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Despite taking place in outer space with the deadliest and most famous superheroes of this and many other worlds, Justice League meetings tended to be pretty boring. Hal was pretty sure it was Batman’s fault. Most things, in his opinion, were.
Okay, well. He didn’t actually think that. But these long-ass, boring, persnickety lectures were easily his fault. It’s like the man had no life outside the JL. If Hal hadn’t seen Batman take off his cowl, he wouldn’t believe he could be Bruce Wayne. As it was, he still barely believed it. Maybe it was all some elaborate trick…
“Stop making that face,” Barry nudged him, whispering under his breath. Hal snapped back into himself and realized a deep frown was etched onto his face, and he was squinting at Batman. Bruce. Whatever. Luckily, as the man was actively leading them through cleanup protocols, no one else had noticed his staring. That could also be because most people had zoned out.
“How are you still paying attention?” Hal whispered back. He saw Clark’s eyes twitch towards them, clearly disapproving, but the man didn’t say anything. He was far more indulgent of the Bats’ long-winded and often rudely targeted lectures, but he was also more understanding of the team’s general dislike of them. This one was supposedly Hal’s fault, so Clark’s superhearing was tuned in a little more to his private conversations. How was Hal supposed to know there would still be a bomb after they defeated Copperhead? No one had been hurt - he had used his ring to quickly contain and disperse the blast - but Bats had decided they all needed a ‘refresher’ on sweeping the scene after a fight.
Barry just made a face at Hal. The two of them often made fun of Batman’s anal need for control, but Barry actually liked the guy, for some indecipherable reason. Oh, Hal respected him, sure. But like? Barry would actively seek him out over some fun new chemical compound he had developed or whatever. Hal avoided him unless they were in the middle of a crisis. So like, at least once a week.
Hal had moved on to subtly crafting a scale replica of a Sopwith Camel under the table when the alarms started blaring.
“INTRUDER ON THE TOWER,” the overhead speaker blared. “HEADED TOWARDS MEDICAL WING.”
The members were out of their seats in less than an instant. Batman’s voice rose above the melee.
“Flash, check on Plastic Man,” he commanded, before sweeping out of the room after Superman. Diana and Clark soon outsripped the others, and Hal, Batman, Green Arrow, and Black Canary were left running in sync.
“Why Plastic Man?” Hal asked.
“He’s on monitor duty right now,” the Bat didn’t even sound out of breath. He was typing something out on some sort of communicator device he had pulled from his belt. It looked like a phone, but a bit bulkier. He put a hand to his comm and switched it on, so the three heroes with him heard both his actual voice and the echo of it in their ears. Though Batman was clearly trying to reach Clark, Diana, and Barry, it threw Hal off balance for a second.
“The intruder is not dangerous. Do not engage.”
Hal was just disoriented enough that he kept running, spurred on by the fact that, despite his message, Batman was still sprinting down the halls. The three of them reached the medbay, and Batman came to an abrupt halt, the other three skidding to a stop beside him. Standing there, covered in blood, was Nightwing.
He looked up at their arrival. Diana and Clark were flanking him, trying to get something out of his arms, but he didn’t unfurl his body enough to show them what it was until he locked eyes with Batman.
“He’s - B, I’m so sorry, I-I didn’t know what to do -” the younger man choked out. Hal had worked with him on missions before. He knew he was Batman’s former protege, but he had never before seen such an obvious tie between the two. Usually, their relationship consisted of courteous professionalism. At best, Batman let him get away with more jokes, but it was only because the younger hero was scarily efficient even with the wisecracks. The cause of his distress was eminently clear. The thing cradled in one arm was a boy - a boy obviously dressed in Robin’s colors, even if the outfit was more subdued than in Nightwing’s Robin days. One of Nightwing’s hands was pressed to the boy’s middle, holding a piece of fabric soaked with blood.
“Give him to me and get out of the medbay,” Batman’s response was immediate, his voice low and commanding, “Brief the others. Don’t let them in. Clark, J’onn, with me. The rest of you, keep everyone out of here.”
The rest of them jumped into compliance. Even if the commands hadn’t come from Batman, who always issued orders like no one could dream of disobeying them, time was clearly of the essence. Batman and J’onn both had some medical knowledge, and Clark’s abilities often assisted in surgeries. The other heroes would only be in the way. They dashed out of the medbay, mechanically locking the door behind them.
“I will stay on guard duty,” Diana offered. “The rest of you are free to go. Unless there is an imminent threat to the Tower?”
She turned to Nightwing, whom Hal had expected to be distressed. The man had recovered, though, and was busily tapping away at a wristwatch. Hal rolled his eyes. The bats and their gadgery.
“No, it was a Gotham rogue,” he said, “Signal and Black Bat are finishing cleanup, but the threat is contained.”
Hal wondered if the two of them had ever gotten a lecture on cleanup protocol. Given that they were still performing that particular duty while Robin lay bleeding out in space suggested they had. Or maybe they didn’t care for the little guy. Hal had seen Nightwing be pretty friendly with a couple of the Robins, but he couldn’t get a read on the rest of the Gotham vigilantes as, he suspected, they preferred. He’d never even met Black Bat. Sometimes, he wondered if the flock just made up new names sometimes to fuck with the JL.
And, okay, yes, maybe Hal was in a bad mood because first the meeting was boring and his fault, and then they were shut out of the only interesting thing to happen all day, except that interesting thing was Batman’s sidekick actively dying, and he seemed to be the only person upset about all this.
“What happened to the kid?” he demanded, instead of unpacking his emotions like a normal human being. He’d work on that at some point. Maybe book an appointment with Dinah.
“Shot to the stomach,” Nightwing said, almost clinical. If Hal hadn’t witnessed pure devastation on Nightwing’s face about thirty seconds earlier, he’d have thought the man was completely callous. His hands were still bloody, but he was responding happy-as-you-please on his stupid wristwatch thing.
He paused his typing, then added, almost as an afterthought,
“Sorry for activating Watchtower alarms.”
“I thought you had clearance,” Oliver said. Thank god Hal wasn’t the only one talking anymore. “You and Robin both. Why did the alarms go off?”
“Red Robin set them off for me,” Nightwing explained. “I told him I needed to get B to the medbay fast. He did the best he could on short notice with zero explanation.”
“High praise,” a voice from behind them muttered. Hal gave a little jump, but by the time he turned, he wasn’t surprised to see Red Robin standing there. He was a little more surprised to see two figures with him. One he knew was Spoiler, a fun-loving, if extremely talkative, vigilante who decked herself in all purple and had once used a terrifying assortment of glitter bombs and grappling hooks to completely disorient an enemy. The other he recognized, but not from any interactions with him. He had his ring up and pointing at the hulking figure even as a thin smile made its way onto Nightwing’s face.
“Hood,” he said, “You came.”
“Of course I came, dickwad,” the behemoth shot at the hero. Dinah was impressed by how light he was on his feet, especially for his size. She’d fought enough people before to know that size was often a disadvantage, but if you could couple it with speed, you’d make a devastating opponent. Nightwing’s greeting convinced her that he wasn’t an enemy - at least not right now. She recognized his helmet from the JL’s Wanted list, but he had been removed about a year ago. She had assumed it was because he was dead, but now she wondered if he was rehabilitated. For all Batman’s gruff exterior, she mused, he really did believe that any villain could be redeemed.
“Is he stable?” Red Robin asked, arms crossed. His tone was demanding in a way that Dinah associated with a hint of entitlement. She hadn’t heard him use that voice before; she was more used to him blending into the background and chiming in with vital intel on the few times they had gone on missions with him as Robin. Not for the first time, she wondered at the background of Batman’s assortment of vigilantes. Spoiler, for example, was being uncharacteristically quiet.
“Not yet,” Nightwing responded quietly, his voice an even keel. Meant to calm, soothe. “B, J’onn, and Clark are in there with him now.”
“He should be with Leslie,” Red Robin said.
“I know,” Nightwing held up his hands, “I panicked and brought him to B. But that’s not a choice we can change n-”
“You’re just gonna move past that, huh?” Red Hood pushed forward, suddenly using every ounce of his size to fill up the room. “Convenient.”
“I’m sorry, Hood, I really am, but-”
“Let me in there. I want to see him.”
“Not right now,” Nightwing stepped between Hood and Diana as an extra layer of protection. Dinah shifted her stance casually to lower her center of mass. Just in case. “You barging in there will make things worse. You don’t have any medical knowledge.”
“The fuck’s that supposed to mean?” Hood demanded. He reached forward and shoved at Nightwing, who stumbled back. The move was inelegant and revealed the man’s true intentions. He didn’t want to get in the room. He just wanted a fight.
Nightwing looked half dead already, hair slicked with sweat from the fight and subsequent dash to the Watchtower. Dinah moved to intervene, but Nightwing held up a hand to stop her.
“It doesn’t mean anything, Hood,” his tone was firmer now, but still gentle. “Look, if taking a swing at me will make you feel better, then fine. But can we at least move a bit away from the medbay? I don’t want anyone in there to hear us all arguing and get distracted.”
Red Hood reluctantly took a step back, a universal sign that there wouldn’t be a fight. Dinah took a breath.
“I could grab some chairs, maybe coffee,” Dinah suggested.
Nightwing shot her a grateful smile, “That would be great, thank you.”
“I’ll do it,” Barry said. “Quicker, anyway.”
“I’ll get the coffee,” Hal volunteered immediately. “You’ll just spill it everywhere.”
“Will not,” Barry shot back, before becoming a blur and running away. Hal stuck his tongue out after him and began at a much slower pace towards the canteen. Red Hood slumped against the wall. The ensuing silence lasted only a few moments before Spoiler said,
“Was it him?”
She was looking directly at Nightwing, but it felt like her eyes weren’t quite meeting his.
“I’m sorry, S,” he, on the other hand, tried very hard to make eye contact, but she avoided it masterfully. “I’m really-”
“This isn’t about you,” Red Hood said, eager for a fight again. He had looked up at Spoiler now. “You don’t have to go start feeling guilty-”
“Oh, like your feelings are always conveniently timed for everyone else,” it was Red Robin, surprisingly, who interrupted, not Spoiler. She just wrapped her arms around herself and slumped against the far wall. Dinah had only met her once, but she had never seen the girl so despondent before. She wanted to comfort her, but she was distracted by Red Hood lunging for Red Rob - why were all their names so damn similar? Ollie had a point there. Again, Nightwing held up a hand to prevent him and turned a pleading look on Diana. In an instant, she had a rough hold around Red Hood from the back. To Dinah’s surprise, he didn’t try to fight her off, just slumped again.
“You are more scared than angry,” she said, practically into his hair, while still maintaining an iron grip around him. Dinah had to admit that, while she could hold her own against the best, she was glad Nightwing had enlisted the Amazon with superstrength. She replaced Diana at her post by the medbay door.
“I-” Hood began, but Diana wasn’t finished.
“It is good your fear does not paralyze you, but taking it out on your allies is dangerous. Calm. Down.”
“Alright, Aunty Di, Jesus,” Hood said, and - what. Dinah and Ollie exchanged looks, years of understanding passing the single word of incomprehension between them like a ping pong ball.
“I’m sorry, Spoils,” he added as Diana relaxed her hold. She kept an arm slung around him, though. Maybe she had been instrumental in his rehabilitation.
“It’s fine, you’re right,” Spoiler said and then, with visible effort, unfolded her arms. “I’ll wait till after Rob’s okay to start with the self-flagellation.”
“We’d appreciate none at all, since it isn’t even a little bit your fault,” Red Robin said, but he had relaxed, too, and he sent a tight-lipped smile to Red Hood, which the other man jerked his head in a nod in response to. Barry’s voice came floating down the hall towards them, though it appeared to be arriving at a normal speed, which made a surge of irritation rise in Dinah, though she tamped it down. The reason for his slowness became evident as he turned the corner, accompanied by yet another vigilante. She was dressed in all black with the gold emblem of a bat outlined in a single stroke on her chest. She wasn’t responding to a word of Barry’s chatter, but she did appear to be listening, and she was carrying six chairs.
“What happened?” Spoiler immediately untucked herself from the wall and went over to grab a few of the folding chairs from the newcomer. Dinah, using her incredible detective skills, deduced that this must be Black Bat.
“Taken care of,” her eyes flicked between the rest of the vigilantes, as though cataloguing them. “Signal and Oracle are coordinating with GCPD. Robin?”
“Nothing yet,” Nightwing reported, “We’re planning to camp out here till we hear something. You wanna stay?”
“Yes,” she said, one arm already wrapped around Spoiler. She whispered something to her and, while Dinah couldn’t make it out, she saw some tension leave the blonde girl’s body. The various heroes settled into different folding chairs to wait, but Dinah stayed by the medbay door. She preferred to face a challenge - even the challenge of anticipation - standing up.
The next few hours may have been uneventful, but the rising tension in the room meant Dinah was constantly on alert. She was usually able to sense conflict or a breaking point miles before anyone else, but in the case of the vigilantes, Nightwing seemed to have it handled. He encouraged Hood’s distraction with Diana, kept them talking with low murmurs, and occasionally placed himself between the two of them and the trio that Red Robin, Black Bat, and Spoiler formed in the other chairs. At one point, he went to sit beside Spoiler, who had lapsed back into her uncharacteristic silence and muttered something that made her grin and say,
“Coming from you?”
which kept the conflict at bay for a few moments more. Dinah had always known the first Robin to be an acrobat, but she had to admit that this kind of balancing act was a talent beyond what she’d known he possessed. The most impressive bit was the hold he kept on himself. After about an hour, Dinah noticed he occasionally clenched and unclenched his fingers five times slowly. It was subtle enough that someone not tuned into body language might not notice. His compatriots did, of course, since the Bats were in the habit of noticing things others didn’t, but they didn’t say anything. Dinah couldn’t tell if this was to humor Nightwing or because they didn’t have the bandwidth to address it.
And compatriots didn’t seem the right term for them. As much as Hal and Barry joked they were a flock or a brood, Dinah had to admit that they seemed, first and foremost, like a family. They didn’t just have a strong team dynamic, although she’d seen them work well in the field. There was too much history, too many strange knowing glances, and, at the center of it all, Nightwing flitting between them like a mother hen. Dinah wondered if there was anyone for him to fall back on. He had sequestered his emotions behind a wall of imperturbable cheerfulness bordering on gentleness almost the moment Batman took Robin from him. Would he want one of the older heroes to comfort him? Did he even know how to let them?
Dinah’s heart ached for him. She had, for all intents and purposes, seen him grow up. She hadn’t needed his name to know that he would always be a child to her. She felt a surge of anger with Batman, which she tamped down. That wouldn’t be helpful in the moment. Still, watching one so young run interference and act as a human shield even while safeguarding his own fear tugged at her heartstrings. She kept her gaze trained on him, even as he expertly soothed the increasingly raised voices between Spoiler and Red Robin. Black Bat shot him a grateful look.
At some point, Clark emerged from the room, holding his hands up to forestall their questions.
“We’re still working on it, but things are looking better,” he said. “We’ve gotten the bullet out without damage to anything major. B sent me out here to make sure you all were holding up ok.”
“We’re fine, get back in there,” Red Hood said immediately. The others nodded their assent. Clark crossed the hall to Nightwing, placing a hand on his shoulder.
“I’m fine,” Nightwing said, letting a tired smile grace his features once more. “Tell B I’ll keep everyone in shape.”
“That’s what I’m worried about,” Clark said. “You don’t have to-”
“I do,” Nightwing responded. “And I’m up for it. Really.”
Clark sighed, “In that case. I’ll go back in. It shouldn’t be long now.”
He re-entered the medbay, the door sliding quietly shut behind him. Dinah felt her fears about Nightwing recede. If he hadn’t felt the need to confide in Clark, whom he was reasonably close to, then maybe he really wasn’t on the verge of losing it. She resumed her position by the door.
“You don’t have to keep guarding the medbay,” Red Robin said. The Bats had been so caught up in their own little world that Dinah took a moment to realize he was talking to her. She blinked once.
“I’m not really guarding it anymore,” she said, consciously smiling. “Just… waiting.”
“For us to explode?” the boy rejoined. “Fair enough.”
“We’ve got a little more self-control than that,” Nightwing grinned at both of them.
“Tell Hood that,” Red Robin responded, and Red Hood flipped him off.
“Do we still need to use code names?” Spoiler asked, “Don’t they know our identities?”
“Yes,” Diana and Barry responded, at the same time Dinah, Hal, and Ollie said, “No.”
“What?” Nightwing burst out. “B promised he told you who he was!”
“He did,” Hal said. “Crazy shock for us. Wait, is that a clue for who you are?”
“Please, God, tell me these aren’t the people he works with on the daily,” Red Robin raised his eyes heavenward. Spoiler laughed, but Nightwing was still open-mouthed.
“This can’t be real. All that secrecy for nothing,” he shook his head in disbelief, “Ollie? You don’t know?”
“Did you just call me-” Ollie locked eyes with Dinah before his widened. “Oh my god. You’re connected to Bruce. So that must make yo-”
“You don’t get a prize for figuring it out now,” Tim Drake-Wayne responded. “It’s too late.”
“Why would we assume that Bruce’s children were also his vigilantes?” Dinah pointed out. “You all barely act like coworkers in the field.”
“And we haven’t met half of you before,” Hal added petulantly. Spoiler tilted her head.
“I guess that’s fair.”
“Wait, I still can’t tell who you are,” Dinah said. “Doesn’t Bruce only have one daughter? Cassandra?”
“We’re not all his kids,” Spoiler said. “I’m Stephanie Brown. A friend of the family.”
“And ‘kids’ isn’t a term all of us ascribe to,” Red Hood said. A trace of anger was back in his voice, but he purposefully kept his body still.
“It’d better not to try and think of us as a nuclear family,” Nightwing - Dick Grayson, and wasn’t that a revelation - said. “But we are a family.”
The last bit was targeted at Red Hood - which boy was he? - who, even under the mask, clearly rolled his eyes.
“Hey, you showed up for Damian,” Nightwing pointed out.
“Just making sure B hadn’t killed another Robin,” Hood responded with a tightness that hadn’t been there before. Dinah’s brows furrowed, but Nightwing didn’t rise to the bait. That was unexpectedly callous. She remembered Batman in the days after the second Robin’s death. He had been almost totally silent. Clark had been the only one to elicit any sort of speech out of him, and it was usually curt solutions to a problem. He had cut off all contact outside of missions and had barely shown up to those either. When he had, there had been a focused sort of cruelty in his manner that had never been there before. Dinah hadn’t ever thought of Batman as soft, but he had been at least a bit kinder, even complacent, around his Robins, before the second’s death. But while Red Hood had been terse before, he hadn’t been uncharitable. Which meant he was possibly-
“Jason,” Diana chided. He clenched his jaw.
“No fucking way,” Oliver’s mouth dropped open. Dinah wanted to kick him for insensitivity.
“Aren’t you supposed to be dead?” Hal said. “Wait, the second Robin - wait… wait…”
The pieces fell into place.
“Can we do a round of introductions?” he said at last. Hal was often full of bluster, but he wasn’t unkind. Dinah knew he felt bad for dredging up what were probably bad memories in his moment of realization and wanted to avoid further awkwardness. “I don’t exactly have Bruce Wayne’s kids memorized.”
The vigilantes did so and removed their masks, except for Dick, who had fallen into quiet conversation with Tim.
“Bruce’s kids,” Ollie said, shaking his head. “I should’ve known.”
“You should’ve,” the voice came from behind Dinah. She jumped, then spun around to find Batman and J’onn had emerged from the medbay. She moved out of the way, noting that the entire brood had jumped to their feet. Bruce had removed his cowl, gauntlet, and cape, and looked more human than Dinah had ever seen him. His face was haggard, his eyes bloodshot. When he spoke, though, his voice was steady.
“He’s stable and still out,” Batman said. “You can go and see him if you’d like, but there’s no need for you to stay. He’ll be fine.”
“Oh, thank god,” Spoiler said, sagging into Black Bat’s side. “Thank god.”
“You’re staying with him?” Tim asked.
“I’m going to change and then, yes,” Batman responded. His voice was slightly softer than its usual gravelly tones. His Bruce voice, rather than Batman, Dinah suspected. The real Bruce, not the front he put on for Gotham. “It won’t be useful to have all of us in there with him, so you all should go home after you’ve seen him.”
“So peremptory,” Jason muttered, but the others nodded their agreement and filtered into the room, where Dinah assumed Clark was still with him.
All except Dick.
He stared at Batman, unmoving, for a couple more instants. Batman didn’t move to fill the silence.
“I’m-”
The carefully curated facade came crumbling down in an instant, as though one look from Batman was all it took to pierce right through. Batman - Bruce - interrupted with,
“Dick.”
And the boy lurched forward at Batman, falling into his father’s chest. Batman’s arms came up around him, wrapping tightly around him. One of his bare hands stroked Dick’s head. The younger vigilante was shaking - not crying, Dinah thought. Probably just trembling from the fear and guilt and adrenaline he had been repressing for hours.
“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, B,” he was muttering, apologizing over and over, choking and stumbling and tripping over nonsense words of pain and responsibility. Bruce didn’t interject, just stood completely still and held his son silently until Dick finally ran out of words. At last, Batman murmured something in his ear, too low for Dinah to hear, and pressed a kiss to his messy, filthy hair.
Dick relaxed completely, his body going limp in Bruce’s arms. They stood there until the others gradually filtered out of the medbay, apparently satisfied with their youngest brother’s condition. They stopped short at the sight of Bruce and Dick, but neither moved apart. Instead, Bruce looked up and met Jason’s eyes.
“I’ll get the others back to the Manor,” Jason said. “But I’m not sticking around.”
Bruce nodded, “I’ll let Oracle know if there’s any news. She’ll be able to reach all of you. Dick, it’s time for you to go home. Rest. You’ve had a long night.”
Dick shook his head mutinously, head still buried in his father’s chest. Dinah couldn’t help but smile. Apparently, he did have somewhere to rest his burdens. Batman was probably about thirty seconds from losing it himself, but Dinah surmised that entirely from the sequence of events, because his face betrayed nothing but calm solidity.
“I’m going to stay here,” Dick said, but his voice was more pleading than demanding. Bruce sighed.
“Fine. Go take a shower, then join me in the medbay.”
Now that the Bats had been reassured of Robin’s safety and given marching orders they agreed with, they dispersed quietly and efficiently, even taking their chairs with them. In moments, it was a thought they had never been there.
“Who knew Bats had it in him?” Hal whispered to Dinah. She shrugged.
“The second we realized he was a father, we should’ve known,” she said. “And he has always been good with kids out in the field.”
“I’ve known Bruce for so long,” Ollie said, “But I don’t know if I expected him to react like that. It just doesn’t feel like billionaire Gothamite Bruce Wayne or man of the shadows Batman.”
“You haven’t been paying attention to the man in between,” Diana said. “He didn’t give us that briefing to annoy you, Hal. He gave it because he genuinely believes it might save lives.”
“Yeah, yeah. It was still boring as hell.”
“That it was,” Dinah agreed. “Let’s get out of here. There’s nothing more for us to do today. You coming, Clark?”
“I’m gonna stick around for a bit,” Clark said. “Make sure Bruce and Dick are okay.”
Bruce and Dick weren’t okay, Clark knew that much. The two of them showered at record speed and were back to the medbay within minutes. They sat in different chairs on the same side of Damian’s bed, just watching the boy sleep. At some point, Bruce had reached out his hand and taken Damian’s. It wasn’t long before Dick had found some way to twist his body into a shape small enough to fit into Bruce’s side. His acrobatic skills were honestly astonishing in that they were so intrinsic. He didn’t even look uncomfortable, half-draped over a chair arm, legs tucked in tightly. He soon joined Damian in a world of sleep, and Clark deemed it safe to properly enter the medbay.
“You didn’t have to stand there hovering,” Bruce said, without looking at him. His body was relaxed, so Dick couldn’t feel the tension in his sleep, but his voice was tight.
“I wanted to see if you two needed a moment.”
“He’ll be okay,” Bruce said. “It’s gonna take him a while to get over the guilt, though.”
“Like father, like son,” Clark said with a smile, pulling up a chair to sit on Bruce’s other side.
“No,” Bruce said. “I’ll never get over it, remember?”
The faintest smile tugged at the other man’s lips. Even exhausted from the aftermath of the adrenaline rush and hours on his feet, concentrating on keeping his youngest alive, he was beautiful in the dim light. Clark draped an arm around his waist, tucking his hand just between Bruce and Dick.
“Rest, Bruce,” he said. “I’ll watch Damian while you sleep.”
“I’m fine,” Bruce said, but he allowed Clark’s arm, even leaning into it slightly. He smelled like shampoo and antiseptic. They sat there quietly until Bruce’s breathing evened out, and Clark could tell he had fallen into a light sleep. He reveled in the fact that they had come so far - that Bruce felt safe enough with him - that he could fall asleep even as one of his sons lay in a hospital bed before him, another clearly in distress was tucked into his side, and the others were miles away. He suspected seeing them all in one place, even if it was under such awful circumstances, had helped. Clark was only one factor of many.
Still, it was an honor to be the resting place for this fortress of a man. Bruce was the person everyone came to with their problems, the man who could turn into a rock wall, perfect for venting anger on or laying burdens upon. To be the person he chose to soften for - that was something. Something real. Clark squeezed Bruce’s hip lightly. The man stirred but didn’t move, and Clark held him as the Dark Knight slept.
“Did you get pictures?” Steph demanded. She had gratefully accepted the others’ invitation to stay the night. The chaos of the Manor could keep her lingering swell of stress at bay better than the grief in her lonely, threadbare apartment. She almost forgot her inner turmoil in light of Oracle’s announcement, though.
“Sending them over,” came Babs’ laughing reply.
“Stop, they’re so cute,” Steph said, elbowing Cass lightly. The other girl grinned.
“We can blackmail B forever,” Jason said dreamily. Although he had announced his intention to leave about five times, he was still here over an hour later.
“I’m saving them to The File,” Tim said. “Babs, did you send them in the group chat?”
“Of course,” she said. “Okay, I’ve gotta go. Enjoy your photographs.”
She rang off. Steph looked down at the pictures, smiling. Now that Babs had told them Damian had woken up (and demanded to be returned to Earth immediately, Father), she didn’t feel any stress at seeing him in the hospital bed, even attached to all those IVs. Instead, the picture - Damian, Dick, and Bruce all asleep, with Bruce holding Damian’s hand and Dick tucked into Bruce’s side as Bruce slumped against their very own Man of Steel - made her feel warm.
“Blackmail him?” she said. “Please. B’s gonna want to frame this.”