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daydreamerwonderkid · 10 months

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I see your vampire!Bruce Wayne AU and I raise you this:

Normal human Bruce Wayne raising his horde of vampire/dhamphir children, but because Bruce is Bruce no suspects any of the Batkids are, well ... bat kids.

Even the Batkids are confused at first when they first meet Bruce. Batman shows up and they're like:

"Oh, shit it's Batman! The very scary, very territorial Vampire Lord who's completely taken over Gotham and has managed to strike fear into the heart of all the most notorious vampire leaders! And he wants to adopt me into his coven? Sounds sketchy, but aight."

Only for them to wake up the next day and realize that not only is Batman in fact NOT a vampire, but he's also the most pitiful and pathetic human they've ever laid their eyes on and there's no fucking way they can leave him now.

Humans are already super fragile and easy to kill as is. And their new guardian is risking his life every night masquerading as an all powerful Vampire Lord!!!!

It's honestly a miracle that Bruce hasn't been killed yet and there's no way they're going to let their clueless human guardian wander off by himself. Especially after they realize he keeps forgetting that humans aren't supposed to be awake for 72 hours straight and his skin is paler than the giant hoards of case file documents he tries to sift through while barely touching his own food.

This poor idiot human is so committed to pretending to be a vampire that he's actually convinced himself he has night vision and spends more time hanging out in a literal Batcave than he does in his own fucking house!

Meanwhile, Bruce is thoroughly convinced he's got a complete handle on the whole raising vampire/dhampir children thing. After all, it's not like he's had to change much about his own personal life to that of a parent taking care of a horde of supernatural children.

He already spends more time awake at night anyway and while the kids don't mind human food absolutely love Alfred's cooking, it's not difficult to get a hold of any blood when they actually need to feed on something more substantial. Considering he's the biggest contributor to Gotham's blood donation centers, it's not like anyone's gonna tell him no.

Bruce also read somewhere that while vampires in the modern age don't actually need to hunt humans to feed anymore (considering the above mentioned donation centers), their hunting instincts haven't gone away, either. So while he was initially against the idea of letting his kids getting involved in his vigilante lifestyle, it was probably a good thing in the end that they had an alternative outlet for their growing vampiric urges. Like Alfred, he would have preferred it if they had gotten into competitive sports or something similar instead, but all his children had proven themselves to be just as stubborn as he is so he made do with what he could.

Especially considering the fact that a parenting article he read mentioned how extremely sensitive young vampires/dhampirs are towards the well-being of those who make up their coven. Dick, ALONE, had proved how absolutely futile his attempts to separate his night time and day time activities truly were. Apparently, it was detrimental to young vampires to be separated from their parents/guardians for too long. Better he trained them and supervised them himself versus having to re-experience Dick, Tim and Cass stalking him like the supernatural predators they were while doing his nightly patrols.

And if any of his children leaned a bit more into their feral nature whenever Bruce happened to get hurt on patrol, that was just kids' instincts reacting to the head of their coven being threatened. It's taken years of training, grounding and long late night discussions to convince his children to try holding back their supernatural strength and bloody acts of retribution. He still finds himself lecturing them from time to time even if he's fully aware they're all humoring him.

He still has the small collection of baby fangs that Dick had somehow roped all his younger siblings into contributing to over the years. For the life of him, he can't begin to fathom why anyone would want to collect teeth or why his children are so adamant that he holds onto theirs. But ever since he jokingly mentioned the Tooth Fairy to a horrified and offended younger Dick when his first set of baby fangs finally started coming in, it seems his children are determined to make sure no one can even attempt to think about exchanging their fangs for mere quarters.

And for the record (and despite what his children and friends keep on insisting), he never set out to actually pretend to be a "Vampire Lord." He just honestly thought designing his costume around one of his deepest fears would be a good way for him to use that fear against the criminals of Gotham.

He also won't admit that he completely forgot about the obvious association people make between bats and vampires.

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benbamboozled · 1 year

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I would actually kind of like the “becomes a doctor and takes over Leslie’s clinic” story…for Damian.

NOT because I think it would be ~ethical~ or idk whatever-the-fuck.

I just really love the concept of Damian having this “I HAVE A BIG IMPORTANT DESTINY” backstory/lineage/bloodline …

…SON OF THE BAT, and all that jazz…

But when he connects with Gotham and the people in it—because Batman should be connected to the people he’s protecting—Damian realizes that he doesn’t actually WANT “his” destiny.

And it’s not about rejecting Batman or his father or his mother or anything like that, but instead about taking what he’s learned and what they’ve given him and shaping it to fit himself.

#Damian Wayne #meta I guess?#obviously no judgment for the people who like Batman!Damian—he’s just not for me.#i mean my dream Damian series is a pretty much entirely ‘mundane’ combo of noir and slice-of-life…#…to contrast his epic background with the regular fucking people that he’s taken on protecting by becoming a Gotham vigilante.#i think also one of the elements would be commenting on the Bats’ (and Bruce in particular) Control Freak tendencies…#and the theme that you really can’t ‘control’ life.#for example: an element of drama could be that Damian checks in with people during patrol/during cases but…#he still has to go to school and do normal life stuff. (or normal for him.)#so during the *day*—maybe one of his ‘people he is friendly with’ has some mundane bad thing happen to them and dies.#like idk maybe an old lady friend has a heart attack and dies.#what do you do when there isn’t an enemy to fight?#just ‘move on’? isn’t the whole reason they do what they do predicated on his father NOT accepting that he should ‘just move on’?#anyway there would also be metacommentary about the nature of comics and that…#…you don’t really have control about what happens after your series or after your run.#or even what happens to a character YOU create.

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jasontoddispoly · 1 year

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Damian: I’m going to have to… kill him or something.

Jason: Do it. And then after you kill him we can hide the body. Then we’ll join the search party and you and I can look at each other and try not to laugh.

#batfam #jason todd #batfamily #batfam incorrect quotes #incorrect quotes #batfamily incorrect quotes #damian wayne #they’re talking about someone in particular

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clownprince · 1 year

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Mm. Feeling incredibly ordinary about these panels

#even if he's lying to manipulate damian (likely)#i hc that there's always a kernel of truth in even his most outrageous lies and manipulations #also this isn't the only time morrison's joker in particular has expressed some kind of remorse #anyway.#panels that make me want to chew on glass #joker #hhhh #this entire arc makes me want to yell #my stuff #panels #batjokes

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dickheadcanons · 2 months

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Your brain is literally gynormous. Do you think Damian's and Dick's relationship is paternal? Because, as someone who has actually had to raise their sibling (do not recommend) it looks more like a guy that had too much in his plate trying to be the best caregiver he could, but not really being a parent, if that makes sense. I feel like the idea of him wanting to adopt him feels like kind of a retcon, couldn't really see it in the og run. But of course, it could be because it's not exactly the same as my experience (abusive father, incapable mother, yknow the drill). What do you think? All your posts are so good.

Also while you're at it, what do you think of Dick as a parent? Some elseworlds have played with the concept, and main continuity did something too with Olivia but T*m Tayl*r fucked that up too. I also wonder how Damian would be as a dad, but I don't think I've ever seen any stories with it.

omg anon thank you and thank you for asking!! this is literally one of my favorite topics!! i was thinking about making a post on this and now you gave me the excuse for it!!

Long story short, I don't think that “parental” is a binary thing. I mean, I know several bio-parents who are just guys with too much on their plates, trying to be the best they can, you know? And people can see parent figures in all kinds of relationships that aren’t blood or traditional moms/dads, especially with people who didn't know each other from birth. There are a million ways to be parented, and a million ways to act as a parent.

The way I think about it is, is Dick Damain's John Grayson? No, I don't think so.

But is Dick Damian's Bruce Wayne? Yes. Totally. Absolutely.

More under the cut bc I have a lot of thoughts.

I think to talk about Dick and Damian, we have to start with Dick and Bruce. So much about Dick and Damian is a reflection of the original Dynamic Duo, and I think that's very much the case with this element as well. From the start of their very long comic history, Dick and Bruce have been dancing around their relationship. We get early comics that say they're "like" father and son, we have Bruce saying he couldn't care about Dick more than if he was Bruce's son, but we also have places where they call each other their best friends, where they act more like brothers, etc etc.

When it comes to who our parents are, I think there is the responsibility, and the result. Certain people have the responsibility, the duty, to be our parents, and sometimes (because death or illness or being shitty people), they aren't able to meet those responsibilities. That never removes the responsibility; they don't stop being the parent. But they aren't able to create the result of us becoming good stable adults. That's where other people can step in, where the parental figure appears, and those are the people that we actually point to when we say "they made me the person I am today."

In fandom, we see a lot of Dick not wanting Bruce to replace his father, of him asking not to be adopted. I think this is a fine characterization that works with who Dick is, but Bruce is actually the one to say that he is not going to replace Dick's father. He says it completely unprompted, too. This is withholding the responsibility of being Dick's parent from Bruce, keeping him at a distance and reserving it as an honor for someone who can't hold it anymore, even as Bruce demands responsibility for literally everything else about Dick.

And I think that it's very telling of what Bruce's idea of a father is. The thing about having a dead parent at a young age is that the person of your parents is still tangled in the role of parent in your life; Mom is mom, not Martha, and because she's dead, the image of both Martha and "mom" is frozen. For Bruce, the relationship of father and son is frozen in the relationship of specifically his father and him. Of course Bruce is not Dick's father; Bruce himself is so different from what his conception of a father is. And as a fellow son, for Bruce, someone who just got back from 7 years abroad studying to be Batman, for whom the nearly 20 year old wound is still fresh, the idea of even wanting another father doesn't make sense, particularly for a boy that Bruce identifies with so hard that he becomes the third person ever to know who Batman is.

This looming memory is even worse when it's Dick's turn to be Batman. While Bruce looks at Dick and sees the memory of his own loss, the shadow of his own grief, Dick is looking at Damian and seeing Bruce. Dick knows very well who Damian lost; Dick is grieving what Damian lost more than Damian is. Bruce couldn't conceive of replacing a father, but Dick is struggling to imagining himself replacing Bruce at his job, much less who he was in his personal relationships.

But even if Damian isn't Dick's responsibility, Dick doesn't hesitate to care about Damian's future. "Who's going to save him if we don't?" At the start of the DickBats era, Dick isn't looking at Damian as a family member, really. He's looking at Damian as a victim, abet a very involved, very dangerous one. It's how Bruce looked at Dick too, before he had any reason to know that this kid would become something more to him. But, like Bruce, what Dick does to save Damian is bring him into the thing that is most precious to him; Batman. The mission. Saving people. A way to live in the world.

I know saying someone is the Batman to their Robin is like, a joke at this point. Something unbelievably cheesy. But you google "iconic duos" and Batman and Robin are one of the first responses. There's a reason for the joke. So imagine you are Robin, and your Batman is dead. And you have to go and find a new partner. Dick making Damian his Robin is heavy, just as heavy to me as adoption papers. Bruce made Dick his partner without any idea of what that meant. Dick, and the audience, had 70 years of expectation on what Dick and Damian could be. Dick making Damian Robin was a very specific claim, far stronger imo than just claiming him as a son would have been.

Because, to be honest (and speak to your other question), I don't think Dick thinks a lot about being a parent. I don't really think it's that important to him. Dick is a leader, a mentor, he deals with a ton of teenagers and kids through his vigilante work, he goes to Tim's sidekick parent's meetings and takes Jason skiing and more than that, he's also young. He's in his 20s. He should be at the club. I think he probably thinks he'll have kids in an abstract way, but it's not something he's looking for, consciously or unconsciously. He's not searching for connection, or to fix his mistakes or his past, the things that lead Bruce to adopting sidekicks. He'd be a great dad, and I think we see him being pretty good with his Elseworlds kids, but Dick is a very practical person, and him taking a kid in (vs finding somewhere else they can go) is not really the practical choice.

Except for one kid. There's just been one kid with legitimately no where else to go, where Dick is truly the only option, because going home meant only bad things for him. Dick made Damian part of his family in the ways that mattered to them both in that moment. With their lives, adoption doesn't really make a huge material difference on custody (if Damian wanted to leave, Dick couldn't have stopped him; Damian has access to basically unlimited money and can feed and clothe and wash himself. and possibly already has a phd.), and Dick wanted Damian to choose, anyway. If I recall correctly, Dick says he didn't think about taking Damian with him until Bruce comes back. He thought about taking Damian with him, thought that Damian might be better with Dick (his partner!!!!) than even with Bruce, his dad, the person Dick loves so much, only in the face of them being separated.

Meanwhile Damian, for all his blustering about how Dick needs to "earn" his respect, warms up to Dick startlingly quickly. For Damian, who had never known a father, who in his initial run hadn't even known his mother for more than two years, whose other male family is Ra’s al Ghul, his father is Batman. Even in Tomasi's kinder depiction of Damian's childhood, Damian only knows the Bat. And when he meets Bruce, the first thing he expresses is disappointment. Bruce the man is underwhelming and then goes and dies. So much for the mythic hero!

And then he meets Dick. Who manages to teach Damian something, who doesn't discount his skills even when he's wrong. Who proves that he is better at being Batman than Damian, and shows that he wants Damian around. And, even more importantly, who doesn't die. Dick is stable in a world constantly in flux. Damian screws up a lot in that run, and he leaves for long stretches of it, but Dick is always there when he gets back. There's no blame here, but the truth is that Dick is the one who stays.

Bruce was Damian's father, but what does that mean to someone whose never met a father at all? Bruce might have tried to connect with Damian before he died, but he doesn’t do it in a way that works. He doesn’t give Damian trust, he doesn’t encourage him in the ways Damian finds important…the first person to do that is Dick. Dick gives Damian responsibility, makes him part of the team. It could be argued that Damian didn’t deserve it, but we’re not talking about deserving. We’re talking about what worked. It sounds like as good an idea as making a tiny 8 year old acrobat a sidekick, but it undeniably worked for both Damian and Dick. Does that mean that either of these relationships were parental in the way that we think of it in the real world, in the way that a child psychologist would say is good and healthy? I have no idea. But they are the most parental in the absence of any other parents, and I think that means a lot.

Unfortunately, we don't get to actually see the dissolution of Dick and Damian's partnership. DC conveniently skips over showing us Bruce coming back and Dick becoming Nightwing again; preNew 52, Dick is still Batman with Damian even when Bruce returns, and in the New 52, he's been Batman "Before" and we don't really see the end, just a vague aftermath. But if it did take that kind of change to make them realize their relationship had a flavor of "parent and child", had the makings of something like a father and son, well, they'd just be following in the original Batman's footprints.

#asks #dick grayson #damian wayne #bruce wayne #this is a fucking essay #batman meta #And I didn't even manage to talk about John #Sorry John #I think there is the more traditional caregiver side of parenthood #the part that makes sure the kids are fed and dressed and ready for school #but the magic of comics is that none of the bat characters really need that and damian in particular is not receptive to it #They kind of regress Damian to it a bit after the supersons era #but he is extremely assured while Dick is batman #he doesn't need a parent in the caregiver way he need a parent in the believes in you and gives you somewhere to call home way #it just turns out that its really hard to have someone love you and watch out for you and get super invested in your development #and not think of them in some kind of fond paternal way #also i may need to make a real post about dick and children because i dont know if i was really coherent here lol #also if there are any issues that show something i missed lmk #i have definitely not read everything

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im-totally-not-an-alien-2 · 1 year

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#theres no particular reason why im asking ;3 #i promise :)#no you cannot check behind my back to see if my fingers are crossed #batman x pokemon #i also like to imagine if you combine the pokemonx dp x dc au from before with the twins au #aka Danny and Damian are twins au #then Danny gets an Aron and Damian gets a Larvitar because these two pokemon are so similar #im sad i cant edit these after posting but i understand why

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spacedace · 1 year

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Guess who fell ass over tea kettle into the void and got spat back out again to discover they wrote 8 pages of adult Damian discovering he's Ace and slowly learning what being Ace means specifically for him over the course of years of safe boundary exploration with his trusted and supportive (and also Ace) partner Elle?

Debating on if I should finish it/turn it into an actual one shot to post or just keep it tucked away as an emotional write lol It's got some (very mild) spiciness that I usually don't feel comfortable writing (let alone posting) but felt right for the whole "Journey to the West but the demons are acephobe and societal obsession with sex, but it's okay because you have a monkey king to kill those demons in the form of a loving support system and healthy personal boundaries (and also a sword because you're Damian)" thing.

#dc x dp #dp x dc #batman #danny phantom #damian wayne #dani fenton #danielle phantom #danielle fenton #ace damian wayne #ace dani fenton #i go 50/50 on them also being aro #like these two feel strongly queer platonic to me #but in this particular 3k+ mess they are romantic #asexuality #making Damian and Elle my ace blorbos

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telffiin · 5 months

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oh my goddddddd tim stans are so fucking OBNOXIOUS!!! why do they keep writing him as this eternal victim who can do no wrong and is bullied/abused by the evil 10-year-old and everyone is mean to him???? mary sue self-insert ass.

#damian should try to kill him again #this was inspired by a particular commenter on ao3..... you know who you are #if i knew fanon tim irl i would try to kill him too jesus christ #i could also write a whole other post about how damian is treated by them but it wouldn't be coherent at all #and i value my sanity #anti tim drake #anti tim drake stans #rant??#they also just. blow things out of proportion idk #dc #batman

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describingcolours · 11 months

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Thinking about Danny phantom. Thinking about how horror it would be if ghost blobs sloughed off of his excess ectoplasm like rotten flesh and muscles Peels away from a shambling corpse.

Thinking how he could sloop and goop and drip in a dark room, squelching, crying in pain something that sounds like a child but there's too much and it's too much and he's too much and it's not going away fast enough he can't breathe, he's falling apart, he's rotting away.

Thinking about how cold it would feel, how musty, the stench of it, the death of it. Hidden away like a victim under floorboards but leaking out in the smell, the fluid, the way things move when you don't look, the glimpses out of the corner of your eye. The feeling of it enshrouding the room, claustrophobic, dark, suffocating.

Can you imagine the sound of it? How it would splat to the floor, before rising and trilling? Hungry, just born, nothing but instincts and horror.

Thinking about how horrifying that would be. Hiding in a room until the excess is all gone and he can breathe again. Like a snake emerging from its old husk, brand new and... Definitely needing a shower.

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flysafepapi · 9 months

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Clark: Connor! Jon!

Connor: Aw, for Christ's sake!

Clark: I said you could invite one friend to the reception! One!

Jon: Dad, they don't come separately.

Damian: Yeah, we're pack animals, Mr. Kent.

Tim: I love your hat, Mrs. Kent.

Lois: Thanks, kid.

Damian, under his breath: Dickhead.

#is this out of character? yes #do I care? no #this is for one specific mutual in particular #but it made me laugh so #incorrect batkids #with cameos from the Kents #clark kent #jon kent #connor kent #tim drake #damian wayne #lois lane

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nyxyooni · 6 months

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(3) Honey Ties

Prev/Next

hello! i'm back!!! i know its been a little over a year, trust me. out of all the fics that i have not updated this is the one that haunts my nightmares the most. BUT enough of that, im here! this is here!!!!! not only is this an update, but ive also just made up my mind, literally as im typing this out as to what this whole thing is gonna be. and im thinking of a slice-of-life-esque collection of loosely connected chapters with very little plot scattered about.

and! before you continue, this is also my informal invitation for you, my dear and wonderful readers, to make requests for any future updates! i'll make another update as to what im comfortable with writing for this particular story later! so, without further ado, lets go!

————

In retrospect, the man kept a decent amount of distance between himself and Bruce, one hand was steadily holding out a flute of champagne while the one next to Bruce clutched the opposite lapel of his suit jacket. Really, he was most likely leaning closer to their father simply to speak clearly to him. His eyes, although hard to see through the glare of the glasses covering them were looking at Bruce's face with respectful interest, an easy smile on his moving lips. There was nothing scummy about the man, nothing threatening—well except maybe for the sheer size of him but then again, his shoulders were slumped, rounded despite their broadness.

"Jason!" Hissing as he reached a hand to the bigger man in front of him, so close to being able to grab him, and lamenting when his hands failed short a mere inch. At least Jason wasn't bulldozing people out of the way, small victories he guessed. "Jason!" Near desperate Dick threw himself at the hulking figure of his younger brother stuttering to a stop just as Jason froze, suddenly becoming a brick wall. "Jason for the love of god, get your issues under control you absolute freak—"

And they were right in front of Bruce and the stranger, except that the stranger wasn't a stranger at all.

"Mr. Kent?" Straightening in order to stand next to his brother, Dick suddenly felt a little stupid for being even remotely suspicious of Clark Kent, granted he hadn't known it was him, but still, the man couldn't hurt a fly even if he tried.

"Hm? Oh!" Straightening up with a little jolt Clark Kent patted his free hand against his thigh, letting go of the suit to reveal the fact it didn't quite fit properly but he was smiling gently, dimples sinking into his tan cheeks, "hello, Mr. Grayson, Mr. Todd." Nodding at both of them, voice sure and body steady. "I don't mean to be rude or overstep my boundaries, but it is a wonder to see you at one of these events, Mr. Todd."

Huffing, relaxing at long last Jason popped out one of his hips as he crossed his arms, beside him Dick also deflated, taking a nice, slow deep breath and lifting his head to smile at the reporter. "Mr. Kent, you know how we feel about you addressing us like that," Dick would probably say out loud in his next interview, that Clark Kent was his favorite reporter of all time. Something about the man felt incredibly warm.

Laughing, somehow in a way that felt like walking out onto the porch of a country house on a warm summer morning, Clark Kent's smile grew. It dulled the intricate glass chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. "And if I remember clearly, I said that the only way I would stop was if you would stop calling me as such," peeling away fully from Bruce and the baby, Damian following the movement with a small sway of his body, Clark stood a couple of steps away from their father, "in that regard, I can see the family resemblance..."

It was slow, it was gentle, and somehow, despite being in the middle of a gala, full of old, rich people with money stuffed all the way up their asses, they looked at each other as though they were alone. Dick took a step closer, his body moving on its own.

"I am here to pry. What is a man such as yourself doing here, Mr. Kent?" Jason's voice cut through Dick, it made little baby Damian snap his head over with his mouth open. Only Bruce remained serene, with a gentle smile as he looked at everyone gathered around him, gently bouncing Damian. "Out of all the stuck-up people who just love to talk about themselves, you're here, bothering our father and—"

"Jason..." Bruce's voice wasn't hard, it never was, and never had been, and if Dick were to bet money on it, couldn't be. "Let's not be rude, Mr. Kent and I were just having a nice conversation," in his arms the baby seemed to focus on Clark Kent, body leaning over, to stretch out towards the reporter, hands flailing and mouth moving in words that were not words and could not be heard over all the other noise. "What is it, baby, hm?"

Moving Damian, shifting him so that he held him up in front of his face from somewhere under his shoulders, hands wrapped securely around his body, cradling his ribs. However, Damian leaned over to the side, hands reaching and reaching. Toward Clark Kent.

All four of them stared at the baby, shock clear across their faces, Clark Kent stared blankly until a smile broke out on his face, so very unlike the previous one. Somehow it shined brighter, it made Dick take half a step back and made Jason go rigid. It was obvious, he was whole-heartedly and unabashedly endeared with the little bundle of joy currently trying to claw his way into his arms and out of his father.

Raising a hand, curled weakly, Clark Kent used two of his fingers to pinch the baby's cheeks, he did not take Damian into his arms the way the baby wanted, but he did give him attention. The man stepped closer, hunched down so that he could look into those priceless jewel-green eyes, and smiled. "I don't know, baby, maybe you should stay with your daddy?" It was near deafening, the soft tenor and sway of Clark Kent's voice amidst the maddening constant buzz of the crowd around them. "Who is he gonna hold if I'm the one holding you, hm?" Letting go of the soft supple skin to instead gently rub with the back of his index finger the man smiled again.

Damian whined, high and reedy and short, he wriggled one last time and sighed. As though a wave of sleepiness hit him all at once he settled against Bruce's chest. Blinking slowly and instinctively moving his hand up to his mouth so he could suck on his curled fist.

No one moved, no one made so much as a sound. Even when around them the buzz seemed to be near a delirious height the baby's body relaxed, chest rising and caving slowly and steadily like. Damian had fallen asleep.

Awestruck, Dick reached out to gently poke one of Damian's soft, chubby cheeks as though he couldn't possibly believe what the baby had done. It wasn't that Damian struggled to sleep, at least not when he was comfortable and in a quiet peaceful space, not silent, the baby seemed to love the sound of their father's voice, or the soft chirping of birds, the trickle of water from a stream, the pitter-patter of gentle rain. Never silent, simply calm. The beating of their father's heart as he slipped away into slumber atop his chest.

Damian disliked loud, chaos that held no rhyme not reason, crashes, bangs, or pops, just like any baby. Damian loved the sound of his family, just like any baby.

"Well, would you look at that," gently maneuvering the baby so he was being cradled in his arms, Bruce smiled up at Clark Kent, that utterly wonderful and disarming smile and made his eyes crinkle and his dimples show. "It seems that my baby was all tuckered out, it has been a very exciting day for him," halfway through his sentence, Bruce had instead focused on Damian, speaking down to him in a hushed tone. Leaning down to plant a dry kiss on the baby's forehead. "Does anyone have the time?"

All three of them snapped to attention at finally being addressed, neither Dick nor Jason had their phones on them, Alfred insisting that it was ruining their suits pointlessly so. Still standing beside their father, Clark Kent brought his wrist up in a quick, sharp movement and slid his sleeve down so he could peer down to his watch for about three seconds.

"It seems to be a quarter to eleven," came the man's smooth voice. His glasses had slid down his nose, resting at the very tip. Swiftly he pushed them up with his middle finger in a practiced motion from years that had transformed it to instinct.

"Dad." Jason called out, voice taking that tall-tale brattish tone that had irked Dick to insanity when they were still getting used to being around each other. The shock of having the young man call their father as such settled in right after the irritating bit of nostalgia. "If you still want to hang around and..." trailing off, pointedly looking Clark Kent up and down, he finished with a clear expression of distaste. "Mingle... I'll take Damian up to his room."

Bruce looked from his son to Clark Kent, he wasn't stupid, he knew his children. Knew how to read their moods, how to soothe them, and how to speak to them, Bruce knew when they lied to him and when they kept secrets from him. Like how he knew there was something all of his kids were keeping something from, something big, that no matter how much he wanted to know, no matter how it hurt to not be trusted, would wait for them to tell him. Bruce knew his children, and because he knew his children, he was keenly aware that Jason did not likeClark Kent.

"Oh Jason," stepping forward to his son, not for the first and definitely not for the last time, startled at how the young man was taller than him, "don't worry about that, I'll take him up, get him nice and settled." Cupping the side of his face, Bruce smiled when Jason's shoulder's relaxed, "stay here, make sure nobody tries to steal Dick away, or worse, Tim." Grinning, he dropped his hand, stepping away and towards the way out, "I'm worried that he'll try and bite someone again."

Dick's laughter leaves his chest before he even realized it. Someone had once made the mistake of trying to... cozy up with Tim while the boy was practically falling asleep on his feet, never mind the fact he was still very underage. The outcome had been hilarious. And very satisfying, Bruce had unleashed hell on the degenerate and was banished from any and all future galas that he hosted.

"Mm, I don't know..." Jason rested his chin on the webbing between his index finger and thumb, "it was pretty funny last time... something tells me it'll be pretty funny a second time..."

Huffing fondly, with a roll of his eyes, their father shook his head as he turned around. Maneuvering around people with an amount of tact and ease that made all three men jealous.

"Well... that went great!" Dick turned to Clark Kent with a clap of his hands and a smile on his face. Beside him Jason grumbled, refusing to look at the reporter and instead surveyed the hall, glad that in about an hour or so, everyone would be gone and their home would return to the peaceful atmosphere he had learned to appreciate. "We understand that you and Dad were talking and... we want to apologize for interrupting—"

"I don't."

"—since you two seemed to get along and, while I shouldn't be saying this, Dad doesn't have many friends, so I appreciate that he had you to talk to tonight." Finished Dick, as though he hadn't been interrupted at all.

Clark Kent looked at them both with mirth dancing in his blue eyes, the shade was darker than their father's, it was almost like the blue that inked the ocean, low and mellow, or the rich blue spanning over a field of wheat, reminiscent of serenity. As they gazed at them, however, it matched the blue of kings, the reflection of the lights against his lenses made due for the golden accents. His smirk charming, the curls of his hair that fell just right over his forehead enough to distract from the ill-fitted suit. Flute of champagne half empty in his hands.

"Please! None of that!" He was smiling, dimples deep, he looked younger this way, disarming, Dick narrowed his eyes, careful to safeguard his own smile. "It was entirely my pleasure, not many people can say that they've had the privilege of speaking with Bruce Wayne, to count myself as one of the lucky few, well... it's almost a dream come true." Clark Kent's voice was smooth, almost impossibly so.

Jason felt a sneer pulling at the edges of his mouth, that wasn't what a friend would say. He knew something was up with Kent, if it wasn't to try to wheedle some bullshit to fill half a collum on the front page of The Daily Planet, then, of course, it was to get nice and cozy with their father.

"If you two would excuse me," the man was speaking again, dimples and curls and big blues, "it's been a rather exciting day and an even more exciting night." He was bowing his head, in respect, "and well, I find myself a long way from home. Good night, Mr. Grayson," he held a hand out towards Dick, who took it and shook it, amiably. "Mr. Todd." Then out to Jason, who took the hand, and squeezed a little harder than he should've, in return, the dimples and the man deepened.

Watching the man walking away, lacking the same grace of his father but still impressive in his own manner, a bad feeling began to stir in their stomachs.

#um. look. college is still kicking my ass but now ive learned how to semi deal with that particular demon.#im not gonna bother with tagging the character bc knowing me it'll get very tedious. very fast.#civilian!bruce wayne #civilian bruce #civilian bruce au #baby damian wayne #my dc fic #honey ties #*rattling a metal spoon in a mug* COME GET YOUR FOOD

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