Chapter Text
Saturday
Bruce Wayne sits stiffly in an armchair, back straighter than the portrait of Thomas Wayne above him. His tie is still splattered with purple paint. His eyes have the thousand-yard stare of a man who’s taught a classroom full of seven-year-olds how to “think about civic responsibility.”
Across from him, his children sprawl in varying states of exhaustion.
Jason’s boots are up on the couch, a dried glue handprint on his sleeve. Tim lies face-down on the carpet, arm dangling over an empty coffee cup. Duke, ever the optimist, is rolling a projector cord and humming. Damian sits cross-legged, untangling glitter from Titus’s fur. Cass occupies the arm of Bruce’s chair, quietly leafing through a stack of crumpled papers.
And then there’s Dick Grayson—hands taped with sparkly stickers—beaming like the week hasn’t just destroyed them.
Interview—Dick
“Okay, so the ‘Waynes Volunteer at Gotham Elementary’ program was my idea. I thought, you know, good PR, good bonding, good exposure for the kids to see positive role models. I didn’t anticipate Jason convincing a fourth-grader that caffeine is a superpower. Or Tim trying to explain forensic analysis to five-year-olds,...."
“Actually, that last one was pretty funny.”
“Alright,” Bruce says, voice steady, calm, CEO-meets-therapist. “Let’s review the week.”
Jason groans. “Oh, great. Another Wayne family debrief. Can’t wait to relive the glitter apocalypse.”
Duke sits up. “Actually, I made a presentation.”
Everyone groans louder.
“No, no,” Duke insists, clicking the remote. The projector flickers to life, showing a PowerPoint slide titled ‘The Most Impactful Volunteer: A Duke Thomas Retrospective.’
“Subtle,” Jason mutters.
“I quantified engagement,” Duke says, ignoring him. “Measured through student interaction per minute. According to my data, my group retained information about light refraction and hero symbolism at twice the rate of Tim’s group—”
“Because you brought a fog machine,” Tim lifts his head just enough to glare. “That’s not pedagogy, that’s showmanship.”
Duke smirks. “Exactly. Impactful showmanship.”
Jason snaps his fingers. “Yeah, well, my group learned to use critical thinking. Like when they critically assessed whether Batman’s abs were real.”
Bruce slowly blinks.
There’s a pause. Damian swipes glitter from Titus’s ear and says, “Most of your group was unsupervised.”
Jason leans forward, smirking. “And yet, nobody cried. Beat that, Mini Wayne.”
Damian narrows his eyes. “I’ll have you know, my presentation on urban wildlife care was riveting.”
Tim rolls onto his side, mumbling, “Yeah, until you made a second-grader cry for misidentifying a pigeon.”
“It was a mourning dove,” Damian hisses. “Ignorance should not be rewarded with stickers.”
Camera—Tim
“Listen, the whole idea was teamwork. And I think I speak for everyone when I say—none of us function well in small, enclosed spaces full of sugar-loaded children, still, I did get to run a mini science lesson. Teaching about fingerprints. One kid asked if Batman’s fingerprints glow. I told him that’s classified. He told me I wasn’t cool.”
"...."
“He was right.”
“Can we focus?” Bruce says, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “What did we learn from this experience?”
Dick perks up. “That kids love us!”
Jason snorts. “They love you, Dick. You did cartwheels in the hallway. You’re like a walking popsicle commercial.”
“I connected with them,” Dick protests, pointing with a neon-stickered finger. “That’s important!”
“You led a sing-along about civic duty,” Tim mutters. “Half the class started crying halfway through.”
“It was moving!” Dick insists.
Cass tugs lightly on Bruce’s sleeve. “They liked it.”
Everyone turns to her.
She holds up a drawing—crumpled, smeared with paint, but bright and heartfelt. Stick figures labeled Mr. Dick, Mr. Jason, Ms. Cass, Mr. Duke, Mr. Tim, Mini Batman, and BatDad. Everyone is holding hands. There are stars drawn above them, and in a kid’s scrawl, the words: Thank You For Being Our Heroes.
It’s silent for a beat.
Jason shifts, rubbing the back of his neck. “Well. That’s—kinda adorable.”
Duke smiles. “Yeah. Look, that’s you, man. They even got the red streak in your hair.”
Jason looks away, pretending not to care. “They made me taller than Bruce. Whoever drew this knows truth.”
Bruce studies the picture for a long moment. “They remembered us.”
“Most of us,” Tim says, eyes half-closed. “Probably not my name though. Some called me Mr. Data.”
“That’s an improvement,” Jason grins. “Last time, they called you ‘Sleepy Guy.’”
Camera—Bruce
“I’ll admit, I was reluctant. Teaching isn’t—well, it’s not my area. But seeing them… all of them… together, working, laughing—”
He smiles faintly.
“I forget sometimes how much they give to this city. How much they give to each other...also, glue is not a food group. We at least cleared that up.”
Because, yes. That happened.
Cut back to the manor—twenty minutes earlier.
Jason is holding an empty glue bottle like it’s evidence. “I’m just saying, technically it’s made from animal products.”
“It’s adhesive,” Tim argues. “Not a protein.”
Duke—logical voice of reason—chimes in, “You’re both wrong. The label literally says non-toxic, not nutritious.”
Jason waves the bottle. “Details.”
At that exact moment, Alfred walks in with a tray of tea and stops mid-step. “Am I interrupting a dietary discussion involving paste?”
“Scientific inquiry,” Jason says.
“Idiocy,” Damian counters.
Alfred sets down the tray, utterly unamused. “If any of you ingest glue, I’ll be calling Poison Control instead of serving dessert.”
Jason mutters, “Worth it if dessert’s flan.”
Alfred exhales the kind of sigh that could extinguish candles. “Master Jason, flan is a privilege, not a right.”
Camera—Alfred
“They returned from the school appearing as though they had weathered both a storm and a glitter cannon. It brings me great pride to see them inspire the youth... albeit through methods I shall not personally endorse. I have already ordered additional mops.”
Now back in the living room, the debate has mellowed into laughter.
Damian glances at the thank-you drawing again, his expression softening. “My group gave me a sticker.”
Jason smirks. “A sticker. Big whoop.”
“It says ‘Animal Hero,’” Damian replies, and for a flicker, his voice loses its usual edge. “They asked if I’d come back. The children said they missed the rabbit.”
Duke grins. “Dude, they liked you.”
“Tolerated,” Damian corrects automatically. Then, quieter, “...Perhaps liked.”
Dick leans over, nudging him. “You did good, kid. Seriously.”
Damian scowls, but doesn’t move away.
Bruce watches them all, his family glowing under the warm light of evening, laughter bouncing between the walls that had once been far too silent.
Camera—Cass
“Kids said we looked tired. I told them adults get tired too. They said… that’s okay.”
“It was nice.”
Tim lifts his head. “We, uh… we’re not doing this again next week, right?”
Bruce hesitates.
Everyone turns to stare.
“Bruce?” Dick asks slowly. “Why are you making that face?”
“I received an email,” Bruce says, the calm before the storm. “The school invited us back. Career Day. They’d like us to discuss... alternative professions.”
The silence hits like a thunderclap.
Jason’s jaw drops. “Alternative professions? What, like vigilante chic?”
Tim groans, “I’m going to pretend my inbox is broken.”
Duke grins. “We could make another slideshow.”
“No,” says half the room in perfect unison.
Cass tilts her head. “I’ll go.”
“See?” Dick beams. “Team spirit!”
Damian mutters, “We barely survived Volunteer Week. Now they wish to subject us to another?”
Jason crosses his arms. “I’m not talking about career choices in front of a bunch of seven-year-olds. ‘So, class, when I was your age, I took a crowbar to the head and developed trust issues.’”
Bruce cuts him a warning look. Jason shrugs. “What? It’s inspirational.”
Tim groans again from the floor. “Jason, stop trauma-dumping on hypothetical children.”
“You’re one to talk,” Jason fires back. “You nearly cried when your Chromebook crashed mid-presentation.”
“It was data loss,” Tim says, sitting up. “You can’t just—”
Bruce interjects sharply, “Enough.”
Silence.
Then, softer, he adds, “We’ll manage. Together.”
Dick smiles. “That’s the spirit.”
Jason raises a brow. “Did you just quote a motivational poster?”
“Maybe,” Dick grins. “I connected with the kids, remember?”
Damian mutters into Titus’s fur, “He’s insufferable.”
Camera—Duke
"It was chaos. Total chaos. But honestly? I think we needed that. You can’t throw a bunch of Bat-people in a classroom and not expect sparks. But we made those kids happy. That counts for something.”
“And yeah, maybe my fog machine did most of the heavy lifting.”
As the evening rolls on, they begin to unwind. Tim finally relocates to the couch, pulling a blanket over his face. Jason helps himself to Alfred’s cookies. Damian sits quietly next to Cass, sketching a small rabbit in her notebook. Duke tinkers with the projector settings, pretending not to notice Bruce watching them with that quiet, proud expression.
Dick hums softly, still wearing two different glitter stickers on his cheeks.
Bruce glances at the thank-you drawing again, his features softening into something almost rare: pure, unguarded warmth.
“They liked us,” he says quietly.
Jason looks up. “Yeah. Against all odds.”
“And,” Dick says, grinning, “we didn’t get banned from the school. I call that a win.”
“Yet,” Damian mutters.
“Progress,” Bruce replies.
Camera—Jason
“I give it three days before Bruce realizes volunteering isn’t the same thing as parenting seventy kids at once. But hey, if he wants to do it again, I’m game. Maybe I’ll teach shop class next time. Teach the little gremlins how to build grappling hooks from scrap.”
“What? They’d love it.”