Jason had started wrestling on the floor whilst Damian frowned and Dick laughed.
“I’m a coach for national ring competitors.”
The man nodded over to the rings where Dick had performed as if it clarified why he wanted to talk to Bruce.
“Are you planning on coaching here?” Bruce asked, too tired from being woken in the middle of the night by Damian to try and connect the dots.
“No,” The man looked disgruntled by the idea. “I wanted to offer Dick a place in my gym to be trained. He’s only twelve and already he can hold himself steady on the rings when men twice his age are shaking. I think with a bit of training we could even get him to Olympic level by the time he’s seventeen.”
Bruce blinked at the man before looking back at his eldest son. He knew that he was good but the Olympics?
“I don’t know. I’ll have a talk with him about it first. I don’t want him to feel like he has to do something just because he’s good at it. He’s more passionate about other stuff.”
It was true. Dick loved doing ballet as well and he excelled at learning languages, but what he was most passionate about was doing aerialist stunts like his parents had. Bruce couldn’t tell if the boy liked it because he did or because it was one of the only things he could remember about his parents.
“That’s alright. Take all the time you need. Here’s my business card, it has my number and email on it. You let me know when he’s ready and I’ll start training him straight away.”
Bruce looked down at the card which declared the man as Paul Andrews - coach for the stars. He handed the card over to Alfred and began to herd his cluster of children out the door.
Later he sat down with Dick and explained who Paul Andrews was and what he wanted. Dick just wrinkled his nose.
“The Olympics sounds like a lot of work and not much fun.”
And that was that.
-
In Tim’s third year of school, it became apparent that Bruce’s son was intelligent. Bruce was fielding multiple calls from the school asking about Tim being placed up a year level. According to his teachers, he was already reading at around the same age as a fourteen-year-old and he was grasping concepts well beyond what the rest of the class was learning.
“He’s being stunted,” Mr Thompson, Tim’s teacher told him. “I’m teaching the others the multiplication table and he’s looking out the window because he’s bored. There aren’t any challenges for him.”
Bruce glanced over to where Tim sat at his desk playing with Bruce’s phone as the adults talked. Bruce had originally suggested that the boy finish his homework but it was already finished so the only solution was to open the camera app on his phone and let the boy entertain himself.
“So what? I have him skip the rest of Grade school. That feels like putting too much on an eight-year-old.”
Mr Thompson hummed carefully and looked over to the door which had a large window frame in it for them to look through and into the hallway. After seeing it was clear he responded quickly.
“I’ve been asked not to suggest this to you since it looks better for the school to have a student graduate so early, but I think you should only put him a year ahead.”
“Why’s that?”
“He has a friend in that year that he always sits with on the monkey bars at recess. Her name’s Stephanie and they get on amazingly and she challenges him more than school work does at the moment.”
“So you think I should only move Tim up one year because of a girl?”
“It’s more than that. Tim doesn’t socialise with his current peers. His intellectual maturity makes it harder for him to connect with kids his age. I truly believe that placing Tim in the same class as Steph will help him concentrate and socialise more and it will be beneficial for him to stay with kids closer to his age. If you did skip him ahead to middle school then next year he’ll be an eight-year-old in a class full of eleven-year-olds. That doesn’t sound too bad but remember kids are kind of the worst.”
Bruce quietly agreed. When Dick was eight his ADHD had been in full swing to the point where Bruce had started getting up at dawn to take his son on runs to wear off some of the energy. Then at eleven, it was like he suddenly realised that other people actually existed and weren’t just side characters in his life. It was safe to say that everything suddenly seemed very dramatic. Jason was probably even worse at eight years old. Jason at eight was beginning to pick fights with kids at his school and was even worse at the age of eleven.
“Alright. I’ll think about it. Thank you, Mr Thompson. Is there anything else?”
The man glanced over to Tim and nodded.
“I don’t know if you remember the photography assignment I gave them a few months ago but Tim really enjoyed it. Maybe look into that?”
Bruce smiled at the thought and agreed easily. On their way home Bruce bought a camera for Tim and then some books for Jason and Cass, crayons for Damian, and a new yoga mat for Dick. He wasn’t an idiot. If he bought something for one of his children he had to buy something for all the others lest he incur another tantrum about favouritism. (He’d been through that tantrum several times with all three of his oldest sons and they made sure that he never forgot equality in gift-giving.)
Weeks later Tim bought home Stephanie for a playdate and it was the first time he’d seen his son really excited about hanging out with a kid that wasn’t one of his siblings. Bruce made a point to call the school the next morning and have his son placed in the same class as Stephanie. It didn’t surprise him that she became a regular in his house for the next decade.
-
The annual charity funfair for Gotham's foster children was somewhat of a big deal with Bruce's kids. After meeting Jason there Dick had insisted that they go every year to celebrate Jason. Cass liked the funfair because she got to buy bunches of balloons. Tim liked the funfair because there was always a bouncy castle for him to jump in. Damian was still too small to go off on his own without one of the others with him so he liked the funfair because Bruce carried him around the entire time.
That year Dick had decided that he and the others were going on the teacups first and then they were raiding some of the food stalls. Damian also wanted to join them but Bruce didn't feel confident with letting a 3-year-old on the teacups compared to letting his 8 to 15-year-olds go on them.
Instead, Bruce carried Damian off to the face painting station where Damian refused to get anything other than a bat on his face. Damian then insisted that his father match him much to his chagrin. Then they made their way over to the petting zoo where Damian desperately chambered down to see the animals up close. Bruce smiled and took several photos of the boy trying to feed one of the sheep.
After the petting zoo, they went to a station where a man was making giant bubbles. Dick and the others were already there and Damian eagerly went to join them. Bruce made his own way more slowly, catching the soft toy that Jason threw at him as soon as he was close enough.
“Dad, you should've seen the size of this churro Cass bought, it was -”
Bruce smiled as Tim excitedly told him about their day so far and zoned out as he kept an eye on all of them until he caught what Tim had switched the topic to.
“- and there was this group of foster kids there as well. They were kinda rude but there was this boy at the back who was nice but the other fosters’ kept being mean to him. Oh hey, that's him over there.”
Bruce glanced over to where Tim pointed and spotted a small black boy being pushed to the back of a group of boys as they fought to get some candy floss. The boy looked distinctly uncomfortable to be there but didn't protest every time he was pushed to the side. The boy shuffled his feet and then looked up and around as if sensing he was being talked about. When he spotted Tim he waved shyly but the movement also caught the attention of one of the boys he was with who pushed him over in response.
Bruce had already started walking by the time the boy landed on the ground. He pulled himself up to his full height and tried his best not to use too much of his retired Batman voice to confront them.
“What's going on here?”
“None of your business. Duke was just being annoying.”
The boy - Duke - glared at the older boy who looked to be around Jason’s age.
“You shouldn’t push someone just because they’re being annoying,” Bruce tutted. “Duke would you like to come play with my children? I think you met them earlier.”
Duke smugly nodded and wandered off to where Tim, Jason, and Cass were sitting on the ground. Bruce followed behind and carefully avoided meeting Dick’s eyes as he stood beside him.
“Another one?” Dick poked a finger into his side. “Miss Sinclair is gonna love this.”
–
The black pen tapped on the desk impatiently. Bruce could hear the woman on the other side frowning through the phone even as she let him sit in uncomfortable silence. Bruce cleared his throat for the second time that evening and briefly wondered if it might be easier to field the conversation whilst down in the cave rather than at his desk in his study.
“So you think this child is in an unsafe environment?”
“Yes, his foster siblings were pushing him around.”
“And you don’t have any other reasons to believe he’s in an unsafe foster home? Just some rough-housing?”
“I just think that he might fit in well here.”
“We don’t really like moving children from long-term foster placements unless we have to Mr Wayne.”
“And you do have to because he is in an unsafe environment.”
“You are aware that if I agree, and Duke agrees, to this movement then he will be number six? You won’t be allowed to foster, adopt, or have any more children until Richard is eighteen.”
“I know.”
Miss Sinclair sighed and Bruce could hear her beginning to type on her computer.
“I’ll set up an appointment to see Duke tomorrow and offer the change in placements but if he says no there is nothing else you or I can do.”
A week later Duke moved into the manor and selected a room beside Cass’s. He let himself be properly introduced to everybody (He was six, he liked legos, his mum was in a coma, and he really liked puppies) and was given a tour of the house. He liked that all their rooms were in the same corridor with Bruce’s at the end, Jason and Dick’s right next to each other by the stairs, his and Cass’s rooms opposite to them and Damian and Tim’s bordering either side of Bruce’s. He thought the movie room was amazing and thought Alfred was the coolest out of all of them.
His favourite thing about the manor was how close everyone seemed. He was in awe of having so many older brothers that hugged him instead of pushing him and he thought that Cass was the best because she spoke with her hands!!! How do people even do that??
The only one he struggled to get on with was Damian who had been replaced as the newest child and didn’t appreciate being replaced. It made Bruce laugh because he felt that he’d been through that exact scenario with almost all of his children. Dick had felt replaced at first when he realised that Jason also needed attention and wasn’t just a cool little brother. Jason felt replaced when there was a toddler getting picked up all the time instead of him. Cass was neutral territory as everybody seemed to figure that a girl was an addition rather than a replacement. Tim had been stubborn as anything when Damian had been found and had refused to speak for a whole week.
Being jealous was almost a right of passage for his kids.
–
“Jason, what are you doing?”
Bruce had gone on an international business conference, something about sales? Marketing? Whatever, all that mattered was that Bruce said it was up to Dick to look after his younger siblings and somehow that had to cover walking into the bathroom that Jason and Dick shared only to find the younger boy with black goop in his hair and wide eyes as if he didn’t want to be caught.
“Get out!” Jason shouted angrily as he grabbed several things off the bench and tried to hide them behind his back.
“No way,” Dick folded his arms over his chest. “What are you doing? Are you dying your hair?”
“Yes, now go away.”
“No way. Dad is going to kill you.”
Dick was lying. Their father loved them too much that when he play wrestled with them he’d immediately stop as soon as Jason started to fake cry. One of them dying their hair was probably just going to end up with a lecture or a shrug depending on how much Bruce actually cared.
“No, he’s not.”
Jason turned back to the mirror and continued running his hands through his hair to get the goop to cover all of it.
“Okay, he’s not. Why are you even dying your hair? The ginger is cool.”
“Some kids at school were saying stuff.”
“What sort of stuff?”
Dick had sat himself down on the toilet seat and watched as his little brother started to aggressively scrub the goop into his hair.
“They said that I was always going to be the odd one out since everybody else has black hair and that Dad probably regretted getting me since I don’t match everyone else.”
“You know that’s not true right? Nobody cares what colour your hair is or what you look like.”
Dick stood up and grabbed his brother’s hand. He led the other boy to sit on the lip of the bathtub before grabbing the dye boxes that Jason had tried to hide earlier.
“What are you doing?” Jason asked, rubbing his nose on the back of his hand.
“I’m looking for instructions, I might not think you should dye your hair but I’m not gonna stop you,” The older boy shrugged. “Alright, this says that you need to wash it out once it’s been in your hair for thirty minutes. I’ll set a timer, you stay here.”
Dick rushed out of the room to find his alarm clock on his bedside table. When he got there, he found that Cass and Tim were reading on his bed and Damian had a colouring book opened on the floor. Tim watched him curiously as he picked up the alarm clock and began fiddling with the back of it.
“What are you doing?”
Dick glanced up but didn’t answer as he focused on setting the alarm.
He heard gentle clapping which usually meant that Cass was trying to get his attention but he still didn’t look up. If he looked up he would have to admit to his other siblings what was going on and he didn’t know if he should. He felt a little over his head trying to deal with everything. He was only sixteen! Jason was only twelve! He didn’t know anything about hair dye!
“Dick, is Jason alright?”
He hadn’t noticed Duke on a beanbag on the other side of the bed. He had a comic in hand and looked small and shy in his seat. Duke preferred Jason far more than the rest of them and tended to stick to his side whenever he felt overwhelmed. It was probably only because Jason was hiding in the bathroom that Duke was sitting with all the others.
“Jason’s changing up his hair right now. I’ve just set an alarm for how long we gotta wait if you wanna hang out with me and Jaybird in the bathroom.”
Duke immediately stood up and so did Damian who was never one to be left out of any adventure possible. Cass and Tim also stood up after another moment and together the five of them went back to Dick and Jason’s shared bathroom.
Straight away Duke went to sit next to Jason on the bathtub and Tim sat down on the closed toilet seat. Cass folded her legs on the ground and pulled Damian into her lap with minimal resistance whilst Dick stayed standing.
“What’s in your hair?” Duke asked curiously.
“Hair dye to make my hair black,” Jason shrugged.
Why? Cass signed.
“Wanted to,” He sniffed. “Hey, who do you guys think is the best member of the Justice League?”
Dick and Cass were the only ones to recognise the change of topic for what it was but neither of them commented on it as they let their younger brothers answer.
“The flash is the best one!” Duke quickly replied. “He runs really fast and nobody can catch him.”
“No, Batman is the best!” Tim frowned. “Steph thinks it’s green arrow but I think that’s because he’d blonde so it doesn’t count.”
“Batman is the bestest,” Damian pouted.
Damian tended to disagree with everything Tim said on principle. They did, however, always agree that Batman was the best hero out there even if their other siblings disagreed.
“Everybody knows Batman isn’t real. He’s a PR stunt I’m telling you,” Jason waved his arms wildly. “Why else would he only show up for big space missions if he was only a human.”
The Justice League was forced to declare whether each member was a human, meta, or alien as well as what all of their missions were as part of the government’s mandate to allow their continued hero work. It did lead to a lot of debates in their house over whether Batman being a human meant that he was a better or worse hero.
“I’ll tell you who’s not human and is amazing,” Dick interjected. “Superman. No one beats Superman.”
“Wonder Woman beats Superman every time Big Bird.”
Dick rolled his eyes and turned to Cass who hadn’t tried to share anything so far. They’d had to come up with a system where she could easily cut into the conversations when she wanted to considering the rest of them tended to talk over each other without much consideration for her. The system was generally just her pushing at one of the boys so that he could declare that it was her turn to speak and the others would all be forced to listen.
I like Batman
“See! Even Cass agrees!”
They continued arguing until the timer went off and Duke and Dick helped push Jason’s head underneath the shower nozzle. By the end of the process everyone had been splashed with water and they were all laughing loudly.
When Bruce returned the next day he glared at Jason’s hair tiredly but didn’t tell them off as he crashed on the couch and almost immediately started snoring.
–
Friday night movies were a big tradition in the Wayne household to the point that there had been broken bones over cancelled movie nights. (Dick had decided once that he was not going to attend in order to go to a sleepover at his friend’s house. Bruce had agreed. Jason had disagreed. Jason had refused to come downstairs for the movie and locked himself in his room. Jason had then jumped off the bed dramatically when Alfred announced dessert was ready and had broken his wrist when he landed badly and couldn’t catch himself.) They all had semi-assigned seats in the home movie theatre as well. Bruce always sat right at the back with Cass. Dick, Jason, Tim and sometimes Damian would then sit in the middle row, all fighting to get to the exact middle seat. On days when Damian felt that he was above fighting for the middle seat (they were rare days but sometimes he liked to make the point that he was better than his older brothers) he would instead sit beside his father at the top.
At first, Duke hadn’t known where to fit himself into the seating arrangement. The treacherous middle row seemed a bit too lethal but the top row seemed too intimate. Instead, he took the front row for himself and stretched out over the long comfortable couch that was there. It also had the added bonus of Alfred giving him his own popcorn bowl rather than making him share like the others.
Movie nights tended to allow them each a turn to pick a movie - although Bruce’s turn was skipped more often than not - so there weren’t any arguments. Dick tended to pick Disney movies whilst Jason picked movies he insisted were iconic. Cass, Tim, and Duke all loved superhero movies and Damian usually picked whatever seemed the least like a kids' movie to him.
Some weeks the kids would all invite friends over and the room quickly became cramped as they watched Beauty and the Beast but Bruce wouldn’t trade it for the world even if Superman insisted that he needed to come to the watchtower.
“No.”
“Come on, B. I know it’s movie night but I need you to check something up at the watch tower.”
“No, Clark. The last time you made me skip movie night I found all of my kids waiting up for me at 3 AM.”
“But it’s important B! You don’t even have to get changed, I’ll get you a domino and we’ll only be there for thirty minutes max.”
Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose and contemplated slamming the door in the farm boy’s face. He’d allowed the man to know his identity after years and years of asking but he still regretted it sometimes when the man showed up on his doorstep covered in flannel and being all earnest. On anybody other than his kids Bruce thought earnestly was unnecessary and outdated.
“Friday’s are non-negotiable, Clark. Maybe tomorrow.”
He could sense that the other man was building up to another argument when he heard a noise behind him and turned around.
“Dad? Who’s this?” Dick asked.
His oldest son had a glass of water in hand and was curiously peering over Bruce’s shoulder at Clark.
“Hi. Dick right? I’m Clark, one of Bruce’s friends.”
“Dad has friends?” Dick asked eagerly. “No way, I kind of thought that other than the snobby socialites and Lucius Bruce didn’t talk to anybody.”
“I don’t,” Bruce rolled his eyes.
“How can we help you, Clark?” Dick carried on, leaning one of his arms on Bruce’s shoulder awkwardly.
“I was trying to get Bruce to come out with me this evening but I forgot it’s Friday Movie Night.”
“Ah,” Dick hummed. “Yeah, it’s pretty sacred. You can take him out tomorrow though!”
Bruce knew what his son was suggesting and tried to correct him.
“Dick -”
“You can join us for tonight though. Come on, you can meet the others.”
Clark had already stepped through the doorway before Dick had finished speaking and before Bruce had a chance to glare him out of it.
“Sounds good.”
Bruce did go to the watch tower the next day,, making a point to ignore Clark and the other Justice League members and slam his way out when he left. His choice to replace the front door with lead-infused wood and put a sprinkling of kryptonite on the handle was completely unrelated.