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One of the Batman’s first cases is rough.
His first case involving a child – a baby.
The newborn is in a dumpster, and Bruce almost doesn’t hear him crying.
There’s a little mewl of sound, a muffled rustle from the open dumpster in the back of the alley Bruce is lurking in, and when he goes to look, wondering which veterinarian clinics would be open at midnight… There he is. A newborn baby, tiny and still wrinkly and red, umbilical cord cut but not tied, lying on a tattered blanket.
He’s squirming, tiny rosebud mouth opening and closing, hands grasping, and before he quite knows what he’s doing, Bruce reaches into the dumpster and scoops him up.
He has no idea how to hold a baby, but he’s seen movies where they tell the father to support the head, so he cradles the baby’s head.
The baby is so small he can practically hold him in one hand.
He wonders if the baby’s dark hair would feel soft against his fingers.
The baby’s eyes open, bright blue and absolutely perfect, and Bruce feels his heart break.
Who would do this? Who could ever abandon their baby like this?
He pulls the blanket from the dumpster, placing it over the baby to help keep him warm, and holds the baby close.
His little hands press against Bruce’s armor, little snuffling sounds and tiny whines sucking the air from Bruce’s lungs.
What.
What does he do now?
He calls Alfred.
Alfred picks up on the first ring.
“Master Bruce, are you–”
“There’s a baby,” Bruce interrupts. “What do I do?”
Alfred pauses for a long moment. Then he’s all business, Bruce’s familiar steady rock.
“Breathe first, Master Bruce.”
Bruce takes a deep breath, inhaling the rancid stench of the dumpster-filled alley.
He starts walking, down the alley, towards the car. He’ll get in the car, and then…
“Is the mother nearby?” Alfred asks, and Bruce looks up and down the alley, just in case he missed the mother.
“No. He was in a dumpster,” he says, holding the baby closer.
The baby makes a little coo in response, legs kicking under his filthy blanket.
Alfred hisses in displeasure.
There’s silence over the line for a moment.
“You have to take him to a hospital, Master Bruce.”
Bruce blinks for a moment.
He looks down at the baby.
He’s smacking his tiny lips, turning his face into Bruce’s chest, snuggling closer.
And Bruce.
He doesn’t want to.
He wants to bring the baby home. Wants to give him a bath and have Alfred fix him a meal – what do babies eat? Milk, right? Bruce wants to wrap the baby up in his old soft baby blanket, the one tucked away up in the attic with the rest of his childhood.
He wants to give him a cuddly toy and keep him clean and close and safe.
But.
He knows nothing about babies. Knows nothing about children in general.
And with the Batman…
It would never work.
He has to take him to the hospital.
He holds the baby close, just for one moment longer.
And then he makes his way to the car.
The hospital isn’t far, and Bruce worries about how to properly buckle a baby into the passenger seat of the car for a second before deciding to just hold him tight.
He drives more carefully than he ever has, winding his way slowly through the streets, baby tucked close, listening to the little sounds he makes.
He pulls up outside the emergency room and makes sure to park to the left of the carport, out of the way of any ambulances that might pull up. Knowing Gotham, there will be one soon.
When he enters the emergency room, a ripple of silence spreads out from the doors. Every eye is on him, watching as he slinks beneath the too-bright lights, directly up to the front desk.
The charge nurse jogs over to him with a sharp inhale, not quite a gasp.
“Where did you find them?” She asks, taking the baby from his grasp with firm hands.
Bruce’s arms feel empty.
He lets them drop.
“He was in a dumpster.” He says, voice quiet in the hush of the emergency room.
Bruce can’t stop staring at the little face, the dark mop of hair, the bright blue eyes still looking at him.
He doesn’t know what possesses him to say what he does next.
He just can’t let the baby go, not like this. Not without any of the things Bruce wants to give him.
He can’t leave him behind entirely.
“His name is Danny.”
The nurse looks at him, and her face softens.
“Danny,” she confirms.
“You’ll take care of him.” He says, and while it’s the Batman’s voice, quiet and low, it’s Bruce’s eyes that stare at Danny, squirming in the nurse’s arms.
“We’ll take good care of him,” the nurse says softly, moving her arms to hold Danny closer.
Danny mewls again, that same soft sound that called Bruce to him in the first place, and Bruce can’t resist reaching out to trace a careful finger down his baby’s cheek.
The baby’s cheek. The baby.
Danny isn’t his.
His heart twists in his chest, and with a small nod and one last look at Danny, Bruce turns and walks back out of the emergency room.
As he walks out the sliding glass doors, he can hear Danny start to cry.
***
Bruce quietly donates a few million to Gotham General’s NICU the next day.
Alfred rests his hand on his shoulder and squeezes gently.
Bruce takes a moment, just one more, to imagine what might have been.
Then he turns his attention back to his mission.
***
Nine years later, when Bruce sees two parents fall from the air, when he sees a dark-haired little boy who needs a hug and a shoulder to cry on and a safe place to go, he remembers Danny.
And he doesn’t hesitate.
He looks Danny up, late that night when Dick has cried himself to sleep at Bruce’s side in the police station.
He searches through databases he shouldn’t have access to, sifts through Gotham General’s files from that night so long ago, and he finds him.
Danny Doe, born February twelfth, left at Gotham General by the Batman.
He was in the hospital for a few months, and then sent to an orphanage.
Bruce doesn’t know much about orphanages, despite being an orphan himself.
He looks down at Dick, dark blue eyes closed, tear tracks on his cheeks, whimpering in his sleep, and resolves to look up Gotham orphanages immediately.
Danny can wait one day more. He’s been out of Bruce’s hands for years.
Dick is right here.
***
Bruce gets an emergency foster license with little trouble. Too little trouble, actually. He’s going to need to lobby for stricter foster requirements, or at least for less corrupt officials.
Regardless, he takes advantage of the terrible system, and fosters Dick as soon as he can.
He takes Dick as his ward quickly after that.
And once all that is done, once Dick is safely tucked into his bed in his room in the manor, only then does Bruce turn his attention back to Danny.
He follows Danny’s paper trail to a pair of doctors, the Fentons.
They adopted Danny from Gotham, after adopting their first child, a daughter named Jasmine.
Danny’s name is now Daniel Jackson Fenton.
Privately, Bruce knows that regardless of the name his adoptive parents gave him, he would always be Danny to him.
Bruce follows the trail of adoption records and patent applications and real estate purchase contracts to a little city named Amity Park, where the Fentons seem to have settled down.
He finds the Fenton’s address.
He sees that Danny’s applied for Space Camp already, and that gives him an idea.
It’s February first.
A few days before Danny’s birthday.
Birthdays are important for children, aren’t they?
***
Danny wakes up on his ninth birthday to a ringing doorbell and a surprise birthday gift.
He can’t believe his parents remembered.
There are no actual words from them, no song, no cake, but the fact that they remembered to buy him a gift is huge.
His gift is a telescope, and he screams in excitement when he opens it.
The telescope is absolutely massive, big enough that he has trouble carrying it out to the backyard, but with Jazz’s help he manages.
They set it up together, and it takes them all day, but that just means that they don’t have to wait long once it’s set up to use it.
Danny stays out all night long, even though it’s a school night.
His parents don’t notice, and Jazz just makes him a thermos of hot chocolate and wraps him up in both their coats.
“Happy birthday, Danny,” she says, tugging a hat down over his head while he watches the stars through his telescope.
***
The next year, Danny gets a galaxy projector. It glows across his ceiling, painting the walls in faroff stars, accurate and beautiful and gorgeous, keeping Danny company on long nights and longer days, a reminder of just how much his parents love him.
Even if they don’t show it other ways.
When he thanks them for the gift, they respond with absent-minded smiles.
***
When he turns eleven, Danny gets a gorgeous personalized star map, a set of hover pens, and an expensive journal covered in rocket equations and star charts.
When he checks the coordinates on the star map, it points him to a little alley in Gotham.
He’s pretty sure he wasn’t born in an alley, but he knows he was born in Gotham, because Jazz told him so.
She was born in Metropolis.
Danny doesn’t really understand how his parents could’ve been comfortable moving from such big cities to dinky little Amity Park, but he knows just how devoted to their research they are.
He thinks about how uncomfortable astronaut training is going to be, and suddenly he can understand them a little better.
There’s not much he wouldn’t do to achieve his dreams, after all.
It probably runs in the family.
***
Birthdays twelve and thirteen he gets a large moon meteorite and an even larger mars meteorite respectively.
He hyperventilates over them both.
Thankfully he also gets proper storage for them both, and he sets them carefully on the shelves in his room, out of direct sunlight.
He might go a bit overboard with keeping the meteorites safe, earthquake and fire-proofing his entire room just in case. But better safe than sorry.
The meteorites are amazing, and the one and only time he actually touches them directly, on the first day he gets them, he cries himself almost sick. Both times.
They’re amazing. Two gifts he never could’ve imagined.
He hugs his parents tight, still crying in happiness. They hug him back, happy to hold him while he thanks them over and over.
They laugh and wipe his tears.
He loves his family so much.
***
His fourteenth birthday is a bit different.
He knows his parents are focused on their portal, and he doesn’t really need anything from them, especially after the last two years.
Meteorites. His parents bought him real meteorites for his birthday.
It’s amazing, and he loves telling his space camp friends everything about them.
So when his doorbell doesn’t ring, he doesn’t think much of it.
He isn’t upset. Not at all.
He buries the tiny pang of disappointment down deep, and goes to watch his parents turn on their portal.
It’s only after he tries to fix the portal for them, after he blacks out from pain and shock, after he wakes up to the sense that something is terribly wrong, it’s only then that the doorbell rings.
The delivery lady apologizes for the late delivery, and offers him a small box.
Danny takes it with shaking hands, and walks upstairs in the silent house.
He opens the box to find a framed piece of golden foil. A mission-flown square centimeter fragment of kapton foil from the Apollo 11 Command Module Columbia. An actual piece of the first crewed lunar landing mission.
Danny holds the frame close to his chest and bawls his eyes out.
His parents aren’t here right now.
They’re out comforting themselves after their failure, not knowing that the portal is on.
Not knowing that Danny shocked himself so badly he blacked out.
Not knowing he can feel that there’s something horribly wrong with him.
But they still care. They still love him.
They’ve given him such wonderful gifts over the years, and now this.
He knows they love him.
He knows that.
But right now he’d trade all his gifts just for them to be here.
***
The morning of Danny’s fifteenth birthday dawns with him up on the roof, watching the stars.
He’d use his telescope, but he had to hide it after his parents started talking about cannibalizing it for one of their ghost hunting gadgets.
So now he just watches the stars like everybody else, sitting and staring up into the sky, wishing the city lights were a bit dimmer.
As soon as he hears the first sound of a door opening on the street, he turns invisible and slips back into his bedroom, shutting his window behind him.
He lays on his bed, on top of the covers, too exhausted to change his clothes and unwilling to get roof grit between his blankets.
He switches on the projector and it comes to life, casting a sprawling galaxy across the room.
He watches the stars spin and listens to the sounds of his parents waking and rushing down to the lab.
He doesn’t take offense to the fact that they’ve clearly forgotten his birthday again.
He expects it by now, and he knows their gift is coming, but he doesn’t know how he’s going to feel opening it.
Not now that they spend their days hunting him and their nights dreaming up new ways to tear him molecule by molecule.
Jazz gets up eventually and knocks on his door, but he doesn’t answer.
“Happy birthday, Danny.” She says quietly. She probably thinks he’s sleeping in.
When he eventually makes his way downstairs, the house is as quiet as it gets.
His parents are down in the basement, and he can hear his dad’s shouting and the occasional clang of machinery.
He pours himself a bowl of dry granola and eats standing by the cabinet, watching the basement door, just in case a ghost comes through.
The doorbell rings, and Danny puts aside his half-finished breakfast to answer it.
He takes the package from the delivery man and heads upstairs, snagging his granola on the way.
He’s gonna finish his breakfast before he opens this year’s birthday gift, because he just knows that no matter what his parents got him, it’s going to sting.
He crunches down his last bite of granola and reaches for the scissors.
The tape parts easily, and an envelope falls out.
The front of the envelope says, ‘Danny’.
The handwriting is unfamiliar.
When he opens the envelope, there’s a birthday card inside. It features an astronaut holding a balloon, with the words ‘Have another fantastic trip around the sun’.
Inside the card, three words are written, in the same unfamiliar handwriting.
‘Happy Birthday, Danny’
The words are large and looping, a fancy cursive that Danny knows his parents would never be able to write.
His dad’s scrawl is messy and hard to read, letters connecting in weird spots and dots and crosses far from their intended places. His mother’s writing is all block lettering, easy to read and almost clinical, intended for precise notation and scientific documentation.
Neither of them write like this.
Jazz writes in tiny print, ruler-straight lines that she practices for hours on end.
So who wrote this note?
It’s a mystery, and Danny’s stomach is starting to churn with it.
Who gave him this gift?
And for that matter, if his parents didn’t –
He cuts the thought off.
No.
He’s just not going to think about it.
He sets the card aside, and opens the gift.
Someone’s named a star after him.
No, he realizes, sorting through papers and framed star charts, someone’s named two stars after him.
He pulls out the frames and stares.
One set of binary stars that will be visible from Amity Park.
One set of binary stars that will be visible from Gotham.
Two sets of stars bound to each other.
Danny and Phantom.
And neither set is from his parents.
The frames are quivering hard enough he can’t read the writing on them, and then his vision starts to blur until he can’t see the stars.
He’s crying anyway.
He gently sets the frames down, holding back the urge to throw them into the wall.
He grabs the card in a too-tight grip, and holds it to his chest.
And then he breaks down entirely.
He always wondered how his parents could afford to get him such amazing gifts.
The telescope was expensive enough, but the meteors were what really pushed the limits of believability.
The moon meteor alone likely cost over five thousand dollars.
He knows. He checked last year, desperate to know that at least some part of his parents still loved him.
And now, to finally know that it wasn’t his parents at all.
It’s crushing.
He cries himself to sleep.
When he wakes, he cleans his face, hangs his new gifts on the wall, and gets ready for another long day and night.
He puts the card under his pillow.
***
Bruce loves that Dick named his car the Batmobile. It makes him smile, even though Dick first called it that while trying to get Bruce to let him join in on patrol.
Bruce is adamant that Dick won’t be patrolling until he’s at least eighteen and finished with high school, three years from now.
Dick disagrees, but Bruce is the adult in this situation, so it’s up to him to set rules and requirements and uphold them. Dick’s the child, and all the parenting books Bruce has read say that it’s natural for children to push their boundaries.
Children are looking for firm boundaries, for reasons to trust that their parent means what they say, and it’s up to their parent to set them.
Dick may not want to be adopted, he may not want to replace his beloved Tati and Mami, but Bruce is still his parent.
Dick even called him ‘Dad’ the other day.
Bruce cried.
Dick cried.
Alfred shed a tear.
There were lots of hugs and a lovely celebratory dinner.
So, as his Dad, it’s up to Bruce to keep Dick safe in the manor, far from Gotham’s crime-ridden streets.
Thankfully, it’s the end of patrol, and Bruce isn’t too injured tonight.
He’s rushing back to the Batmobile slipping from shadow to shadow, when he hears a plinking sound from up ahead.
It sounds like a piece of metal dropped to the street, something small maybe.
It could be a gun though. Bruce stays hidden in the shadows, and creeps forward.
He just sees the Batmobile at first, sitting right where he left it.
Then he realizes the two tires that should be visible from his position definitely aren’t.
Scratch that.
He sees them now.
They’re propped up against the nearest building.
Someone is stealing his tires.
Bruce silently moves to the other side of the Batmobile, and when he spots the thief, he has to hold back an inappropriate snort of laughter.
It’s a kid.
He was just thinking about boundaries and rules and limits for children, and here’s a child stealing his tires.
It’s a bit funny.
Bruce stalks forward, and he’s right in front of the kid not giving him the chance to notice him lurking on the other side of the street.
The kid looks up at him and yelps, scrambling back and slipping, falling onto his back on the street, tire iron still held tight.
Hmm. Bruce didn’t mean to scare the little guy.
He crouches down.
He’s apparently too fast, because the kid flinches.
Bruce holds out his hands, to show he’s unarmed, and instead of feeling reassured, the kid swipes at him with the tire iron.
Bruce whips his hands back and out of the way. That would’ve hurt.
“Nice swing,” he says, voice gentle as he can make it. The words still come out as a soft grumble, but he’s doing his best.
The kid eyes him suspiciously, and slowly gets back to his feet, watching Bruce the entire time.
Bruce doesn’t move, crouched down, balancing on the balls of his feet, arms lying still with his hands draped over his thighs.
The kid sniffs and wipes at his nose.
“I wasn’t doin’ nothin’,” he blatantly lies.
“Alright,” Bruce says. “You weren’t doing anything.”
There’s a beat of silence between them.
“I don’t have a tire iron,” Bruce says, still quiet and gentle. “Mind helping me put the tires back on?”
The kid twitches.
“You don’t get the iron,” he says, practically snarling the words.
Bruce nods.
“You keep it,” he says. “I’ll get the tires.”
They work quietly to get the tires back on the Batmobile, Bruce grunting as he lifts each heavy tire. It’s a wonder that a scrappy little thing like this kid managed to get them off in the first place.
“You’re strong,” he comments as he hauls the second tire up to the rim.
The kid sniffs and spits off to the side, playing tough.
It’s a little adorable.
“Gotta be, out here.”
Ah. That’s less adorable.
Bruce gives the kid a good look while he’s focused on winding the tire iron around and around.
He’s filthy, hair matted and greasy, dirt and oil smudged on his face and hands. His fingers are too thin to be healthy, and his cheekbones stand out. His clothes are ragged and torn in enough places that Bruce can see skin peeking through. There’s no way he’s warm enough out on these cold streets.
The kid looks to be maybe seven or eight, with light brown skin and pale blue eyes, dark hair hanging down in curly tangles.
“Do you have anywhere to go?” Bruce asks quietly.
The kid glances up at him, tire iron slipping to clang against the hubcap.
“Nope,” he says, firm and defiant. “Don’t need one.”
“Hmm,” Bruce says. “Do you want one? There are plenty of –”
The kid cuts him off with a loud snort.
“No thanks. I don’t wanna go into the system.”
Bruce can respect that.
“Are you hungry?” He asks instead of continuing that line of conversation.
The kid twists on the last lug nut.
“Why do you care?” He asks, turning to Bruce with a sigh, swinging the tire iron up to rest on his shoulder.
Bruce eyes it warily, but he’s pretty sure he could dodge it if the kid decides to swing again.
“I have a son,” Bruce says. “I’d hate for him to go hungry.”
The kid sighs again, shifting the tire iron until he can brace it across his shoulders and drape both wrists over it.
“I could eat.”
He’s all casual as he says it, but the way he’s stretched out has pulled his shirt up, and Bruce can see his hip bones pressing up against his skin. The boy is painfully thin.
“I’m the Batman,” Bruce introduces himself, walking around the Batmobile to open the passenger door for the kid.
The kid eyes him as he moseys over, tilting his head, cool as can be in the face of the scourge of Gotham’s gangs and villains.
“Jason,” he offers, holding out a hand.
He probably tries to crush Bruce’s hand when he shakes, but Bruce can’t feel it through his gauntlet.
They drive through Burger King, and the worker at the window snorts at Bruce when he pulls up.
“Nice outfit,” they say, passing him his bag of burgers and tray of drinks.
“Thank you,” Bruce says, quiet enough that they might not have heard him. He sets the food on his lap.
“Wanna crown?” The worker asks, bored of them already.
“Yes, please,” Bruce says, and the worker passes over two crowns. “Could I get another?” Bruce asks, and the worker raises an eyebrow, but gives him a third crown without comment.
Bruce passes one crown over to Jason – who gives it a stink eye – and tucks the other two under his arm, before inching out of the drive through.
He pulls over to the side of the road and hands most of the food to Jason.
They eat in silence, Jason finishing two burgers in the time it takes Bruce to work his way through his fries.
“You know,” Bruce says, passing Jason another burger from the bag. “My son would love a little brother.”
The kid almost drops his burger, turning to face Bruce.
His mouth is ajar.
“Are you crazy?!” He yells, loud inside the Batmobile.
Bruce shrugs, wishing he could rub his ears through the cowl.
“I don’t think so,” he says.
Alfred would probably say something about his current state of dress and his coping mechanisms, but Alfred isn’t here right now.
The kid just blinks at him in shock.
He finishes his burger, still staring at him.
He goes quiet then, and eyes Bruce with suspicion.
“You really have a kid?” He asks, disbelief dripping from every syllable.
“I can call him,” Bruce offers, pulling out his phone.
Jason nods, so Bruce hits a few buttons and puts the phone on speaker between them.
The call picks up after a few rings, and Dick’s groggy voice comes through.
“Bruuuuce, I was sleeeepiiiing.” He groans, shuffling around in his bed on the other side of the city.
Bruce smiles, happy to hear his son’s voice.
Jason now knows his name, but Bruce isn’t intending to let him go back out onto the streets, so it doesn’t really matter.
If Jason really does want to go, Bruce will just have to keep trying to convince him.
“Hey there, chum,” he says, fond and happy. “How would you like a little brother?”
There’s a beat of silence on the other end of the phone.
“What?!” Dick shrieks, fully awake now. “A little brother? Bruce, did you get someone pregnant?! How?!”
Jason snorts.
“Don’t know how babies are made?” He asks mockingly, crossing his arms and eying the phone with distaste.
“Bruce is ace,” Dick says back, then pauses. “Who’re you?”
“What’s ace?” Jason asks instead of answering, brow furrowing in confusion.
“It means I don’t have sex,” Bruce says, matter of fact.
Jason goes red.
“Wait, hold that thought, Dad,” Dick says, and Bruce’s heart swells at the casualness of the word. “Who’s with you?”
Bruce just looks at the still-red Jason, motioning toward the phone with a hand.
“I’m Jason,” Jason says, cautious as an alley cat. “Your dad’s offering to take me home.”
Dick sputters for a moment, then sighs, long and loud.
“Yeah, that’s what happened to me too,” he says with a melancholy tone. “You don’t have anywhere to go either?”
Jason’s lips purse, and his brow furrows even farther. He swallows, loud in the silent car.
“No.” His voice is rough.
Dick hums down the line.
“Yeah, I didn’t either. Bruce is good people though. He’ll keep you safe, if you go with him.”
Jason eyes the phone, then Bruce again.
“He isn’t some weirdo?” He asks, and Dick laughs, hard.
“Oh, he’s definitely weird,” he says, “but it’s a good weird.”
There’s a beat of silence on the other end of the phone, but then Dick gasps.
“Wait, Bruce! You said little brother! How old are you, Jase?”
Jason growls out, “I’m nine, I’m not little! And who’re you, anyway?”
Dick laughs. “I’m fifteen! You’re way littler than me! My name’s Dick, by the way.”
Jason snorts.
“I’m not little, Dickface,” he snarls.
“Boys,” Bruce says, attempting to cut off the argument before it can begin.
But Dick just laughs.
“Oh, we are gonna get along great, I can already tell!” He says, clearly delighted by Jason’s spark.
Jason looks at Bruce.
Bruce tilts his head.
Jason nods.
And Bruce drives him home.
The boys argue and taunt and laugh at each other all the way back to the Batcave, where Dick and Alfred meet them with wildly different expressions on their faces.
Dick is all bright smiles and happy laughter, turning cartwheels in his excitement.
Alfred is frowning at Bruce, his eye twitching just the slightest bit at the corner.
“Really, Master Bruce, not even a call?” He says, clearly displeased.
Bruce freezes, halfway to the locker room with cowl in hand, his eyes wide and ringed in kohl.
“Uhh,” he says, and now both his boys are laughing at him.
Alfred sighs, lifting a hand to rub at the bridge of his nose.
“Go get cleaned up, Master Bruce. We can talk about this when the boys are in bed.”
Bruce slinks into the locker room to the sound of Dick’s bright laughter and Jason’s loud cackling, and he doesn’t even try to fight the smile on his face.
If he’s very lucky, soon he’ll have two sons.
And maybe Jason won’t take quite so long to call him ‘Dad’.
Maybe.
He can hope.
And when he comes out to see the boys wearing their Burger King crowns and eating cold fast food together, his smile grows even wider.
Alfred takes a picture of the three of them, Dick and Jason jamming Bruce’s crown on his head, all three of them laughing.
Bruce is already planning to get the picture printed to go on his bedside table.
Dick pulls Jason into the room next to his, claiming it for the other boy and telling Bruce that he’s no longer needed. Jason’s laughing as he follows Dick with stars in his eyes, so Bruce leaves them to it.
Dick will tell Jason where to find him if he needs him.
As he’s getting ready for bed, he can’t help but think back to that night so long ago, when he was just starting out as the Batman, and the little baby he found all alone in an alley.
He only lets himself check on Danny at the beginning of February each year, giving himself just enough time to confirm that Danny’s doing well and still interested in space, and then spends a tiny bit of money to send him a small birthday gift.
He won’t let himself do more.
He knows he’s already doing too much for a boy he barely knows, but he can’t help it.
He still remembers how small Danny had been in his arms, the inky dark of his hair, the bright blue of his eyes.
He remembers Danny, and some part of him still counts Danny as his baby.
If he isn’t careful to keep his distance, Bruce isn’t sure he won’t try to contact Danny.
And if he doesn’t want to uproot Danny’s life and confuse the poor boy, he really can’t do that.
Not yet.
He stays out of Danny’s life at all times except early February, and even then he only lets himself look up just enough to confirm Danny’s well-being and love of space.
So instead of looking into the first child he ever loved, his baby, he listens to the distant sounds of his second and third children settling down to sleep.
And if his dreams are filled with three dark-haired, blue-eyed boys, laughing and playing together while Bruce smiles and Alfred watches over them all, he keeps it to himself.
***
It’s Danny’s sweet sixteen.
He turns over in bed and reaches a hand beneath his pillow.
The timeworn card greets his fingers, cardstock far too soft to give him a papercut, despite the way he strokes along the edges.
He pulls the card out and opens it.
“Happy birthday, Danny,” he whispers to himself.
The doorbell rings.
He breathes deep through his nose, tucks the card away, and goes to the door.
The gift is a big one this time, a box that he would struggle to lift if it weren’t for his enhanced strength.
He easily carts it up to his room, and once he gets it open, there’s another envelope and another card inside. This one says, ‘another orbit complete!’ and has a few balloons painted like planets floating against a galaxy backdrop.
Danny opens it.
“Happy birthday, Danny,” he reads again, the same loopy cursive greeting him.
His eyes fill with tears.
Maybe the gifts are from his birth parents.
And hadn’t that been a massive shock.
Finding an adoption certificate instead of a birth certificate when he wanted to get his driver’s license.
That. That threw him for a loop.
He knew Jazz was adopted. She’d found out when she went looking for her birth certificate.
But for his parents to not tell him he was adopted too, after already sitting down together and explaining things to Jazz?
He should’ve expected it, really, but he just. Hadn’t.
So maybe it is his birth parents sending him all these cool gifts for his birthday.
But if they know where he is, and they still love him enough to send him gifts he actually likes…
Why haven’t they come for him?
Why aren’t they here?
And for that matter, how do they know he loves space?
Admittedly, he’d thought the gifts might’ve been coming from Vlad for a little while, but thankfully the man’s handwriting looks nothing like the writing on the birthday card.
Danny checked. Stole some official documentation from the mayor’s office and went on an internet deep dive to learn how to differentiate handwriting samples. According to his best efforts, Vlad’s handwriting is definitively not the same as the mystery gift-giver.
So.
Birth parents, most likely.
Birth parents who are somehow keeping an eye on him, at least enough to know that he loves space.
But if they’re watching him, watching over him, why haven’t they at least made contact?
Why aren’t they here?
The card is blurring, and Danny hastily holds it up, not wanting to cry on this card too.
He takes a few moments to center himself, and tucks the card away beneath his pillow, right next to the first one.
Then he opens the package.
It’s full of boxes, and the first one he pulls out proclaims ‘Solar Powered’, and ‘MOVA Globe’, but neither of those tell him what his gift actually is.
When he manages to get the packaging all the way open, he’s suddenly holding Neptune in his hands.
It’s a full globe, detailed and gorgeous, Neptune as captured by NASA telescopes from every angle.
There’s a little card inside the big box settled beneath where the Neptune globe box was, and when he fishes it out it reads, ‘The planet globes feature graphics with an astonishing level of detail for a realistic view of planets you’d normally see only through a telescope. Each space globe rotates without the use of electricity, creating a streamlined physique for placement in any room of your home.’
He can see a bunch more boxes inside the big box, and Danny has to take a moment to just sit quietly.
His birth parents just sent him the solar system.
He sniffles, reaches into the Neptune box for the globe’s stand, and arranges Neptune just so on his mounted shelves.
Then he bursts into tears again against the wall.
If they love him enough to do this, to give him things that mean so much to him, why aren’t they here?!
He hauls himself into bed eventually, too tired to even think about getting out the rest of the planets, and he naps until Jazz gets him up at noon.
***
Bruce has no idea what he’s going to do for Danny’s seventeenth birthday.
He’s been trying to control himself, only gifting Danny with things that any average person could afford, but he’s reaching the limit of what he can realistically give.
It won’t matter on Danny’s eighteenth birthday, because Bruce is planning to give him tickets to come visit him in Gotham, but this year is his seventeenth, not his eighteenth, and that means one last birthday gift before the big visit, and Bruce kind of wants it to be special. Since it’ll be the last one before they meet, and all.
He renovated multiple rooms in the manor for Dick’s gymnastics setup, and he remade the entire west wing library to suit Jason’s height and tastes, so it’s really not a big deal at all to give Danny a few things once a year. That’s not even getting into all the things Bruce has altered and changed in the boys’ rooms.
He hasn’t even made a room for Danny yet, as much as he’d like to.
He isn’t sure which room Danny would want.
Is he a morning sun person, or not? Does he want to be close to everyone else, or would he rather have some privacy and take a room in another wing? Would he be more comfortable on the ground floor, or higher up?
Little questions with big answers, and Bruce can predict none of them.
So he waits, and he’ll be waiting just one year more, if Danny agrees to come for a visit.
And since it’s the first of February, that means he’d better get a move on for Danny’s seventeenth birthday gift.
It’s evening and the boys are asleep. Odds are that Danny’s asleep too, and the thought of all three of his boys sleeping soundly brings a smile to Bruce’s face.
He lays back in bed and pulls up the most recent information he’s found on Danny.
The kid’s almost fully grown now, almost old enough to head off to college, to really start training to be an astronaut, if that’s what he wants.
Judging by the fact that Danny still goes to Space Camp every year, Bruce is pretty sure he wants to do something related to space exploration, and most space-obsessed children aim to be astronauts rather than any of the many space-related jobs that take place on planet Earth.
And with the recent advances they’ve been making in space travel and their discoveries of extraterrestrial life, Bruce knows the field is ever-expanding, ever-changing. Danny would have his pick of many careers related to space.
He does his usual check, planning to sift through hospital files and school records, leaving Danny’s Facebook and Twitter accounts alone, and that’s when he notices something odd.
Danny hasn’t gone to the hospital in the last few years.
Bruce remembers noticing something like that at the start of February last year, but he wrote it off at the time. Plenty of people forget their appointments or skip a year or two.
But four years of missed checkups is a little much.
Bruce frowns, and clicks through to Danny’s school records.
His grades had dropped quite a bit when he last checked, but he thought they would bounce back up.
Now Danny’s grades are the lowest they’ve ever been, and according to his past files, they’ve steadily been dropping since he turned fourteen. Which is also when he had his last checkup.
He’s also been marked absent on numerous occasions, and his parents appear to have pulled him from school entirely at the beginning of December.
Concerning.
Bruce does something he’s never done before, and checks over Danny’s Facebook. Aside from birthday wishes, it’s practically inactive. His Twitter is much the same.
Very concerning.
Bruce decides it may be time to check into Danny’s home life.
***
Bruce keeps checking Danny’s files.
He calls his school pretending to be Danny’s father and talks with a very confused receptionist who asks if he remembers checking Danny out of school for their long-overdue family vacation.
This would be comforting to Bruce, except that the rest of Danny’s family is still obviously in Amity Park.
They’re visible on CCTV at various stores and businesses, and the only one displaying any signs that something isn’t right is Jasmine. The young lady looks haggard. Her parents, on the other hand, look almost giddy.
The receptionist also says something about ghosts, but Bruce really isn’t sure what she means. He hangs up on her shortly after that.
He books himself a plane to Amity Park’s small private airport, and packs a bag.
He makes sure to include his Batsuit.
“Where are you going?” Dick asks when Bruce breaks the news that he’ll be gone for a couple days, the three of them seated at the dining table to eat the breakfast Alfred has prepared for them.
Bruce is eating his food faster than he should, eager to get to the airport and into the air.
“Your older brother might be in trouble,” he says around a piece of toast.
He’s not sure Dick heard him, but Jason definitely did.
“We have another brother?!” He yells.
Bruce’s heart fills with warmth at the progress Jason’s made.
Only a year under Bruce’s roof and he’s already comfortable enough to yell at him at breakfast.
The parenting books would be proud.
“I’m going to Illinois to check on him.” Bruce nods, pleased his boys are taking this so well.
“When did you–”
“Dad, what’s–”
“–pick up another kid–”
“–going on, I–”
“–that’s three of us now–”
“–didn’t know we had–”
“Ahem.”
Silence falls over the breakfast table.
“An older son, Master Bruce?” Alfred asks, disdain dripping from every word.
Bruce stares down at his toast.
“You remember that baby I found?”
So much for a lovely breakfast.
***
All Danny knows is pain.
He remembers being in his room, patching himself up.
He remembers the Booo-merang smashing through his window, and his parents following after it.
Everything after that is just pure, unending pain.
That’s all that’s left for him.
***
Once Bruce gets to Amity Park, he can tell that something’s definitely not right in the city.
There’s heavy damage to city infrastructure, buildings with gouges and holes smashed through walls, torn up streets and blast damage across intersections.
It looks like the end result of some of Superman’s fights, or the few supernatural fights Bruce has ended up taking part in.
Something is definitely not right in Amity Park, and Bruce is certain it has something to do with Danny’s sudden disappearance.
He dons the Batsuit, and waits for nightfall.
Under the cover of darkness, he makes his way to Danny’s home.
He can see it from a mile away, though he doesn’t know it at the time. All he notices at first is a big metal structure and a bad feeling in his gut. The closer he gets, the more sure he is that Danny’s home and the metal structure is one and the same.
He hates being right sometimes.
Bruce creeps around the house, right up to the back door, staying out of sight of any nosy neighbors or doorbell cameras.
He can hear an argument going on inside, and when he listens, it’s exactly what he needs to hear.
“–is missing, and you don’t even care!”
A young voice, female. Probably Jasmine.
“We do care, sweetheart, we care more than anyone.”
Female, older. Madeline?
“We’re going to get Danny back, princess, just you wait!”
Male, older, Jack.
All three Fentons accounted for. Information on Danny forthcoming.
“You haven’t even told me where you think he’s gone!”
“Those blasted ghosts took him!”
Ghosts again. Hmm. That’s probably not good.
“It’s that Phantom. He’s the one who took Danny. We’ll get it out of him, Jazzy, don’t worry.”
“Get what out of who? Mom? Dad?!”
Bruce listens to the sound of footsteps loudly stomping through the house, toward the front door.
He races silently around the side of the house, and watches as the Fenton parents climb into a definitely illegal vehicle.
He waits until just after they’ve closed the doors, and then he darts across the lawn and jumps onto the roof of the vehicle as it pulls away from the curb.
“GAV’s acting up again, Maddie-cakes.”
“We’ll fix it after we’ve fixed Danny.”
Now that’s what Bruce has been waiting to hear.
***
What Bruce sees inside the lab will haunt his nightmares for years to come.
His oldest son, his baby, his Danny.
Squirming on a lab table, muzzled and chained, whimpering and crying with terror.
Bruce isn’t very clear on what happens after that.
He comes back to himself with blood on his hands and Danny’s chains in his grip.
“Superman!” He shouts, as soon as he’s got the clarity of mind to do so. “I need you!”
There’s a whoosh of displaced air, and suddenly Clark is there, muted blues and reds a welcome sight.
“Break these,” Bruce says, still holding Danny’s chains.
They snap between Clark’s hands, and Bruce takes that time to gently unlatch the muzzle from around Danny’s face.
“You’re safe now, Danny,” he says, throwing the muzzle aside as soon as he can, taking Danny’s hands in his once they’re free.
Danny cries out, leaning close, and Bruce doesn’t bother trying to stop himself.
He scoops Danny up in his arms, holding him close, just like he did when Danny was newly born.
“I’ve got you,” he says, firm and gentle against Danny’s hair.
Danny sobs against his chest, hands tucked between them.
The poor boy is covered in bright green liquid, but has no visible injuries.
“Are you alright?” Bruce asks, lifting a hand to tuck Danny’s head beneath his chin, smoothing his hair back from his face.
“N-No,” Danny says through his tears, breath hitching. “It h-hurts.”
“Okay,” Bruce says, doing his best to soothe his boy. “We’ll help you. You’ll be alright.”
He tries to set Danny down, but Danny makes a terrified sound and clings tightly to him.
“Okay, Danny, okay,” Bruce soothes. “Tell me what hurts.”
Danny whines, but stretches out his arm.
There’s a long slice down his upper arm, and bright green blood is slowly seeping from the wound.
“Superman,” Bruce hisses, and Clark nods his head.
He zips through the room without a word and swiftly out the door, returning with a needle and thread and a roll of bandages.
“They didn’t have anesthetic,” Clark growls, his voice dark enough that it sends a tremble through Danny.
Bruce presses his head down against his son’s in comfort.
“Is it okay if Superman stitches you up?” Bruce asks. He could do it, but he’s pretty sure Danny doesn’t want to be set down. “We need to get out of here.”
Danny nods, turning to face Clark.
“You can look away,” Clark says while he threads the needle.
“I have to look,” Danny counters. “I always do.”
Bruce hopes he’s just talking about getting shots or stitches from the hospital, but he’s pretty sure that’s not the case.
Danny doesn’t make a sound, just watches Clark’s hands fly over his arm, stitches appearing neat and even, marching down his skin like a macabre zipper.
Clark wraps the stitches immediately after, hiding the gruesome sight beneath white bandages.
Bruce then realizes something.
If Danny’s blood is green…
Then the green liquid covering him…
“Where else are you bleeding?” Bruce asks, the words feeling as if they come from far away.
Danny sniffs, wiping his nose on his uninjured arm.
“Nowhere else,” he claims. “They only just got started today. You got here before anything bad happened.”
Bruce certainly did not get here before anything bad happened.
Bruce didn’t get here early enough at all.
But he can beat himself up later. Now he has to get Danny out of here.
“Let’s go,” Bruce says, hefting Danny gently in his arms and making his way out of the lab.
They don’t run into any opposition on their way out.
That’s definitely because Bruce took care of anyone he saw on his way in. He’s pretty sure Clark took a moment to work his way through the base himself, and he’s not worried about anyone sneaking up on the Kryptonian.
He just makes his way swiftly out of the disgusting lab, his precious boy safe in his arms.
This time, he isn’t going to be leaving Danny anywhere.
***
“Are you my birth dad?” Danny asks, seated on a bench while they wait for the ambulance.
Bruce is back in normal clothes, the bag he had Clark grab for him sitting at his feet, Batsuit tucked away inside.
Clark had flown away to report the lab to the authorities shortly after Bruce mentioned switching to his civilian identity, so it’s just the two of them now, Danny swaying on the bench.
Bruce drops down onto the bench next to him, fast enough that Danny startles.
Bruce wraps an arm around Danny’s shoulders, and Danny tilts over to lean against him, hesitant at first, then sinking into Bruce’s warmth.
“I found you,” Bruce says quietly, and Danny goes stiff against him. “Someone left you in a dumpster when you were a newborn, and I heard you crying.”
Danny’s silent, and if Bruce couldn’t feel his intense attention, he wouldn’t know if Danny even heard him.
“I took you to the hospital. I couldn’t keep you.”
Danny gives him a wet little laugh.
“I was a dumpster baby, huh? That sounds about right.”
Bruce shakes his head and squeezes Danny’s shoulder.
“You were perfect. Whoever left you there was cruel.”
Danny sniffles.
“I wasn’t perfect enough to keep,” he whispers.
And oh. That hurts.
Bruce turns, bringing up his other hand to hold Danny in both arms.
“You were perfect. I, on the other hand,” he says, and he counts it a victory when Danny laughs. “I wasn’t in any place to care for a child at the time.”
Danny nods. Bruce can feel his shirt getting wet.
“I’m in that place now,” he says softly.
Danny sniffs and straightens up.
“You don’t want me,” he denies, trying and failing to wipe his tears away.
Bruce gently takes over, wiping Danny’s face with the cuffs of his shirt.
“I always wanted you,” he says. “I just couldn’t keep you.”
Bruce sighs when he sees the doubt in Danny’s eyes.
“I named you, you know,” he says.
Danny’s eyes widen. Bruce nods.
“I had to leave, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to give you everything, wanted to give you the world. But I couldn’t. So I gave you a name.”
Danny’s crying again now, silent tears coursing down his cheeks.
“That’s why I started sending you birthday gifts,” Bruce admits. “I thought you were happy here, so you didn’t need me, but I still wanted to give you something. Just to let you know I still remembered you, still thought of the baby I found.”
Bruce’s shirt cuffs are drenched in tears, but he just keeps wiping them away.
“I’m not a baby anymore,” Danny says, barely louder than a breath, tilting his face into Bruce’s gentle hands.
“You’ll always be my baby, Danny,” Bruce whispers back.
Danny lunges forward, grabbing Bruce in a tight hug, burying his face in his shoulder.
Bruce holds him just as tight, careful of his injured arm, carding a hand through his hair.
“I thought you were happy here.” Bruce says, and Danny shakes his head without a word.
Bruce holds him close, finally able to hear the siren of the ambulance coming to meet them.
“You’ll be happy now. I’ll make sure of it.”
***
Bruce steps off the plane to see not only Alfred standing by the car, but also his younger sons, Dick and Jason both impatiently waiting. Dick is literally bouncing in place, and Jason is popping his knuckles and shifting from side to side.
Bruce steps down onto the airstairs, and turns to take Danny’s bag.
When Danny emerges from the doorway, Dick gasps.
“I’m taller!” He shouts, throwing his hands up into the air in excitement. “Yesss!”
“No fair!” Jason says, kicking Dick in the shin. “I’m gonna be taller than you, Dickhead!”
“Believe it when I see it,” Dick crows, jumping over Jason’s next kick and shoving him to the side.
Alfred merely sighs, then goes to separate the boys.
Danny huffs in amusement, “They always like this?” He asks, nudging Bruce as they head down.
“Usually they’re worse,” Bruce says lightly.
Danny laughs, the bright sound carrying across the tarmac and stopping the boys’ playfight immediately.
Dick is grinning happily at Danny, and his grin only grows the closer Danny gets.
Jason’s more guarded, watching Danny carefully, but his eyes are sparkling.
Bruce stands back, just for a moment, and watches his three boys meet for the first time.
Dick’s bright grin, Jason’s dancing eyes, and Danny’s delighted laughter.
His three boys.
Together at last.
They turn to face him, each giving him a similar confused look.
“Dad, get over here!” Dick calls with a laugh.
And Jason rolls his eyes, and the corner of Danny’s mouth twitches up in a slight smirk.
And Bruce walks over and pulls the three of them into a hug.
“Dad!” Jason shouts, squirming in an attempt to break free.
Dick is laughing, and Danny…
Oh, Danny.
Danny’s eyes are wide and shocked, his body stiff in Bruce’s arms.
And then, slowly, he eases into the embrace, raising shaking arms to wrap them around Bruce and his brothers in return.
Jason and Dick go quiet, and wrap their arms around the others as best they can.
And this.
This right here.
This is what Bruce wanted, all those years ago, when he dropped off a newborn baby at the hospital.
This is what he wished he could have.
He tips his face down, kisses each of his boys on the head, and holds them close.
This is just what he wanted.