Strays - Part 8
Summary: Batman is very happy with the way that Robin has picked up his training, his methods and his habits. Generally. But his protege showing up at the Batcave with two small children, Tim and Jason, clinging to him proves he's adopted one trait Batman would have rather he hadn't. It seems the batfamily has an incurable penchant for picking up strays, and Tim and Jason are only the beginning.
Fandom: DCU/YJ
Characters/Pairing: The Batfamily
Genre: Gen/Fluff/Angst
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Originally for this prompt from the yj-anon-meme, de-anoned and available on this comm with a lot of other fun art and fic by some really amazing people.
Side Stories: Tradition
Main Storyline: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7
Early the next morning found Brucie Wayne smiling down at the flashing cameras and hungry faces of the attendees of his surprise press conference. Jason and Tim stood on either side of him. The boys were dressed in obviously new clothing, but while they were clean, their hair was still long and unkempt. They had clearly been living in poor conditions for quite a while. The picture was completed by Dick who stood strategically behind Tim, smiling a rueful, childish smile.
“I owe so much to these two little go-getters,” Brucie reported, his tone at its most serious. Brucie Wayne was only ever serious about two things, the media knew, his parents and his ward. “Without them, my ward, Richard Grayson, might not be with us.”
The crowd of reporters shouted questions and Brucie answered them with all with smile.
“Oh, you know how kids are. I tell him how dangerous it is to wander off, but you know how kids are…”
“Of course, WE is going to be investing in helping to make those neighborhoods safer. My Richard got lucky because of these two, but not everyone is so lucky. I know the dangers of Gotham as well as anyone else and I’m trusting Commissioner Gordon to...”
“I of course offered to take these boys in. It’s the least I could do. Jason here could use a solid roof over his head, but imagine my surprise when I found out dear little Timmy already had a home, haha.” Brucie laid a hand on Timmy’s shoulder. The boy was still as a statue under his hand. “Poor little Timmy’s had a rough couple of weeks. But he’s home now.”
An avid reporter took the bait. “What do you mean, Mr. Wayne?”
“Why, Timmy here just happens to be the missing the son of my dear friends the Drakes,” Brucie revealed.
The crowd of reporters exploded with that little comment.
“The Drakes?”
“The Drake boy?”
“He’s alive?”
“Will this impact WE’s stock?”
Brucie grinned. “I wouldn’t know about that last one, but yes this is Jack’s son. Poor kid had a pretty bad bump on his head. The docs say he’s on the mend, but he was all out of sorts when we found him. Lucky for us this little tiger was taking care of him.” Brucie punctuated this comment by ruffling said child’s hair. Jason rolled his eyes but didn’t move away from Brucie.
The reporters began shouting questions at the boy.
“I’m real thankful to Mister Wayne taking me in, but I’d have helped Dickie anyway,” Jason said, the picture of unruly, but good kid. “Tim’s like a brother to me,” he added. “I’m glad he’s gonna see a real doc now. The ones in the clinic couldn’t help us much.”
“Which is why I’m throwing a fundraiser for the free clinics of Gotham,” Brucie added. “Dr. Thompkins tells me she needs more staff and some fancy gadgets to help more people in need. So we’ll honor these kiddos with a real show.”
The press conference continued for another hour as bit by bit the reporters pulled the complete story of Tim Drake from a very unhelpful Brucie Wayne. Still, eventually they managed to piece together the event of the previous evening. They heard how Dick Grayson had wandered off during a day spent at WE and had ended up getting himself in trouble. They learned how Jason Todd and Tim Drake had rescued Dick from getting kidnapped by some overzealous gang members. They listened to the heart wrenching story of what had happened to little Tim Drake after the car accident all those weeks ago. And by the end, the reporters were hailing Jason as a hero and heralding Tim Drake as a miracle case.
The only question that stuck out painfully was where the Drakes were given the astonishing return of their only son.
Brucie Wayne had smiled broadly at that question. “They’re abroad in Brazil from what I understand. We’re having a bit of trouble getting hold of them, shoddy connection and all. Ha ha. But we’ll see them as soon they can get back.”
***
The news made the front page of every single newspaper the following morning, except for one which had to push it back to the second page in favor of a natural disaster.
Dick joked that they should sue that particular paper for the insult, but the jest fell flat. Everyone was too exhausted from the press conference to play along.
Bruce was just thankful that Alfred had been quick enough to keep some of the less…positive articles out of sight. They couldn’t shield the boys from that sort of talk forever, but he wanted to spare them from the spiteful whispers for as long as he could.
By the evening of the day after the press conference they still hadn’t heard back from the Drakes regardless of how many times both their offices and their private lines had been contacted. Bruce wasn’t exactly surprised at their lack of attentiveness, but it was disconcerting to see their neglect in effect. He knew the excuses they would give, but he knew that if he were in their place, if anything had happened to Dick, to any of his children, that if he couldn’t be out there searching, he would damn well be available at all times.
The waiting was the worst part. It gave him time to doubt, to think and rethink his decisions and made him wish he could go back and redo everything. But, for better or worse, he had made his decision and he would have to endure Jason’s accusing stares, Dick’s worry, and Tim’s quiet acceptance until events had played themselves out.
He had hoped that the situation with Jason’s adoption would at least have gone smoother, but although the forms with Todd’s signature had eased the way somewhat, the process was stalled when it became apparent over the next few days that Catherine Todd had fallen completely off the radar. No one, including her most recent paramour, had seen her since the night Batman had paid a visit to her apartment.
Bruce remembered the look on the woman’s tearstained face as she told him to tell her son that she was dead and wondered if her disappearance was his fault. However, no matter how hard he looked, not even Batman could find her.
Jason took the news of his mother’s disappearance with almost flippant disinterest. He refused to talk about her and attacked Dick several times when the other boy attempted to comfort him. Bruce might even have believed Jason’s façade if he didn’t know for a fact from the video footage in the halls of the manor that the boy had spent the last few nights wandering anxiously up and down empty hallways.
Three days passed without a sign of Catherine Todd, but at least the Drakes chose that day to finally contact them.
“Mr. Wayne,” Janet Drake’s voice was thin over the countless miles that separated them.
“Please, call me Bruce, Janet,” Brucie gushed over the line. “We’re practically family, aren’t we?”
“…Of course,” Janet said cautiously. “I’ve been informed that you found my son.”
“Yes, your Timmy is quite the kid. He’s been through so much, though. Poor little guy.”
Janet hummed a little disapprovingly. “That’s good to hear. We’ll be home to collect him in a few days. I’ll have my secretary forward our flight itinerary for your convenience. I apologize for burdening you with this, if you’d like I can have someone from DI come and take him off your hands.”
Brucie laughed. “He’s no trouble. Quiet as a mouse, really. Don’t even know he’s there most of the time. Besides, my boy, Richard, thinks the world of your son. And my newest boy, Jason loves doting on him.”
“Ah yes, the street child who saved my son’s life. You are taking him in, then?” The distaste in her voice was clear.
“He saved my Richard as well; it’s the least I can do,” Brucie replied as though he hadn’t noticed her tone. “Especially after what he did for Timmy. I was so worried when I heard about the accident. Gosh, I can’t imagine how it must have felt to not know anything for so many weeks.”
“It was difficult,” Janet said stiffly. “However we have coped as best we can. It will be good to have Tim back with us again.”
“I’m glad you’re holding up so well,” Brucie said. “I will miss having that little go-getter around, though. Then again, you live just down the road, so I suppose he can pop by for play dates with my boys.”
Janet hummed thoughtfully. “Perhaps. In any case I have business to attend to,” she informed him briskly before hanging up without so much as a goodbye.
Bruce sighed and put down the phone slightly harder than he intended.
“They didn’t even want to talk to Tim?” Dick’s asked from the doorway. He’d been there the entire time, listening intently to Bruce’s half of the conversation.
“I suppose she didn’t feel it was necessary,” Bruce said, perhaps too casually if the displeasure on his ward’s face was to be believed.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Bruce?” Dick asked for the hundredth time since the night before the press conference.
Bruce thought about all of his private concerns and wondered if he should tell the truth. No. Everything would work out. It had to. “Of course,” he promised. “But that’s enough of that. Didn’t you say something about wanting to show the boys a movie of some sort?”
Dick brightened at that. “Oh, yeah. Lilo & Stitch, Timmy’s never seen it, can you believe that? Well, I mean, I can, because his parents are horrible people, but, but still. We need to rectify that as soon as possible!”
Bruce wracked his brains trying to recall which of the strange cartoons that his ward watched so raptly was being referenced here. “That’s the one with the, ah, mermaid creature, isn’t it?”
The boy rolled his eyes. “No, no, Bruce. How can you be so out of touch? It’s the one about the little girl from Hawaii and her ‘blue alien dog’. Remember?”
“Um, yes?” Bruce lied.
Dick wrinkled his nose and gave his guardian a disbelieving look. “You’re so old B.”
“We can’t all be as young and knowledgeable as you,” Bruce said good-naturedly.
“Yeah, yeah.” Dick grabbed Bruce hand and began pulling. “Come on Jason was getting all antsy again, we need a cuddly movie intervention!”
Bruce walked at a painfully slow pace regardless of his ward’s effortful tugging on his hand.
“B, come on, stop being so slow!” Dick complained.
“I thought I should go easy on my old bones,” Bruce replied.
Dick scoffed. “Psh. Just because you and pop culture have never so much as passed each other on the street doesn’t mean you’re actually an old man. You just act like one.”
Bruce chuckled and picked up the pace.
***
“Ohana means family.”
Dick certainly knew how to say a lot without saying anything at all, Bruce thought as he and Alfred carried the three sleeping children from the movie theater up to their bedrooms long after the credits had rolled.
He tucked his ward into bed and after an awkward moment of hesitation gently brushed the boy’s hair out of his face. He was…so very fond of Dick. More than ever he could no longer imagine what his life would be like without him. Bruce hated how worried Dick was about his strays. His ward shouldn’t have to worry about things like that. That was Bruce’s job.
With a sigh, Bruce drew back and headed across the hall to help Alfred tuck in the younger boys.
Jason and Tim shared a room even though there was plenty of room for each of them to have three rooms to themselves if they so desired. There really hadn’t been much discussion over the matter; Jason had thrown a fit their first night at the Manor at the very implication that he and Tim should be separated.
“Family means nobody gets left behind.”
Looking down at the two children who had placed so much trust him, Bruce felt his heart ache. Jason was wrapped tightly around Tim, clinging to the smaller boy as though he feared Tim would vanish even as Tim kept burrowing deeper into the older boy’s embrace. They were both so terribly young, so incredibly small.
Somehow they had found each other and stayed together despite all of the dangers they had faced. He could only imagine how close the boys had needed to be in order to survive on the streets. It made sense that they would continue to cling so closely to each other now.
He felt like a monster for being the thing that would keep them apart. Somewhere along the way he had made the wrong decision; he knew it. It was a mistake to take them, to put them through this. But there was nothing he could do to change it now.
“Nobody gets left behind.”
He sighed again.
Dick certainly knew how to say a lot without saying anything at all.
Part 9
Fandom: DCU/YJ
Characters/Pairing: The Batfamily
Genre: Gen/Fluff/Angst
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Originally for this prompt from the yj-anon-meme, de-anoned and available on this comm with a lot of other fun art and fic by some really amazing people.
Side Stories: Tradition
Main Storyline: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7
Early the next morning found Brucie Wayne smiling down at the flashing cameras and hungry faces of the attendees of his surprise press conference. Jason and Tim stood on either side of him. The boys were dressed in obviously new clothing, but while they were clean, their hair was still long and unkempt. They had clearly been living in poor conditions for quite a while. The picture was completed by Dick who stood strategically behind Tim, smiling a rueful, childish smile.
“I owe so much to these two little go-getters,” Brucie reported, his tone at its most serious. Brucie Wayne was only ever serious about two things, the media knew, his parents and his ward. “Without them, my ward, Richard Grayson, might not be with us.”
The crowd of reporters shouted questions and Brucie answered them with all with smile.
“Oh, you know how kids are. I tell him how dangerous it is to wander off, but you know how kids are…”
“Of course, WE is going to be investing in helping to make those neighborhoods safer. My Richard got lucky because of these two, but not everyone is so lucky. I know the dangers of Gotham as well as anyone else and I’m trusting Commissioner Gordon to...”
“I of course offered to take these boys in. It’s the least I could do. Jason here could use a solid roof over his head, but imagine my surprise when I found out dear little Timmy already had a home, haha.” Brucie laid a hand on Timmy’s shoulder. The boy was still as a statue under his hand. “Poor little Timmy’s had a rough couple of weeks. But he’s home now.”
An avid reporter took the bait. “What do you mean, Mr. Wayne?”
“Why, Timmy here just happens to be the missing the son of my dear friends the Drakes,” Brucie revealed.
The crowd of reporters exploded with that little comment.
“The Drakes?”
“The Drake boy?”
“He’s alive?”
“Will this impact WE’s stock?”
Brucie grinned. “I wouldn’t know about that last one, but yes this is Jack’s son. Poor kid had a pretty bad bump on his head. The docs say he’s on the mend, but he was all out of sorts when we found him. Lucky for us this little tiger was taking care of him.” Brucie punctuated this comment by ruffling said child’s hair. Jason rolled his eyes but didn’t move away from Brucie.
The reporters began shouting questions at the boy.
“I’m real thankful to Mister Wayne taking me in, but I’d have helped Dickie anyway,” Jason said, the picture of unruly, but good kid. “Tim’s like a brother to me,” he added. “I’m glad he’s gonna see a real doc now. The ones in the clinic couldn’t help us much.”
“Which is why I’m throwing a fundraiser for the free clinics of Gotham,” Brucie added. “Dr. Thompkins tells me she needs more staff and some fancy gadgets to help more people in need. So we’ll honor these kiddos with a real show.”
The press conference continued for another hour as bit by bit the reporters pulled the complete story of Tim Drake from a very unhelpful Brucie Wayne. Still, eventually they managed to piece together the event of the previous evening. They heard how Dick Grayson had wandered off during a day spent at WE and had ended up getting himself in trouble. They learned how Jason Todd and Tim Drake had rescued Dick from getting kidnapped by some overzealous gang members. They listened to the heart wrenching story of what had happened to little Tim Drake after the car accident all those weeks ago. And by the end, the reporters were hailing Jason as a hero and heralding Tim Drake as a miracle case.
The only question that stuck out painfully was where the Drakes were given the astonishing return of their only son.
Brucie Wayne had smiled broadly at that question. “They’re abroad in Brazil from what I understand. We’re having a bit of trouble getting hold of them, shoddy connection and all. Ha ha. But we’ll see them as soon they can get back.”
***
The news made the front page of every single newspaper the following morning, except for one which had to push it back to the second page in favor of a natural disaster.
Dick joked that they should sue that particular paper for the insult, but the jest fell flat. Everyone was too exhausted from the press conference to play along.
Bruce was just thankful that Alfred had been quick enough to keep some of the less…positive articles out of sight. They couldn’t shield the boys from that sort of talk forever, but he wanted to spare them from the spiteful whispers for as long as he could.
By the evening of the day after the press conference they still hadn’t heard back from the Drakes regardless of how many times both their offices and their private lines had been contacted. Bruce wasn’t exactly surprised at their lack of attentiveness, but it was disconcerting to see their neglect in effect. He knew the excuses they would give, but he knew that if he were in their place, if anything had happened to Dick, to any of his children, that if he couldn’t be out there searching, he would damn well be available at all times.
The waiting was the worst part. It gave him time to doubt, to think and rethink his decisions and made him wish he could go back and redo everything. But, for better or worse, he had made his decision and he would have to endure Jason’s accusing stares, Dick’s worry, and Tim’s quiet acceptance until events had played themselves out.
He had hoped that the situation with Jason’s adoption would at least have gone smoother, but although the forms with Todd’s signature had eased the way somewhat, the process was stalled when it became apparent over the next few days that Catherine Todd had fallen completely off the radar. No one, including her most recent paramour, had seen her since the night Batman had paid a visit to her apartment.
Bruce remembered the look on the woman’s tearstained face as she told him to tell her son that she was dead and wondered if her disappearance was his fault. However, no matter how hard he looked, not even Batman could find her.
Jason took the news of his mother’s disappearance with almost flippant disinterest. He refused to talk about her and attacked Dick several times when the other boy attempted to comfort him. Bruce might even have believed Jason’s façade if he didn’t know for a fact from the video footage in the halls of the manor that the boy had spent the last few nights wandering anxiously up and down empty hallways.
Three days passed without a sign of Catherine Todd, but at least the Drakes chose that day to finally contact them.
“Mr. Wayne,” Janet Drake’s voice was thin over the countless miles that separated them.
“Please, call me Bruce, Janet,” Brucie gushed over the line. “We’re practically family, aren’t we?”
“…Of course,” Janet said cautiously. “I’ve been informed that you found my son.”
“Yes, your Timmy is quite the kid. He’s been through so much, though. Poor little guy.”
Janet hummed a little disapprovingly. “That’s good to hear. We’ll be home to collect him in a few days. I’ll have my secretary forward our flight itinerary for your convenience. I apologize for burdening you with this, if you’d like I can have someone from DI come and take him off your hands.”
Brucie laughed. “He’s no trouble. Quiet as a mouse, really. Don’t even know he’s there most of the time. Besides, my boy, Richard, thinks the world of your son. And my newest boy, Jason loves doting on him.”
“Ah yes, the street child who saved my son’s life. You are taking him in, then?” The distaste in her voice was clear.
“He saved my Richard as well; it’s the least I can do,” Brucie replied as though he hadn’t noticed her tone. “Especially after what he did for Timmy. I was so worried when I heard about the accident. Gosh, I can’t imagine how it must have felt to not know anything for so many weeks.”
“It was difficult,” Janet said stiffly. “However we have coped as best we can. It will be good to have Tim back with us again.”
“I’m glad you’re holding up so well,” Brucie said. “I will miss having that little go-getter around, though. Then again, you live just down the road, so I suppose he can pop by for play dates with my boys.”
Janet hummed thoughtfully. “Perhaps. In any case I have business to attend to,” she informed him briskly before hanging up without so much as a goodbye.
Bruce sighed and put down the phone slightly harder than he intended.
“They didn’t even want to talk to Tim?” Dick’s asked from the doorway. He’d been there the entire time, listening intently to Bruce’s half of the conversation.
“I suppose she didn’t feel it was necessary,” Bruce said, perhaps too casually if the displeasure on his ward’s face was to be believed.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Bruce?” Dick asked for the hundredth time since the night before the press conference.
Bruce thought about all of his private concerns and wondered if he should tell the truth. No. Everything would work out. It had to. “Of course,” he promised. “But that’s enough of that. Didn’t you say something about wanting to show the boys a movie of some sort?”
Dick brightened at that. “Oh, yeah. Lilo & Stitch, Timmy’s never seen it, can you believe that? Well, I mean, I can, because his parents are horrible people, but, but still. We need to rectify that as soon as possible!”
Bruce wracked his brains trying to recall which of the strange cartoons that his ward watched so raptly was being referenced here. “That’s the one with the, ah, mermaid creature, isn’t it?”
The boy rolled his eyes. “No, no, Bruce. How can you be so out of touch? It’s the one about the little girl from Hawaii and her ‘blue alien dog’. Remember?”
“Um, yes?” Bruce lied.
Dick wrinkled his nose and gave his guardian a disbelieving look. “You’re so old B.”
“We can’t all be as young and knowledgeable as you,” Bruce said good-naturedly.
“Yeah, yeah.” Dick grabbed Bruce hand and began pulling. “Come on Jason was getting all antsy again, we need a cuddly movie intervention!”
Bruce walked at a painfully slow pace regardless of his ward’s effortful tugging on his hand.
“B, come on, stop being so slow!” Dick complained.
“I thought I should go easy on my old bones,” Bruce replied.
Dick scoffed. “Psh. Just because you and pop culture have never so much as passed each other on the street doesn’t mean you’re actually an old man. You just act like one.”
Bruce chuckled and picked up the pace.
***
“Ohana means family.”
Dick certainly knew how to say a lot without saying anything at all, Bruce thought as he and Alfred carried the three sleeping children from the movie theater up to their bedrooms long after the credits had rolled.
He tucked his ward into bed and after an awkward moment of hesitation gently brushed the boy’s hair out of his face. He was…so very fond of Dick. More than ever he could no longer imagine what his life would be like without him. Bruce hated how worried Dick was about his strays. His ward shouldn’t have to worry about things like that. That was Bruce’s job.
With a sigh, Bruce drew back and headed across the hall to help Alfred tuck in the younger boys.
Jason and Tim shared a room even though there was plenty of room for each of them to have three rooms to themselves if they so desired. There really hadn’t been much discussion over the matter; Jason had thrown a fit their first night at the Manor at the very implication that he and Tim should be separated.
“Family means nobody gets left behind.”
Looking down at the two children who had placed so much trust him, Bruce felt his heart ache. Jason was wrapped tightly around Tim, clinging to the smaller boy as though he feared Tim would vanish even as Tim kept burrowing deeper into the older boy’s embrace. They were both so terribly young, so incredibly small.
Somehow they had found each other and stayed together despite all of the dangers they had faced. He could only imagine how close the boys had needed to be in order to survive on the streets. It made sense that they would continue to cling so closely to each other now.
He felt like a monster for being the thing that would keep them apart. Somewhere along the way he had made the wrong decision; he knew it. It was a mistake to take them, to put them through this. But there was nothing he could do to change it now.
“Nobody gets left behind.”
He sighed again.
Dick certainly knew how to say a lot without saying anything at all.
Part 9